USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 11
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policy and staunch Republicanism of the new edi- tor; the quickness with which he seized every opportunity for the advancement, not only of the paper, but of the party, attracted very general
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attention. Four years later the Press came into wider prominence by the stand it took and the influence it exerted in the nomination of James G. Blaine. By that time the paper had taken great strides forward. Although maintaining and ex- pounding the principles of the Republican party, Mr. Smith never lost sight of the fact that he was at the head of a newspaper, a jonrnal which should accurately reflect the happenings of the time and present them without bias to the reader. In the performance of this work the editor of the Press recognized the necessity of infusing fresh blood into every department, and in the selection of his staff he took only those men who were en rapport with his methods and his ideas. At the expiration of eighteen months after his arrival in Philadelphia, he had a complete organization. A great army of correspondents had been appointed through the State, and arrangements had been made for an unrivalled telegraphic service. By a thorough and almost perfect system of classification and conden- sation the important news of the day in every part of the globe was covered, and nothing was omitted from the columns of the Press that deserved to be printed. Then came a series of exposures of public abnses, which the newspaper laid bare, and forced legal cognizance where snch abuses called for legal remedy. In March, 1881, a Sunday edition was added to the daily. The title of a newspaper which had been printed for several years, under the name of The Sunday Press, was purchased in order to avoid any confusion between the two. This issue sprang into popular favor within a very few months. The regular edition, improved as it was in every department, though more than doubled, had not increased in circulation commensurate with its excellence. It was an eight page paper sold at three cents. Mr. Smith saw what was necded and the price of the paper was reduced in October, 1883, to two cents. Immediately did the wisdom of this step become apparent. In twelve months the cir- cnlation had again doubled and quadrupled. The campaign edition of 1883-4 rose to 100,000, and the Press, from a State and local paper, began to attain a National circulation. It found its way into every State in the Uniou, and into nearly every Congres- sional District. No expense was spared in any of the departments of the paper to bring its standard as high as the highest. Fortunately for Mr. Smith, he was backed by a sagacious, courageous and liberal man, who heartily co-operated in the work of devel- opment, and the result was shown in the splendid snccess that was gradually bnt firmly established and placed the Press where it is to-day-one of the chief Republicau newspapers of the United States.
Even while absorbed in his editorial labors, Mr. Smith did not neglect his duty as a loyal Repub- lican, and as a promoter of educational interests. He had been honored in the State of New York in 1879, by being elected Regent of the University of New York by the Legislature on the unanimous nom- ination of the Republican caucus, a position that he held until he removed from the State. He could always be commanded when his voice was needed to expound from the stump the principles of the party which he had cherished so long. Between 1877 and 1887 he made hundreds of addresses before large audiences in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey and Delaware. He made the annual address before the State Press Association in Lockport, N. Y., and was elected President of that body in 1874. He has also spoken before the New York State Teachers Association, the New York State Military Association, and at the Commencements of Lafay- ette, Muhlenberg, Dickinson, the Palatinate, and the State Colleges of Pennsylvania, the Rutgers College of New Jersey and the Delaware State College. He has done effective work on the stump in three Presidential campaigns. For Rutherford B. Hayes, in 1876, James A. Garfield, in 1880, and James G. Blaine, in 1884, he did a vast amount of telling work. He opened the campaign for the State Committee in 1881, and his speech was snch a master-piece of logic and convincing eloquence that it was one of the most valnable documents used in the campaign. The Republican delegates from Philadelphia to the National Convention of 1888 having determined to present Mayor Edwin H. Fitler as a candidate for President, Mr. Smith was invited to make the presentation speech. He was accordingly elected by the unanimous vote of the Pennsylvania delegation, to fill a vacancy in the delegation and as one of the represen- tatives of the State made the speech in which Mayor Fitler was formerly placed before the Con- ventiou. He received the solid vote of the Phila- delphia delegates, and several from the interior of Pennsylvania and from other States. With this compliment his name was withdrawn. Mr. Smith is a man of great nervons force. He is about medinm height and has a strong face, in which is set a pair of dark, expressive eyes. His voice is clear and pleasing, and as he becomes warmed up to his sub- ject, it increases iu volume and vibratory strength, responding to the enthusiasm which he invariably creates in his audience. He is a forcible and grace- ful writer, presenting a case calmly and dispassion- ately, bnt with a logical strength that is wholly convincing. He is a master of rhetoric, and of English undefiled, and his editorial opinions are
J. Edgar Showsoup
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noted for their brilliancy and purity of diction as well as for their virility. The Press of to-day is a marvellous newspaper. Its daily edition is recog- nized by every journalist in the country as one of the completest newspapers in the United States. The Sunday issue is perhaps even more of a marvel than the daily. Not only is it a complete newspaper, but it is a repository for the most carefully selected literature and distinctive features that money can buy and busy brains suggest. That the editor of the Press has yet reached the zenith of his power, either in statecraft or journalism, is not believed by those who know his ability, and whether he shall choose to continue to guide the great newspaper he has created, or enter into a higli place in the coun- cils of the Nation is as yet an unsettled question.
J. EDGAR THOMSON.
THE history of transportation in the Keystone State, and of the great Pennsylvania Railroad, con- tains few names which stand for greater force, activi- ty and achievement than does that of the late J. Edgar Thomson, whom we may also remark had a National reputation. He was a native of Pennsylvania, of dis- tinguished descent, and a son of John Thomson, of Delaware County, who laid out and constructed in 1809 the first experimental railroad in the United States, extending from Leiper's stone quarry (in Del- aware County) to the Delaware River. The life of our subject, so intimately identified with railroads, may be said to have had its beginning almost simultan- eously with the inauguration of the railroad era, for lie was born only the year before his father's pioneer efforts on the quarry tramway, February 10, 1808, and he came naturally by the trade which, being afterwards developed, led to the accomplishment of such great results in the transportation world. His father, whose ancestors came from England with William Penn and settled in the neighborhood of Philadelphia, was himself a remarkable man, and did much to direct the course of J. Edgar Thiom- son's early activities. He had attained a high repu- tation as a civil engineer before the beginning of the present century, and was employed in the con- struction of some notable public works, among them the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal. He was for a number of years in the employ of the Holland Land Company, which owned large tracts of terri- tory in northwestern Pennsylvania and western New York, and it was while thus engaged that he performed a feat which is quite celebrated in Union history, and frequently alluded to in the annals of
Philadelphia and other localities. This was the building and sailing of the schooner " White Fish." The craft was constructed by Thomson and an as- sistant at "Presque Isle " (now Erie), in 1793, con- veyed by ox teams around Niagara, launched in Lake Ontario, and thence passed by way of the lake and a small river to Oneida Lake, again overland by ox power to the Mohawk, down that stream and the Hudson to the Atlantic, and thence was sailed down the coast and up the Delaware to Philadel- phia, being the first vessel that ever made the trip from Lake Erie to New York and the Quaker City. The little craft was given a place of honor in Inde- pendence Square, and remained there as an object of curiosity until destroyed by the elements. J. Edgar Thomson received much of his early and preparatory education and practical drilling from his father (who lived until 1842), and commenced his professional career in 1827, with the engineer corps employed upon the original surveys of the Philadelphia and Columbia Railroad, having re- ceived a regular appointment thereto from the Board of Canal Commissioners of the State. In 1830 the State having failed to make appropriations necessary for the continuance of construction, Mr. Thomson transferred his services to the Camden and Amboy Railroad Company, having been given the position of principal assistant engineer of the eastern division. He did not remain long in the employ of this company, but went to Europe to ex- amine the public works of that continent, where he received many practical suggestions. After his return, in 1832, he was appointed Chief Engineer of the Georgia Railroad, extending from Augusta to Atlanta, with a branch to Athens, in all two hun- dred and thirteen miles, making the longest railway under the control of one company then in the United States. His services to that company were of great value, and he contrived to hold the position until 1847, when without any solicitation on his part he was chosen as Chief Engineer of the Pennsylvania Railroad, to which he brought the benefit of his abilities and large experience. In their first annual report the directors said that "in the selection of a Chief Engineer the Board was fortunate in securing the services of Mr. J. Edgar Thomson, a gentleman of enlarged professional experience and sound judg- ment, who had obtained a well-earned reputation upon the Georgia Road, and in whom the Board place great confidence." A little less than five years later Mr. Thomson was elected President of the company, and in that capacity lie witnessed the completion of many an important measure, which he had originated as Chief Engineer. It was under the supervision and direction of Mr. Thomson that
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the Pennsylvania Railroad was constructed in a superior manner, and made the most perfect road in America. It was built in spite of many large difficulties, not the least of which was overcoming the barrier of the Allegheny Mountains by an easy and practically working grade. Mr. Thomson was retained in position as President without interrup- tion until his death, a period of twenty-seven years, during which time he devoted to the great enter- prise unremittingly an amount of care and attention probably greater than was ever bestowed by any American upon a similar work. His reputation was established South as well as North, and he con- fessedly stood at the head of his profession. It has been said of him that " he did more than any one man to establishi, create and perfect the railway sys- tem of the American Continent," and the praise, high as it was, undoubtedly did not transcend the limit of truth. Because of the generally recognized safety of Mr. Thomson's counsels, his profound judgment and the exalted nature of the business position he held, his aid and influence were sought by the promoters of many projects, and he willingly gave them the benefit of his experience. The American Steamship Company, of Philadelphia, was largely indebted to his sagacity and unwaver- ing interest in the business of the city, for its exis- tence. He also exerted a strong influence for the good of the city by liis activity as a member of the Park Commission. But it was probably in the development of the universal resources of the State that he was most widely and lastingly useful. He had unbounded faith in the value of the coal and iron treasures of Pennsylvania, understood every field, and wherever it was possible for the great cor- poration over which he presided to advance their development, the work was promptly done. For nearly fifty years le labored incessantly and ardu- ously as a railroad builder and manager, and for more than half that period he held the position of President of the Pennsylvania Company, combining with its duties many others of a business and semi- public character. It was not strange that, carrying these great burdens, his life should have been ex- hausted before the allotted limit of three score years and ten was reached. His mind remained clear to the last, but his physical health was broken by the long, hard strain of exacting and responsible duties, and finally he was released from life's work upon the 27th of May, 1874. The larger portion of his fortune was willed by him for the founding of a
charity for a certain class of people connected with the railways he had been instrumental in creating. This is the St. John's Orphanage, opened on Ritten- house Square, Philadelphia, December 4, 1882. It
affords a home and school for the daughters of those employees who have died; first, in the service of the Pennsylvania Railroad; secondly, in that of the Georgia Railroad Company, and then of any other railroad in the United States-the girls being taken between the ages of six and ten years, and kept until they are sixteen, when they are put out to service or taught a trade. They are given a plain education, instructed in household work, sewing, etc., and given a home and protection while they are preparing to support themselves. The respect in which Mr. Thomson was held, by reason of liis sagacity, enterprise and integrity, was attested by the expressions of numerous public bodies in the city where the great part of his quiet, unobtrusive career was passed. He was a man of marked char- acter and strong, positive nature, in the summing up of which a friend has written as follows : "No- ticeable traits were his reticence and taciturnity. Devoting all his life and his great natural abilities to the cultivation of one set of ideas, his accumula- tion of professional information was enormous. This vast knowledge made him exceedingly cautious and careful, conservative in his ideas, and generally slow to execute. But when his conclusions were reached, and the emergency required it, he became grandly enterprising, and permitted no obstacle to stand in the way of his success. His thoughts and opinions were rarely made known, while he displayed an infinite patience in listening to the views, desires, hopes, fears and plans of others. Actions spoke for him, not words. He absorbed the knowledge of others, weighed, considered and digested thor- oughly, and reached conclusions by cool, method- ical reasoning. When conceived, he knew no hesi- tancy or doubt. The determination was as fixed as the laws of nature, and success seemed to come as a result of his faith. His conception of the future of American railroads seems now almost supernat- ural. For twenty years he marked out and reiter- ated in his annual reports the plan of the Pennsyl- vania Railroad Company, and he never deviated from that plan, pursuing it persistently, patiently and faithfully, until it was fully accomplished. To such a man system was everything, and there can be no question but that much of the success attending the Pennsylvania Railroad was owing to the almost military rigidity with which its workings were ar- ranged and managed under his inspiration. He had that great faculty of a general-a good judg- ment of character and capabilities. In this he was rarely mistaken, and his confidence once placed, he was loyal to its recipients, never abandoning or failing to sustain them. This friendship was un- demonstrative, except in acts. He had few intimate
C
Daniel Agnew
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associates outside of his own family, and was utterly indifferent to popular applause. His affections scemed centered in the great corporation he con- trolled, and whatever conduced to the success of that, present or remote, was the thing to be done,- the end to be attained."
DANIEL AGNEW.
HON. DANIEL AGNEW, of Beaver, Beaver County, Pa., an eminent jurist, formerly President- Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial District of Penn- sylvania, and Chief-Justice of the Supreme Court of that State, was born in Trenton, N. J., January 5, 1809. On the paternal side he is of Irish ances- try, and on the maternal of Welsh. His grand- father, Daniel Agnew, emigrated from County Antrim, Ireland, to the province of New Jersey in 1764. He settled in Princeton and was for a time in the Revolutionary army. Of his eight children, the eldest, James, was graduated at Princeton Col- lege in the class of 1795, studied medicine with Dr. Maclean, father of the late President of Princeton College, and after taking two courses of lectures at the Medical University in Philadelphia, was gradu- ated May 31, 1800. He established himself in prac- tice in Trenton, and, in January, 1806, married Sarah Bond, the eldest daughter of Major Richard Howell, a veteran of the Revolutionary War, and afterward Governor of the State of New Jersey, and Chancellor, holding the latter office for a period of nine years. He was descended from the Howells of Caerfille, in Wales. About the year 1810 Dr. Agnew determined to remove westward. He made a prospecting journey alone to the Mississippi Valley, and re- turned in 1813, riding on horseback all the way from Natchez to Princeton, and passing through the Indian country then known as the wilderness. In the following October he set out with his family to establish a home in Mississippi. His wife, how- ever, became alarmed at the dangers of navigation as then rudely conducted, and declined to make the flat-boat voyage down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Under these unexpected circumstances, on reaching Butler County, Pa., Dr. Agnew concluded to settle in that vicinity, and shortly afterward located in the city of Pittsburgh, where he con- tinued to reside until his death in 1840. Two States may, therefore, claim an interest in the honors that have fallen to Judge Agnew, that of his birth and that of his accidental adoption and subsequent dis- tinction. Dr. Agnew gave his son the best educa- tional advantages of the day, including a full course
at the Western University at Pittsburgh. After being graduated, Daniel began the study of law under the direction of Messrs. Henry Baldwin and W. W. Fetterman, and was admitted to practice in 1829, when but twenty years old. He at once opened an office in Pittsburgh, but believing that a smaller place would offer superior inducements to a young lawyer, he removed to Beaver a few months later, and there, although originally intending to remain only a year or two at most, made his per- manent home, under the encouragement of an un- looked for success at the bar. Impressed by the vast amount of litigation growing out of the un- settled condition of titles to land in a newly popu- lated region, he applied himself at the outset of his professional career, to the mastery of the intrica- cies of this species of causes. As a land lawyer he made a progress in his business and reputation that was all the more notable because of his youthful- ness, and he soon came to be recognized as a young man of singularly acute mind, phenomenal memory and rigid application. In 1833 he connected him- self with the newly organized Whig party, and by reason of his natural gifts of oratory soon advanced to the position of a leader. Three years later his abilities commanded such a degree of respect that, while only twenty-seven years of age, he was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention which assembled in 1837, holding sessions both in Harris- burgh and in Philadelphia, and framing a series of amendments to the Constitution of 1790, which sub- sequently became parts of it. He was the author of that important amendment regulating the ap- pointment and tenure of the judiciary, which through its introduction by his colleague, Mr. John Dickey, became known as "Dickey's Amendment," and was in force until modified by the amendment of 1850. Upon the expiration of this service he re- sumed his practice and pursued it until the Presi- dential campaign of 1840, when he took the stump in the interest of General Harrison and delivered many effective speeches. Fascinating as were the excitements and associations of a political cam- paign, and conspicuous as his abilities had ren- dered him, he resolutely declined to be considered in any light an aspirant for public office. His prac- tice had reached large proportions, and he was un- willing that any considerations should deflect him from the proper management of it. In the cam- paign of 1844 he was again prevailed upon to take the stump, and he then labored earnestly for the success of Henry Clay. In 1848, despite his known aversion to political office, he was made a Presiden- tial Elector on the Taylor and Fillmore ticket and, urged by appeals he felt unable to resist, to canvass
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the western portion of the State in its support. In this campaign he was compelled to meet the strong opposition of the anti-slavery men, led by Joshua R. Giddings, and was the only speaker in his region familiar with their arguments and able to answer them. In the summer of 1851 Governor Johnston appointed him President-Judge of the Seventeenth Judicial District of Pennsylvania, then composed of Beaver, Butler, Mercer and Lawrence Counties, to fill a vacancy, and in the election of the following October the people of the district testified to his high standing, professional fitness and personal worth by electing him to the position for the full term of ten years. This term of service was, in the main, free of events of a public character. But as it was drawing to a close the rumblings of the ap- proaching conflict between the two sections of the country attracted all classes to the consideration of the loyalty of their judiciary. Unionists felt that much of the ultimate triumph of their cause wonld depend upon the firmness of the judges before whom many complicated and nnusual questions would be brought. In the case of Judge Agnew there was nothing in his words or actions that could yield the least pretext for alarm. He had administered his high office with wise discretion, and had abun- dantly proved the conrage of his convictions. Not only the people of his district, but the officials of the State felt a secure confidence in his integrity and patriotism, and, although he would have been personally gratified with the opportunity for re- tirement, it seemed settled by common consent that he should be retained in the position, rather than that it should be occupied by an untried man. As a result, Judge Agnew was without opposition re- elected in 1861 for a further term of ten years. The spirit of secession manifested itself in his district early in that year. As soon as its presence was determined, Judge Agnew assumed the task of organizing a Committee of Safety, of one hundred trusty citizens, and became its chairman. Off the bench his views on the situation were given with no uncertain ring, and his actions in the various patriotic movements in his district comported with his strong Union utterances. On the bench it was his privilege to establish his loyalty as early as the month of May. He was the first of the State judges to take cognizance of the aiders and abettors of re- bellion around him, and to enforce the necessity of strict obedience and the paramount duty of un- swerving fidelity to the Federal Government. In charging the grand jurors of Lawrence County he instructed that treason was a crime, and all who had any lot or part in it were criminals before the law. He combatted with great lucidity the doc-
trine held by many of the Northern allies of re- bellion, that aid to the enemies of the United States, which the Constitution defines to be treason, meant foreign enemies only ; and charged specifically that where a body of men were actually assembled for the purpose of effecting by force a treasonable purpose, all those who performed a part, however minute and however remote from the scene of action, were actually leagned in the general con- spiracy, and were to be considered traitors. Fnr- thermore, he took up the claim that the Federal Government had no power to defend and maintain itself against domestic assault, in an elaborate ad- dress on "The National Constitution in its Adapta- tion to a State of War." This address was so timely, so powerful in argument, and so positive in conclu- sions, that it drew wide-spread attention to its learned author. Its delivery was repeated in Har- risburgh in February, 1863, by special request of the Legislature, and the Union League Club of Phila- delphia published two large editions of it, and scattered it thronghout the loyal States in pamphlet form. That it immeasurably strengthened the Union cause cannot be questioned, neither that it was one of the really great documents of that trying period. In the critical days of 1863, when all pos- sible means were being taken to add weight to the State ticket which his eminent services demanded that the Hon. Andrew G. Curtin should head, the Republican party turned instinctively to Jndge Agnew, and gave liim the nomination for the posi- tion of Judge of the Supreme Court of the State. The personal character of the ticket, and the mo- mentous principles it represented, carried the day by a majority of 15,000. In this office of exalted trust, Judge Agnew was called upon almost imme- diately to decide a question of law of vast National importance. The former bench had by a majority vote pronounced against the constitutionality of the draft law, and the question recurring to the new court, whereof the senior members were divided in opinion, it became his dnty to render a decision. In a carefully prepared opinion he maintained that the Federal Government had a right to suppress rebel- lion and enforce obedience to the laws of Congress, and concluded by affirming the constitutionality of the law under consideration. A still graver ques- tion arose shortly after this, involving a construction of constitutional provisions, the principles of marine insurance, and the status of the seceded States. The record shows that it grew out of the capture of the merchant vessel, "John Welsh," by the Con- federate privateer "Jeff Davis," and the question at issue was whether the letters of marque of the lat- ter and the nature of the service in which she was
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