USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 24
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
England. To Mr. Bullitt belongs the credit of hav- ing defeated the conspiracy and sending the prin- cipal conspirators to jail. The case of General Fitz John Porter is one known throughout the length and breadth of the land. For a quarter of a cen- tury had this gallant soldier rested under the stigma of the finding of a court-martial which deprived him of all that a soldier holds dear-his honor. Far back in 1862, while on the battlefield at the second battle of Bull Run, he had been found guilty of unsoldierly conduct and cowardice by a court- martial, that, as was afterwards proved, was con- vened for the purpose of offering a sacrifice to the people, then fearful lest victory should not rest with Northern arms. He had sought time after time to have this stain on his valor and his manhood wiped off, but unsuccessfully. With the growing years it seemed that justice fled further and further away, and this gallant gentleman, whose sword was never sheathed when his country was in danger, be- gan to almost despair of being restored to the rank which was justly his, and which he had ever hon- ored. To the ability, perseverance and masterly management of John C. Bullitt, General Fitz John Porter owes the reversal of this unjust finding, and the placing of him before the Nation in his true light, a soldierly soldier, a manly man, who for twenty- five years had been denied that of which he had been robbed at the very time when he was defend- ing the flag that he loved. It was in the spring of 1878 when General Porter called upon Mr. Bullitt to seek his aid in making another effort to get jus- tice, and the lawyer feeling the righteousness of the soldier's cause, gave up a trip to Europe and pitched heart and soul into the case. The result of Mr. Bullitt's effort is a matter of well-remembered history. He proved that General Porter, instead of being derelict in the performance of his duty on the memorable 29th and 30th of August, was deserving of the highest praise; that the facts were totally at variance with the evidence given before the court- martial. General McDowell, on whose testimony the court had depended to convict General Porter of the charges made against him, was put through a rigid cross examination by Mr. Bullitt, and was forced to admit that nearly every statement he made at the original trial had either been a gross exaggeration or was unsustained by the facts. The Board of Inquiry was in session for nearly eight months, part of the time at West Point and part at Governor's Island. After the finding of the Board, General Porter made several efforts to have a bill passed by Congress, restoring him to his former rank in the army, and in the session of 1883-4 the bill passed both Houses, but was vetoed by Presi-
dent Arthur. This drew forth a written opinion from Mr. Bullitt, in which he maintained that the ground taken by the President was untenable. In 1885-6 another bill was passed, authorizing the President to restore General Porter to his former rank. This was signed by President Cleveland, and tardy justice had made a partial righting of a great wrong. Mr. Bullitt's friends believe that the crowning triumph of his eventful life was the planning and draughting of the new Charter for the city of Philadelphia, which is familiarly known in every household in the Quaker City as the " Bullitt Bill." This arduous task was begun without fee, reward, or promise of reward, in 1876, under direc- tion of Governor Hartranft. Mr. Bullitt was one of a Commission appointed to devise a better method for the government of cities of the first class, which meant the city of Philadelphia. Notwithstanding the fact that two years of laborious, faithful work were expended in formulating a plan which should be superior to the method then in vogue, the Leg- islature took no action. In 1882, with Henry C. Lea and others, Mr. Bullitt prepared a bill entitled "An Act to provide for the better government of cities of the first class of the Commonwealth." The City Councils of Philadelphia awoke to the impor- tance of the subject, and a joint special committee was appointed to prepare and present an improved method of municipal government. Mr. Bullitt's ideas were faithfully followed, and in 1885 the Leg- islature passed the bill and it went into effect on April 1, 1887. The new Charter vests all the re- sponsibility in the Mayor, reduces the number of incongruous departments from seventeen to three, and simplifies the method of government in similar ratio in every direction. Edwin H. Fitler was the first Mayor to take office under the new charter, and the manner in which the law has been administered, and the smoothness with which the municipal machinery began to move as soon as Mr. Fitler took hold of the lever, demonstrated abundantly the boon that Mr. Bullitt had given his fellow citi- zens. His course through life has been upright, and he has always been found on the side of the op- pressed. He is a man of strong convictions, and in his dealings with men is ever courteous, but always resolute, unwavering and straightforward. Mr. Bullitt's home life has been particularly happy, and he has been blessed with a large and interesting family. He married Miss Therese Langhorne, who died April 30, 1881. He has seven children living : Therese L., the wife of Dr. Coles, of the United States Navy ; William C., President of the Poca- hontas Coal Company; Logan McKnight, Vice- President of the Northern Pacific Coal Company ;
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Julia, wife of Frank M. Dick, of Philadelphia ; Helen, wife of Walter Rogers Furness, of Philadel- phia ; Janies F. Bullitt, a student of law, and Jolin C. Bullitt, Jr., now at college.
MORTON Mc MICHAEL.
FOR over fifty years actively employed in journal- ism, most conspicuously as the proprietor and con- ductor of the North American and the United States Gazette,-which he consolidated, and which is now the oldest daily journal in the country,-an orator of power, a politician of the highest type, a statesman, a leader in the social life of the city and in the pub- lic affairs of municipality, Commonwealth and Nation, Morton McMichael perhaps impressed him- self more thoroughly upon the community, 'and exercised a greater measure of and more varied strength than any man of his time. In his later years too, there was no one who, throughout the State, commanded so universally the respect and regard of his fellow citizens of all parties. His career was an exceptional one, as regarded its length, activity, the multifarious nature of its achieve- ments, and its success. Morton McMichael was born in Burlington County, N. J., on the 2d day of Octo- ber, 1807, and his carly education was acquired in his native place, but the family removing to Phila- delphia when he was quite young, he completed his course of studies in the University of Pennsylvania. He then read law with the distinguished David Paul Brown, and was admitted to the bar in 1827, when only twenty years of age. Very little of his atten- tion, however, was to be devoted to the legal pro- fession, for he had already discovered his literary and journalistic taste and ability, and nearly all the strength of his young manhood and vigorous intel- lect naturally flowed in those channels. As early as 1826 he succeeded T. Cottrell Clarke as editor of the Saturday Evening Post, a journal which had been established five years before as an outgrowth of Benjamin Franklin's Pennsylvania Gazette, which was originated in 1728. He became editor-in-chief of the new Saturday Courier in 1831, and in 1836, associated with Louis A. Godey and Joseph C. Neal, began the publication of the Saturday News. In 1844 he and Neal were the editors of the Saturday Gazette, commonly called Neal's Saturday Gazette. On January 1, 1847, he became associated with George R. Graham, under the firm name of Graham and McMichael, as proprietors of the North Ameri- ican, first issued under that name on March 26, 1839, but which had in a few months absorbed tlie
Daily Advertiser, on the lineal descent of which journal the North American very justly bases its claim of seniority over all the daily newspapers of the United States. The Commercial Herald and the Philadelphia Gazette had also passed from individual existence to give strength to the new aspirant for public favor, which soon became prosperous and powerful. Before the first year of Mr. McMichael's joint ownership of the North American had expired, the paper was further advanced in value and in- fluence by its absorption of the United States Gaz tte, quite a phenomenal measure when it is taken into consideration that the two journals were of like character and standing, both prosperous, both ad- vocating the doctrines of the Whigs, and the policy of protection, both giving great attention to the commercial and manufacturing interests of city and State, and both much the same in general tone and class of patronage. From these very facts, however, it was evident to Mr. McMichael that neither journal could reasonably hope for much increase in pros- perity while the other existed, and it was the recog- nition of this situation which led him to suggest the consolidation. Dr. Robert M. Bird, who had formerly been identified with the press of the city, but then living in retirement at New Castle, Del., furnished a portion of the capital, and, after the dissolution of the firm of Graham & McMichael, in August, 1848, became a partner with Morton McMi- chael, under the firm name of McMichael & Bird. The North American had been published at the north-east corner of Fourth and Chestnut streets, but, after the consolidatiou, the publication office was located at No. 132 S. Third street, from whence it was removed in 1878 to its present location at the north-west corner of Seventh and Chestnut streets, Mr. McMichael, upon the death of Dr. Bird in 1854, became the sole owner of the property, and he ex- ercised active personal supervision over its editor- ial and business departments, until a few years prior to his death in 1879, when he withdrew from the more onerous line of duties, being succeeded in the editorial department by his sou, Clayton McMi- chael, who soon showed that he had inherited journalistic acumen, while another son, Walter McMichael, became general business manager. Mr. McMichael, during his long ownership of the North American, advanced its influence and value by methods which were usually conservative, even slow, but sure and solid. It has been prized as a commercial paper, and its circulation has been largely among business men, though it has also been a favorite family journal, because of the purity of its tone. Its weekly and tri-weekly editions have had a good country circulation. It became Repub-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
liean in politics, by a natural progression from its advocaey of the Whig party, but it has at times in- dependently dissented from the preseribed politieal creed. It is, and has ever been, a strong supporter of the protection of American industries, and is considered the especial exponent of the views of Philadelphia manufacturers. Col. John W. Forney, speaking of Mr. MeMichael as a journalist, in a memorial address delivered before the Pennsylvania Historical Soeicty, drew the following eharacteriza- tion : " His newspaper was characteristically clean, pure, elevated, impersonal. He never wrote or talked about himself ; never spoke of an adversary by name, unless he had eause to praise him ; and never stained his pages by printing scandal. *
* * * I know there are those who sneer at what they call the ultra decorum of such an example; men who think that our fast age requires fierce, fast wri- ting, and that modern progress means modern pruricncy. So mueli do I differ from them that I feel I may refer them to themselves to disprove their own argument, in a word, to the extraordi- nary improvement of the newspapers of all eoun- tries during the last twenty-five years. Take the Philadelphia papers of to-day and place them side by side with the Philadelphia papers of forty years ago, even with the journals when Morton McMi- ehael began to write for Atkinson & Alexander's daily Chronicle, and the difference is cven more marked than it is between the old Conestoga wagon and the modern steam engine. For this unspeak- able change in journalism, so produetive of sweeter manners and better laws, we are more indebted to Morton McMichael than to any other contemporary character. But, because he was a gentleman, proud of his great profession, he was not therefore a car- pet knight. No one eould strike deeper, quieker or surer, and if he did not use the battle-axe or the broadsword, he wielded lighter weapons with fatal effcet. A conservative by birth and breeding, he kindled instantly at wrong or injustice. All his im- pulses were ehivalrie." He had high abilities in other than the journalistie sphere, but it was un- doubtedly there that his greatest potentiality was exercised and his greatest usefulness exerted. It was the strength and the logical devotion to a nat- ural sequenec of progressive idcas, always arguing right before expedieney with a courage that was invineible, which won for his journal the unqualified admiration of earnest men, and made his eounsel sought for by the leaders of the Whig and Republi- ean parties. Such statesmen as Webster, Clay, Clayton, Lineoln, Seward, Chase, Blaine and a host of others were his friends and correspondents. They appreciated his intimate and minute knowl-
edge of the needs of the great protectional party of the country, and his broad, though conservative views, and they valued his adviee accordingly. While he had a potential voiee in National and State affairs, he was none the less devoted to the best interests of the eity. Indeed he had a deep and abiding love for Philadelphia, and a sublime faith in its future. During his whole half century of active journalistie duty it is doubtful if he ever missed an opportunity of advoeating progressive measures and seeuring advantages to the municipal- ity, its commerce and manufacturers. No one eon- tributed more than he to the carrying forward of such great projeets as instituting and improving the public sehool system, consolidating the eity, ereating Fairmount Park as a perpetual glory of Philadelphia, and a score of other measures of almost equal im- portance. He was pre-eminent among that elass of prodigious workers who seek, and indeed ean be accorded no adequate pay for their splendid ser- vices, unless they find it in an approving conseienee and the love and respect of mankind. He never sought public place, and the few offiees to which he was elected, though some of them were positions of marked honor, were not commensurate with his deserts. While still a young man, he served some years as an Alderman of the eity; he was High Sheriff from 1843 to 1846, and exhibited fitness for the office and high courage in suppressing the fieree anti-Catholic riots of 1844; he was Mayor of Phila- delphia from 1866 to 1869, and in 1867, upon the or- ganization of the Park Commission, was chosen President of that body, a position which he held up to his death. In 1873 he was appointed a delegate- at-large to the Fourth Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, to fill the vacancy eaused by the death of William M. Meredith. Prominent as Mr. MeMi- ehael was as a journalist, he was almost as widely and as popularly known as an orator, and he exer- eised this gift chiefly as he did his ready pen, in the capacity of an exalted and exalting public servant. He gave powerful voice to his positive opinions on public matters, but with the same courtesy which characterized his editorial writings, so that it hap- pened he was nearly always on good terms, person- ally, even with his most pronouneed political antag- onists. One who knew him says that as an orator he was certainly unsurpassed. His "speeches on all subjects were characteristically fresh and ehaste. Prepared or unprepared, they were always finished models. Whether spoken from the hustings, or the publie hall, or in the private salon, or in a religious temple, they were fascinating and delightful pro- ductions, and, not infrequently, as impressional and contagious as they were seholar-like and correet.
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
He was always original, classic and magnetic. His speech at the Chinese Museum during the Irish fam- ine was a marvel of electric eloquence. The great audience was literally carried away by the fervor, the force, and the beauty of the appeal. Not less memorable was his splendid defiance of the mob in 1838, when they attempted to set fire to the Shelter for Colored Orphans, in charge of the Society of Friends, on Thirteenth street above Callowhill, the day after the destruction of Pennsylvania Hall on Sixth street. His display of courage brought to his assistance the strong men whose efforts prevented the second sacrifice. In an agricultural address at Boston, Mass., on the 26th of October, 1855, his oratory was so irresistible that Robert Winthrop and Edward Everett, and other statesmen of the period who were present, spoke of him in terms of spontaneous amazement and delight." But it was perhaps during the portentous years preceding the War of the Rebellion, and pending the issue of that great convulsion, that his voice reached its most exalted and stirring strength. He was un- ceasing in his appeal for the Union, and in the dark- est hour the manifestations of his sublime faith and courage inspired many weaker hearts with hope, and were the means of strengthening the sinews of those who fought and labored for the cause. It was characteristic of Mr. McMichael that when the final triumph of right had been won, he should have been among the foremost in urging clemency for the defeated, and contribute as greatly to that end with tongue and pen, as he had to the defeat itself. Mr. McMichael was a very popular president of public assemblages, rendered so alike by his tact in con- trolling such bodies, and his powers of oratory. Probably his best speech upon such an occasion was upon the Fourth of July, 1873, as President of the Park Commission, making a formal transfer of ground to the United States Centennial Commission, or perhaps his oration on the presentation of the John Welsh endowment to his Alma Mater, the University of Pennsylvania. These were literary productions of the highest order, thoughtful, chaste, brilliant. In the social life of the city he was a conspicuous character. He will be long remem- bered by his charm of manner, voice and conversa- tion, for the delicate flow of sense and sentiment and wit, the latter always gentle and always tem- pered by charity, never seeking satisfaction at the expense of producing a wound. It was the long, varied, public career of the man, together with what all recognized as genuine kindliness and unsel- fishness in a strong character, garnished with the so-called little graces that combined to make the late Mr. McMichael in some sense an idol of the
people. His death occurred January 8, 1879, in his seventy-second year. At a meeting held to ex- press the sense of the public loss, and presided over by the Mayor, one of the speakers said : "Not only is the great citizen dead, Mr. President, but the happy philosopher. When I saw him last it was the first day of the New Year. Death was on his face, but life was in his heart. He suffered but he smiled. He even told me a story, and welcomed others, and shook me by the hand. I could almost hear him say with the illustrious French orator 'To-day I shall die. Envelope me in perfumes, crown me with flowers; surround me with music, so that I may deliver myself peaceably to sleep.' He lived less than a week after this and he passed to his final compt in the midst of the sighs of a people that he loved wisely and not too well. I dwell upon his fate, sir, with a certain satisfaction. He is the only human being I ever envied. I envied him his genial nature, his contagious wit, his electric eloquence, the fervor of his poetry and charm of his conversa- tion, the delicious sympathy of his society, the admiration he excited in others and his superb com- posure under disaster." In beautiful Fairmount Park, which Mr. McMichacl did perhaps more than any other person to create, there is a simple, but substantial monument to his memory, erected by his fellow-citizens and inscribed with an epitome of the public estimate of the man :- " An honored and beloved citizen of Philadelphia."
CLAYTON McMICHAEL.
COL. CLAYTON MOMICHAEL, Editor and one of the proprietors of The North American of Philadel- phia, Pa.,-the oldest daily newspaper in America, es- tablished in 1771, and published daily since Septem- ber 22, 1784,-a son of Morton McMichael, was born in Philadelphia, June 30, 1844, and was educated in private schools in that city. In April, 1861, being then in his seventeenth year, he enlisted in one of the volunteer military organizations formed in Phil- adelphia after the fall of Fort Sumter; was in the same month appointed by Hon. Simon Cameron, Secretary of War, First Lieutenant of the Govern- ment expedition under the command of Capt. Henry E. Maynadier, 10th U. S. Infantry, for the protection of the overland emigration from hostile Indians, and commanded the mounted troops of that escort crossing the plains from Omaha, Nebras- ka, to Fort Walla-Walla, on the Columbia River. On the fifth of August, 1861, he was transferred by appointment to the Ninth Regiment U. S. Infantry,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
and served with that regiment on Indian service and in garrison duty in Washington Territory, Oregon and California, until the summer of 1863, when he joined the staff of Major General David B. Birney, 1st Division, 3d Army Corps, and remaincd in the field with the Army of the Potomac and the Army of the James, participating in all the engagements from Gettysburg to the close of the war, serving on the staff of Major Generals W. S. Hancock, D. B. Birney and Gersham Mott, except during the win- ter and spring of 1864-65, when, by direction of the President, he was sent to Augusta, Maine, to rc-organize and command the Mustering and Dis- bursing depot at that point. He resigned as Captain and Brevet Major U. S. A., on September 27, 1865, and immediately assumed editorial charge of The North American. In October, 1872, he was ap- pointed by Gen. Grant one of the Commissioners of the United States to the International Exhibition at Vienna, Austria; assisted in the soliciting and organizing of the American exhibit, and went to Vienna in April, 1863, resigning his official commis- sion soon afterwards. In December, 1873, he was offered by President Grant, and did not accept, the position of Assistant Secretary, Department of the Interior, subsequently declining also, in February, 1874, an important post in the Consular service. In December, 1882, he was appointed by President Chester A. Arthur to the office of Marshal of the United States in the District of Columbia. He re- signed that position upon the expiration of Presi- dent Arthur's incumbency, but, at the request of President Cleveland, continued to discharge the duties of the office until December, 1885. Upon the death of ex-President Arthur in New York city, November 18, 1886, Mr. McMichael, at the request of the family and the executors of Mr. Arthur, took entire charge of all the arrangements for the obse- quies and received warm commendation for the manner in which the manifold details of the funeral ceremonies were conducted.
JAMES L. CLAGHORN.
THE late James Lawrence Claghorn, merchant, banker and connoisseur-most widely known in the latter capacity, for he was the owner of the finest collection of steel engravings and etchings in the world,-was a native of Philadelphia, the second son of John W. Claghorn, and was born July 5, 1817. He received a practical education in the common schools, and at the age of fourteen entered upon his business career, beginning in an humble
capacity as an attaché of the house of Jennings, Thomas, Gill & Co., auctioneers and commission merchants, in which his father was a partner. Mr. . Jennings died about five years later and the elder Mr. Claghorn and Mr. Myers then withdrew and
formed the firm of Myers & Claghorn. This firm was in turn dissolved in 1840, by the withdrawal of John W. Claghorn ; and James L. Claghorn, together with Samuel T. Altemus, formed a new combina- tion with Mr. Myers and continued the business. It was carried on with various changes until the close of the year 1861, when cur subject retired after a period of twenty-one years of partnership and an application to business which was truly remarkable. So close was it during the whole of that period that the ledgers do not disclose a single entry not made by his hand. He had entire charge of the finance department, and the house did some years a busi- ness which amounted to $10,000.000 per annum, so that it can readily be seen his duties were not slight. He had well earned retirement, rest and ease by his long and arduous labors, but just as he was ready to enter upon such enjoyment new duties confronted him-dutics which he could not, being constituted as he was, neglect or half perform. The Union was menaced, and there was urgent need for organized work to protect it. No city in the country was more steadily loyal than Philadelphia, none more promptly and efficiently labored for the cause. No organization in the city was stronger in that work than the Union League, and few, if any, of its mem- bers were more active and influential than Mr. Claghorn. This famous body came into existence in November as the Union Club, with the avowed purpose of consolidating the loyal gentlemen of Philadelphia, and counteracting secession sympa- thies. It consisted at the start of only forty or fifty members, yet both Mr. Claghorn and Mr. Myers were solicited to join its ranks-the selection of two members from a single firm being a marked compli- ment. When, shortly after its organization, the Club evolved that larger and broader body known as the Union League-on December 27, 1862-Mr. Claghorn was chosen to serve on its executive com- mittee, with George H. Boker, William H. Ash- hurst and Dr. John F. Meigs. He was appointed Treasurer at that time also (a position which he held to the time of his death, except during a short trip abroad, and his efficiency in which was recognized after twenty-one years' service by the presentation of a gold medal). The League played an important part in creating a popular support for the war. He was made Treasurer of each of the committees or- ganized, and kept all of their accounts as well as those of the League itself, and the pecuniary man-
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