USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 26
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" I have done my best to make a good, honest newspaper. It has lived through many tempests and changes. It has received and returned many blows. But I can say, for myself, in all this long course of time, I have never deliberately wounded or injured a human being, even in the fiercest struggles of political or sectional difference ; and I hope I may be permitted to add that in more than fourteen years of official responsibility, with mil- lions of public money to hold and disburse, not a dollar has been misapplied or diverted to my per- sonal use."
A meeting of the employes of The Press and of invited guests was held to make a presentation of a farewell testimonial, at which appropriate resolu- tions of friendship and regret were passed, and feeling remarks made by Luther Ringwalt, Dr. R. Shelton Mackenzie, Col. A. K. McClure and the re- cipient of the honor himself. Of Col. Forney's character as a man and journalist, some idea, how- ever inadequate, has already been conveyed by our outline of his career. It may be further remarked that next to his fearlessness and strenuousness, the positiveness of his convictions, and the logical, forceful, untiring and unhesitating way in which he maintained and advocated them, was the versa- tility of the man. He was one of the few journal- ists who could talk as well, almost, or perhaps quite as well as he could write. It is a fact that very few of the great editors of the country have been equally gifted as writers and orators. Horace Greeley often appeared upon the platform, and his speeches were splendid exhibitions of intellectual force, but the manner of delivery was entirely un- worthy the matter of the thought ; Thurlow Weed and James Gordon Bennett never appeared upon the platform. Mr. Raymond was perhaps the most shining example of the combined journalist and orator, as Morton McMichael was the matchless civic editor, but Col. Forney, while he ranked with the foremost leaders of the Press, had also as an ora- tor more of the glow of eloquence and greater swaying power than even the elegant and scholarly Raymond, and with these powers he possessed a genius for practical politics which few of his co-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
temporaries equaled. His element of weakness lay in the absence or very imperfect development of the business or financial faculty. Had he possessed this peculiar genius in any degree approximating his journalistic, literary and political, or in propor- tion to his genial social qualities and powers of personal persuasion over individuals or masses, his pecuniary success would have been as great as it was in every one of those lines, and he would have established a newspaper property equal to any in the land, and left a great fortune, as well as the in- heritance of a famed and honored name. He had much of the truly literary ability as distinguished from that known as the journalistic genius, but in his intensely active life it had imperfect opportunity for frnition. As being peculiarly the offspring of this talent, may be mentioned his "Anecdotes of Public Men," "Letters from Europe," "A Centen- nial Commissioner Abroad," "The New Nobility," and the " Life of Winfield Scott Hancock." With his relinquishment of The Press, which is in reality the noblest monument to Col. Forney, for he was more essentially and eminently a journalist than even a politician, the active career of our subject may be considered really to have ended. Only a few more years of life, in fact, were allotted to him. He made a third European tour and returning to Philadelphia, established, in November, 1878, the high class political, economic and literary weekly known as Progress, which met with a fair success. In 1881 he had only reached the age of sixty-four years, and notwithstanding his arduous intellectual labors, and the great strain of responsibility inci- dent to his calling through nearly half a century, he was a remarkably robust and healthy man in mind and body, yet after a short illness his death occur- red upon December 9 of that year. He left a widow and five children, his eldest son having died some years previously. Expressions of regret and of kindly sympathy came spontaneously from the Press of the entire country, and from private indi- vidnals and public bodics, showing wide-spread appreciation of his kindly qualities, as well as ad- miration for his ability and achievements. He was laid to rest in Lanrel Hill Cemetery by the banks of the Schuylkill, on which occasion Revs. Thomas F. Everett, D.D., and E. S. Magoon, D.D., conducted the services. From the funeral address of the for- mer we extract a very appropriate general summary of the nature of Col. John W. Forney, worthy of preservation as the expression of one who knew him intimately :
" What was it that made him so popular with all classes, even with some who were not of his own way of thinking ? How does it happen that since lie is dead, even his enemies being his judges, he is
most thoughtfully and generously referred to ? It was his strong love for humanity-a love so deep and broad that it encircled every side of it. The great mass of men who read about his death will think of him, not merely as a great journalist and politician, but they will chiefly remember that in both capaci- ties he championed the cause of the weak against the strong and waged a merciless war against oppres- sion and intolerance of every sort. He was not rich, yet his hand was a liberal dispenser to the needy and suffering; he was not a financial mag- nate, yet his heart and brain were in living har- mony with every great enterprise for popular pros- perity ; he was not a representative commoner in National Legislatures, yet his voice and influence were always thrown on the side of the masses ; he was not a soldier, brave and successful, yet his pen was "mighter than the sword" in many a fierce battle of opinion and policy in which he bore a con- spicuous, brilliant and victorious part. He be- longed to a class of men who build themselves into the civilization of their times, and who heartily greet every advance that is made on the line of human interests and human happiness. By his ready and versatile pen, by his eloquent and ring- ing voice, by his splendid and magnetic presence, he gave without stint, through nearly half a cen- tury, a prompt recognition and a masterly advcoacy to every phase of genius, and skill, and industry, and thought that makes np the sum of human wel- fare. He loved the people and lived for them. * * That he had no errors I will not say. I believe he was ready at all times to admit them. Who that lives is exempt from frailty ? If he had errors, however, he had great virtues also. As a personal friend of his has already said in one of the great newspapers of the country : ' We are not unaware of his faults, but we lose sight of them in taking the broader view of his remarkable life.' One of his most freqnent errors, if such, indeed, it can be called, was to err on the side of mercy as against * * * * * justice. *
Those who knew him most intimately will bear me ont in saying that he was a right royal charac- ter. Nothing shows the tenderness of his heart more beautifully than the friendly interest he always took in the early struggles of young journalists. He was their steadfast and trusted ally. Some of the most touching tributes yet paid to his memory come from those who, years ago, began their snc- cessful journalistic career under his personal coun- sel and wise direction. One of Col. Forney's most prominent traits of character was his large sympa- thy with the poor and needy. His benevolence was in no sense spasmodic, but constant and free. * * I cannot crowd into the limit of my desultory observations what would require a volume to record. Suffice it to say that, recalling his gracious presence and kindly words, his lofty character and great en- dowments, " nature might stand up and say to all the world : this was a man ! "
CHARLEMAGNE TOWER.
CHARLEMAGNE TOWER is the seventh in descent from John Tower, the son of Robert Tower, of Hingham, in Norfolk, England, and of his wife,
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Margaret Ibrook, who came to America with a col- ony led by Rev. Peter Hobart, from old Hingham, and settled in Massachusetts at what is now Hing- ham, in the year 1637. He was born on the 18th of April, 1809, in the township of Paris (so called from Isaac Paris, a man noted for his public benefac- tions, after the American Revolution), in Oncida County, New York, some twelve miles south of Utica. His father was Reuben Tower, a well- known and public-spirited man, (born at Rutland, Worcester County, Massachusetts, on the 15th day of February, 1787, and married in the township of Paris on the 15th day of February, 1808,) who was active in the development of the public improve- ments of his time, in the State of New York, notably the Chenango Canal, and was also a member of the Legislature of New York in 1828, but who died at the age of forty-five, on the 14th of March, 1832, in St. Augustine, Florida, where he had gone for his health. His mother was Deborah Taylor (Pearce) Tower, born at Little Compton, in Rhode Island, on the 6th day of July, 1785. Mr. Tower's education was begun in his native place, and carried on subse- quently at the Oxford Academy, in Chenango County, and at the Clinton Academy and the Utica Academy in Oneida County, New York. It is worthy of note that he taught school in the common schools of the townships of Paris and Marshall, in Oneida County, for two consecutive years, when he was but fourteen and fifteen years of age; and in 1825 he was assistant teacher in the Utica Academy. He was also shortly after engaged in business as a clerk with Messrs. Hart & Gridley, merchants in Utica. In 1826 his father took him to Cambridge, Mass., and placed him under the tutorship of Rev.
Caleb Stetson, to prepare him for admission to Har- vard University. He entered the freshman class at Harvard in February, 1827, and was graduated there in the year 1830. Among his classmates was Charles Sumner, between whom and Mr. Tower a very close
friendship grew up, which continued through many years, and lasted until Mr. Sumner's death (see Peirce's Life of Sumner, passim). After graduation Mr. Tower began, in 1831, the study of the law, in the office of the Hon. Hermanus Bleecker in Albany, New York. The death of his father occurring in the next year, his family interests recalled him to Waterville, Oneida County, New York, the home of his family, where he continued his studies. He went later to New York city, and finished his study of the law in the office of Messrs. John L. and James L. Graham. He was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the State of New York, at Utica, in October, 1836. He began the profession in New York city, in the office of Messrs. Graham and San-
ford, continued it later in Waterville, and was en- gaged at the latter place, for some years, in manu- facturing and commercial pursuits. Returning, however, to his practice he won a foremost place at the bar of Oneida County. Some legal questions that arose, in connection with his practice, took him to Pennsylvania, in 1846, for the examination of the title to large bodies of mineral land, lying chiefly in the county of Schuylkill. Resulting from this Mr. Tower married Amelia Malvina Bartle, the daughter of Lambert B. Bartle and Sarah (Herring) Bartle, his wife, at Orwigsburg, on the 14th day of June, 1847, by whom he had one son and six daugh- ters; and his legal interests induced him to take up his residence in Pennsylvania, which he did in thic spring of 1848, at Orwigsburg, at that time the county seat of Schuylkill County, where he lived until 1850, when, upon the removal of the county seat to Pottsville, he also moved his residence to that place. He lived in Pottsville from 1850 to 1875. Mr. Tower's career at the bar in Pennsylva- nia brought him in contact with some of the most difficult and intricate questions of law, more espec- ially upon the subject of titles to lands. The great coal fields of the State had become the subject of widespread litigation, which led to the trial of cases that frequently involved estates of large value, and the conduct of which called into action the best legal talent of the day. Mr. Tower's life during this period of more than twenty-five years was exceedingly active and laborious. It was his cus- tom to prepare his cases for trial, not only with a wonderful nicety of detail, so that in coming before the court he was prepared to meet the most exacting inquiry, but also to go out upon the lands them- selves, which often lay in a mountainous country, almost inaccessible, by reason of thick forest and heavy under-growth, and to run the lines and estab- lish the monuments himself, in company with his engineers. His excellent training in early life, his patient labor and untiring industry, as well as his good judgment in questions of law, and liis able treatment of them, won for him a standing at the bar among the foremost lawyers in Pennsylvania. While his devotion to the interests of his clients, and his sterling integrity as a man, brought him a very wide practice, his opinion upon questions of title was esteemed so highly, that it is not unusual, even now, to hear him quoted in open court as authority. Mr. Tower was the leading counsel in the famous trials that arose out of questions relating to the Munson and Williams Estate, in Schuylkill County, comprising a large body of coal lands, the litigation in regard to which he carried along for inore than twenty-five years. He mastered it and
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perfected the title to these lands, which are now the property of the Philadelphia and Reading Coal and Iron Company ; and his footsteps may be traced through many other great legal battles in different counties of Pennsylvania. At the breaking out of the War of the Rebellion, Mr. Tower's loyalty to the Union was instant and decisive. Although he was fifty-two years of age, and long accustomed to the sedentary habits of his profession, he deter- mined to take the field. He enlisted a body of two hundred and seventy men, within one week, at Pottsville, and proceeded with them to Harrisburgh, where they were mustered into the service of the United States on the 21st of April, 1861. They were divided into two whole companies and part of a third, and attached to the Sixth Regiment of Penn- sylvania Volunteers, in the three months' campaign. Mr. Tower having asked to be made captain, re- ceived his commission at the time of their entering the service, aud commanded, throughout its term, one of his companies-Company H, Sixth Regi- ment. He was under the command of Gen. Robert Patterson, and moved into Virginia by way of Chambersburg and Hagerstown, crossing the Poto- mac River at Williamsport, June 21, 1861, and tak- ing part in the action at Falling Waters very early in the war. Mr. Tower provided uniforms for his whole company at his own expense. He was mus- tered out of service with his men at the end of their term of service, at Harrisburgh on the 26th of July, 1861, whence he returned to his family. Afterwards he paid a bounty of five dollars a man to a full com- pany, recruited for three years, by Captain Henry Pleasants (his Second Lieutenant in the three months' campaign, later Brigadier-General). This was Company C, Forty-eighth Regiment, Pennsyl- vania Volunteers, which performed much honorable service and became distinguished in the war. On the 15th of August, 1861, Mr. Tower's men, who had served under him in the campaign, marched to his residence in Pottsville and presented him with an exceeding handsome sword, bearing this inscription :
PRESENTED BY. THE TOWER GUARDS, OF POTTSVILLE, PA., TO CAPT. CHARLEMAGNE TOWER As a token of their respect, as a man and soldier, and of their esteem for him as a friend. August 10, 1861.
Mr. Tower was appointed United States Provost Marshal for the Tenth Congressional District of Pennsylvania, on the 18th day of April, 1863, which commission he held until his resignation on the 1st of May, 1864, during a period of great national anxiety, and many difficulties, that at this time grew out of the carrying on of the war. His ad-
ministration was soldierly, vigorous, and consis- tent, and won for him high distinction at Washing- ton. Mr. Tower continued in the practice of his profession after his return from the war, until 1875, when he retired from activity at the bar, and, in the fall of that year, moved to Philadelphia in or- der to devote himself to his private interests in various industries and enterprises which had grown to be very large. During his residence in Pennsyl- vania he had become owner of large bodies of coal land, and was director in several corporations, in which he was a party in interest. He was a part owner in the well known Coxe and Tower lands, on the Green Mountain in Schuylkill County. He was one of the original proprietors of the "Honey Brook Coal Company," and for many years one of its managers, and he took an active part, in con- junction with Mr. Charles Parrish and Mr. John Taylor Johnston, in transforming that successful enterprise into the " Lehigh and Wilkes-Barre Coal Company." He was also actively interested in the construction and management of the Northern Pacific Railroad and a member of its Board of Directors for several years. The assistance given by him to this road, by both personal attention to its affairs and financial support, frequently when it became necessary, were of very great value to the company ; and Mr. Tower may fairly be said to have contributed largely to its ultimate success. His judgment and foresight in business affairs placed him among the few men who never lost con- fidence in the value of this road or in the great future development of the country through which it has been built. The greatest and the most suc- cessful undertaking, perhaps, of Mr. Tower's long business career, was his development of the iron resources of Minnesota, now well known to the world as the Vermilion Range. The presence of large deposits of iron ore in that country having been brought to his attention, about the year 1875 he made a thorough investigation of their quantity and value by sending out several expeditions to ex- plore them and report to him, the result of which having proved extremely favorable, he concluded to proceed with their actual development. The en- terprise was a daring one. These ore bodies lay in St. Louis County, Minnesota, some ninety miles northeast from Duluth, and about seventy miles in a direct line north from the north shore of Lake Superior. The country was densely wooded, was traversed by many small streams and broken by long stretches of swamp that in the summer season were almost impassable. Provisions, as well as materials and supplies, could only be transported in mid-winter, laboriously over the frozen ground
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
and on the snow, frequently at a temperature of forty degrees Fahrenheit below zero; and, in the summer, carried upon the backs of men, or over a circuitous route by Indians in canoes. The opening and the working of the iron mincs at this great dis- tance from the outskirts of civilization, implied a formidable expenditure ; but this was far surpassed by the necessity of constructing a railroad, seventy miles long, to the nearest water communication, the shore of Lake Superior, and cquipping it, in order to transport the product of the mines to market, and the construction of sufficient dock and harbor facil- ities for vessels to receive it at the water's edge. Many experienced business incn, consulted in re- gard to the enterprise, drew back from an under- taking fraught with so many and so great dangers. But Mr. Tower's courage was supported by his judgment, derived from careful and systematic in- vestigation, and he determined, at the age of sev- enty-three, to carry out his purpose single handed. After having acquired title to the lands which con- tained the ore deposits, and also to a body of land lying upon Lake Superior, known then as Burling- ton Bay and Agatc Bay, which he afterwards called Two Harbors, he formed in 1883 two companies, the "Minnesota Iron Company," and "The Duluth and Iron Range Railroad Company," the former of which owned the latter. Hc built the railroad from the mines at Lake Vermilion to Two Harbors on Lake Superior, seventy miles; erected large docks, round houses, machine shops and saw mills, and provided equipment for the transportation of the ore, besides carrying along the development of the mines in order that their product might be ready for shipment at the completion of the railroad. The iron ore lay in veins, tilted into a position almost vertical, extending for more than a mile in a north- easterly and southwesterly direction, aud varying in thickness from forty to one hundred and fifty feet. The ore was a hard specular hematite, yield- ing by analysis sixty-eight per cent. of metallic iron and from thirty thousandths to fifty thousandths of phosphorus, free from sulphur and all refractory substance. Mr. Tower carried along this enterprise with vigor and determination until August, 1884, when the railroad was completed and put into oper- ation, and the first shipments of ore were made, from Two Harbors to Cleveland. Thesc shipments met with great favor, after having been largely dis- tributed among the iron and steel manufacturers of Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania, and, almost from its departure, Mr. Tower's enterprise was proved to be successful. The country opened very rapidly, and soon after, a considerable town, called Tower, grew upon the shorc of Lake Vermilion, and
another at Two Harbors, whilst along the line of the railroad lumbering interests, the quarrying of granite and other various industries sprang up with the increase of population. In 1886 the railroad linc was constructed along the shore of Lake Su- perior, twenty-seven miles to Duluth. The annual shipments of orc from the mines at Tower, which, in 1884, at the opening of the railroad, were 68,000 tons, increased in 1885 to 225,000 tons, in 1886 to 300,000 tons, and in 1887 to 400,000 tons. This in- dustry, planted by the energy and courage of a sin- gle man, in a remote and difficult country, placed the State of Minnesota, hitherto unknown as a min- cral-producing district, in the space of four years, among the foremost iron markets of the United States, employed fifteen hundred men in its mines, and gave support directly and indirectly to more than five thousand people. It is not too much to say, that this was one of the most remarkable de- velopments ever made in the United States. Its value to Minnesota, and, indeed to the whole coun- try of the Northwest, in the benefits that are likely to be derived from it, are almost incalculable. Mr. Tower has erected a proud monument to himself as a man and a benefactor of his fellow man, that will endure and grow greater as time goes on. In the year 1887 it was found that valuable deposits of iron ore existed throughout a long stretch of coun- try lying to the east and northeast of the Minnesota Iron Company's property at Tower. These were explored after the opening of the railroad, and they had been acquired by various individual owners and companies, who were ready to open new mines upon the extension to them of the railroad, by which they might reach a market with their pro- duct. Mr. Tower concluded that, having carried out successfully his own undertaking, he did not wish singly to build the road to an unlimited ex- tent in order to supply the demands that naturally arose as the country was more fully explored, neither did he wish to separate his railroad from the mines at Tower by transferring its ownership from the Minnesota Iron Company. He therefore concluded to make a combination with a syndicate formed in New York and Chicago, who already had large interests to the east of him. These gentlemen bought from him his entire property in May, 1887, which he then transferred to them, retaining, how- cver, an interest considerably smaller than his for- mer holding, in the new organization which they formed, called "The Minnesota Mining and Rail- road Syndicate." This arrangement was highly advantageous in a financial sense to Mr. Tower, who now had the gratification of having proved the wisdom of his foresight, and of having seen his
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great undertaking carried through to an eminently successful issue, and in a very short time. He re- tained the Presidency of the Minnesota Iron Com- pany at the request of the syndicate, until October, 1887, when he resigned his office, whereupon the Board of Directors, composed of the new owners, passed the following resolution, which they had handsomely engrossed and sent to him.
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