USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 29
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office sought public servants, and office holding was a compliment to personal purity and fitness, Mr. Richardson was elected a member of the State Sen- ate of Ohio and honored with the Presidency of that body during a term of several years. His daughter was liberally educated and, as Mrs. Dilworth, was emphatically a help-meet to her husband in all the transactions of his exemplary life. Her womanly sympathy, fine discrimination and good judgment are to be traced particularly through his systematic and private benefactions. Five children, threc sons and two daughters, were born of this union, all of whom, with their mother, survived Mr. Dilworth. They are Mrs. H. C. Beggs, Mrs. C. C. Beggs, Law- rence, in the house of Dilworth Brothers, and Charles R. and Joseph R., in that of Dilworth, Por- ter & Co., Limited, Mr. Samuel T. Owens being as- sociated with them. Hardly any citizen of Pitts- burgh has been better known than Mr. Joseph Dil- worth, or more generally useful. His thorough business methods won for him the confidence and respect of all who had association with him. He made many public gifts, but probably no man knows the extent of his private charities. He was constantly and deeply solicitous for the improve- ment and welfare of young men and women. And he found a special delight, it might almost be said in strict veracity, under all circumstances, in the companionship of little children. Hc had a life of intense activity yet, withal, one singularly free from ostentatious features; and his character may be best described as a consisteut exemplification of earnestness and sincerity.
JOHN FLENNIKEN JENNINGS.
JOHN FLENNIKEN JENNINGS, one of the pioncers in the great steel industry of Pittsburgh, and for more than half a century prominently iden- tified with the development and business interests of that city, was born at Waynesburg, Greene County, Pennsylvania, October 28, 1807, and died at Allegheny City in the same State, March 8, 1888. On the maternal side he came of distinguished Rev- olutionary ancestry. His mother's father, John Flenniken, was a Pennsylvanian by birth, but for many years-including the whole period of the War for Independenee-resided in North Carolina. He was a man of high character and positive influence, and a pronounced advocate of resistance to the ag- gressive policy of England. Sent as a delegate from his district to the famous Mechlenburg Convention of 1775, he had the high honor of being oue of the
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
signers of the immortal " Declaration of Indepen- dence " issued by that body. During the war hc served gallantly in the historic corps known as " General Marion's Minute Men," and at its close, having lost his wife by death, returned to his native State, taking with him his two children, a son and a daughter, and settled permanently in Greene County. He was afterwards appointed one of the first Associate Judges of that county, and discharged the responsible duties of that position with honor and fidelity for a number of years. Mr. Jennings' paternal grandfather was Jacob Jennings, of New Jersey, who removed from that State to Pennsylva- nia about the middle of the eighteenth century, and settled on a farm on the west side of the Mononga- hela River. The latter's son, Benjamin Jennings, married the daughter of Judge Flenniken. He was one of the earliest settlers in Waynesburgh, the seat of Greene County, and being a skillful carpen- ter, assisted in building the first court house erected, (which was constructed of logs). Later, having bought two lots on Main street, he built two frame
houses. During the progress of this work, his son
John F., the subject of this sketch, was born "in the little log house that stood on what is now Greene street," this being the only habitation in which Benjamin Jennings and his young bride
could find accommodation upon their arrival in the
nings began his business career as a clerk in the place. At the age of fifteen years, John F. Jen-
ment to enter a printing office with a view of learn- village store, but in a few months left his employ-
ing, but he now employed his spare time to advan- opportunity for acquiring any education or train- ing the trade. He had not previously had much tage and soon mastered the rudiments of English.
His knowledge of grammar was obtained by attend-
the town of Waynesburgh, and during his service of remunerative position in the largest general store in ticeship to printing, he was induced to accept a ing night school. When he had served his appren-
three years in that capacity added materially to his knowledge of business affairs. Failing health
caused him to relinquish this clerkship in 1830, and
going to St. Clairsville, Ohio, he ran across George W. Manypenny, an old " office mate "-as printers say -- who had just purchased a newspaper and was in urgent need of assistance. He remained with Col. Manypenny about a year and then took a posi-
tion in an office in Columbus, Ohio, where he spent
the proceedings of the General Assembly. Declin- he was a master workman, and partly to reporting another year, devoted partly to his trade, in which
ing the position of foreman in this establishment,
he went back to St. Clairsville, where he spent a
few months, and then, in the spring of 1833, re- moved to Pittsburgh, where he speedily found work at his trade and became, two years later, foreman of a large office. Early in 1837 he accepted the posi- tion of book-keeper and general manager of the Eagle Cotton Works, then " one of the largest fac- tories in Allegheny, where all the factories of that section were located, and doing an immense busi- ness." Six years later, having now considerably
increased the little fund of forty-five dollars which represented his capital when he entered Pittsburgh, he embarked in the wholesale grocery business with James W. Hailman and John R. Blaine, under the style of Hailman, Jennings & Co. The firm had succeeded in building up a good trade, and was fairly launched in a career of prosperity and profit when it was suddenly overtaken by the disastrous conflagration of April 10, 1845, which destroyed fully three-quarters of the business portion of the city of Pittsburgh, and resulted in a loss of ten mil- lions of dollars to the business community. This calamity not only ruined the firm and caused its
dissolution, but left it several thousand dollars in debt. In the winter following, Mr. Jennings, whose attention had been drawn to the possibilities of the manufacture of steel, became associated with Wil- liam Coleman and Samuel H. Hartman in that in- dustry. Although the enterprise was comparatively
a new one, and had to overcome a prejudice which
existed in favor of the English product, the pros- pects were remarkably good. Nevertheless, the re- paying all his outstanding debts from the sum real- disposed of his interest at a fair profit, and after lations did not prove harmonious, and Mr. Jennings
ized, found himself still in possession of consider- able capital. Convinced that the steel industry had a great future, he lost no time in organizing a
company for the manufacture of steel and of
articles produced from it, his associates when the business went into operation being A. M. Wal- lingford, John F. Singer, W. K. Nimick, Alex- ander Nimick, Samuel H. Hartman and Felix R. Brunot. This company took the name of Singer,
Mr. Hartman, operated the concern, which soon Hartman & Co. Mr. Jennings, with Mr. Singer and
became famous as the "Sheffield Steel Works." The product of the company was a good steel, which found ready sale at remunerative prices. A profit-
able branch of the business was the manufacture of plow steel slabs. The mill expressly fitted up for
this purpose was utilized in slack time for the mak-
ing of boiler-plate and sheet-iron. Other manufac- tures were carriage and buggy tires, crowbars, sledges, picks, springs, axles, etc., etc. “Blister steel was the only kind then attempted in Pitts-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
burgh, and the spring steel was made from the blister." The plan employed in these mills "was the old English process of conversion." Alternate layers of ground charcoal and iron bars were placed in a furnace constructed for the purpose and the heat raised gradually to the standard (ten thousand degrees), was maintained steadily at that point for seven or eight days. Afterwards several days were employed in "cooling," and the product, at this point known as " blister steel," by being heated and rolled to the required thickness, made spring or plow steel, or being broken up into small pieces and melted in crucibles, became cast steel. Chemical processes now render possible in a few hours what formerly occupied so much time and labor, and in consequence these old methods have been almost entirely abandoned. Among the valuable services rendered to the steel industry by Mr. Jennings was the invention and successful introduction of im- provements in the mode of supplying the plow- makers with steel, which greatly increased the pro- fits of the mills, yet at the same time effected a large saving to the plow manufacturers throughout the country. These improvements consisted in cutting to shape the mould boards at the mills, thereby saving labor, fuel, time and freight to the plow-makers generally. In 1859, the company, which had been the first to begin the manufacture of steel on an extensive scale, was reorganized under the style of Singer, Nimick & Co., and is still engaged in the business, having one of the largest plants in the United States. In 1862 Mr. Jennings sold out his interest in the works, and although a busy man in numerous ways, did not during the remaining twenty-five years of his life engage in any active business enterprises. During the War of the Re- bellion Mr. Jennings devoted himself heart and soul to the support of the National Government. He was particularly active and efficient in raising troops, and had the supreme satisfaction of seeing his three sons all enter the field in support of the Union cause, the eldest, Benjamin F. Jennings, a young man of twenty-two or three, winning a cap- taincy before coming home with the company which he helped to raise and which he went out with in the One Hundred and Fifty-fifth Volunteers as Lieutenant; and William K. and Thomas D., the two younger, although mere boys, serving a term with the contingent called out in 1864 for "one hundred days." At the time Lee's invasion of Pennsylvania was agitating the North, Mr. Jennings personally took the field with a body of young men he had assisted in raising, and remained with them several weeks. This he did unofficially, but wil- lingly, upon being assured of the moral effect of his
presence. In a number of ways during the strug- gle Mr. Jennings proved his patriotism. " He was one of General Howe's most efficient allies in keep- ing Western Pennsylvania alive to her full duty in those trying hours," and was in close communication with many leading military men. He was one of the organizers and a life-long member of the Union League in Pennsylvania, and prominent in its local, State and National councils. His timc, influence and money were freely given in support of the Na- tional Government, and he was so active in patriotic work that towards the close of the war he fell seri- ously ill and for a time was in a critical condition. An active Republican in politics, he worked faith- fully for the success of his party, but never con- sented to accept any office. A business position which he held many years was that of Vice-Presi- dent of the Cash Insurance Company. He was a sincere Christian, and for forty years an honored and consistent member of the Second Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, and a large portion of that period a member of its Board of Trustees. Mr. Jennings married, on March 29, 1836, Miss Elizabeth B. Fitzgerald, daughter of Michael Fitzgerald, at the time a prominent silversmith of Pittsburgh. Of the five children born to this union four are now living, the three sons named above, all prominent in Pittsburgh business circles, and one daughter, Mrs. Wm. H. Burt. Mrs. Jennings was her hus- band's faithful companion and earnest suppor- ter in religious and patriotic work for nearly half a century. She died, sincerely mourned, Feb- ruary 5, 1883. For several years previous to his own death Mr. Jennings had been in failing health. Nevertheless, he reached the ripe age of eighty-one years, and may be said to have died of old age. His career was an eminently useful one in cvery re- spect, and he left to posterity a fine example of citizenship and a spotless record.
BENJAMIN F. JENNINGS.
BENJAMIN FITZGERALD JENNINGS, a prom- inent manufacturer of Pittsburgh and eldest son of the foregoing, was born in Allegheny City, Septem- ber 9, 1838. He was educated in the local public schools and at the University of Western Pennsylva- nia. In 1856, tv o years after entering the Univer- sity, he accepted the position of book-keeper in the then extensive steel manufacturing concern of Sin- ger, Hartman & Co., of which his father was a partner. This position, which had been made vacant suddenly by the illness of the gentleman who
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
had held it, was only to be filled temporarily, and when young Mr. Jennings assumed its duties, he did so with the intention of returning to college to graduate. Nevertheless, he became absorbed in the work and continued in it until the summer of 1862. From the beginning of the Civil War he had found it extremely difficult to repress his patriotic instincts, but as a great deal depended upon him in a busi- ness way, he continued at his desk, attending to duties which with each succeeding year became inore and more responsible. The stirring events of 1862, and the urgent need of increasing the number of troops in the field, at length decided him to lose no time in entering the army, and in August of that year he gave up business to engage in the work of recruiting. His patriotic and well directed efforts resulted in the enlistment of B Company, One Hun- dred and Fifty-fifth Regiment Pennsylvania Volun- teers, for three years. Commissioned as Second Lieutenant in the company formed from these recruits, he took the field with it, and in November following was promoted to be its First Lieutenant. His regiment was attached to the Army of the Po- tomac, and with it he saw service in both Maryland and Virginia, and took part in the second battle of Bull Run, and the subsequent battles of the Army of the Potomac to Chancellorsville. In 1863 he had won the captaincy of his company, but owing to failing health was compelled to resign his commis- sion and return home. In 1864 he engaged in the manufacture of machinery at Allegheny, under the firm name of Jennings & Co., and for four years was thus employed with gratifying success. In 1868 poor health obliged him to give up business, but in 1872 he became concerned in the manufacture of steel, as a partner in the firm of Reiter, Sutton & Co., which two years afterwards took the style of Smith, Sutton & Co. Mr. Jennings continued a member of this firm until 1885, when both he and Mr. Sutton sold their interests to the Messrs. Smith. In the following year he organized the manufactur- ing concern of Jennings, Beale & Co., Limited, and was elected its Chairman. This corporation has its plant at Leechburgh, and is one of the principal imanufacturing firms in that part of Pennsylva- nia. Mr. Jennings' extended personal experience in the manufacture of steel has enabled him to de- velop a very high standard in his manufactured products, which consist chiefly in steel plates and sheet steel, and which are of such fine quality and general excellence as to command a wide market. Mr. Jennings is a Republican in politics, but has never identified himself actively in political affairs. He is a member of the Second Presbyterian Church of Pittsburgh, of which his mother was a devoted
member for fifty years. He married October 31, 1865, Miss Marion V. Sawyer, daughter of John M. Sawyer, of Washington, Pa., by whom he has two daugliters. He has taken an active interest in the Grand Army of the Republic since its organization, and was the first Commander of the first Post organ- ized in Allegheny City, at that time it being the only Post north of the Allegheny River in Western Penn- sylvania. He is also a Companion of the Pennsyl- vania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.
ALAN WOOD.
ALAN WOOD, the founder of the firm of Alan Wood & Co., of Philadelphia, whose portrait ac- companies this article, was born in Plymouth Town- ship, Montgomery County, Pa , December 25, 1800. He was one of a family of twenty children, and a son of James and Tacy (Thomas) Wood. His pater- nal great-grandparents, born in England, settled in Dublin, Ireland, and from thence emigrated in the early part of the eighteenth century, settled near Philadelphia, and brought with them their certifi- cates of being members of the yearly meeting of "Friends " in the city of Dublin. Alan Wood was carefully trained by his parents, who were also "Quakers," and, after receiving a common school education at Valley Forge and Philadelphia, was assigned to the duty of storekeeper and assistant manager in his father's works at Valley Forge, when but sixteen years of age, which position he continued to hold until the year eighteen hundred and twenty-one, when he became of age. His father James Wood, with Joseph Potts, commenced the manufacture of iron at the Pennypack Iron Works near Philadelphia, in 1802; and in 1816 bought and operated the Iron Works at Valley Forge, Chester County, Pa., which spot will ever be asso- ciated with Washington and his noble band of patriots and martyrs. Here they commenced the manufacture of sheet and plate iron, also of saws, shovels, spades, etc. It was here that the first cast steel and sheet iron were manufactured in this coun- try. The cast steel part of the business, however, was soon abandoned, as it was not a success on ac- count of the difficulty at that early day of obtaining pig metal suitable for the purpose. In 1821 Alan Wood left his father, James Wood, and went into the grocery business in Philadelphia with his elder brother. In 1825 he married Ann H. Dewees, daughter of Waters Dewees, of Laurel Forge, Ches- ter County, Pa., by whom he had six sons : W. De-
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
wees, Thomas, James D., Alan, George and How- ard. In 1826 he, with his father, leased the Dela- ware Iron Works, near Wilmington, Del., which they prosecuted with much success in the same line of business as had previously been carried on at Valley Forge, Pa. In the year 1832 James Wood and his son Alan, under the firm name of Jamcs Wood & Son, built the Conshohocken Iron Works-obtaining their water power for the same from the Schuylkill Navigation Co.,-which they operated successfully, producing about 500 tons of sheet iron and steel per annum, until 1844, at which date the firm was dis- solved, and Alan Wood purchased the old Delaware Rolling Mill, near Wilmington, Del., which he and his father had operated on a lease from 1826 to 1832, and with his eldest son Dewees, as manager, prose- cuted the business. It was here that the first Amer- ican Russia sheet iron was made by his father and brothers, John and William W. Wood, in 1841, which manufacture was continued by the new firm and has been largely improved upon until, at this time, it is considered fully equal in all respects to the im- ported article, which it has almost displaced. In 1857 Alan Wood, with his brother-in-law Louis A. Lukens, under the firm name of Alan Wood & Co., erected the steam rolling mill at Conshohocken, Pa., called the Schuylkill Iron Works, which from time to time has been enlarged until, at this date, it has a capacity to make 20,000 tons of sheet and plate iron per annum. In 1870 Alan Wood, at the age of sev- enty years, retired from active business, selling his interest to his sons, after a successful career of fifty- four years; during which time he saw his own business increase from a production of 400 tons per annum to 20,000 tons per annum. No man ever re- tired from such a long, busy life with a better record for business ability, honesty and integrity of pur- pose, having served in many positions of public and private trust. On January 24, 1881, he died, be- loved and respected by all who knew him. His widow and their sons, W. Dewees, Alan and How- ard, still survive him, the latter continuing in the same line of business in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, that he so successfully founded.
ALEXANDER SPEER.
ALEXANDER SPEER, a well known citizen and prominent manufacturer of Pittsburgh, Pa., was born in Mechanicsburg, now called Verona, a thriving town on the Allegheny River, about ten miles from Pittsburgh, on June 25, 1808, and died in the latter city May 12, 1876. His father was a
carpenter of noted industry, but unable to give his son more than a rudimentary education. At the age of seventeen Alexander was apprenticed to the trade of wagon and plow making, and after serving his time with acceptability, he started out to mect the opportunities of business life with his own abilities, aided only by a capital of ten dollars. He went South in search of employment, and at Natchez, Mississippi, was taken into a shop where he worked as a journeyman at his trade for two years. Rigidly husbanding his meagre resources, he returned to Pittsburgh at the end of this service and, investing his savings in the various goods and implements manufactured in that city, embarked in the business of flat-boat trading on the Mississippi River, making his first trip to New Orleans about the year 1832, and repeating the trip every winter, subsequently, until that of 1840. In 1845, in connection with the late Samuel Hall, he engaged in the manufacture of plows, the firm name being Hall & Speer. Apply- ing himself particularly to the manufacturing part of the business, and possessing a reputation for business candor and integrity, both at home and throughout the rich industrial and agricultural sec- tions he had visited so frequently, the efforts of the firm were rewarded with a degree of success com- mensurate with the excellence of their workman- ship. He had laid the foundation of a substantial character at New Orleans, and there he found an appreciative market for his products ; a market, too, that after the introduction of his plows, extended itself with but comparatively little effort on his part. He made a careful study of the ever changing neces- sities of agricultural labor, and was prompt in adapting his plows to the new requirements as they developed. Thus, keeping himself in full accord with the progress of the vast interests, whether of grain, tobacco or cotton, in which the plow bore an intimate relation, he firmly established the high re- pute of the firm and the superiority of their imple- ments. This partnership continued uninterruptedly and with annually augmented returns until the death of Mr. Hall, in 1852. From the day of his death until July 31, 1873, Mr. Hall's interests in the business were retained by his heirs ; but on the lat- ter date they were purchased by Mr. Speer, who immediately thereafter established the firm of Alex- ander Speer & Sons. Under this name the business was conducted until the death of Mr. Speer, when his sons, William W. Speer and Joseph T. Speer, assumed the soie control. Without a further change of firm title they have since carried it on, and are to-day in the enjoyment of a prosperity that char- acterized the firm from its formation. These are the results rather than the means and methods by
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
which Mr. Speer developed an extensive industry. The volume of energy, enterprise and business abil- ity which this development called for and which was possessed by Mr. Speer to a marked degree, will more adequately appear in a comparison of the condition of the Globe Plow Works, as originally established, with the perfection to which Mr. Speer brought them. These works, now forming one of the largest plow manufactories in the country, and being in themselves a fair type of the remarkable in- dustrial growth of the city of Pittsburgh, were opened in the ycar 1825, and have since been con- tinuously in operation. The original factory was a one-story frame building, without even a foundry, and occupied a space of one hundred by twenty feet. As Mr. Alexander Speer left them they con- sist of a two-story brick structure, with a foundry and a cupola of 2,000 tons' capacity, and cover an area of 270 by 240 feet, or over an acre and a half of ground. The foundry floor occupies a space of 120 by 100 feet, and the blacksmith shops and finishing rooms are two-story brick buildings, each 270 by 60 feet in dimensions, while the storeroom floor, which is in the second story, has an area of 230 by 60 feet. From the mere handful of men employed in the works in 1825 and for several years thereafter, Mr. Speer required the services of from 150 to 200 oper- atives, and in specially busy seasons many more. The average of wages paid to the employes has risen to $15,000 per annum, and the value of the machinery, buildings and grounds to about $200,- 000. A still further evidence of Mr. Speer's skill as a manufacturer is to be deduced from the consump- tion of raw material in these works and the aggre- gate in numbers and value of their annual output. These, in brief, are : Annual consumption of pig metal, tons, 3,000; of steel, tons, 1,500; of iron, tons, 500, and of wood, $30,000 worth; annual pro- ducts of plows, cultivators and similar agricultural implements, 90,000; value of annual product, $500,- 000. Up to the time of his death Alexander Speer was the guiding, controlling genius of the Globe Plow Works. He was practically conversant with the entire details of the business, and being an inde- fatigable worker, accustomed to attending the man- ufactory regularly and supervising everything con- nected with it, his industry, tact and probity led to the flattering results already outlined. Throughout life he exhibited an unbounded confidence in him- self. Those who knew him intimately while flat- boating on the Mississippi River said he was always sanguine of achieving success in business life. He frequently remarked that when the proper time came he would establish himself in Pittsburgh, and then go straight ahead. He had a strong
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