USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. I > Part 35
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of upwards of one hundred and fifty dozen of felt or fur hats per day, and the value of the annual output is not far from $2,000,000, while about $400,000 are paid to the operatives. Interesting as is the process of manufacture and the details of the tributary branches of the business, such as the procuring of the various furs from South America, England, Scotland and Germany, we must confine ourselves more closely to the peculiar adjuncts of this great industrial establishment which illustrate the na- ture of the proprietor, and belong more properly to this outline of his personal history and character. Mr. Stetson's benevolence and his keen interest in the welfare of his employees have found exercise in the founding and maintenance of a number of insti- tutions, which are as unique as they are useful. To begin with, he long ago formed a liberal apprentice- ship, which has since been very successfully fol- lowed. Apprentices are taken for the customary four years at a fixed wage, but the rate is constantly and largely exceeded, and the young men, when the apprenticeship ends, are always employed as jour- neymen at equitable wages. Nine hours constitute a day's work, and the week ends on Saturday noon. At one end of the great pile of buildings which con- stitute the factory there are large rooms devoted to the various enterprises which Mr. Stetson has founded. There is a handsome room or hall two stories in height, and capable of seating about two thousand persons, in which the Sunday-school meets. This was started especially for employees, but it is really a mission school, and includes many persons of the neighborhood not connected with the factory. Class rooms, divided by movable glass partitions, open from the main gallery and under it. There are also side galleries, and the hall is furnished with a fine organ and piano. The seats can be re- moved and the large apartment made available for mill purposes and social gatherings. Underneath this is a spacious library and reading-room, supplied with three thousand choice volumes, and numerous periodicals and newspapers. There is also an ele- gantly appointed parlor for evening socials, and every week-day prayer meetings are held there at noon. There is a study for those in charge of the Sunday-school, and an armory where are kept the guns and equipments belonging to a military com- pany organized among the employees. An organ- ization of the operatives, known as the John B. Stet- son Union, was effected in December, 1885, which is practically the same as a Young Men's Christian Association. Formerly this Union had charge of the various socials and public entertainments given at Stetson Hall, but that responsibility is now divided with the Guard of Honor, the Mysterious
Twelve, a charitable organization, and other socie- ties. The Guard of Honor is an organization com- posed of boys from twelve to nineteen years of age, in the North Fourth Street Union Mission. The members are interested in literary exercises, are under military instruction, and are united under the following pledge : "Fides et Justitia"; "Desiring to make the grandest success of human life, I pledge myself to abstain from all use of intoxicating liquors and tobacco, and will strive to shun all vices." Wil- liam Hampson is chaplain, Robert S. Duff, director of drill, William Pierce, major, R. S. Duff, quarter- master, and M. E. Pennepacker, adjutant. The organization consists of about one hundred and sixty-five members, divided into four companies, all equipped and possessing the new regulation uni- forms. Entertainments for the employees and their friends are given every Saturday evening. The best talent is engaged and a full orchestra is employed, Mr. Stetson making up deficiencies and expenses if any occur. Monday evenings the rooms are thrown open for social purposes. Tuesday evenings the young men and boys of the Guard of Honor have their drill. Wednesday evenings are reserved for the study of the Sunday-school lesson, Friday even- ings for singing school, and other evenings, as a rule, are filled by special meetings of some of the organizations. One of the most valuable of the in- stitutions connected with Mr. Stetson's establish- ment is the Medical Department, which grew out of the free dispensary founded by the proprietor sev- eral years ago, and through which a vast amount of good has been accomplished. The Medical Depart- ment was organized about the first of January, 1887, and was opened to the public on the fifteenth of February following. It aims to meet the wants of those needing medical treatment in the neighbor- hood of the mission rooms, especially the employees of John B. Stetson & Co , and members of the sev- eral departments of the North Fourth Street Union Mission. Rooms admirably adapted to clinics and dispensary have been fitted up, and are supplied with medicines and many of the most improved in- struments known in medical practice, Dr. Carl Sheiler being physician-in-chief. The medical staff comprises men eminent in the profession, and spec- ialists in their several departments of practice. A charge of one dollar is made, payable in advance, to all who wish treatment. The payment of this sum entitles to treatment at the medical rooms for three months from the date of receipt card. Patients who may seek the aid of the department, unable to pay for treatment, have their cases investigated, and receive attention accordingly. A great many of those employed at the factory have been enabled to
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John B. Ellison
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secure houses of their own through the workings of | the John B. Stetson Building Association. Five shares of the stock of this organization constitute a Christmas present given to some of the employees. There is also a beneficial association contributed to by all, and the funds of which are often augmented by the management. Mr. Stetson's kindness and generosity to his employees have been attended with the most satisfactory results, and their effects have been clearly seen in the knitting together of the in- terests of the employer and his operatives, and an increase in the sympathy of each for the other. He has not entirely escaped, however, from the bad effects of labor dictation. Some years since his men were ordered on a strike and his goods "boy- cotted," a result brought largely through a misap- prehension of the facts. It was certainly incongru- ous that the factory producing the finest grade of goods in America should be "boycotted " for em- ploying unskilled labor, and some of the strikers, soon recognizing the indefensibility of this position, applied for reinstatement. Those who did so were taken back without discrimination, for the shop was open to union and non-union men alike. While Mr. Stetson's benevolence has been chiefly directed towards his employees, and the people in the neigh- borhood of his factory, and his thought largely taken up in devising institutions and projects for the bet- terment of their condition, he has by no means lim- ited his charity to his own people, or confined his labor to them. Only a short time since he gave the handsome amount of fifty thousand dollars to the Young Men's Christian Association of Philadelphia, of which he is a trustee. He is a member of the Fifth Baptist Church at Eighteenth and Spring Gar- den streets, and one of its most liberal supporters, and also a director of the Sunday Breakfast Associa- tion, and of the Norris Street Woman's Hospital in Kensington, and these and other city institutions know the value of his evidences of remembrance. Even in the matter of business his attention is not monopolized by the industry which he founded and reared to its present great proportions. He is a director of the Keystone Watch Case Company, and has other outside interests. He has been in a con- siderable degree relieved from personal application and responsibility at his works by the introduction, in December, 1885, of liis son-in-law, Henry H. Roelofs, as a partner. Since the time mentioned he has taken more rest from business cares, and has spent more time in recreation and quiet at Ash- bourne, his country house on the North Pennsylva- nia Railroad, and at his winter house at DeLand, Florida. In this beautiful little city, founded by the Hon. H. A. DeLand, of Fairport, N. Y., Mr. Stet-
son became interested during the winter of 1886, and he purchased the Gillen Grove. He has there now a house, which is described as one of the finest in the State, both as regards beauty and art embel- lishments, and one hundred acres of orange grove, all within two miles of DeLand. Half of his acre- age is productive, and he employs a small army in clearing and caring for his land, planting trees, picking and packing fruit, etc., putting thousands of dollars in circulation in the community. But DeLand, apart from this advantage, and various aids received from him in carrying out public im- provements, notably in the purchasing and beautify- ing of eight acres in the heart of the town-Univer- sity Place-has been made the recipient of one of his largest benefactions. This was his generous aid in the erection and donation to DeLand University of a handsome and large building known as Stetson Hall. His support of the University is not only in money, but as a trustee and Chairman of the Execu- tive Committee he gives the institution the benefit of his sound judgment and great executive ability, his clear thinking and broad views. In the future it is quite within the realm of possibility that Mr. Stetson will be as well known and as much loved and respected in Florida as in Philadelphia, for his humane feelings and his wisely dispensed charities.
JOHN B. ELLISON.
THE kindly, strong, frank face of John B. Ellison, of which an excellent portrait appears upon the ad- joining page of this work, was for many years one of the best known in Philadelphia commercial cir- cles, and the successful woolen warehouse which he founded, now carried on by his only two sons and grandsons, is not exceeded in extent of operations by any in America. Mr. Ellison, who was a typical Philadelphia merchant of the past generation, broad, thorough, substantial, conservative and modest, was born in the city of Philadelphia, in the year 1794, and was the eldest of four children of James and Margaret Ellison, who were, like their ancestors for many generations, members of the Society of Friends. After receiving a good general education at the quite celebrated Westtown School, our sub- ject began the schooling of actual experience in the business of the world by becoming a confidential clerk with Benjamin Warner, a well known pub- lisher and bookseller in his native city. He devel- oped unabated taste for and ability in mercantile pursuits, and as early as 1823 established himself in the cloth business at the southeast corner of Second
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and Market streets. This was the beginning of the extensive commercial house of which he was for over twoscore years the head, and which he made one of the most notable of Philadelphia's wholesale houses. Some years after the inauguration of the house, when his sons, William P. and Rodman B., had grown up, they were taken into partnership under the firm name of John B. Ellison & Sons, and under this style the business has since been carried on, although twenty-three years have elapsed since the death of the founder, and in the meantime three of his grandsons, Henry H., William R. and John B. Ellison, have been admitted. The business of the house has been wisely conducted by the succeeding members now constituting it. His integrity, indus- try and far sightedness brought their reward surely, by purely legitimate and logical steps of progress, and what has been attained since has been by the same conservative and healthful business processes. The firm now owns and occupies a handsome and commodious building, erected in 1881, at Nos. 22, 24 and 26 South Sixth street, extending back to Nos. 13, 15 and 17 Decatur street, and have an ex- tensive house in London, also offices in New York, Boston and Chicago. The house doubtless does the largest cloth importing business transacted in the United States. Mr. Ellison, during the most active period of his career, was prominently identified with banking interests and various business institu- tions, as well as with that class of organized chari- ties aiming at the highest good of the public. Early in life he became an active force in the Philadelphia Society for the Establishment and Support of Charity Schools, which was incorporated September 3, 1801. He was chosen a member of the Board of Managers on January 6, 1829 ; was Treasurer of the society from January 5, 1841, to January 3, 1860, and Chair- man of the board from January 11, 1860, to the time of his death, over five years later. But it was his wont to do much of charity in an individual and quiet way, and it was this, rather than through the various institutions, that the greater value of his benevolence flowed, and the good that he did in this manner cannot be estimated. It was certainly large and it was wisely bestowed. While his tastes led him in pursuits rather aside from the most conspic- uous ones, he took a deep interest in politics and the administration of the government, and held most pronounced views thereon, being an ardent supporter, successively, of Whig and Republican principles and a strong moral supporter of the Union cause. He was, however, in no sense a politician, and never a seeker of place. He was, like his an- cestors, a member of the Society of Friends, and seemed to have inherited that retiring disposition
and true modesty of character which is an ideal trait of that people. He avoided prominence, and his life was gentle, wholesome and beneficent, giv- ing forth good, as hidden flowers diffuse their fra- grance. Mr. Ellison's death occurred on the 7th of March, 1865, just one month prior to the establish- ment of National peace, which he had fondly be- lieved and devoutly hoped would soon come. He was married February 5, 1824, to Hannah Moore, who was born in 1796. She survived him fifteen years, dying on the 14th of July, 1880. They had four children : William P., Rodman B, Elizabeth M. and Margaret Ellison.
EDWIN M. STANTON.
EDWIN MACY STANTON, statesman, was born in Steubenville, O., December 19, 1815. He de- scended from Quaker ancestry, his father, Dr. David Stanton, being a native of Rhode Island, and who, during the early childhood of Edwin, was a highly respected member of the medical profession in Ohio. Benjamin Stanton, the grandfather of Edwin, was a Virginia slaveholder, but gave directions in his will that "All the poor black people that ever belonged to me be entirely free wherever the laws of the land will allow it; until which time my exec- utors I leave as guardians to protect them and see that they be not deprived of their right or in any way misused." Edwin M. Stanton's mother was a Miss Norman, daughter of a Virginia planter who owned the farm upon which the battle of Cedar Mountain was fought in 1862. His grandmother, wife of Benjamin Stanton, was a Miss Macy, a descendent of Thomas Macy, the persecuted Quaker celebrated in the traditions of New England as the first white settler of Nantucket, and in American poetry as the hero of "The Exiles," by John G. Whittier. Coming from such a stock the boy Edwin had born in him the determined character which formed the lines of his future life. Left the eldest of a family of orphan children while still a child himself, he early learned the lessons of indus- try and self reliance. When only thirteen years of age he left the village school and entered the store of a bookseller in Columbus, O., as a clerk. He seems to have had no childish days. During the three years which he passed in the bookstore his spare time was given up to building upon the scanty education he had received in his native town, and this with such success that in 1831 he was able to enter Kenyon College. Young as he was, he already had aspirations and ambitions, and these led him in
Edwin Mr. Stanton
PROPERTY OF
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the direction of the bar; and so, after a brief course in college, of two years, he began that study in the office of his guardian, Daniel L. Collier, with whom he spent five years in thorough devotion to his pro- fession. At the end of this time Edwin M. Stanton was admitted as a member of the Columbus bar, and although his preparatory training had been desultory, and, as it might be thoughit, insufficient, he was already recognized by those who knew him as a young man of unusual intelligence and breadth of mind, and as a promising lawyer. He began practice in the small town of Cadiz, in his native State, and even in so limited a field his remarkable abilities commanded success, and within a year he was made prosecuting attorney of Harrison County, in which Cadiz is situated. Already his iucome had reached a point which not only enabled him to support himself and keep out of debt, but to con- tribute towards maintaining and educating the other orphan children of the family, of whom he was the elder brother and protector. He became notable in the discharge of his duties as prosecuting attorney for his delicate sense of justice and his inflexibility in regard to the exact administration of the law. Within a few more years Stanton had acquired a State reputation, and in 1842 he was settled in his native town of Steubenville, enjoying a large practice and also filling the functions of Reporter of the Supreme Court of Ohio. His pro- fessional career at this time was remarkable for his connection with many important cases, among which was his defence of Mr. M'Nulty, Clerk of the United States House of Representatives, charged by the General Government with embezzlement, in which case he gained a verdict for his client. In 1848 Mr. Stanton entered into partnership with the Hon. Charles Shaler at Pittsburgh, Pa., and in this busy and thriving city he soon became the acknowl- edged leader of the bar. He now took a position among the foremost of leading lawyers practicing before the Supreme Court at Washington. Con- spicuously among the cases in which he was en- gaged, and whose reputation became National, were those known as "The First Erie War," "The Wheeling Bridge Case" and the "Manncy & McCormick Reaping Machine " contest. Here it is proper to recount the first meeting of Mr. Stanton with Abraham Lincoln. This occurred in 1859, when Mr. Lincoln chanced to be his associate coun- sel in the celebrated McCormick Reaper case. It is stated that one morning, while in his office, Mr. Stanton found himself confronted by a tall, ungainly, Western-looking man who extended his hand and introduced himself as Abraham Lincoln, and was warmly greeted by his senior. It is remarkable,
both in the history of the men and in the history of this case, that the two clashed in this, their first acquaintance. A writer familiar with the circum- stances, draws the following parallel between these two great men, as accounting for their divergence at the time in question :
"Mr. Stanton was leading counsel, with Abraham Lincoln as one of his associates, and it is to be regretted that the first meeting of the two men, destined to become so closely connected within three years from that time, was by no means har- monious. Each was a master mind, eminent at the bar, aud yet widely different. One was great while pleading for the right before a jury of his country- men, and the other while arguing a cause before a bench of judges. Lincoln was a man whose sym- pathies were with the people and the oppressed of his race ; Stanton was a Democrat who believed in domestic slavery, not on principle, but as an evil which should receive the protection of the law because it was sanctioned by the Constitution of the country. One was kind, simple, and the most un- ostentatious of men, the other reserved, exacting and terribly in earnest. Lincoln, like Washington, conquered all opposition, not by his abilities alone, but also through the confidence which the people had in his honesty and love for his fellow-men, which made him, when once known, venerated and obeyed everywhere. Stanton, more like Cato, reached his high station through his great intellect, severe virtues and influence over men, acquired by power and superiority alonc. Constitutionally, socially and politically, Lincoln and Stanton stood upon opposite shores. The more gentle heart and feelings of the former were hurt and offended by the severe bearing of the latter, and he found him- self compelled to withdraw from the Manney- McCormick suit. It is stated that when Mr. Lin- coln reached homc he said that he had ' never been so brutally treated as by that man Stanton.'"
It had chanced that at different times Mr. Stanton had been engaged by Attorney-General Black to look after the interests of the Government in certain important actions at law, and as early as 1858 he was in California, acting as counsel for the United States in important land cases. So favorable was the opinion formed of his abilities, both by Attor- ney-General Black and President Buchanan, that upon the resignation, December 14, 1859, of Gen. Lewis Cass, Secretary of State, and the promotion of Jeremiah S. Black to that office, Stanton was proffered the Attorney-Generalship, aud thus be- came a member of the Cabinet of James Buchanan. The fact that Stanton had always been a Democrat caused his advent into the Cabinet to be hailed by Floyd, Howell Cobb and the rest, as a gain for their side, but they were very soon to be undeceived in regard to this. When South Carolina passed the ordinance of secession, December 20, 1860, Maj. Robert Audersou, of the United States army, was in command of the small garrison of the forts in
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Charleston Harbor. The men were quartered in Fort Moultrie, but on the night of December 26, the contemplated movement being entirely unsus- pected, Maj. Anderson transferred his garrison, ammunition and supplies to Fort Sumter. This act gave great offense to the friends of secession, and it transpired that John B. Floyd, Secretary of War, had promised the South Carolina authorities that no change detrimental to their movement should be made in Charleston Harbor. When the dispatches of Maj. Anderson, conveying the particulars of the change he had made, were received by the Presi- dent, he convened a Cabinet council. Referring to this meeting Mr. Stanton once said, "I shall never forget our coming together that night. Buchanan sat in his arm chair in a corner of the room as white as a sheet, with the stump of a cigar in his hand. The dispatches were laid before us, and so much violence ensued that he had to turn us all out of doors." Secretary Floyd, it is said, stormed at the President and urged him not only to order Maj. Anderson and his men back to Fort Moultrie, but also to withdraw the National troops from Charles- ton Harbor, and in these demands he was warmly supported by his associates, excepting Stanton. The latter listened to the propositions of his col- leagues until his patience gave way, when, excited by his feelings, he is said to have assailed them in the severest terms, characterizing their proposed action as cowardly and treasonable, and its propo- sition to the Chief Magistrate of the Nation as un- paralleled impudence. Floyd resigned the office of Secretary of War, and was succeeded by Joseph Holt, of Kentucky, Gen. John A. Dix becoming Secretary of the Treasury. Supported by these men Stanton did all in his power to uphold the honor of his country during the unexpired term of Buchanan's administration. For the first year of Abraham Lincoln's Presidency, Hon. Simon Cam- eron, of Pennsylvania, was Secretary of War, but he then retired, and on January 13, 1862, Mr. Lin- coln called his old associate and enemy to fill this important position, destined to become the most important in the gift of the Government. While some of the President's friends intimated that the impulsive manner and outspoken nature of Stanton were objectionable traits, Mr. Greeley says of him, in his work (" The American Conflict,") "The country hailed the new appointment as an auspicious augury." At the time of Mr. Stanton's accession to the War Department the success of the Union Army was more than problematic. There were too many political generals upon its rolls, some of whom were prone to assume responsibilities prop- erly belonging to the President, by jumping at con-
clusions upon Constitutional questions, involving such delicate questions as confiscation and emanci- pation, while others sought to ride into the White House upon the high wave of military fame and popularity. Stanton was entirely out of harmony with these classes of officers, and while he sup- ported to the utmost all those engaged earnestly and conscientiously in the discharge of their proper functions, he insisted upon every officer performing his own and his whole duty, but in no way interfer- ing with matters and duties not his. On January 10, 1862, the public situation was alarming. The conditions of our foreign relations were exceedingly delicate, there was unsatisfactory news from the armies in the West, the public credit was shaking, and to crown all, Gen. Mcclellan, who at this time was the main dependence of the Government, had been taken sick. Under these circumstances the President convened a meeting of general officers and members of the Cabinet for the purpose of con- sidering the state of the country. Gen. McDowell prepared a memorandum of the proceedings at this meeting from which the quaint method of President Lincoln in stating the case may properly be quoted : "The President said he was in great distress, and as he had been to Gen. Mcclellan's house and the General did not ask to see him, and as he must talk to somebody, he had to send for Gen. Franklin and myself (Gen. McDowell) to obtain our opinion as to the possibility of soon commencing active opera- tions with the Army of the Potomac. To use his own expression-If something was not soon done the bottom would be out of the whole affair, and if Gen. Mcclellan did not want to use the army, he would like to borrow it, provided he could see how it might be made to do something." This confer- ence was followed by another at which Gen. Mc- Clellan was present, when President Lincoln signi- fied in the fullest manner his entire confidence in the plans and intentions of the latter, and it was on this day that Stanton entered the Cabinet as Secre- tary of War. His advent was marked, within two weeks, by the first executive war order of Abraham Lincoln, believed to have been devised and promu- lated through the aggressive determination of Stan- ton, which gave to Mr. Lincoln the backbone that at this time he sorely needed. This " Order No. 1," dated January 27, 1862, set the 22d day of February following as the day for the general movement of the land and naval forces of the United States against the insurgents, and was followed by a sec- ond order to McClellan to advance on Richmond by way of Manassas Junction. In regard to this order Stanton afterwards gave way in response to a long letter from Mcclellan, who disapproved of the line
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