USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. II > Part 29
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were first opened under the new management, the yield was about twenty tons of clean dressed ore. Within two months Captain Eudey succeeded in raising the yield to one hundred tons. Shortly after this achievement the Lehigh Zinc Company offered for sale their entire interest in the mines in that section, and, acting under the advice of Captain Eudey, Messrs. Osgood & Co. became the pur- chasers, paying $144,000 for the property, plant and privileges, which originally cost three millions. A part of the purchase was the famous pump- ing engine designed by John West, which is the largest in the world. Having become the possess- ors of the magnificent property at Freidensville, Messrs. Osgood & Co., with a view to saving freight charges, then somewhat heavy, removed their works from Constable Hook to this place. Their entire interests, thus united under one head, were now known as the Freidensville Zinc Works, and consisted of the mines, the metal works and the oxide furnaces, the whole requiring the constant services of over three hundred em- ployees. Captain Eudey was placed over these works as General Superintendent and Manager, witlı entire control. The ore taken from these mines, which are amongst the largest in the world, is en- tirely free from lead, and according to the best ex- perts, is superior to any yet discovered in the world. The oxide makes a superior paint, and commands a large and steadily increasing market. The metal has been found unequalled for gun cartridges, its merit being in its great purity, which prevents the heating of guns, no matter how often fired, and it is in great request in foreign countries. It is now shipped to all parts of the world, the demand being continuous and without precedent. Nearly all the zinc used in the Imperial arsenals at St Petersburg, Russia, is shipped from these mines. Captain Eudey is himself the owner of a valuable tract of mining lands, consisting of nearly eight hundred acres in Greensboro, North Carolina. His scientif- ic attainments, long experience and the importance of the trusts confided to his management and super- vision, rank him with the ablest mining engineers and experts of the century. His long and useful life, now extending beyond "three score and ten," has been exceptionally active and laborious, as well as prolific in beneficent results to the departments wherein his efforts have been directed. He is a man of wide reading and most agreeable social qualities ; and is a great favorite with the large force of men operating under him. He married, in 1843, Miss Mary C. Dinges, of Woodstock, Virginia, and has five children living-two sons and three daughters. He lost one of his sons in the early part of the war.
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CONTEMPORARY BIOGRAPHY OF PENNSYLVANIA.
ANDREW A. LAMBING.
REV. ANDREW ARNOLD LAMBING, LL.D., Roman Catholic priest and author, was born at Man- orville, Armstrong County, Pennsylvania, February 1, 1842. Heis descended from Christopher Lambing, the founder of the family in America, the son of an Alsacian, an officer in the French army, who resided in the vicinity of Strasbourg and owned extensive vineyards. Christopher married and em- igrated to America, (as nearly as can be ascertained, about the year 1745,) which so displeased his father, that he would hold no correspondence with him, and all direct connection with the family in the Old World was consequently lost. He first settled in New Jersey north of Trenton ; but prior to the breaking out of the War of the Revolution, he crossed over into Pennsylvania, and made his home in Nocka- mixon Township, Bucks County, where he appears to have resided during the rest of his life, and where his wife died. On the 9th of May, 1766, he married, as his second wife, Anne Mary Nauuer, in the church of the Old German Catholic Settlement of Goshenhop- pen,-now Bally,-Berks County. His second son and child by this union was Matthew, who was born April 12, 1776. As the family grew up some of the sons drift- ed to the southwest, and before the close of the last century at least two of them made their home, in Adams County. One of the sons by the first wife was a soldier of the Revolutionary War. Here, in 1798, Matthew, who had learned the tailor trade, was married to Magdalene Kohl, a daughter of Michael Kohl, who appears to have emigrated from Berlin, Prussia, but at what precise date is not known, and who died in Adams County, at the age of ninety-four
years. Christopher Lambing died about the year 1819, at the advanced age of ninety-nine years and two days, having walked two miles to a funeral and back on the day of his death. Michael Anthony Lambing, the father of the subject of this notice, the third son and fourth child of Matthew, was born at
New Oxford, Adams County, October 10, 1806. His parents came to Armstrong County, in September, 1823, and made their home near the north bank of the Kiskiminetas river about fifteen miles from its mouth, where Michael learned the shoemaker trade, which he followed with little interruption during his whole life. In the fall of 1830, the family came to reside on the east bank of the Allegheny river, two miles below Kittanning, the site of the present village of Manorville, where, with the exception of a few years spent on farms, Michael passed the remainder of his life. And here Matthew died April 2, 1851, and his wife December 27 of the same year. On December 1, 1837, Michael married Anne Shields, the
sixth child of William Casper and Mary Shields (neé Ruffner), born July 4, 1814. William C. Shields was descended from Thomas Shields who married a Miss O'Neill in County Donegal, Ircland, and emigrated to this country about or before 1750, and after some time settled in Amberson's valley, Franklin County, Pennsylvania. They had three children, and their only son John married Mary Easly, about the year 1771, and lived with or near his father. William, the eldest son of this union, was born in 1773. On reach- ing the years of manhood he came to the vicinity of Greensburg, Westmoreland County, with a brother of his mother, with whom he learned the wagon- maker trade. On the 24th of May, 1805, he married Anne Mary Ruffner, born at Blue Mountain, Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, October 12, 1780,-a marriage which was blessed with nine children. She was the daughter of Simon Ruffner, whose parents emigra- ted in his childhood from the Austrian Tyrol, about 1760, and soon after settled in eastern Pennsylvania. They, like the Lambings, Shields, and Kohls, were members of the Catholic Church. Simon was mar- ried January 9, 1771, to Catharine Griffin, who was descended of Irish parents, and who came to Amer- ica in her girlhood. Simon Ruffner, with two of his brothers and threc other Catholic families, came over the mountains to Westmoreland County in the fall of 1787, and settled in the neighborhood of where St. Vincent's Abbey now stands; and two years later they purchased the property in Greens- burg on which the Catholic church is erected, which is the first property acquired by that body in western Pennsylvania. Michael A. Lambing was the father of nine children-five sons and four daughters-of whom the subject of this sketch was the third son and child. He was a man of extraordinary good health, and from his twenty-fifth to his seventy-fifth year was never confined to his bed for three success- ive days by sickness. A still more remarkable circumstance is, that the four oldest members of his family were living when he, the youngest of them, was past eighty. He died at Manorville, December 8, 1886, at the age of eighty years and two months ; his wife having died July 6, 1880, at the age of sixty-six. Both were remarkable through life for their tender and consistent piety, and for the care they bestowed on the education and training of their family. Three of their sons fought in the War of the Rebellion, one losing his life and another being disabled; the other two sons are priests ; and one of their daughters is a Sister of Charity. Trained in
the school of rigid poverty, Andrew began work on a farm before he was eight years old, and in a few years found employment in public works, spending more than six years in fire-brickyards, with three
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or four months in the public schools in winter, and two years in an oil refinery, a considerable part of which time he worked fifteen hours a day, beginning at three o'clock in the afternoon and quitting at six in the morning. Regularity of habits added to a naturally strong frame,-for he is six feet tall and weighs two hundred pounds-developed great physical strength, so that at twenty years of age he could perform feats of strength which very few of the strongest men are equal to. At the age of twenty-one he entered St. Michael's Preparatory and Theological Seminary, Glenwood, Pittsburgh, where he made his course in the classics and thicology, rising frequently at three o'clock in the morning to pursue his studies. He was also obliged to work during the vacations to earn the means to enable him to continue his course. The late Bishop Domenec ordained him to the sacred ministry, in the Seminary Chapel, August 4, 1869. He was first sent as pro- fessor to St. Francis College, Loretto, Cambria County, Pennsylvania, where he taught during the remainder of that year, assisting the pastor of the church on Sundays, and also ministering occa- sionally to the little congregation of St. Joseph's, Williamsburg, Blair County. In the beginning of the following year he was appointed Pastor of St. Patrick's congregation, Cameron Bottom, Indiana County, whence he was transferred in April to Kittanning, and placed in charge of St. Mary's Church and its numerous dependencies. While there he built a church, in 1872, on the west side of the river for the accommodation of those residing in that part of the county. From Kittanning he was sent to Freeport, in January, 1873, but remained only six months, when he was appointed Chaplain of St. Paul's Orphan Asylum, Pittsburgh, with a view of bettering the financial condition of the institution. But the crisis of that year destroyed all such hopes for the present, and in January, 1874, he was named Pastor of St. Mary of Mercy's church, at the Point, in the same city. While there he placed the schools under the care of the Sisters of Mercy, purchased and remodeled a Protesant church for the con- gregation, built a pastoral residence, and erected an altar dedicated to Our Lady of the Assumption at the Beautiful River, as a memorial of the one under that title which stood in Fort Duquesne at the Point in the middle of the last century. Having ministered to this congregation till October, 1885, he assumed pastoral charge of St. James' Church, Wilkinsburg, where he still remains. In the fall of
1886 he opened a parochial school for the first time in the congregation, which he placed in charge of the Sisters of Charity; and in the summer of 1888 enlarged the church for the accommodation of the
growing congregation. But the building with all it contained was unfortunately destroyed by fire during . the night of the 23d-24th of December of the same year. Nothing daunted, he fitted up the school so as to serve its own purpose and that of a temporary chapel; and occupied it on Christmas eve, while the smoke was still rising from the ruins of the burning edifice. With the opening of spring a new church and school building was commenced, which was occupied before the close of the year. Rev. Mr. Lambing is the author of "The Orphan's Friend," (1875), "The Sunday-School Teacher's Manual," (1877), "A History of the Catholic Church in the Dioceses of Pittsburgh and Allegheny," (1880), "The Register of Fort Duquesne, Translated from the French, with an Introductory Essay and Notes," (1885); besides the following pamphlets: "Mixed Marriages; their Origin and their Results," (1873), "An Essay on Masses for the Dead, and the Motives for Having them Celebrated," (1881), "A Series of Plain Sermons on Mixed Marriages," (1882), "Mary's First Shrine in the Wilderness," (1882). He was also employed by the firm of A. Warner and Co., of Chicago, to write a considerable part of the "History of Allegheny County, Pennsylvania," in 1888 ; and in the same year, he, assisted by Hon. J. W. F. White, of the Allegheny County bench, wrote the "Centennial History of Allegheny County," for the Centennial celebration, at which he also read a lengthy sketch of the County's history. In the summer of 1884, he started the "Catholic Historical Researches," a quarterly magazine, and the first of its kind, devoted to the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. It was afterward transferred to a Philadelphia publisher, by whom it is continued. In 1885 he procured from the Archives of the Marine, in Paris, a copy of the Journal kept by Celeron during his expedition down the Allegheny and Ohio rivers in 1749. This, the second copy ever brought to the United States, he translated and pub- lished with notes in the "Researches." He is a regular contributor to several religious and historical periodicals, and has collected a library rich in early American history. The ruling passion of his life
has been a love for reading, especially history and biography ; and in his earlier years, when books were scarce where he lived, and his parents were too poor to purchase any, he was accustomed to bor- row such as he could, and for want of a better light to read them by in the evenings, the only time at his command, he would gather pieces of dry wood with which to feed the fire, while he sat by it to pursue his favorite study. He has inherited the health of his fathers ; for, though more than twenty years on the mission, he has not been off duty a single day on
James Jasey
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account of ill health. In June, 1886, the University of Notre Dame, Indiana, conferred on him the de- gree of Doctor of Laws.
JAMES CASEY.
JAMES CASEY, of Erie, widely known both in the United States and Canada for his extensive contracts and distinguished success as a railroad builder, was born in County Cork, Ireland, Decem- ber 24, 1814, and died at his home in Erie, Pennsyl- vania, June 3, 1886, in the seventy-second year of his age. Mr. Casey was a splendid illustration of the power of natural abilitics to conquer adverse circumstances. His parents, who do not appear to have been very liberally endowed with the world's goods, emigrated to America when he was still a mere boy, and settled in Canada West, near Toronto. The opportunities for obtaining an education in Canada at that early day were meagre, to say the least, and boys of humble parentage were not ex- pected to waste much of their time over school- books. To earn their own living was the goal which boys of ambition kept in view, and James Casey was no exception. At an age when, in a more favored locality or under more favoring circum- stances, he would have been occupied in employing his knowledge of the rudiments to unlock the higher mysteries of education, he was engaged in wrestling with the forces of nature-figuratively speaking- hewing wood and drawing water for his livelihood and as a means of helping his worthy parents. Al- though his tasks were laborious and his application persistent, neither sufficed to conquer the spirit of the lad, who had not only robust health but quick wit and a cheerful disposition. He pondered as he wrought ; and after, at twenty-one, marrying one of his charming young countrywomen who lived in the neighborhood, he settled down to life as a rail- road contractor,-an avenue in which he seems to have discerned, even thus early, the turning that leads to fortune. Although by no means a man of education as the term is understood in these later times, he possessed a marvelous facility in figuring, and few of his contemporaries and associates could equal him in making estimates for contract work. This was doubtless at the bottom of his suc- cess. Passing rapidly from small to large con- tracts, Mr. Casey soon became a prominent operator in his chosen field of effort. In Canada he worked first for a time on the Grand Trunk Railway and then superintended the entire construction of the
Canada Southern Railroad. Successful in securing contracts in " the States " he crossed the border and did substantial work building portions of the New York and Erie, Buffalo and Erie, Philadelphia and Erie, Erie and Pittsburgh, and Oil Creek railroads, and graded and finished the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific road from Newton to Omaha or Council Bluffs. With the completion of the work last named he closed his career as a railway contractor, and re- tired with a comfortable fortunc and a fine reputa- tion as the result of his years of indefatigable toil. He had always considered the city of Erie as his home, and when he retired from railway building he returned to that place, and settled down as a per- manent resident. Investing his means largely in real estate, he improved the property he purchased to such an extent as to make adjoining property rapidly increase in value, by this means contribu- ting still further towards enhancing the value of his own purchases. He was a man of strict probity, progressive views, and generous impulses, and his life was marked by many acts which betokened a whole-soulcd nature and an under-current of feeling and sympathy not always found in employers of large numbers of mcn. He was a man of profound religious convictions and a professing member of the Roman Catholic Church, in the faith of which he was nurtured by his virtuous parents, and in which he lived and died, respected by all for his honorable and useful life, and his manly traits of character, and a credit both to his nationality and his creed. After the death of his esteemcd wife, which oc- curred May 3, 1884, he gave up all active business, but maintained his interest in local affairs down al- most to the date of his own death, which took place, as previously stated, a little over two years later. His family consisted of seven children, five of whom survive him and, with one exception, reside in Erie, where they are all highly respected. The very Reverend Thomas A. Casey, V. G. Rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral, Erie, is the seventh child of James Casey, deceased, whose biography is given above, and was born at St. Catharines, Ontario, Jan- uary 1, 1846. He was educated at the Roman Catho- lic College at Niagara Falls, where he graduated in his twenty-second year. In 1869 he was ordained to the priesthood and immediately appointed to a charge, where he remained until 1873, when he was promoted to the distinguished position of Rector of St. Patrick's Cathedral at Erie, and also honored with the appointment of Vicar-General of the Dio- cese. The eighth child of James Casey, and sister of the Very Reverend Thomas A. Casey, V. G., also adopted a religious life and is known in the Order of Mercy as Sister Mary Inez.
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WILLIAM T. HILDRUP.
WILLIAM THOMAS HILDRUP, Treasurer and General Manager of the Harrisburg Car Works and its associate industries, and widely known as one of the most enterprising and energetic ear builders of America, is of New England ancestry and birth, and a brilliant illustration of the grit, push and genius which, while not the exclusive prerogatives of the people of that section, have al- ways been recognized as among their chief eharae- teristies. The son of Jesse Hildrup of Hartford, Connecticut,-an industrious and worthy farmer and mechanic, -and himself a native of Middletown in the same State, where he was born February 6, 1822, the subject of this sketeh began life with good health, strong moral principles, plenty of common sense, an education limited to the branches taught in the distriet schools, but specially strong in the department of mathematies, and an unlimited amount of latent energy. By the time he was nine- teen years of age he had mastered the carpenters' trade and was rated as an excellent mechanie. At this period being possessed, in addition to his skill, of a good but plain set of tools and twenty-five dollars in money, he secured the gift of his " time" from his father and at once set out to make his own way in the world. With the restlessness of his race he sought occupation and profit at a dis- tanee from home, proceeding first to Cape Vineent, Jefferson County, New York, where he worked at house and ship carpentering for a period of two years, and thence to Woreester, Massachusetts, where he found employment in the ear works of Messrs. Bradley & Rice. In this latter place he soon became noted for his industry and skill, for he had the keenness of perception to comprehend the future growth of this infant industry aud the good sense to resolve to master it in all its details, find- ing it congenial and having determined to adopt it as his life work. The better to obtain a mastery of his chosen occupation he applied himself diligently to the study of mechanies. In 1852, after having worked faithfully for nine years in the ear works of Brad- ley & Rice and thoroughly mastered the business in every department, he concluded that the time had arrived for him to assume greater responsibili- ties and seek larger profits. Accordingly he re- moved to Elmira, New York, and established there a car-wheel foundry and machine shop, of which he was the sole proprietor. Although, when he eon- ceived this projeet it seemed to be oue from which nothing could swerve him, a circumstance occurred which, while it did not change the line of his effort, had the effect of materially altering all his plans
within a very short time. While on his way to Elmira he made the acquaintance on the train of a prominent citizen of Harrisburg. This gentleman learning of Mr. Hildrup's intentions, acquainted him with the decided advantages Harrisburg pos- sessed as a car-building eenter. His remarks had great weight with Mr. Hildrup, but the Elmira projeet was too far advanced to be abandoned witli- out at least a trial. A year later Mr. Hildrup was indueed to visit Harrisburg at the solicitation of several of its citizens, with a view to establishing the car-building industry at that place. The ad- vantages, natural and otherwise, were too great to be neglected ; and Mr. Hildrup, consenting to take up the enterprise, organized the Harrisburg Car Manufacturing Company, the capital stock of which was placed at twenty-five thousand dollars. Over the works, which then had a capacity of nine eight- wheeled ears weekly, Mr. Hildrup, who was also a stockholder, was installed as Manager and General Superintendent, a position he has ever since held, of late years adding to his duties those of Treasurer of the company. In 1862 the resources of the works were so heavily taxed to meet the de- mands made upon them that the stockholders re- solved to increase the capital, and a complete reorganization was effected, the capital being raised to seventy-five thousand dollars, which was made up from the money originally paid in, to- gether with unexpended earnings. Two years later the capital stoek was still further increased, and four years after that it was raised to twelvefold the sum originally invested, all of which was supplied from the earnings of the company, this too, without interfering with the payment from time to time of liberal dividends on the stock. At the end of fif- teen years the modest establishment, founded in 1853, had grown to a large and profitable enterprise, requiring the constant labor of a thousand skilled workmen and calling into operation, outside of the regular works, a saw-mill, a planing-mill and a ma- chine shop, all the property of the parent under- taking. In the great work of developing and carrying forward this gigautie business Mr. Hildrup was ably advised and assisted by the late Mr. Wil- liam Calder, the first President of the company, whose views and wishes coincided so completely with those of his skilled and experienced colleague in the management, that the progress of the enter- prise was most harmonious from its very inception. One of the great problems which confronted Mr. Hildrup in the earlier stages of the enterprise was lack of skilled labor at Harrisburg. To solve this problem, a most vital one, he set himself to work as a teacher. Master of every detail of the business,
10.3.86 ldrup
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and skilled in practice as well as versed in theory, he took his place among the workmen in the shops, and personally inducted the crude material at hand into the mysteries of the trade. To prepare the younger men inore fully for their labors he estab- lished free schools of instruction in free-hand and mechanical drawing, which were well attended during the winter evenings. By these and similiar methods he greatly improved the skill and efficiency of his corps of employees and rendered them capa- ble in their turn of instructing and directing others. Assiduous in caring for the interests and well being of all the workmen under him, he earned and re- tained easily their regard and good will. Among other advantages resulting from his wisdom and forethought in their behalf, was that of enabling them to procure the chief necessities of life at a rate somewhat below the usual one, which was accomplished by making it for the interest of sub- stantial firms to supply these articles in quantity at proportionately lower prices. By continual and sincere acts of unselfishness and kindness he en- deared himself to his assistants through all grades down to the very humblest laborer, and a beautiful and touching evidence of their real affection for him was afforded by his being made the recipient, at their hands, on his fifty-first birthday, of a mas- sive silver tea service procured at a cost of twelve hundred and fifty dollars. A previous incident having taught the employees that this gift would have been firmly but respectfully declined were knowledge of the intention to present it to come to him, it was prepared with the utmost secrecy. When it was presented there was nothing to do but to receive it in the same kindly spirit in which it was tendered. The incident referred to is here mentioned since it affords a true insight into the character of the man. At the second annual meet- ing of the company, so great was the satisfaction of the stockholders with the success of the enterprise, that the proposition was then made to present the manager with a silver service at a cost of six hun- dred and fifty dollars. " He, on his part, having his sympathies frequently enlisted by sickness among his men or their families, instead of receiv- ing such testimonial, requested that he be allowed to distribute among the men as need required, from the company's funds, an equivalent sum ; which was kindly granted, and from that time forward it has been his policy never to let his employees suffer in sickness, of themselves or their families, often- times burying their dead, helping them by advances in slack work, to be worked out in more prosperous times, to which obligation the men have been uni- formly faithful, and in case of injury about the
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