USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. II > Part 36
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" We are now free to admit that in his adminis- tration of justice he has surprised both friend and foe, those who supported as well as those who op- posed him. In brief, wc say, Judge Cummin pos- sesses all the qualifications necessary to make as fair, upright and intelligent a judge as any of the learned jurists who have graced the bench of the Supreme Court of the Keystone State."
Judge Cummin was an indefatigable worker. His achievements in this respect, particularly while holding official position, were extraordinary. It is undoubtedly true that his method of dealing with criminals had the effect of diminishing crime and reducing the number of cases in the Criminal Court ; but it was nevertheless a matter of wonder that in a county containing a population of fifty thonsand persons, the business of this court could be transacted in such short terms. Although not a member of any temperance society, Judge Cummin was a consistent temperance man and did a great deal to advance the cause. He was likewise active
in supporting every movement having for its object the improvement and welfare of the public. Hc was a comrade of Reno Post, No. 64, Grand Army of the Republic. In social circles he was a great favorite, his naturc being genial and his disposition kindly. Since leaving the bench he had devoted himself to professional labors and was in the enjoy- ment of a large and lucrative practice in the city of his adoption. Ile was respected, beloved and honored in a wide circle, and his strict integrity aud honest purpose and aim in life were fit cx- amples for those with whom he was thrown in daily contact, whether socially or professionally. In per- son he was a man of striking and prepossessing ap- pearance, being nearly six feet in height, and built in proportiou. His countenance was pleasing and his manners most agreeable. For one who held judicial office he was still young in years, and his future appeared rich with promise of usefulness and honor. In June, 1869, he married Charlotte, the eldest daughter of John Whitc, Esq., of Williams- port, Pennsylvania. Of the two children born to this marriage, one snrvives, a son, John White Cummin, now a student at Harvard University. The history of Judge Cummin would comprise an entire volume replete with interest to every young man in the land struggling for honor and anxious to have a place in the memory and the affections of his fel- lows. He began life with no fortune but his honor and an ardent desire for knowledge, and glowing with the enthusiasm peculiar to the race from which he came, he started out to shape his own destiny; and neither the plaudits of approving multitudes or the flattery of the rich and powerful made him for a moment forget the efforts of his yonng life, or hesitate to aid those who aimed to at- tain any distinction that a landable ambition might warrant. The grief of the stricken wife and mother can find some relief that he, whom she adored, lives in his posterity, and that she can trace in her only son the virtues that made his father truly grand. From the day that Jndge Cummin was admitted to the bar to the hour that he passed onward, clothed with immortality, to reap the rich reward of well doing, he was a living les- son to all men striving for eminence, and an exam- ple of the possibilities that lie in the pathway of those who have the courage and character to pur- sue only the right. His fellow citizens were swift to recognize his native dignity, his qnick percep- tion, his rapid conclusions, his broad views, his genial nature, his wit, sarcasm and logic, all yield- ing iustant obedience to an exalted sense of houor, and without regard to party the people put upon him the judicial ermine that was never sullied dur-
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ing his official life. He administered the law with fearless honesty, and before its majesty crime di- minished and criminals fled ; but great as had been his achievements at the bar and upon the bench, the opportunity was yet to offer for him to exhibit the highest style of genuine manhood, and develop the most sublime elements of human character. When the terrible visitation of Providence swept like a destroying angel over our State, and terror, desolation, suffering and death stared the multi- tudes in the face, Judge Cummin grasped the situa- tion in a moment and was foremost to organize a system of relief for the sorrowing, and without re- gard to business, cost, or personal comfort, with kind words, a cheerful heart and willing hands, he was found among the poor and the unfortunate, aiding the impoverished, cheering the despondent, meeting want and soothing the agonies of despair. His prompt and efficient services in his own city at- tracted attention everywhere, and the State au- thorities saw in him a man the best calculated of any to dispense the gifts of a generous people where death and destruction had directed their most cruel and relentless blows. Yielding obedi- ence to the Governor and the popular will, he pushed aside every obligation of a personal nature, and with no reward in view except a desire to miti- gate human misery, he repaired to Johnstown upon a mission of mercy and an errand of love, to meet martyrdom and death. It can surely be said of him that " he laid down his life for others " and no grander tribute can be paid to man. While anxious and loving friends were beside his couch anticipa- ting his wants and ministering to his necessities, multitudes who never saw him, but who had learned to love him for his philanthropy and self- sacrifice, were filled with deep and inexpressible concern, and from generous and grateful hearts prayers without number were ascending like a cloud for his restoration. When at last he was summoned to the great tribunal to render a final account of his stewardship, and listen with delight to the Judge he loved to honor, as from his lips was sure to fall the golden words, "I was an hungered and ye gave me meat, sick and ye visited me," tears and sorrow were the common lot of all ; busi- ness men felt the loss and with one accord closed their books, laid aside their ledgers and hastened to the Council Chamber to put on record their esti- mate of his priceless character, and send to his be- reaved relatives words of loving kindness. Mem- bers of the bar he had so long honored came to- gether, all anxious to do honor to his memory, to make mention of his brilliant career, his dignity and unswerving justice upon the bench, his fidelity
and ability at the bar, his genial spirit as a friend, his generosity as a man, his progressive views as a citizen, and the glorious legacy of a well-spent life that he had left behind him. The church of which he was an honored member and an ornament, real- ized his value, and on bended knees before the altar, amid tears and anguish, kissed the rod that smote them and implored their Great Head to teach them from his life lessons of temporal and eternal value. In every circle Judge Cummin's presence was the center of attraction. His courtly manners, his innocent humor, his vast resources, his ready wit, his inflexible honesty, his generous nature, his unbounded charity and his ardent friendship could not fail to bring around those who admired exalted manhood. Heroes, legislators, orators and states- men may have monuments of granite erected to their memories, which cannot think or feel or speak ; it was left for Judge Cummin to enthrone himself in human hearts, and in that sacred and hallowed precinct will ever remain the memory of the " just Judge."
HENRY C. PARSONS.
HON. HENRY C. PARSONS, a leading lawyer of Williamsport, ex-Mayor of that city, and Presi- dent of the West Branch National Bank, was born at Jersey Shore, Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, February 10, 1834. He comes from an old and highly respected New England family, dating back to the early settlement of the country, of which many members have attained to distinguished prominence in the States that gave them birth, and many more to cminence in other States to which, obeying the colonizing instinct of their race, they removed in quest of opportunity and fortune. One of these latter was Judge Anem V. Parsons, the father of the subject of this sketch. Born at Gran- ville, Massachusetts, at the beginning of the present century, he chose the profession of the law, and after graduating at the Litchfield Law School (Con- necticut) then under the Presidency of Judge Gould, was admitted to the bar in 1828 and imme- diately began to practice at Jersey Shore, Pennsyl- vania. He was subsequently State Senator, Secre- tary of the Commonwealth during the administra- tion of Governor David R. Porter, President-Judge of the Judicial District of Pennsylvania composed of Dauphin, Lebanon and Schuylkill Counties, and finally Associate Judge of the Court of Common Pleas in the city of Philadelphia, where he died in 1883. When Henry C. Parsons, the subject of this
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sketch, was a month or two old his parents removed from Jersey Shore to Williamsport, and at the ex- cellent high school there he was prepared for col- lege. In 1851 he entered the sophomore class of Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island, and was graduated in 1854. ITis inherited tastes as well as his opportunities led him to embrace the profes- sion of law, and after a thorough course of study in the office of his father, then practicing at Philadel- phia, he was admitted to the bar in the spring of 1857. Returning to his old home at Williamsport in the fall of the same year, he opened a law office, began the practice of his profession, and was soon contending for success with the ablest of his col- leagues at the bar. When the State of Pennsylvania sent its brave contingent of troops to the defense of the Union in 1861, Mr. Parsons promptly took his place in line and made the three months campaign, under Secretary Seward's call, as Sergeant in Com- pany A, Twelfthı Regiment, Pennsylvania Volun- teers. In 1864 he made a second campaign as Captain of Company B, One Hundred and Fifteenth Regi- ment, Pennsylvania Volunteers. In 1873-4 Mr. Par- sons was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania, an honor which he shared with the most distinguished legal talent of the State. In 1881 the consensns of public opinion pointed to him as a suitable candidate for the Mayoralty of Williamsport, and, being nominated on the Republican ticket, he received general support and was elected to the office by a very flattering majority. His administration covered the years 1882 and 1883, and was marked by its business-like conduct of the city's affairs and its perfect clean- ness. It terminated without even the suspicion of a taint of jobbery or corruption, and when Mayor Parsons left the chief magistracy of the city he car- ried with him the thanks and best wishes of his fellow-citizens without distinction of party. Mr. Parsons' law practice is both extensive and impor- tant and carries him into the courts of the United States as well as those of the city, county and State. His rank at the bar is with the foremost lawyers of northeastern Pennsylvania, and he has handled with rare skill and ability some of the most celebrated cases tried in the conrts in that section of the State. One of his prominent characteristics is his scrupulous honesty. He has the utmost con- tempt for small dealings. No apparent advantage can sway him for a moment from the straight- forward course he mapped out for himself in the beginning, and to which he has rigidly adhered throngh life. His integrity manifests itself in every affair in which he is concerned, and has earned him the highest respect from all who know him. Pos-
sessing the ripe culture which comes from a thor- ough education and years of careful reading and study, Mr. l'arsons is a charming conversationalist. To this accomplishment he adds the refined inan- ners born of good associations from earliest years. Ile is a warm friend and supporter of all that is elevating, morally and socially, and in his quiet, manly way, renders great assistance in every move- inent having as an object the welfare of his fellow- citizens. Since 1882 he lias been President of the West Branch National Bank of Williamsport, char- tered as a State bank in 1835, and as a National bank in 1865. He is also Vice-President of the Savings Institution of the City of Williamsport, and an active member in Reno Post, Grand Army of the Republic. He married, October 15, 1865, Miss Martha Hepburn, daughter of Dr. William Hep- burn, an esteemed physician of Williamsport. Their family consists of five children.
NATHAN G. PARKE.
REV. NATHAN GRIER PARKE, of Pittston, comes of a good old American stock, in which Scottish and English blood, with the Presbyterian- ism of the one and the Puritanism of the other, are very fairly mingled. He is in a double sense "a son of the manse," his mother having been a daughter of the Rev. Nathan Grier, for many years pastor of the Brandywine Manor Church, Chester Connty, and his father the Rev. Samuel Parke, pas- tor of Slateridge Church, in York County, Pennsyl- vania. His father's parsonage was a good school for a boy, and his training developed a vigorons, self-reliant character. He graduated from Jeffer- son College before he had completed his twentieth year; and four years later, in the spring of 1844, he received his diploma in theology from Princeton. Immediately after graduation Mr. Parke entered on his life work at Pittston, and under cir- cumstances which vividly illustrate the changes wrought during the last forty years. The church at Wilkes-Barre was then the center of Presbyterian influence in the Wyoming and Lackawanna valleys. North of the Susquehanna as far up as Carbondale, the "forest primeval," was almost unbroken. The Lackawanna poured its full flood of clear, limpid, trout-abounding waters along a channel over- shadowed with mighty pines and hemlocks, and through glades of grand old beeches and maples and oaks. A few scattered homesteads, with their patches of cultivated cornfield and meadow, dotted the wilderness. The old forge at Babylon was a
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sort of exchange, where the farmers for many miles around used to congregate for the transaction of business. Half a dozen families clustered on the hillside overlooking Slocum Hollow, with its sparse settlements of lumbermen. Scranton was not. Be- yond the flats of Capoose, on the edge of the moun- tains, the village of Providence nestled amid its leafy dells. The hunter, the trapper and the wood- man had the upper reaches of the Lackawanna all to themselves. A man of far-seeing penetration and true missionary spirit chanced to be forty years ago minister of Wilkes-Barre. Dr. John Dorrance cared for the scattered families away out in the wilderness, as well as for the flock safely houscd in the fold. He was like-minded with the Rev. Cyrus Gildersleeve, his predecessor in the charge of. Wilkes-Barre, who, as early as 1821, added to his other labors those of a teacher and evangelist in the cottages and hamlets along the Lackawanna. He foresaw the future of the valley, and unable per- sonally to supply the means of grace to the scat- tered settlers, he employed missionaries to labor among them under his direction. He was fortu- nate in the men whom he called to his aid. Most notable among those early Presbyterian evangelists was Father Hunt, a man altogether unique, who so lately as the winter of 1876, in a ripe old age, passed to his reward. One still survives, honorably retired from the ministry, the Rev. Charles Evans, of South Bend, Indiana. It was in a succession to Mr. Evans that Mr. Parke entered on his life work in the Lackawanna Valley. To a young man of high spirit and fresh from the seminary, there was little inviting in the position of evangelist among the Moosic mountains ; and possibly had the offer of a permanent appointment been presented to him, the young preacher might have declined it. But Mr. Dorrance made his proposal in the first instance to a college friend of Mr. Parke, who, being at the moment not free to accept the engagement, begged the future minister of Pittston to occupy that out- post until he himself should be ready to enter the field. Thus it came to pass that young Parke came to the valley as a substitute for onc for whom, by the time he was ready to enter personally on the ministry, Providence had given another and not less important field in the far northwest. John W. Sterling, whom Dr. Dorrance had designed to be his coadjutor in the gospel among the farmers and lumbermen of Lackawanna, has spent an active life and still works with unabated vigor as a lcad- ing educationalist in the State University of Wis- consin. Nathan Grier Parke, whom Sterling sent to Lackawanna as his locum tenens, remains there, holding the fort, with all the dew of his youth upon
| him, for Christ and His gospel. It was in the spring of 1844 that the young preacher left his father's manse at Slateridge, mounted on horse- back, and a ride of two hundred miles across mountain and forest, brought him after some days to Wilkes-Barre. There was little of the "dominie " in the young man's aspect. The toll-keeper at Wilkes-Barre bridge exacted his accustomed fare as he passed the receipt of custom, handsomely apolo- gizing afterward for the levy, on the ground that the rider did not look like a preacher. But the preacher learned to like the people among whom his lot had been thus cast, while the people took at the same time a strong liking for the preacher. Nor have well nigh forty years of mutual inter- course altered the estimate which each formed of the other. One hundred dollars a year, guaranteed by the Board of Home Missions, was the sole income of Mr. Parke on his entrance to the ministry. But Elisha Atherton had a prophet's chamber, in which for the space of thrce ycars the young minister was hospitably lodged, and the stout steed which had borne him from his father's manse shared with his master the best of the farmer's fodder. So, unbur- dened with anxiety as to what he should eat or what he should drink, or as to his raiment, what he should put on, with a true apostolic spirit he set himself to teach and to preach, journey- ing far and near, up the valley and across the mountains, ministering at cottage firesides and roadside schoolrooms at Pittson, then a straggling village; at Old Forge, the main commercial center of the region; at the hamlet of Taylorville; amid the swamps of Harrison, (as Scranton was then called), to the lumbermen of Hyde Parke, to the villages of Providence, and over the hills in Abing- ton and Newton. Father Hunt used to tell that two years of continuous itinerating in the same field brought him, in addition to his allowance from the mission board, a supplemental salary, from his scattered flock, in the shape of a finely dressed skunk's skin and several pairs of stockings. Mr. Parke fared better indeed during these early years of itineracy, but the utmost ever raised in aid of his salary left him still passing rich on less than two hundred dollars. All the same, with a light purse he bore about witli him a light heart. His bread was ever given him, and the pleasure of the Lord prospered in his hand. Three years passed of earnest, continuous, painstaking work, and now it became plain that Pittston must be the center of Mr. Parke's work. A substantial brick building, now used as a public school, situated near the head of the old canal, was erected and dedicated. Into this new church the congregation already gathered
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passed from the old red sehool-house close by, where they used to meet, and where, on the 7th of July, 1846, Mr. Parke was ordained. Here for eleven years the Presbyterian congregation of Pittston continued to worship, until the present edifice received the largely inercased floek which waited on his ministry. Scranton had developed its great proportions, and demanded all the care that a separate pastor eould bestow, and in due season, Pleasant Valley, away up in a wooded hol- low among the hills, began to attraet a large work- ing population of miners ; while the west side of the Susquehanna offered special indueements to the wealthy citizens of Pittston to seek a pleasant home amid its shades. In Scranton, Pleasant Valley and West Pittston thriving Presbyterian churches, under their several pastors, have been organized and es- tablished. But amid all changes, and in spite of these successive migrations from the original home, the church of Pittston holds its own, strong in num- bers and intelligence and Christian activities, while Mr. Parke stands facile princeps among his brethren, a true Presbyterian bishop by the will of man and none the less by the grace of God. In 1847 Mr. Parke was married to Miss Ann Elizabeth Gilder_ sleeve, -- a granddaughter of the old minister at Wilkes-Barre,-by whom he has had a family of seven children, of whom three sons and a daughter survive.
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THOMAS D. MESSLER.
THOMAS DOREMUS MESSLER, of Pittsburgh, Third Vice-President and Comptroller of the Penn- sylvania Company, was born at Somerville, New Jersey, May 9, 1833. He is the son of Rev. Abra- ham Messler, D.D., and Elma Doremus. His father was pastor of the First Reformed (Duteh) Church of Somerville from 1832 to 1879, a period of forty- seven years, and was greatly beloved by his people and well known and highly esteemed as a citizen of New Jersey. Besides the literary work incident to his pastoral labors, he was the author of a History of Somerset County, New Jersey, and many papers relating to the Hollanders in that State, and on sub- jects connected with the history and growth of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in America. Mr. Mes- sler's mother was the daughter of Cornelius T. and Eleanor (Mandeville) Doremus, and the sister of Thomas C. Doremus, now deceased, and formerly a well known and highly respected citizen of New York City. Both the Doremus and Mandeville families were of Holland cxtraction, the original
ancestors in this country having been emigrants from Holland, coming over about 1650, and settling in Passaic County, New Jersey, where many of their descendants still reside, respeetcd and es- teemed as good and influential citizens of the State. Giles Jansen de Mandeville, the ancestor in this country of the family of that name, was a Freneh Huguenot, and fled from Normandy to Holland as a refugee in the days of Roman Catholic persecution in France. From Holland he emigrated to Amcriea, in the same ship with the famous Governor Stuyve- sant, of the colony of New Amsterdam, now New York. He became the friend of De Mandeville, and aided him in many ways through his influence as Governor of the colony. The paternal grandmother .of Mr. Messler was Maria Stryker. She was also of Holland descent, her ancestor in America having been Jan Van Stryker, who emigrated to New York from Holland in 1652. He remained there a little more than a year, and then settled, in 1654, at what is now known as Flatbush, Long Island. He was a man of prominence and influence in secular and religious matters, and died in 1697, full of tlie honors which the early American colonies were able to bestow. Peter Stryker, born in 1708, his great-grandson, and great-grandfather of Maria Stryker, removed to Somerset County, New Jersey, in 1730. He was the progenitor of the New Jersey families of that name. The Strycker family is of remote antiquity in Holland, and has become very numerous and of extended influence in New York and New Jersey, where most of them now reside. Mr. Messler's own family is also of Holland origin. His aneestor, Teunis Thomasen Metsclaer, emi- grated from that country to New York in 1641. With him came Teunis Teunisen Metsclaer, his cousin. The latter settled on the manor lands of the Patroon Van Rensselaer, at what was known as Rennselaerwyck, near Albany, New York, and the site of old Fort Orange. He left many descendants who resided at or in the neighborhood of Bever- wyck, (the old Dutch name of Albany). After the third generation they assumed the name of Egberts, which was the maiden surname of the wife of Teu- nis Teunisen Metselaer, and which was borne by many of the children, grandchildren and great- grandchildren. Teunis Thomasen Metsclaer re- mained in New York City, from whence Johannes Metsclaer, his great-grandson, and great-great- grandfather of the subject of our sketch, born in 1694, removed to Franklin township, Somerset County, New Jersey, about 1720. From him are descended all the families of that name in New Jer- sey and elsewhere, the orthography having been gradually contraeted to its present form. Johannes
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Metsclaer was a man of decided character and deep religious convictions, and the records of the Reformed (Dutch) Church in New Brunswick, New Jersey, show him to have been an active and influ- ential member of that denomination. By reason of Mr. Messler's ancient lineage lie has been elected a member of the Holland Society of New York, a pre- requisite to membership in which is that a candi- date must, among other things, be able to trace his ancestry, in the direct male line, to a Hollander or the son of a Hollander, who was a resident of New York or one of the other American Colonies prior to 1675. This society, although comparatively re- cently organized (in 1885), now numbers about one thousand members, and is rapidly growing. Its object is to collect and preserve information re- specting the early history and settlement of the American Colonies by the Hollanders, and to pub- lish a memorial history relative to them, showing the part belonging to that element in the growth and development of American character, institu- tions and progress ; also to perpetuate the memory, and to foster and promote the principles and vir- tues of the Holland ancestry of its members, and to promote social intercourse among the latter. Mr. Messler received his early education at the Somer- ville Academy, where he was prepared for entering Rutgers College, but upon the eve of doing so he concluded he would prefer an active business career. Accordingly, in 1849, he entered the em- ploy of the wholesale dry goods firm of Doremus, Suydam & Nixon, in New York. He remained with them three years, and then, in 1852, connected himself with the service of the old New York & Erie Railroad Company, under the late William E. Warren, then Auditor of the company. This step determined his future career as a railroad officer and financier. He was rapidly promoted in that company's service until 1856, when he attracted the attention of Messrs. Moran Brothers, bankers, in New York. They were the representatives in that city of large foreign holdings in the stock and bonds of the company, also of the Pittsburgh, Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Company, then recently orga- nized by the consolidation of the Ohio & Pennsyl- vania, Ohio & Indiana, and Fort Wayne & Chicago Railroad Companies. Mr. Messler was induced by Moran Brothers to accept the position of Secretary and Auditor of the consolidated company. He was then only a little more than twenty-three years of age. On entering upon the duties of his office he found the accounts of the company in a most chaotic condition, and little or no system in the method of keeping them, or in their relation to the different officers and agents of the corporation.
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