USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of contemporary biography of Pennsylvania, Vol. II > Part 38
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" Resolved. That, in aceepting the resignation of Mr. John S. Wilson as General Freight Traffic Agent, the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company desire to express their sincere regret at the termination of his connection with the service of the company, and their high appreciation of the ability and fidelity with which he has performed the important funetions entrusted to him."
In December, 1888, Mr. Wilson was elected Presi- dent of the Poughkeepsie Bridge Company and af- filiated roads. The principal parties interested in this great project were Philadelphians, who being fully acquainted with Mr. Wilson's capabilities and success, earnestly desired him to accept this position, which they formally offered to him some time pre- viously. Under Mr. Wilson's clear-headed and vigorous leadership a consolidation of interests was speedily effected and a new corporation formed un- der the title of the Central New England and Wcs- tern Railroad, which controls the Bridge Railroad and its immediate approaches. To the development of this gigantic undertaking, which is destined to largely affect the transportation interests of the
country, and which can scarcely fail to prove of great benefit to the populous and industrious section lying east of the Hudson River, Mr. Wilson is now devoting his best talents and cnergics. That he is the man to bring success out of the undertaking no one at all conversant with railroad management can entertain the slighest doubt. The task as originally assumed was one requiring the greatest astuteness of intellect, since it was desirable to effect and establish satisfactory traffic arrangements with all the railroads which approach the bridge line, and at the same time necessary to avoid entangling alliances with any of them. These arrangements were hap- pily effected, and the enterprise is now operated on a basis which leaves no question as to its future prosperity. Every indication at present points to the new line as one destined to become in a few years one of the great railroad highways of the country. Mr. Wilson's long experience in railroad work, his intimate knowledge of the relations of the different systems of the country with each other, his excellent judgment, and, perhaps as much as anything else, his marvelous tenacity in following out and finishing any enterprise or innovation at- tempted, entitle him to recognition as one of the foremost railroad officers of the present day. His active and successful life has earned him wide respect among the master business men of the coun- try, and has brought to his new enterprise the con- fidence of the general public. In social life he is a great favorite, esteemed and beloved for his gener- osity and kindness of heart and honored for his pure character and agreeable ways. He has a mar- vellous gift of conversation and as a story-teller has few superiors. Since he has assumed the duties of the Presidency of the Poughkeepsie Bridge Com- pany and the Central New England and Western Railroad Company, his office has been in New York City, where he has a general acquaintance with the leading railroad and business men, by all of whom lie is deemed a valuable accession. Mr. Wilson married, in 1873, Miss Kate D. Hemphill, a niece of Judge Hemphill, whose former country seat, near Strawberry Mansion in East Fairmount Park, re- nowned in former days for its generous hospitality, is still a well-known and respected landmark of the earlier social life of Philadelphia.
JAMES E. EMERSON.
JAMES E. EMERSON, of Beaver Falls, President of the Emerson Saw Works, and also of the Midgley Wire Belt Company at that place, and inventor of the inserted-tooth saw, was born at Norridgewock,
R.G. Omenos
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Maine, November 2, 1823. He is descended in the | year had extended his operations to San Francisco. fourth generation from the Rev. Ezekiel Emerson, A favorable opportunity to dispose of his business to advantage was embraced in 1859, and with quite a fortune as the result of his California experience he returned to the Atlantic coast and established himself as a manufacturer at Trenton, New Jersey. During the Civil War he had large contracts from the United States Government for the manufacture of cavalry sabres, no less than one hundred thou- sand of these weapons being produced at his facto- ries. He also manufactured a fine grade of officers' swords, for which there was a large demand. In 1866 he organized the American Saw Company of Trenton, of which he was the first President. This company is still in active operation at Trenton. In 1869 he sought rest and recreation by an extended tour of Europe, to which he devoted seven months. On his return to America he chose Beaver Falls as his place of residence, and established there the company of which he is the head. These works were started with just twenty-two thousand dollars, and weut through the great panic of 1873 carrying thirty-six thousand dollars of indebtedness, every dollar of which was paid by the earnings of the works the first year after the panic subsided. The works are now worth more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars and clear of all incumbrance, and are the second largest saw works in the world. Mr. Emerson is also President of the Midgley Wire Belt Company of Beaver Falls, and was the origi- nator of this particular method of making wire belting or hose-Mr. Midgley being the principal inventor of all the machinery and methods of pro- ducing it. They have large works for its produc- tion and it is now patented all over the world. Mr. Emerson is a true type of the New England business-man. Gifted with high natural intelli- gence, an instinctive grasp of business affairs, iu- veutive genius, enterprise and energy, and last but not least the power of adaptability, he has con- quered fortune by resolute application, and to-day enjoys the legitimate fruit of his brains and indus- try. He has a great fund of shrewdness, is quick to perceive the merits of an invention or an enter- prise, and ready to extend the necessary financial aid to such projects as are commended by his clear judgment. He is also public-spirited and patriotic, and gladly lends his approval or assistance to what- ever has a tendency to advance the welfare of the people or locality with whom or which he is identified. In manner he is genial and whole- souled, and never takes undue credit for any deed, however meritorious. He is a man of the strictest morality and integrity and the possessor of a very high order of business qualificatious. Those who a Congregational clergyman of the town of Nor- ridgewock, whose piety and learning gave him great influence among his people. The eldest son of this clergyman, and the bearer of his venerated name, was the grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He was born at Norridgewock and at an early age married Mary Chadwick, the daughter of a respected resident of that town. This marriage was blessed by three sons and three daughters. The eldest of these, who also bore the name of Eze- kiel and was a native of Norridgewock, was the father of Mr. Emerson. Left fatherless at the ten- der age of eight years, he was brought up under the care of a pious and devoted mother, and adopted farming as an occupation. He married Amanda Leeman, daughter of David Leeman, of Augusta, Maine. Nine children were the result of this union, of whom James Ezekiel Emerson, of whom this sketch is specially written, is the eldest son. An- other son, John Emerson, entered the Union army during the War of the Rebellion, and gave his life for his country at the battle of Galveston Harbor, Texas. When James, the subject of this sketch, was three years old, his parents removed to Ban- gor, Maine, and in that town he received such educational advantages as its resources permitted, following the usual custom of attending school during the winter months when his services on the parental farm were not required. He had the in- stinctive love of learning which seems to be a nat- ural inheritance among the sons of New England, and by diligent reading and thoughtful conversation with his elders gained an education which, for practical purposes, left but little to be desired. When of age he gave up farming and bent his ener- gies to the mastery of the building trade, and in 1850 successfully completed a contract for the erectiou of three blocks of houses at Lewiston Falls, Maine, the first constructed in that town. In 1853 he sought a broader field for his energies in California, then a land of golden promise to hardy and adventurous spirits. Here he introduced ma- chinery to a great extent in the construction of buildings. He also engaged in the lumbering busi- ness and during the seven years that it occupied his attention he operated successfully a large circu- lar saw-mill at Oroville, California. It was at this period that his inventive genius bore fruit in the wonderfully simple but most effective invention known as the "inserted-tooth circular saw," the first one being designed, coustructed and put in successful operation by him at this mill. In 1858 he removed to Sacramento, and by the following
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know him best speak of him in terms of the highest praise, both as a citizen and a business-man. HIc has a keen appreciation of the advantages of do- mestic life and his home is rendered attractive and beautiful by works of art, books, and other evi- dences of refinement and intelligence. Mr. Emer- son married, in 1847, Miss Mary P. Shepard, daugh- ter of Rev. Moses Shepard, of Bangor, Maine, and has five children, viz: Florence E. (Mrs. F. E. Mar- tel, of Beaver Balls), Leonora A. (Mrs. B. A. Rabe, of Oakland, California), Hattie L. (Mrs. Thomas Midgley, of Beaver Falls), Miss Alena G., and Charles M., of Bay City, Michigan.
SAMUEL L. BROWN.
SAMUEL LE ROI BROWN, a leading merchant of Wilkes-Barre, and head of the great oil house of S. L. Brown & Co., was born in the village of Pleasant Mount, Wayne County, Pennsylvania, February 5, 1833. His life history is prolific in sug- gestion and encouragement to aspiring youth, and is particularly remarkable and instructive as illus- trating the power of a resolute character in the face of disaster and obstacles sufficient to discourage if not appal the stoutest heart. Mr. Brown is de- scended from New England ancestors who were of English origin. His paternal grandfather was a cousin of John Hancock, of Massachusetts, the bold signer of the Declaration of Independence. Thomas Hancock Brown, his father, was a native of Stonington, Connecticut, and Lucy Howe Brown, his mother, was a native of Danbury in the same State. In early life the first named removed to Otsego County, New York, where he remained until 1822, the year he was married, when he re- moved to Pleasant Mount, Pennsylvania, where he was successfully engaged for many years in general merchandise and in the saddlery and harness business, being at that period the largest manufacturer in that section of the State; his trade extending from Binghamton, New York, to Cochecton on the Delaware, as also through the then extensive lumber regions on the Delaware River, and where the remainder of his life was spent. In 1872 he celebrated his golden wedding with an unbroken family circle. He died in 1878, at the age of eighty years, and was followed to the grave six years later by his worthy wife who, at the time of her death, was eighty-five years old. The elder Brown was brought up among Quakers, and the moral and practical tone imparted to his character by his early association with these worthy
people, exerted a most benign and favorable influ- ence upon his entire subsequent life. Ilis business career was marked by the highest probity and in- tegrity, and was remarkably successful and in every respect a model worthy of the closest imita- tion. The old family homestead of his parents at Pleasant Mount is still in the possession of Mr. S. L. Brown, also the parental farm. Both are pre- served in good condition by the present owner. The subject of this sketch began to attend school as the early age of three years. By the time he was thirteen, having a decided inclination toward commercial life, he concluded, with the consent of
his father, to terminate his studies. He then found employment as junior clerk in a store at Pleasant Mount, and developed such a remarkable aptitude for business that at the expiration of the first three months he was put in full charge of the books. His salary to begin with was fifty dollars a year, but the third year it was raised to one hun- dred and fifty dollars. Out of this limited com- pensation a small portion was saved each year. At the close of the fourth year he left this situation to assume a clerkship in the largest store at Hones- dale. Two years later ill health obliged him to leave this employment. Upon recovery he spent one year at Burrows Hollow, in the large general store kept by Judge Burrows, one of the most worthy residents of that section, and at that time doing the largest business of any house in Susque- hanna County. In 1853 young Brown, now nearing manhood, engaged in a general merchandizing business with his elder brother, H. W. Brown, at Pleasant Mount. Six years afterwards he assumed charge of a branch of the business, then established at Herrick Centre, and gave it his personal direc- tion for a period of four years. In both of these stores he still retained an interest, the last named being conducted under the style of S. L. Brown & Co. In 1863 Mr. Brown bought a tannery property at Pleasant Mount, which afterwards became known as the Pleasant Mount Tannery. This es- tablishment was converted by him into a sole leather tannery, and for several years was con- ducted with remarkable success. The great de- cline in prices which took place in 1866 and 1867 seriously interfered with this era of prosperity, and Mr. Brown, after carrying his extensive stock nearly twenty months, was forced to succumb. This unfortunate circumstance cost him the sum of sixty thousand dollars. Even his household goods were swept away in the financial disaster. It was a startling experience for the careful merchant to see the results of twenty years prudent saving and unremitting labor vanish into nothingness through
MANUEL
Atlantic Publishing & Engraving Co. N Y.
Very July Your S. L. Brown)
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causes over which he could exert no control. But although the blow was a severe one, his business in- stincts were not demoralized, and without wasting any time in futile grief, he resolutely re-entered the business field, determined if possible to conquer ad- verse fate. Securing a position as traveling sales- man for the wholesale grocery firm of Weed, Ayres & Co., of Binghamton, New York, he spent six months in their service with gratifying success, in the meantime removing his residence to the city named. The avocation of traveling salesman, however, was not congenial to him, and through a letter of introduction given him by a warm friend, he became acquainted with the members of the firm of Conynghams & Paine, of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania,-a concern then conducting several thriving stores in various parts of the country, and doing a business of nearly a million dollars annu- ally. By these gentlemen he was offered a position as book-keeper and general manager of their wholesale department, which he accepted, and for ten years he remained in their service. In 1879, when this firm was dissolved, he was again the pos- sessor of considerable capital. Purchasing a plot of ground on Market Street, the same being a por- tion of the site now covered by the large block of which he is the owner, having a frontage of one- hundred and fifty-four feet on Market Street, and two hundred feet on the Lehigh Valley Railroad, he established thereon a general wholesale oil busi- ness, which, from the beginning, was a marked success. To this plot of ground he made additions from time to time, as he was able to purchase, and likewise gradually extended the building which he began in 1879. In 1886 the latter was completed and it is now the largest and finest in the city. In it are located the extensive offices of the firm of S. L. Brown & Co. The site of this imposing struc- ture is one which is admirably adapted for a large wholesale business, being in the immediate neigh- borhood of, and having track connections with, four lines of railroad, and otherwise favorably located. Mr. Brown early perceived its great advantages, and it speaks volumes for his business shrewdness to record the fact that on the same day the an. nouncement was made of the dissolution of the firm employing him, he was negotiating for its purchase. The present firm of S. L. Brown & Co. is the most extensive oil house in northeastern Pennsylvania. Mr. Brown's partners in it are his cousin, Mr. W. W. Brown, and his eldest son, Mr. T. W. Brown. His younger son, Mr. Russell S. Brown, is in charge of a branch establishment at Nanticoke, Pennsylvania. The business of the house, though chiefly local, is very large, comprising as it does
almost the whole oil trade of the Wyoming Valley region. A further illustration of Mr. Brown's ex- cellent business judgment and methods is afforded by his experience in "Brown's Book Store" in Wilkes-Barre, a property which he purchased in 1876, and made a magnificent success of, notwith- standing the fact that he gave it but little personal attention, and that his four predecessors in owner- ship had failed in the same establishment. In 1887 Mr. Brown became interested in developing coal lands at Mill Creek, Luzerne County, where he with other capitalists organized the Keystone Coal Co., with a capital of $300,000, of which he was chosen President. This property comprises some fourteen hundred acres of promising coal lands, is centrally located, and has thus far becn worked with splen- did results. Mr. Brown is a large owner of the stock of this company and its success is due in great part to the energy with which he has pushed its developement since taking charge of it. He is also one of the organizers and a Director of the Langcliffe Coal Co., located at Pleasant Valley, Pennsylvania, with a capital of $300,000, a new breaker just having been completed, with a capacity of 600 to 800 tons per day. Since 1886 Mr. Brown has been a Director in the First National Bank of Wilkes-Barre, a position to which he was elected without his knowledge. He is also a Director in the Hazard Manufacturing Co. (wire rope works) of Wilkes-Barre,-which is the second in size in the country, ranking immediately after the Roebling works at Trenton, New Jersey,-and a Director in the Wilkes-Barre Electric Light Co., the latter also a large and successful corporation. In the Board of Trade of Wilkes-Barre he has held the offices of Trustee and First Vice-President since its organ- ization. Mr. Brown takes a deep interest in church work and is one of the incorporated Trus- tees of the Protestant Episcopal Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. He is also a member of the Board of Missions. He is also one of the Trustees of the Wyoming Historical and Geological Society, one of the oldest and most reputable scientific bodies of the Wyoming Valley. Mr. Brown has achieved his business successes wholly independent of specula- tion, which he has always conscientiously avoided. Every dollar he possesses has been earned in open and legitimate business enterprises, honorably con- ducted in every detail. No better proof of the in- ate honesty of the man can be adduced than the fact that he has voluntarily paid off debts, aggre- gating fourteen thousand dollars, from which he was legally relieved at the time of his bankruptcy in 1869. For thirty years Mr. Brown has been a total abstainer from liquors, and he is well known
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as a believer in temperance and a supporter of tem- perance movements. He is quick to perceive the merits of new inventions and appliances and never hesitates to adopt the most modern. He was the first merchant in Wilkes-Barre to make connections with the telephone exchange for business purposes. Hc was also the first to introduce incandescent lighting, putting into his establisliment a private plant which is still in use in the block. He was the first to employ steam elevators, supplying his block with six of the most approved design. In many other ways he has shown that he is a pro- gressive type of citizen and business man, not only willing but anxious to keep fully abreast of the times. It is rarely that there is compressed into the record of one business life, and that the life of one who is yet a comparatively young man, so many and such varying experiences. Beginning as a clerk, at the age of thirteen years, to earn his own living, he succeds, while yet a young man, and without any assistance, save that which is open to any ambitious spirit and tactful judgment in this great country of ours, in securing for himself a leading position in commercial life, and acquiring a snug competence. Then, in a new enterprise of- fering still higher business rewards and, during several years, seeming to fully justify the offer, he meets reverse, from causes arising exclusively out of the general business conditions of the country, loses all and goes back to the duties of a wage worker. Iu a comparatively few years more, how- ever, we find him once again establislied on his own account, the responsible head of several large en- terprises aud a promoter of and assistant in others, in possession of another snug fixed income, a lead- ing man in the industrial, religious and social world about him. In the midst of his struggle to regain the lost ground, he loses his efficient wife aud helpmeet in the rearage of what is no inconsider- able family of boys and girls. After a period of six years he marries again, and his family is still further increased, scions of the first union having already achieved good places in business lifc, and those of the other being fitted by all that care and means can bestow to follow the example. The qualities requisite to the surmounting of the difficulties, the heroic meeting of the misfortunes and ultimate re- covery therefrom, with restoration of fortune wholly lost, are those upon which progressive communities and successful States are builded. Honesty, untir- ing industry, readiness in the perception of the value that is in new things, and courage in applying them, these are the important, the essential factors, conspicuous among the characteristics of the sub- ject of this brief biography, which arc commended
to the young of the land, who have a genuine am- bition to become something more than mere "hewers of wood and drawers of water," as a nec- essary equipment for the attainment of their goal. Mr. Brown married, in 1855, Miss Almira Gritman, sister of P. C. Gritman, a prominent lawyer of Car- bondale, Pennsylvania. Through this marriage lie became the father of seven children. The sole sur- vivors arc the two sons previously mentioned, both married and ranking with the principal business men of Wilkes-Barre. Mrs. Browu died in 1871. In 1877 Mr. Brown married Miss Ellen W. Chap- man, daughter of Judge J. W. Chapman, of Mon- trose, Pennsylvania, formerly Associate Justice of the Thirty-Fourth Judicial District of Pennsyl- vania. By this marriage lie has had three sons.
THOMAS L. KANE.
GENERAL THOMAS LEIPER KANE was the second son of Jolin K. Kane and his wife, Jane Duvall Leiper, and was born in Philadelphia on the 27th of January, 1822. The eldest son was the well- known Arctic explorer, Elisha Kent Kane. The brothers grew up with a warm affection for each other, which neither time nor distance ever chilled. Tom was bred to be a lawyer and man of letters, and Elisha to be a surgeon. But they participated in each other's studies, Tom acquiring a fair knowl- edge of medicine and surgery, and Elisha of belles lettres. His fascinating record of Arctic experience was persevered in through the long nights and twi- light days of cold and privation in loving fulfillment of a promise to his younger brother. Aud when the book was published every page of the corrected proof sheets bore marks of that younger brother's hand-writing. Their father gave them a liberal education. They were ardent students, but they were also good shots, daring riders and skilled musicians. Both were strikingly handsome young fellows, small in stature, slender, lithe and active. They inherited the Leiper dash and daring of their Scotch grandfather, combined with the quick tem- per and generous warm-heartedness of their Kane Irish ancestry. Unfortunately, they also inherited *thatneuropathic tendency which made them suffer and enjoy more keenly than do the common herd of men. The record of their lives is a story of contin- ual mental and physical overwork-of plans thwarted by the giving way of the delicate body un- der tasks imposed by the unrelenting will. In the summer of 1840 the brother who is the subject of
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