USA > Pennsylvania > Encyclopedia of genealogy and biography of the state of Pennsylvania with a compendium of history. A record of the achievements of her people in the making of a commonwealth and the founding of a nation, Volume II > Part 19
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FRANCIS J. TORRANCE.
Francis J. Torrance, manufacturer and railway president, of Alle- gheny, Pennsylvania, is the son of the late well known Francis Torrance, who was born in the town of Letterkenny, Ireland, in 1816. The elder Torrance was reared on a farm, but had better educational advantages than the majority of his contemporaries. He was a plucky and inde- pendent lad, and when he was twenty-one years old he resolved to come to America to seek his fortune. He was an entire stranger when he landed and his first location was in Pittsburg, where he was employed for a short time as bookkeeper. He afterward went to Wellsville, Ohio, and in partnership with a Mr. Orr embarked in the grocery business. Faithful to an attachment formed in Ireland, he returned after a few years' absence, and married Miss Ann Jane MeClure, after which he began merchandising in his native place. However, American democracy had so appealed to him during his brief residence here that after seven years spent in the old country he brought his family to American shores. He opened a grocery store in Philadelphia, which he conducted for a
Frances Torrance
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number of years, and then located permanently in Pittsburg, where he died March 11, 1886. He was a prominent manufacturer here, but was perhaps best known as the manager. for twenty-eight years, of the Schenley estate, valued at thirty-six million dollars. In 1875, in com- pany with J. W. Arrott and John Fleming, he established the Standard Manufacturing Company. He had the reputation for scrupulous honesty in all his dealings, and won the high regard of the public. By his first marriage there were three children, but the only survivor is Elizabeth. who lives in Ireland. His second wife was Miss Jane Waddell, who was the mother of Francis J. Torrance. Both Mr. and Mrs. Torrance were members of the Sandusky Baptist church in Allegheny.
Francis J. Torrance. the son of Francis and Jane ( Waddell) Tor- rance, was born in Allegheny City, Pennsylvania, June 27. 1859. and the following facts in regard to his life are mainly taken from "The National Cyclopedia of American Biography." His education was ob- tained in the public schools of his native city and in the Western Uni- versity of Pennsylvania. He entered business life in 1875 as a clerk in the employ of the Standard Manufacturing Company, of which his father was president. Subsequently he became its treasurer and general manager, and is now ( 1903) chairman of the executive committee and vice-president of the Standard Sanitary Manufacturing Company, into which the former concern has been merged. This company manu- factures porcelain enameled baths and bathroom appliances, and sani- tary plumbing goods for every known use. It is probably the largest establishment of its kind in the world, having a capital of five million dollars, an authorized bond issue of two million five hundred thousand dollars, with factories, branch stores and offices in Pittsburg. New York City, Louisville, Philadelphia, Chicago, New Orleans, St. Louis. Mon
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treal, Honolulu, Mexico City, London, Paris, Hamburg. St. Petersburg, Cape Town, Sydney, Buenos Ayres and Havana.
Mr. Torrance is president of the Washington ( Pennsylvania) Elec- tric Street Railway Company, the Indiana Railway Company, the Stand- ard Ice Company of Pittsburg, the Monongahela and Ohio River Trans- portation Company, the Western Pennsylvania Exposition Society, the Pittsburg Natatorium Company, and the Iron City Brick and Stone Company. He is a director of the Mechanics' National Bank, Pittsburg : the Third National Bank, Allegheny ; the National Union Fire Insurance Company, Pittsburg; and the Sewickley Valley Trust Company, and chairman of the national committee of the Confederated Supply Asso- ciations, which has control of nearly all the plumbing and sanitary sup- plies in the United States.
In 1892 Mr. Torrance represented his congressional district in the Minneapolis convention which nominated Benjamin Harrison for presi- dent, and he was delegate-at-large from Pennsylvania to the national convention at St. Louis, which nominated Mckinley. Ile has been a select councilman for nine years, and for seven years president of that body. In 1894 he was appointed by Governor Hastings a commissioner of public charities ; was reappointed in 1897, and reappointed in 1899 for five years. For six years he has been a member of the committee on lunacy of the board of public charities, and was unanimously elected president of the board of public charities February 14, 1902. This board has control of all institutions in Pennsylvania classed as criminal, penal, correctional and charitable. He has also been appointed delegate-at- large and special delegate to numerous conferences concerning prisons and charities.
For two terms he has been president of the Americus Republican Club. Pittsburg, and he is chairman of the Republican city committee
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of Allegheny. Socially he is a member of Duquesne, Country, Ameri- cis, Press and Civic clubs, of Pittsburg; Strollers and Fulton clubs, New York City; Manufacturers' Club, Philadelphia, and the Indiana Club, South Bend. During the past ten years he has been president of the board of trustees of the Sandusky Street Baptist church, Alle- gheny. Mr. Torrance was married in 1884 to Marie R., daughter of David Dibert, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. They have one daughter.
JOSEPH SWAIN. M. A., LL. D.
Joseph Swain, M. A., LL. D., president of Swarthmore College, is a native of Indiana, to which state his father, Woolston Swain, born and reared in Pennsylvania, removed when about twenty years of age.
Woolston Swain was destitute of means, but his energy and de- termination proved an abundant capital. He made his journey on foot as far as Pittsburg, whence he traveled by boat to Cincinnati, and on foot again to Indianapolis. He went to the neighborhood of Pendleton, and there cleared off a tract of land out of the primitive forest. In time, through persistent industry and economy, he had become the owner of an excellent farm and a comfortable home, and lived a most exemplary life, and was recognized as a leader in the community which gathered about him. He married Mary Ann (Thomas) Swain, who was born in the state of New York, daughter of a missionary who had long labored there among the Indians. In her girlhood her parents removed to Indiana, and settled near the place which became the scene of her married life. To the Swain pair were born five children, all of whom were reared in the Society of Friends, to which the parents also adhered.
Their son. Joseph Swain, was born June 16, 1857. He began his
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education in the district schools of his native village, Pendleton, and then completed a course in the high school, where his studious habits . so commended him to his instructors that they urged him to extend his studies into a broader field. He accordingly entered the Indiana State University at Bloomington, in 1879, and was graduated therefrom in 1883. when twenty-six years of age. These dates are of interest, and may prove a stimulus to some to follow after his example-that of entering upon a high scholastic life much later than is usual. While a college student. Mr. Swain devoted special attention to mathematics and the natural sciences, and he had as instructors in these branches, respectively. two eminent professors, Dr. Daniel Kirkwood and Dr. David Starr Jordan, and the potency of their influence in determining his future career can now be discerned. The University at that time conferred no honors, but Mr. Swain led all his class in the credits given him for excellence in his studies. While on intimate terms with his associate students, he persistently declined to attach himself to any of the college fraternities, a notable exception to the rule.
Doctor Swain entered upon the labors of a teacher in the same year in which he was graduated from the University, and in that in- stitution, and from that time to the present his connection with estab- lishments has been uninterrupted, while he has been advanced from time to time to larger fields of usefulness and influence. His first ap- pointment was as an instructor in mathematics. During the following summer vacation he was engaged with the United States Fish Com- mission. to make collections in the southern states. In the next uni- versity term he was made instructor in the natural sciences as well as in mathematics, and at the commencement following, in 1885, the degree of Master of Science was conferred upon him and he was ap- pointed associate professor of mathematics. He was at the same time
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given a leave of absence for one year to enable him to prosecute ad- vanced studies in the University of Edinburgh, Scotland. Upon his return home, in 1886, Dr. Kirkwood had resigned the chair of math- ematics, and Dr. Swain was elected to succeed him, and proved a most worthy successor for a period of five years. At the expiration of that time, in 1891, Dr. Jordan was chosen to the presidency of Stan- ford University, and Dr. Swain to the position of professor of mathe- matics in the same institution, his appointment being one of the first made.
In 1893, ten years after his graduation from the State University of Indiana, Professor Swain was called to the presidency of that insti- tution as successor to Dr. Coulter, who had resigned. In the same year Wabash College conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. His connection with the University of Indiana was maintained until June, 1902, when he accepted a call to the presidency of Swarth- more College, and entered upon his duties at the beginning of the next ensuing scholastic term. It is not to be questioned that the appointment was most gratifying to him, for it brought him into close relation with a people with whom he was in entire sympathy, and to whose service he felt obligated in a peculiar degree.
Doctor Swain has habitually displayed an unusual power of reach- ing students and of controlling them, not through the exercise of author- ity, but by a genial influence which commands their affection and keeps alive their enthusiasm. As was said of him by Dr. David Starr Jordan. President of the Stanford University, "he is a man of very large ability, particularly in the management of men and in the training of students. He is a man of most genial disposition and cheery but refined manners. He is in the prime of physical health, and is of heroic stature, standing
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six feet four inches in height. and weighing two hundred and sixty pounds.
While, as has been shown in this narrative, Dr. Swain has been busily engaged as a teacher in the class room and as the head of a large institution of learning, his effort has been freely extended to other instructional work. During the term of his presidency of the Uni- versity of Indiana, he delivered educational addresses in every county in the state, and to his labors is to be ascribed in large degree the in- creased number of students, from 702 to 1.302. His high standing throughout the state is further affirmed by the fact that he was a member of the state board of education during all the period of his presidency of the University of Indiana, and that his reputation was not merely local is shown by his election as president of the higher education section of the National Teachers' Association in 1897. For a number of years he has been a member of the National Convention of Educators.
Doctor Swain has performed a great amount of excellent scientific work in which he has been faithful and thorough rather than brilliant. He has written numerous papers upon scientific topics, several of which have been published in the reports of the Smithsonian Institu- tion, and he has also written many papers and delivered many addresses upon educational and kindred subjects. He has traveled extensively, and has made five journeys to Europe, where he spent one year, four summers, devoting his time to visiting such places and institutions as would enlarge his views and add to his store of knowledge. On three occasions he conducted parties to Europe, and was their genial and in- teresting guide to many cities and edifices of great historic interest.
Doctor Swain was married. September 22, 1885. to Miss Frances Hannah Morgan, who has proved a most efficient aid to her talented husband. She has shown a deep interest in the young women students
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of Swarthmore College, and was the organizer of the Woman's League of Indiana University, which has proven a most serviceable adjunct to it, and she was for one year the president of the Indiana Literary Clubs Union.
Mrs. Swain is a daughter of Charles Dayton and Alvira H. (Woods) Morgan, who were married November 13. 1856. Her father was born in Richmond. Indiana. July 31. 1829. son of Nathan Morgan, a farmer and cabinet maker, who settled for life at Rich- mond, where he died. Charles D. Morgan received a common school education, and then entered upon the study of law in the office of Will- iam H. Beckle, and afterwards in that of Judge James Perry, at Rich- mond, where he was admitted to the bar in 1850. In 1852 he removed to Knightstown, Indiana, where he was engaged in practice until 1865. In that year he became connected with the First National Bank of Knightstown, with which he was connected during the remainder of his life, either in the capacity of cashier or president. He was a Re- publican in politics, and in 1862 he was elected to the legislature. It was during the Civil war, and the session was an extremely stormy one. A bill was introduced providing for the reorganization of the state militia, and Mr. Morgan was one of thirty-four opponents who left the hall and thus rendered impossible the passage of the measure. His religious associations were with the Society of Friends. For thirty years he was a member of the Brotherhood of Odd Fellows. His wife. Alvira (Woods) Morgan, bore him six children, of whom three died quite young. Those who came to maturity were Frances Hannah, who became the wife of Dr. Swain, Raymond C. and Eric C. Morgan. After the decease of the mother of these children. Mr. Morgan married Re- becca Gray, a daughter of William Gray, of Knightstown, Indiana.
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WILLIAM WILKINS CARR.
William Wilkins Carr, lawyer, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, is a son of the late Captain Overton Carr. United States Navy, and was born in Washington, District of Columbia, May 19, 1853.
Hle received his early education in the public schools of Phila- delphia, attended the Locust Street Grammar School, and afterwards for three years was a student in the Central High School, then passing to the University of Pennsylvania, entering the sophomore class, and graduating with distinction in 1873. He was awarded the wooden spoon as the most popular man of his class, and was selected to deliver the class oration at commencement. Choosing the law as his profession, he studied under the preceptorship of George M. Dallas, Esq., and was admitted to the bar in 1876. For two years following he remained in Mr. Dallas' office, and there, after a year of study and travel abroad, he began the practice of his profession in Philadelphia on his own ac- count. The suit, involving large interests, brought by the banking house of Sulsbach Brothers of Frankfort-on-the-Main against the es- tate of the late J. Edgar Thompson and others, was his first case. The attention of the public was afterward directed to him by his defense in 1885 of Oscar H. Weber, who was on trial for murder. For the first time in the history of the administration of criminal law, through Mr. Carr's efforts a court passed upon the constitutional right of a prisoner to make the plea of mental incapacity before being put on trial for his life.
Mr. Carr has made many contributions to legal literature. For several years he assisted in the publication of "Read on the Statute of Frauds," and he is the author of a pamphlet on the "Legal Protection of the Water Supply of Philadelphia." He has written a text book on
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the "Trial of Lunatics," and also a text book on the "Judicial Interpre- tation of the Tariff Acts," which is an arrangement and collection of all the cases decided in the United States courts involving the various tariff laws passed by Congress since the establishment of the federal government. In 1888, at the request of John R. Read, then United States district attorney in Philadelphia, Mr. Carr was appointed his assistant, and gave up his private practice to bestow his undivided attention upon the duties of the office. While in this post he was associ- ate counsel in the celebrated "hat trimmings case." and when defalca- tion occurred in the Spring Garden National Bank and the Keystone National Bank he was engaged in the trial and conviction of the de- faulters.
In June. 1893. President Cleveland appointed him postmaster of Philadelphia, and he occupied the office for four years and four months. Through his personal efforts many reforms in administration calculated to improve the postal service of the city were introduced. A reorganiza- tion of the delivery service was effected : he took effectual steps to utilize the city's extensive trolley system for the distribution of the mails, and Philadelphia now has, perhaps, the best and most rapid inter-station service in the department. He also started the movement to secure direct appropriations to the large post-offices, without seeking from the de- partment permission to expend small sums of money; after August, 1894, with the approval of the postmaster-general, a portion of the ap- propriations went directly to the larger offices. The change was found to be of great value. At Postmaster Carr's suggestion an important im- provement was also effected in the foreign-mail service. For about a hundred years outgoing and incoming foreign mails passed through the New York postoffice, and a vessel arriving within any port or collection district of the United States could not make entry or break
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bulk until the letters on board had been delivered to the nearest post- office. Foreign mails are now carried direct from quarantine in New York bay to the railway station of Jersey City, and vice versa, many hours being saved in this way.
Throughout his entire life Mr. Carr has been an earnest Democrat. He has been a delegate to many city, county and state conventions, and was chosen one of the officers of the Democratic national convention which nominated Cleveland at Chicago in 1892. The Chicago platform of 1896 did not meet with Mr. Carr's approval or support. He publicly stated that he was not in sympathy with Bryanite principles, and was one of the prime movers for the organization of the so-called Jeffer- sonian party, which held a convention at Indianapolis and nominated Palmer and Buckner for president and vice-president.
In June, 1893. Mr. Carr became a member of the law firm of Patterson & Carr, in which the other members are C. Stuart Patterson and George Stuart Patterson. While disengaged from active practice during his term as postmaster. he resumed his place in the profession upon his retirement from that office. In 1901 Mr. Carr was his party's nominee for district attorney of Philadelphia county.
WILLIAM BROOKE RAWLE.
Col. William Brooke Rawle ( formerly William Rawle Brooke), of Philadelphia, lawyer and author, was born in Philadelphia. August 29. 1843, a son of Charles Wallace Brooke, a brilliant member of the Philadelphia bar, who died in 1849 at the early age of thirty-six years, and Elizabeth Tilghman Rawle, only daughter of William Rawle, also a distinguished lawyer of Philadelphia. On his father's side he is descended from John Brooke, of Haag, in the township of Honly
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(near Huddersfield ), Yorkshire. England, who emigrated in 1699 with his two sons to take up land previously purchased in Pennsylvania. lle died in what is now Camden, New Jersey, a few days after landing. but his sons settled in Limerick township, now in Montgomery county. Pennsylvania, upon a tract of land granted to their father by William Penn before they sailed. Colonel William Brooke Rawle's grandfather was Robert Brooke, well known as a surveyor and civil engineer in Philadelphia, and his great-grandfather was Captain John Brooke, of the Revolutionary army. Robert Brooke married a daughter of Gen- eral Andrew Porter, who was prominent as an artillery officer in the American Revolution. On his mother's side Colonel Rawle is a descendant of Francis Rawle, Jr., who came to Philadelphia from Plymouth, England, in 1686. The Rawles were an ancient English family, being lords of the manor Tresparret, in Cornwall. William Rawle, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, an eminent jurist, was a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania from 1796 until his death. in 1836, when his son William Rawle, the younger, became a trustee, serving until 1855. Colonel Rawle's mother. Elizabeth Tilgh- man Rawle, was a granddaughter of the celebrated jurist. Edward Tilghman, and a great-granddaughter of Benjamin Chew, chief-justice of Pennsylvania before the Revolution. The heads of both the Brooke and Rawle families were Quakers, and emigrated to America to avoid religious persecution.
William Brooke Rawle was educated at the best private schools in his native city. He was prepared for college at the Academy of the Protestant Episcopal church, where he was a student from IS51 .to 1856, and at Faires' Classical Institute, where he remained from 1856 until 1859. He entered the University of Pennsylvania in the fall of
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1859. was moderator of the Philomathean Society, and graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1863 (July 3) while actually engaged in the battle of Gettysburg. During his senior year he had entered the volunteer army as second lieutenant of the Third Pennsylvania Volunteer Cavalry Regiment, having obtained leave of absence from the college. He served continuously with the Army of the Potomac from early in 1863 until after the close of the war, attaining the lincal rank of captain, and being brevetted major and lieutenant-colonel for gallantry in the battle of Hatcher's Run, and in the campaign termin- ating with Lee's surrender at 'Appomattox Court-House, respectively. He was actively engaged in a long series of stirring engagements. While on a scont. September 6. 1863. with seven men, he was ambushed and surrounded on the Salem road near Warrenton by forty-eight men of Mountjoy's company of Mosby's battalion, and cut his way through with a loss of three men. and having his horse wounded in several places. He was present at the siege of Petersburg, and entered that place carly on the morning of April 3. 1865. as escort of Generals Grant and Meade. He was also escort to General Meade at the surrender of General Lee at Appomattox Court-House, April 9. 1865. Mustered out of service and honorably discharged at Richmond. August 7. 1865, he declined a commission in the Seventh Regiment United States Cavalry. and began the study of law with his uncle. William Henry Rawle.
He was admitted to practice at the Philadelphia bar on May 18. 1867, a few days prior to which time he by legal authority transposed the order of his name, which before had been William Rawle Brooke. He was associated in practice with Mr. Rawle, his uncle and preceptor. until the death of the latter in 1889. when he became the head of the law offices which had been established September 15, 1783. by his
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great-grandfather, William Rawle, the elder, one of the most eminent lawyers of his time.
In July, 1866, while Colonel Brooke Rawle was a law student the University of Pennsylvania conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. He is one of the founders of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution; an ex-junior vice-commander of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States; one of the founders of the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania: a vice-president of the His- torical Society of Pennsylvania; a member of the American Philo- sophical Society, and of the Colonial Society of Pennsylvania. Colonel Rawle belongs to the Philadelphia Club, the Penn Club, the University Club, the Legal Club and the Country Club of Philadelphia. His in- terest in historical subjects has led to much careful study and several important writings. In 1878 he published "The Right Flank at Gettys- burg," and in 1884, "With Gregg in the Gettysburg Campaign," and "Gregg's Cavalry Fight at Gettysburg." His most recent publication is an essay on "The General Title of the Penn Family to Pennsylvania."
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