USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Families of the Wyoming Valley: biographical, genealogical and historical. Sketches of the bench and bar of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, vol. I > Part 18
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15, 1797, he died, having previously selected the site for, and dug, the grave in which his body was afterwards laid. The church, though projected and located in 1791, was not finished and ready for occupancy until 1812. His late years were marked by many peculiarities. He believed himself endowed with the power of foretelling coming events, and did predict very nearly the exact time of his death. He made himself a girdle of camel's hair, and wore it like John the Baptist. He was a devout second adventist. His wife, Mary Giddings, was a Connecticut lady, highly accomplished, and of the same family as Joshua R. Giddings, the noted anti-slavery Congressman. He was tall, of commanding presence, and had dark hair, eyes, and complexion. He was certainly much loved and respected in Wyoming. A lady, long since dead, who was in Wilkes-Barre when the first call summon- ing Mr. Johnson to the pastorship was made, has written of him : " If there ever was a gospel minister on earth, I do believe Priest Johnson was one. He was so earnest, so sincere; and a very learned man, too. The Indians, at that early day, used to gather round to hear him. He spoke two of their languages as well as their own Sacheins, and I have often heard him exhort them in their native tongue, for near an hour at a time, with a zeal and freedom that showed his interest in their eternal welfare, and his perfect knowledge of the language in which he spoke. The habits of the clergy at that time were, in the pulpit and out of the pulpit, very staid, their style severe, their manners grave and demure. Like the old Puritans, they deemed it wrong to indulge in passionate declamation, or to study the graces of oratory. Argumentative, solemn, and impressive, he was, generally, rather than eloquent, that is, in his regular discourses; but in prayer his spirit, at times, would seem to break away from earth, warming and glowing with holy zeal, his wrapt spirit would ascend on the wings of hope and faith, and carry you with him, as it were, to the very portals of heaven. He was tall, slender, a little bent forward, very considerate in conversation, mild and sweet tem- pered. O, he was a fine man!" Mr. Johnson died in this city in 1797, where he had resided for more than a quarter of a cen- tury. His daughter, Lydia, became the second wife of Col. Zebulon Butler. Their union was brief, and a son, the late Capt.
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Zebulon Johnson Butler, was their only child. Ovid Frazer Johnson, who was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county April 6, 1831, was a grandson. He was Attorney General of Pennsyl- vania from 1839 to 1845, under the administration of Gov. David Rittenhouse Porter. He died in 1854
Charles Dorrance Foster's boyhood days were occupied in attending the district schools during the winter months and working on the farm in summer. At the age of twenty he entered Wyoming Seminary, at Kingston, an institution which has done vast service in preparing the youth of our valley for the struggles which come with manhood. Three years under the competent instructors here presiding fitted him to become himself an instructor. He taught for a year in Jackson township, and subsequently for a short time in the State of Illinois.
Returning from the West, he served another year on the paternal farm, and then entered, as a student at law, the office of the late Lyman Hakes, Esq. His admission to the bar took place April 23, 1861, when the country was in the first throes of the great rebellion. He rapidly acquired a good practice, but having recently inherited from his father one of the finest farms in Luzerne county, covering an area of over a mile square, and lying partly in Dallas and partly in Jackson township, has not of late given that close attention to the profession a poorer man would have needed to give.
Mr. Foster early identified himself with the Republican party, and has ever since labored in a quiet but efficient way to forward its interests and promote its principles. In 1882 he was made the candidate of that party for a seat in the lower house of the Legislature from the First district of Luzerne and Lackawanna counties, comprising the city of Wilkes-Barre, but was unsuc- cessful. Hon. Herman C. Fry was his victorious opponent.
Mr. Foster has been closely connected with several extensive business enterprises in the county, among which may be men- tioned the Wilkes-Barre and Kingston Street Railway Company and the Wyoming National Bank. He was one of the first Managers, and has been President, Secretary, and Treasurer of the former corporation, and is now a Director of the bank.
Mr. Foster married, October 4, 1865, Mary Jane Hoagland, a
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daughter of the late Amos Hoagland, of Newark, N. J., both being natives of Flemington, Hunterdon county, N. J. Mr. Hoagland was a descendant of Dirck Hanse Hogeland, the first of the name who came to America, and who commanded the vessel that brought him from Holland to New Amsterdam in 1655. He settled at Flatbush, N. Y., and in 1662 married Anne Bergen, widow of Jan Clerq, by whom he had six children. He built the first brick house on Manhattan Island. During the Revolutionary war Amos Hoagland, the great-grandfather of Mrs. Foster, was conspicuous as a member of Captain Growendyke's company. Andrew Hoagland, his son, was a man well known in Hunterdon county, N. J. He was among the first slaveholders who manu- mitted his slaves; was remarkable for his upright dealings, and held many responsible positions in church and state, and in 1840 was appointed Judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He mar- ried Mary, the only daughter of Elijah Carman, a Revolutionary hero, whose ancestors came from Switzerland. Mr. Carman's wife was Jane James, who, at the age of twelve, fled with her family from Forty Fort before the massacre. Being warned of coming trouble by a friendly squaw, who assured them that the Indians would not touch them if they remained, but they felt greater security in flight. After reaching New York, they never returned to claim their possessions, although they heard that the Indians had disturbed nothing that belonged to them. The Carman homestead is now in the possession of Aaron, the eldest son of Judge Hoagland. Amos Hoagland, the father of Mrs. Foster, was a prominent mar. in his day. He held the position of postmaster at Sergeantsville, N. J .; was commissioner of his native county, and until the time of his death held official posi- tion in the Methodist Episcopal Church, of which he was an active and conspicuous member. He built a church at Sergeants-
ville, N. J., and presented the same to a Methodist congregation. He married Susan, daughter of Rev. George Fisher, of Tewks- bury, N. J. His ancestor came from Strasburg, Germany, in 1790. He was a man of considerable wealth, and noted for his generosity to the poor. He gave the ground for-the Methodist Episcopal Cemetery of Fairmount, N. J., in 1837. The grave of the Rev. George Fisher is a prominent one. His epitaph reads
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as follows: "Rev. George Fisher, who departed this life May 14, 1846, aged 78 years, 5 months, and 10 days. He obtained remis- sion of sins, and united himself with the Methodist Episcopal Church A. D. 1806, and was licensed to preach the gospel A. D. 1810. As a preacher, he was eminent for zeal and usefulness, and still more distinguished as a Christian for sanctity of manner and deep, unaffected piety."
The only surviving child of Mr. and Mrs. Foster is Narcissa Florence Jenkins, wife of Frank Thornton Jenkins, M. D., of Philadelphia. He is a native of Baltimore, Md., where he was born in 1852. Dr. Jenkins is the son of Thornton A. Jenkins, a Rear Admiral in the United States Navy. During the late civil war he was chief-of-staff to Admiral Faragut. Admiral Jenkins is eighth in descent from John Jenkins, of Warwick (Jamestown), Virginia. Dr. Jenkins, on the maternal side, is a descendant of Anthony Thornton, also of Virginia. His son, the great-grand- father of the Doctor, was Capt. Presly Thornton (in command of a troop of horse) of the Continental Army, 1776-83. His mater- nal grandfather was Francis Anthony Thornton, who was a. purser in the United States Navy at the time of his death.
Mr. Foster is a man of fine physique, and in the enjoyment of robust health. He is, as yet, a comparatively young man, and, as we have already remarked, is the possessor of wealth ample to gratify anything short of sordid avarice. Few men enjoy, at so early an age, such complete physical, financial, and social ad- vantages. It is not matter for wonder, therefore, that he is pos- sessed of a most agreeable temper, and many other qualities that combine to make him a good friend and a delightful companion. Though the cares of business are not permitted to set heavily on him, there being no need that they should, he finds in his prac- tice, in looking after his vested interests, and in managing his fertile acres, employment sufficient to consume the most of his time.
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HENRY WILBUR PALMER.
HENRY WILBUR PALMER.
To the Palmer Records, edited by Noyes F. Palmer, Esq., of Jamaica, Queens county, N. Y., we are indebted for the following sketch of William Palmer and the derivation of the name:
"In that portion of old England known as the north shire of Nottingham, in the Hundred of Basssett Laws, was. the little town of Scrooby. Here, under the shadow of the manor house of the Archbishop of York (that manor house where the great Cardinal Woolsey dwelt when 'if he had served his God with half the zeal he served his king he would not in his age have been forsaken to his enemies),' was a congregation of Puritan Separatists. Scrooby may be known as the mother of American Puritans. A leading man in this congregation was one William Brewster. He had been a secretary and devoted follower of that Davidson who had clipped off the head of the one fair woman who seems destined ever to be alike the contention of historian and theme of poet-Mary of Scotland.
"The meetings at Scrooby and the preaching of Brewster soon attracted the attention and invited the interference of the author- ities. From trial and tribulation there was no escape save exile. With longing eyes and heavy hearts they bid adieu to those fair Nottingham hills, and, crossing the channel, sought refuge in Amsterdam.
"From Nottinghamshire possibly, probably of the Scrooby congregation, came William Palmer (the ancestor of the subject of our sketch). He sailed from Plymouth, England, in 1621, in the ship Fortune, the second vessel after the Mayflower, and landed at Plymouth, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and settled in what is now known as Duxbury, Mass.
"The name Palmer it has been said is ' derived from pilgrimages,' and is not lost in the mists of antiquity. The Crusaders, in their marches to Jerusalem in the Middle Ages, from the time of Peter the Hermit to the close of the fourteenth century, had many followers who, from sacred motives, sought to see the tomb of
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Christ. Many of these pilgrims on their return wore palm leaves in their hats, or carried staves made from palm branches. They thus came to be called Palm-ers, or bearers of the palm.
The name soon passed into literature. Shakespeare frequently uses the word: 'My scepter for a Palmer's walking staff,' and also, 'Where do the Palmers lodge, I do beseech you?'
"In a work on 'Our English Surnames,' by C. W. Bardley, Esq., is an account of the derivation of the name Palmer, as follows: 'The various religious wanderings of solitary recluses, though belonging to a system long since faded from our English life, find a perpetual epitaph in the directories of to-day.' Thus we have still our Pilgrims, or 'peterins,' as the Normans termed them. We meet with Palmers any day in the streets of our large towns; names distinctly relating the manner in which their owners have derived their titles. The Pilgrim may have but visited the shrine of St. Thomas of Canterbury. The Palmer, as his name proves, had, forlorn and weary, battled against all difficulties and trod the path that led to the Holy Sepulchre,
' The faded palm branch in his hand, Showed Pilgrim from the Holy Land.'"
The Palmer patriarchs of New England are four in number. William Palmer, who came over in 1621, as before stated; Walter Palmer, of Stonington, Connecticut, who came from Nottinghamshire, England, in 1629; Thomas Palmer, of Rowley, Mass .. who came from Bradford, England, in 1635, and John Palmer, of Hingham, Mass. Thomas and John were brothers, and John came over in 1634 or 35.
Their descendants throughout the United States are thousands, and embrace generals, governors, judges, clergymen, physicians, and in fact, all professions, including General Grant, who is the eighth in descent from Walter Palmer's daughter Grace.
The great-great-grandfather of Henry W. Palmer was Leighton Palmer. He was, without doubt, a descendant of William Palmer, heretofore mentioned. Leighton Palmer settled at Hopkinton, R. I. His second son was Nathaniel, who had a son Gideon. He was the father of seventeen children, the fifth of whom was also named Gideon, and was the father of Henry W. Palmer. Gideon W. Palmer was born in Hopkinton, R I., April
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18, 1818, and was the son of the first Gideon. His mother was Clarissa Watkins. In 1836 he removed to Susquehanna county, Pa., and in 1841 from there to Carbondale, Luzerne (now Lackawanna) county, where, for a while, he followed teaching, but as his tastes led him rather to agricultural pursuits he subse- quently gave his attention to farming, actively interesting himself meanwhile in the various political questions of the day. The measures of the old Whig party were those which received his support, and he soon manifested such an influence in the councils of that organization that various offices were intrusted to him. From Constable in 1846, he became a Justice of the Peace in 1850, and in the same year was elected Sheriff of Luzerne county for three years. In 1854 he was elected a member of the Penn- sylvania Legislature. When the Rebellion broke out he sided ardently with the supporters of the Union, and for several years occupied the responsible position of one of the paymasters of the United States Army, in the performance of which duty he traversed the whole country from Maine to Texas. It is worthy of remark in this connection to state that while he disbursed mil- lions he settled with the government without the loss of a penny, either to himself or the government. In 1872, when delegates were to be chosen to the Constitutional Convention of the State, he was nominated as a Liberal Republican on the Democratic ticket, while his son, the subject of our sketch, was nominated as a delegate from the same district on the regular Republican ticket. Both were elected, and both contributed materially to the deliberations of the body, of which they were highly honored members. In 1838 Mr. Palmer married Elizabeth Burdick, daughter of Billings Burdick, a native of Connecticut. The couple had a family of six children, of whom five survive, two sons and three daughters, Henry W., being the oldest son. Mr. Palmer was a resident of the borough of Glenburn, Lackawanna county, at the time of his death, March 27, 1881.
Henry Wilbur Palmer was born in Clifford township, Susque- hanna county, Pa., July 10, 1839. He was educated at the Wyoming Seminary and at Fort Edward Institute, New York, afterwards entering the Poughkeepsie Law School, from which institution he graduated in 1860. He was enrolled as a student
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in the office of ex-Judge Garrick M. Harding, and, after his graduation from the Law School, was admitted to practice in the courts of Luzerne county on August 24, 1861, the recommenda- tion being by Andrew T. McClintock, Henry M. Hoyt, and O. Collins, who had been appointed a special committee for his examination. In 1863 and 64 he was in the army as a pay- master's clerk, in the Department of the Gulf. Returning from the field of duty he entered into partnership with his old preceptor, ex-Judge Harding, and during the five years from 1865 to 1870 the firm of Harding and Palmer was known as one of the busiest and most prosperous in northern Pennsylvania.
In 1866 he was elected a member of the School Board of the borough of Wilkes-Barre, in connection with ex-Gov. Henry M. Hoyt. His service in this capacity was marked by a close application to its duties and a spirit of progressiveness in keeping with that which had but just begun to characterize the manage- ment of public education in Wilkes-Barre, and which has since resulted in giving this city a school system in character and efficiency second to none in the Commonwealth or country.
Mr. Palmer's election as a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1872 has already been mentioned. Of that convention Charles R. Buckalew was in every respect a leader. The impress of the genius of his statesmanship is more strongly marked, perhaps, on the pages of the constitution as finally adopted than that of any other of the members. What he thought of the labors of his colleague, and of the man gener- ally, can very correctly be inferred from the fact that he dedicated his recent learned publication on that constitution to Henry W. Palmer.
Mr. Palmer served on several important committees in the convention, including those on Oath of Office, Revision and Adjustment, Commissions, and Incompatibility of Office, and did distinguished service upon them all, as well as upon the floor in debate.
In 1878 Henry M. Hoyt, of Wilkes-Barre, was elected Gov- ernor of Pennsylvania for the term of four years. As the time for his inauguration and entrance upon his gubernatorial duties approached, a wide-spread interest was manifested in the ques-
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tion: Who is to be Attorney General? The constitution was new, and the laws that had been enacted in conformity with its innovations still newer. These circumstances made the public anxious that the always important office, being now doubly important, should be capably filled. The names of many of the oldest and most experienced lawyers of Republican proclivities were presented in connection with it, and in behalf of some of them great personal and political pressure was brought to bear upon the Governor. The latter, however, knew his friend and neighbor well, was convinced of his fitness, and chose for the coveted office Henry W. Palmer. The announcement was fol- lowed by many complaints, and by some it was alleged that a grave error had been committed, and predicted that the result would make that fact plain. That this gloomy forecast was born of disappointment, and not of knowledge of the man or his parts, will be evident from a brief reference to some of the leading incidents of Mr. Palmer's administration.
One of his first tilts as representative of the rights of the Commonwealth was against the four trunk lines, the Dunkirk, Allegheny & Pittsburg, the Lake Shore & Michigan Southern. the Atlantic & Great Western, and the Pennsylvania Railroad Companies. This was in the shape of a bill in equity filed to prevent unjust discriminations against shippers as violative of the provisions of the constitution. The companies were forced into a settlement with the parties at whose instance the bill had been filed, and now there are no rebates on oil or other freight allowed when offered in the same quantity.
Most readers will remember his pursuit of the Standard Oil Company for taxes aggregating $700,000, which Mr. Palmer, reading the statutes literally, held to be justly due the Common- wealth. His claim was for tax upon the entire capital stock, measured by the amount of dividend paid. The Supreme Court decreed that the company was liable only on such part of the stock as was invested in individual copartnerships, excluding all invested in stock of Pennsylvania corporations, limited copartner- ships, and oil purchased for export to other States, and as the great bulk of the money of the Standard was in the items excluded, but $30,000 of the total amount sued for was recovered. That
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the case made out by Mr. Palmer, was, nevertheless, a strong one, and that it was very diligently and ably pressed is evident from the fact that three judges dissented from the opinion of the majority. This monster corporation which is reaping for its members, mostly residents of other States, vast fortunes from the natural riches of the Commonwealth, lives, by the aid of its numerous aliases, its powerful lobbies, and the wit and scheming of its innumerable handsomely paid attorneys practically out- side the law of the State.
In the case of the Commonwealth against the Monongahela Bridge Company, at Pittsburg, the company was compelled to raise its bridge twenty-three feet in the interest of the navigation of the river it spanned.
In the case of the Commonwealth v. J. Campbell Harris, of Walnut street, Philadelphia, Mr. Palmer induced the court to restrain the adding of a bay window to Mr. Harris' residence, on the ground that it was an encroachment on the street, which was the property of the city. In this case it was decided that the Attorney General is the proper party to institute proceedings of such character. The councils of the city had previously given Mr. Harris permission to add the window.
Mr. Palmer was especially active in pushing the tax claims of the Commonwealth. By a construction of the act of 1879, which the court, on hearing, upheld, the Pennsylvania Railroad Company was compelled to pay into the treasury the sum of $ 140,000, which it had disputed the right of the Commonwealth to collect.
In Commonwealth v. Kilgore, Treasurer of Allegheny county, license taxes to the amount of $58,000, which the county had refused to pay, were secured to the treasury.
The Reading Railroad Company was made to disgorge $60,000, tax on gross receipts. In this case the receivers then in control of the affairs of the company unsuccessfully sought the interference of the United States Courts.
During his term of office $700,000 was collected in suits of this character, or more than any other Attorney General had ever collected, and settlement was made with the State without the loss of a penny.
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Among the most conspicuous features of his record was his raid upon the Bogus Medical Colleges and the Death Rattle Insurance Companies. Two more infamous institutions never disgraced the State. By the aid of the former the Common- wealth was overrun with impudent and conscienceless charlatans, whose pretended practice of the medical and surgical arts, besides being seriously injurious to legitimate practitioners, was continually draining the pockets of the poor and unfortunate, and sacrificing their life and limbs. By the latter, cunning scoundrels in almost every county played upon the cupidity of the unwary, and amassed vast gain. Fraud and forgery, and even murder, were encouraged by their nefarious transactions. Neighbor was turned against neighbor, and friend against friend. Children were made to hope for, and even encourage, the death of their aged parents. A people hungry for unearned wealth and lacking every honorable principle was necessary to the success of the bad men who managed the odious business, but such people can be developed in every community, if their tempters are per- mitted to go unnoticed by the law and unwhipped by justice; and, as a consequence, Pennsylvania became a by-word and a reproach all over the Union because of its tacit tolerance of such scoundrelism, for though Mr. Palmer's predecessors had essayed theit overthrow, for some lacking it had been in vain. When he undertook the task he proceeded with such relentless vigor that before the end of his term not a bogus diploma-manufacturing concern was left, and the death rattle scoundrels had been scattered to the four winds of heaven.
Mr. Palmer construed the law to mean that members of the Legislature are entitled to but $1,000 pay for each regular ses- sion, no matter to how many days the session may be prolonged. At the close of the long session of 1880, therefore, a writ of man- damus was procured against the State Treasurer, under which the question was argued before the Supreme Court, the State Treas- urer having previously refused payment to the legislators pend- ing the determination of the question, under advice of the Attorney General. The judges in their final decision took the opposite view, Judge Trunkey dissenting, and the legislators were afterwards paid for one hundred and fifty days, at the rate
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of $10 per day ; although many constitutional lawyers then held, and still maintain, that Mr. Palmer's position was the correct one.
All these and many other acts of Mr. Palmer's fearless and energetic administration of the office of Attorney General raised up against him not a few enemies, and one of the results of that fact was the appointment, in 1881, of two legislative committees of enquiry, one with reference to the salary case and questions growing out of it, and the other to enquire as to whether he was entitled to the commissions paid him in the Commonwealth tax cases, similar commissions having been paid to his predecessors without question as to their right to them. The first of these committees reported nothing to his discredit, and the other never reported at all.
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