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 9
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We have learned of nothing since the date on which the fore- going was written that would warrant us in unsaying a word it contains. He was a faithful Commonwealth's attorney. He
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ALEXANDER FARNHAM.
recognized and fully appreciated the too frequently ignored fact, that he had been retained by the people to see that their laws were faithfully executed, and offenders against them were brought to bar, and, if found guilty, punished. He fulfilled the Jeffer- sonian idea: "He was honest; he was capable."
While yet District Attorney, in 1874, Mr. Farnham's name was prominently mentioned in connection with the candidacy of his party for Additional Law Judge, but the nomination was finally tendered Gen. E. S. Osborne. Again, in 1877, when Judge Dana was made the nominee of the two parties, and again, in 1879, when Judge Rice carried off the honors, Mr. Farnham was backed by considerable following, who felt that he would have been acceptable to the people as a candidate, and faithful to them on the bench, as he undoubtedly would. After the formation of the new county of Lackawanna, many of its most prominent Republicans solicited the use of his name as a candidate for the Judgeship there, but he politely but positively refused. He has also been spoken of as a Republican candidate for Congress for the Twelfth district, and would have been accorded that honor had he evinced a willingness to accept it. He was a delegate to the Chicago Convention, where the late President Garfield was nominated, and distinguished himself there as an ardent leader of the Blaine forces.
Mr. Farnham married, July 18th, 1865, Augusta, daughter of the late Rev. John Dorrance, D. D., of this city. Dr. Dorrance was descended from Rev. Samuel Dorrance, a Scotch Presbyte- rian divine, who graduated from Glasgow University in 1709, and was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Dumbarton in 1711. Eleven years later he emigrated to America, and settled in Voluntown, Connecticut, where he continued in the active performance of his ministerial duties until his decease, in 1775. His son, George Dorrance, was a Lieutenant Colonel of the Militia of Wyoming, and was killed at the memorable Massacre. His grandson, who was Mrs. Farnham's father, succeeded Rev. Dr. Murray, better known as "Kirwin," in the charge of the Presbyterian Church, at Wilkes-Barre, in August, 1833, and con- tinued in that 'charge until his death, in 1861. He was a man of much more than ordinary talent and character, and was honored
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EDWARD PAYSON DARLING.
with the degree of Doctor of Divinity by the College of New Jersey, at Princeton. Mr. and Mrs. Farnham have three chil- dren, two sons and a daughter.
Though always doing a large legal business, Mr. Farnham has, nevertheless, found time to take upon himself, and creditably perform, many social, neighborly, and municipal duties. In con- nection with the latter, he has served one term in the Board of Directors of the Third School District, and is at present a mem- ber of the City Council and Chairman of the Law and Ordinance Committee, and by reason of his professional knowledge and care in deciding as to the meaning of the law, he is a valuable member of that body. He is a progressive Councilman and a man of excellent judgment, and rarely, if ever, takes the wrong side of a question affecting the city's interests.
Though still, as in his younger days, a man of exceptionally reserved demeanor, disinclined, almost to a fault, to obtrude him- self upon public attention in any way, his professional services are always in demand (he has been and still is associated with many of the most important causes ever argued in our Courts), and socially is extensively regarded as a gentleman of worth and culture. He is, in brief, a good lawyer, a good citizen, and a good neighbor.
EDWARD PAYSON DARLING.
Thomas Darling was the paternal greatgrandfather of Edward Payson Darling, the subject of the present sketch. He was either the first American ancestor of the family, or his immediate descendant. The family is of English extraction, and the first of the name to reach this country was among the earliest of the early New England arrivals. The exact date of his coming is not, however, known. Thomas Darling married Martha Howe, a niece of Lord Howe, the commander of the British forces in America during the Revolutionary war.
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His son, the grandfather of Edward Payson, was Eliakim Dar- ling, whose birth occurred in New Hampshire, in 1767. He married Ruth Buck, of Buckport, Maine, who was born in 1775, and died in 1855. Eliakim moved to Buckport, Maine, at an early age, where he became an extensive ship-builder and owner, in which he drove a thriving trade with several foreign countries. During the war of 1812 he was captured by the British while attempting to run the blockade of the New England coast, but as it was after peace had been declared, although not known at the time in this country, his ship and its contents were soon after released. He died at the age of sixty-six, in good circumstances.
IIis son, William Darling, who was the father of Edward Payson, was born in Buckport, Maine, but removed, when a very young man, to Reading, Berks county, Pa., where he was admitted to the bar, and entered actively into the practice of the law. He was a lawyer of fine parts, and held a leading position in the Courts for many years. In 1851 he was a United States Com- missioner to the World's Fair, at Crystal Palace, London, and during that year delivered a series of addresses at Exeter Hall, in that city, on the relations of the two countries. The Earl of Shaftesbury presided on these occasions, and the addresses elic- ited wide-spread notice and comment in both countries. He retired from active practice when but forty years old. He had been previously appointed President Judge of the Berks district, but his health failing shortly after, he resigned the position, though he nevertheless lived to the comparatively advanced age of seventy-eight years. He was also a Vice-President of the American Sunday School Union from its organization until the time of his death.
Edward Payson's mother was Margaret Vaughan Smith, the daughter of John Smith, of Berks county, who was owner of the Joanna furnace, in that county, a noted establishment at an early day. In 1832 the Joanna furnace was being operated by William Darling, and, as appears from a report made to the Auditor General of that year, employed one hundred and sixty-eight men. The furnace was owned by Mrs. Darling, to whom it descended from her father. John Smith was the son of Robert Smith, of Chester county, Pa., who was the son of John and Susanna Smith,
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EDWARD PAYSON DARLING.
who emigrated from the north of Ireland in 1720, and settled in Uwchlan township, in the county last named. Robert was born at sea during the voyage over. He was of the sturdy, plucky, and enduring sort who constituted the main reliance of this now great country through the troublesome years of its infancy.
In an article written by Joseph S. Harris, Esq., and published in the Pennsylvania Magasine of History and Biography, we are indebted for the following sketch of the Smith family:
"Little is known of the history of the Smith family prior to their emigration to Pennsylvania, except that the family name was originally Macdonald, and that the branch of it from which Robert was descended formed an important part of the earliest Scottish emigration across the North Channel into Ireland in the time of James I. of England. Near the end of the seventeenth century, Robert Smith's grandfather lived in the northeastern part of Ireland. Just before the battle of the Boyne, as the sol- dier king, William III., was personally reconnoitring the locality which was soon to become famous, his horse cast a shoe. There was, of course, no farrier in attendance to replace it, but Mac- donald, in whose neighborhood the accident occurred, and who, like many other farmers in thinly peopled districts, volunteered to repair the injury, shod the horse, and so enabled the King to proceed. His neighbors, who, like himself, were in sympathy with the cause of which William was the champion, dubbed Macdonald 'the Smith.' Such a change of name would not now be considered a compliment, as Smiths are so numerous that the name confers no special distinction, but in that district there was a surfeit of Macdonalds; all the possible changes had been rung on the name, and still there were hardly enough names to indi- vidualize the members of the clan. Smith was a novelty, and the branch of trade it represented has always been an honored one, especially in primitive society, and this particular Scotchman, proud to have his name linked, with that of a great man and a decisive battle, as that of Boynewater was soon known to be, accepted the cognomen, and handed it down to his posterity as the family name. The Macdonalds held their lands in Ireland by tenant right, and while they, with the rest of their country- men, were subduing the savage land which they now called home, they lived in peaceful obscurity. But when the colonists had won for themselves prosperity, that prosperity invited the in- terference both of their landlords and of the English government. Being Presbyterians, they resisted the legislation by which their rulers attempted to establish uniformity of ritual throughout the
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island, and when by the Sacrament Test, as it was called, they were required to pay tithes to the Established Church; when marriages by their own clergymen were declared null, and the issue of such marriages illegitimate; when they were forbidden to bury their dead by the rites of their own church, or to have teachers of their own faith; when they were debarred from all positions of power or trust, and heavily taxed on their produc- tions and traffic; and when, in addition to these governmental oppressions, the absentee landlord took occasion, as the leases expired, greatly to increase the rents, these sturdy colonists, who had in one century turned the most desolate part of Ireland into a garden, and its most lawless district into an abode of peaceful and happy industry, decided again to abandon their homes, and to seek others beyond the seas; where, under Penn's mild and beneficent rule, permanent prosperity might be hoped for as the reward of honest toil; where they could build houses and reclaim land for the benefit of themselves and their children, and where they might worship God in the way that their customs and their consciences dictated.
"Such were the causes that led to the Scotch-Irish emigration to Pennsylvania in the first half of the eighteenth century, which gave to that colony so many of its best citizens. Among the first of these emigrants were the parents of Robert Smith-John and Susanna-who left their homes in 1720, one year after the enforcement of 'The Test,' and whose special grievance was, not the raising of the rent of their homestead, but the absolute refusal of their landlord to renew their lease unless they would comply with the requirements of that hated act.
"The company was composed, as the beginning of such an emigration is apt to be, of the best class of the Scotch settlers in Ireland, men of property and education, many of them being clergymen and fine scholars, who, for years afterwards, furnished the most eminent teachers of the classical and theological schools in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania.
"Though the voyage was stormy, and unusually long even for those days of dull sailors, tradition tells of no losses of life on the journey, while there was certainly one life gained, for Robert Smith was born at sea. Immediately after landing at Philadel- phia, the emigrants pushed westward thirty miles into Chester county, and passing by the fertile Great Valley took up lands to the northward in the hilly country of Uwchlan township, in a locality long known as the Brandywine settlement.
"With her brother John came Mary Smith, who married Alexander Fulton, removed to Little Brittain, Lancaster county,
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EDWARD PAYSON DARLING.
and to whom in due time was born a grandson, Robert Fulton, who has indissolubly linked his name with the history of steam navigation.
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"Nothing is remembered of the early life of Robert Smith. His father died in 1760, and his mother in 1767; the homestead fell to Robert, who prospered there, as wise and diligent men did in those days. Sergeant Robert Smith is reported in the public records of the time as 'going to Reading to be qualified,' when, in 1757, the war between the French and English made the Indians restless and aggressive on the whole Pennsylvania border, and called out large bodies of militia in that peaceful colony. His next appearanee is in the commencement of the Revolution, in August, 1775. The colony had but a small navy, and the chief reliance for the defense of Philadelphia was on obstructions to be placed in the channel of the Delaware river. Numerous plans were offered, and after discussing them thoroughly it was decided to place a line of chevaux-de-frise across the channel. At the date last mentioned, Robert Smith was thanked by the Supreme Executive Council of Pennsylvania for a model of a machine for handling chevaux-de-frise, and was soon after directed by the same body to report on the merits of the rival : plans of Govett and Guion for building them. The next year the work was taken up in earnest, and in June, 1776, the Council instructed him to take charge of and sink the proposed defenses. He remained in charge of these works for nearly a year, during which time he was also engaged in planning the land fortifications which were included in the same line of defenses. While engaged in these military defenses, he was also called to aid in raising the civil bulwarks of the State, and sat in the Convention which, on the 28th of September, 1776, adopted the first State Constitution of Pennsylvania.
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"Robert Smith was at this time a man of considerable means, of great energy and extensive influence, and when, after the first flush of enthusiasm with which the colonists entered upon the Revolutionary war had passed away, the necessity of organizing and discipling the forces who were to conquer freedom for a con- tinent was recognized, he was considered the fittest man to do this work for his county, then the second in importance in the State, and was accordingly called, on the 12th day of March, 1777, by the Supreme Executive Council, to the responsible post of Lieutenant of Chester county. This office, whose name and duties were analogous to those of the King's Lieutenants in the counties of the mother country, gave him, with the rank of Colonel, the charge of raising, arming, and provisioning the mili- tary contingent of his district, and in every way preparing the
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troops to take the field. They remained under his command till they were called into active service.
"The selection proved a wise one. The Scotch-Irish were generally of good fighting material, and the circumstances under which they had left their old homes made them have no hesita- tion in taking up arms against the British government. Colonel Smith had had some experience in military affairs and in admin- istration, and would no doubt have taken the field, but that he was somewhat past the prime of life, and had grown too large (weighing over 250 pounds) to undergo the fatigues of service at the front. He seems through this period of his life to have been somewhat of a pluralist, though it may have been to aid him in the discharge of his duties as County Lieutenant that he was elected Sheriff of Chester county, March 29, 1777, and appointed Justice of the Peace, March 31, 1777. The latter office he held for a number of years, and he was re-elected to the former, November 21, 1778. In October, 1783, he was one of the two persons elected by the people, as the custom then was, for the office of Sheriff, but the Governor, in whom was vested the final choice, selected William Gibbon, the other candidate.
"As illustrating the temper of the time, and especially the feel- ings of those who were his nearest neighbors, the following inci- dent is worthy of note. When in the spring of 1776 Pennsylvania was called on for her quota of the troops needed to defend New York against the advance of the British under Howe, the Rev. John Carmichael, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Brandy- wine Manor, preached one Sunday the country's claim to the services of her sons with such vigorous eloquence, that every man of his congregation enlisted, and that summer, while they fought the bloody battle of Long Island, women reaped the harvests at their homes in Uwchlan.
"Col. Smith retired from the position of County Lieutenant, March 21, 1786, which he had held for nine most eventful years, and from all public offices, except that of a Trustee of the State Loan Office, which he retained for about a year after this time. He served for one term in the State Assembly in 1785. In the latter part of 1787, being then sixty-seven years of age, and no longer in robust health, he retired to his farm, twelve years of uninterrupted public life having led him to covet the quiet of home, and his private affairs, which had been so long neglected, requiring his attention.
"His life was prolonged for sixteen years more, till 1803, and his death was caused by a paralytic stroke. He is remembered as a man of upright and decided character, but of winning man- ners, and from having so long been in official positions, so
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respected and confided in by his fellow-citizens, as to be con- stantly called on as an adviser in difficulties and an arbitrator in disputes. He was a staunch Presbyterian, an Elder, and a pillar in the church of which the Rev. John Carmichael was pastor, and he brought up his family after the most approved Scotch fashion. Reading the scriptures and prayer were an important part of the daily routine of the home life, and a large part of each Sunday was devoted to the study of the bible and the Westminster catechism.
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" He married, December 20, 1758, Margaret Vaughan, daughter of John Vaughan, of Red Lion, Chester county, who survived him long, dying in 1822, at the age of eighty-seven. Of their children, Jonathan was for many years honorably and prominently connected with the First and Second United States Banks, and with the Bank of Pennsylvania, as their cashier; Joseph was an iron and shipping merchant of Philadelphia, and John (the grand- father of the subject of our sketch) was an iron-master, owning the Joanna furnace, near the line between Chester and Berks counties."
The late Gen. Persifer F. Smith was a grandson, as was also Persifer F. Smith, for so many years reporter for the Supreme Court of the State.
A daughter of Robert Smith married Rev. Levi Bull, D. D., an eminent clergymen of the Episcopal Church, and who was at the time of his decease the oldest Episcopal minister in the Diocese of Pennsylvania. He was rector of St. Mary's Church, in Chester county, for nearly fifty years. He was a grandson on his maternal side of John Hunter, who was a member of the first vestry of St. Peter's Church, in Great Valley, Chester county. Dr. Bull was the son of Col. John Bull, of Revolutionary memory, who was one of the twelve members of Philadelphia county that met in Provincial Convention in January, 1775, and one of the four members that represented Philadelphia county in the Con- vention that framed the Constitution of the State, and which was adopted the 28th of September, 1776. He was a gentleman of considerable eminence in his day, and at one time was the owner of the mill and plantation of Charles Norris, where is now the present borough of Norristown.
Another daughter married Rev. Nathan Grier, who succeeded Rev. John Carmichael as pastor of the Brandywine Manor Church. He was the son of Nathan and Agnes Grier, early
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EDWARD PAYSON DARLING.
emigrants from Ireland, who settled in Plumstead, Bucks county, Pa. His brother John was a member of the Constitutional Con- vention of 1776. Mr. Grier was the grandfather of Rev. N. G. Parke, of Pittston.
Out of such ancestry came Edward Payson Darling. He was born in Robeson township, Berks county, on November 10, 1831, and was educated at New London Cross Roads Academy and at Amherst College, graduating from the latter in 1851. The New London Academy was established by Rev. Dr. Francis Allison in 1743. It became justly celebrated, and served to aid in fur- nishing the State with able civilians, and the church with well qualified ministers. Among those who were wholly or partially educated here were Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Conti- nental Congress; Dr. John Ewing, Provost of the University of Pennsylvania; Dr. David Ramsay, the historian; the celebrated Dr. Hugh Williamson, one of the framers of the Constitution of the United States and historian of North Carolina, and three signers of the Declaration of Independence-Governor Thomas McKean, George Read, and James Smith. He read law in Reading, and was admitted to the bar there on November 10, 1853. In 1855 he removed to this city, and on August 13, of that year, became a member of the Luzerne bar, at which he quickly rose to a foremost position. He has never held nor sought political preferment; has, in fact, never taken an active hand in politics in any way. In all civil questions, involving commercial, real estate, and corporation law, he stands among the foremost in his profession, as is attested by two facts: first, that he has a larger number of students than any brother lawyer; and, second, that he is executor and trustee of many of the largest estates in the county. He holds many business positions of great responsibility, being a Vice-President of the Wyoming National Bank and of the Miners' Savings Bank. He is also a partner in the banking house of F. V. Rockafellow & Co. He is one of the Directors of the Wilkes-Barre Gas Company, a Trustee of the Wilkes-Barre Female Institute, a Trustee of the Wilkes-Barre Academy, and a Trustee under the will of the late Isaac S. Oster- hout of the "Osterhout Free Library," and was one of the appli- cants for the charter recently granted by the State, under which
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the finishing link in the new through line of railroad from Boston to Chicago, of which the new North and West Branch forms a part, is to be erected. By his associates in all these business enterprises and trusts, his clear conception of the law and admir- able judgment and tact are highly valued.
Mr. Darling married, on September 29th, 1859, Emily H., a daughter of Nathaniel Rutter, Esq., of this city, who has borne him three children, Mary R. and Emily C., who are now being educated in Germany, and Thomas, who is at present in the Freshman class at Yale College. Mrs. Darling died during the last year.
The bulk of the creditable work of this world is accomplished by two very different kinds of men. The one includes the dash- ing, quick-witted, never hesitating, always-to-the-fore kind, for whom the obstacles which beset all paths seem to possess a sort of fascination, and who go at them instanter, on a full tilt, and with a nerve and courage conspicuous to and winning the plaudits of all. The others are seldom thought by the masses to possess extraordinary talents. But to those who know them intimately, in place of quick wit, they present never-erring judgment, and in place of mere dash, an industry that never tires. Obstacles cause them to hesitate, but only long enough to determine the method by which they can be surely surmounted. They don't win applause, but they enlist confidence. They are paid, not with huzzas, but with trusts. If anywhere a record of what each accomplishes is kept, the balance will be found to be largely on the latter's side.
A brother of Edward Payson, Henry Darling, D. D., is now the President of Hamilton College, at Clinton, N. Y., a very wealthy educational institution, being possessed of property val- ued at $700,000. His first wife was the sister of ex-Judge Strong, of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in 1881. Hon. Charles E. Rice and Elliot P. Kisner, Esq., are graduates of Hamilton College. J. Vaughan Darling, Esq., of the Luzerne county bar, is also a brother.
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STANLEY WOODWARD.
.STANLEY WOODWARD.
Stanley Woodward, at present Additional Law Judge of Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, is of the stock of the earliest of the New World pioneers. He was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., on the 29th day of August, 1833, on the property now owned by Hugh Murray, on Northampton street. His mother also was born in the same house. Many of the Woodwards have figured conspicuously and honorably in our National history, inheriting the qualities which made such distinction possible from an ances- try remarkable for their advanced faith in America, and patriotic devotion to her institutions.
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