USA > Pennsylvania > Luzerne County > Families of the Wyoming Valley: biographical, genealogical and historical. Sketches of the bench and bar of Luzerne County, Pennsylvania, vol. II > Part 16
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HENRY WHITE DUNNING.
HENRY WHITE DUNNING.
Henry White Dunning was born in Franklin, Delaware county, New York, September 11, 1858. He is probably a descendant of Jonathan Dunning, who came to this country from England early in the eighteenth century. His son or grandson, Michael Dunning, removed from Boston to Long Island, where he married. He then removed to Goshen, Orange county, New York. Michael had a son Jacob, who had a son John, who married Polly Seely. John had a son John, who married Mehitable Bailey, who had a son Henry, who married Catharine Arnot. Charles Seely Dunning, D. D., eldest son of Henry Dunning, was born in Wall- kill, Orange county, New York, January 31, 1828. In 1846 he joined the junior class in Williams College, and was graduated in 1848. He then entered the Union Theological Seminary, New York, from which he graduated in 1852. His theological training was obtained in this institution, and after serving the First Presbyte- rian church in Binghamton, N. Y., as stated supply for one year (1852-3), he returned to the Seminary to occupy the position of instructor in Hebrew. This office he filled with great acceptance during four years (1853-7). It is said that Dr. Edward Robinson pronounced him to be "the finest critical Hebrew scholar ever graduated at Union Seminary." In April, 1858, he took charge of the First Presbyterian church of Franklin, and was ordained and installed pastor November 8. In April, 1861, he was called to the pastorate of the First Presbyterian church of Honesdale, Pa. His relation to that church continued for nineteen years. In April, 1880, in consequence of the failure of his health, he resigned the pastorate, and soon after removed to Kingston, Pa. There having regained his health in a measure, he resumed the functions of the ministry, being a less laborious field of labor. But even this was too great a tax upon his strength, and after three years he was obliged, by reason of still failing health, to relinquish this charge also. In March, 1885, he removed to Metuchen, N. J., where he had purchased a pleasant home, in which he thought to wait, serenely, till the final call of the Mas-
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ter. He had not long to wait. He died on the first day of the following June. His body was brought to Honesdale, where the best years of his life were spent, and laid beside the children of his household who had gone before. On the afternoon of the funeral all the business places in the town were closed, and the mourning was general and sincere. All denominational lines were effaced. Jews and Gentiles closed their shops and stores. The Catholic priest of the village sat with the brethren of the Lackawanna Presbytery in the pulpit during the funeral services in the church, and stood with them at the grave. At a later date a memorial sermon was delivered by the Rev. William H. Swift, who, after a short interval, had succeeded Dr. Dunning in the pastorate at Honesdale. This sermon is now incorporated in a handsome memorial volume. Lafayette College in 1871 con- ferred upon Mr. Dunning the degree of D. D. Dr. Dunning was held in high esteem by all who knew him well, for his extensive and accurate scholarship, the wide range and strong grasp of his thought, and the simplicity, rectitude and moral elevation of his character. His influence was far reaching in the community. It was the influence of a true man among men, a man whose splen- did equipments of intellect and learning were recognized by all, a man whose greatness was accompanied by unassuming mod- esty ; and one whose life was the constant and everywhere man- ifest expression of the religion he professed. He was a preacher of no ordinary ability and power. His sermons were masterly presentations of truth. Eminently qualified by his deep insight into truth, as a whole and in its relations, by his exact and pro- found knowledge, and his habits of patient study, to be a defender of the faith, he spared himself no pains in the preparation of his sermons, many of which grappled with those profound and fun- damental doctrines which in these days are most vigorously assailed by infidelity. He published three discourses: (1) A Sermon occasioned by the Death of Henry Porter McCoy, Franklin, Delaware County, N. Y., August 26, 1860; (2) A Me- morial Sermon delivered Sabbath evening, April 15, 1866, upon the Abandonment of the former House of Worship, Honesdale, Pa .; (3) A Discourse delivered on the Occasion of the Installa- tion of Rev. Henry C. Westwood, D. D., as Pastor of the First
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HENRY WHITE DUNNING.
Presbyterian church of Honesdale, Pa. He married, November 4. 1857, Maria H., only daughter of Rev. Henry White, D. D. He was a descendant of John White, who was a citizen of Lynn, Mass., in 1630. Tradition says he came from England, but when is not known. The Howells, the maternal ancestors of Dr. White, were at Lynn at the same time. The Howells were origin- ally from Wales. In 1654 a colony, of which John White and John Howell were prominent members, purchased the tract of country on Long Island comprising a part, if not all, of the towns now called Easthampton, Southampton and Bridgehampton, and settled on it in a body at Southampton, bringing their own min- ister, school teacher, and artisans. John White had a son James White, who had a son Captain Ephraim White, who had a son William White, who had a son William White, jr., who had a son Jeremiah White, who had a son Henry White, the grand- father of Henry White Dunning. Jeremiah White emigrated to Green county, N. Y., and is there buried at Acra.
Rev. Henry White, D. D., was born at Durham, Green county, N. Y., June 19, 1Soo. He studied for the ministry at Greenville (N. Y.) Academy, Union College, and Princeton Seminary. In 1826 he was licensed to preach, and was soon thereafter ordained. On account of health impaired by study, he first traveled in the south as an agent of the American Bible Society. In 1828 he became pastor of the Allen street Presbyterian church, New York city. His ministry there was remarkably successful, and he had but few equals among the men of his time. He was one of the chief movers in founding the Union Theological Seminary, in the city of New York, and in 1836 was called to the professor- ship of Systematic Theology in that institution. The choice was a good one. Dr. White was an independent, acute, vigorous thinker, and an admirable teacher. He lived to serve the insti- tution for fourteen years, and is still spoken of by his pupils with great enthusiasm. Prior to the erection of the old edifice on University Place he had the students meet in his parlor for in- struction. He died August 25, 1850. Dr. White, as a Pharos, stood above the shoals of theological speculation. Whoever sailed by him avoided wreck. He was a steady warning to keep the open sea or to anchor in the roadstead. He had little sym-
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HENRY WHITE DUNNING.
pathy with that class of minds which love most the dangerous places of theological study. Not that he would leave such places unsounded, unsurveyed, but that he distrusted the fascinations which they have for the venturesome and the curious. His system was pre-eminently clear and simple. His aim was to teach what he himself had learned from the bible as a revelation. That which the scriptures did not reveal he was not anxious to ex- plain. He peculiarly disliked the mists of German philosophy, by which the students of his day were often befogged. His preaching was remarkably lucid and strong. He at once alarmed and attracted his hearers. If Sinai thundered from his pulpit, the light of the cross also beamed there, like that of the seven lamps which burned with steady radiance amid the flashes of the Apocalyptic vision of the throne. Circling about all the symbols of terror was the sign of mercy, the "rainbow, in sight like unto an emerald." He was still in the vigor of manhood when he died, but ready to be unclothed and clothed upon. During the last years of his earthly life he supplied the pulpit of the Sixteenth Street Presbyterian church in New York, and there preached not only with the power but also with the success of his earlier days, using old weapons, repeating old victories. The wife of Dr. White was Esther Brocket, daughter of Ebenezer Brocket, whose wife was Charlotte Loomis, sister of Rev. Hubbel Loomis, father of Prof. Loomis of Yale College. The mother of Ebenezer Brocket was Esther Hoadley, the daughter of Russell Hoadley, of Wallingford, Conn. The wife of Jeremiah White, grandfather of Henry White Dunning, was Matilda Howell, daughter of John Howell and Mehitable Jessup. The latter was the sister of the father of the late Judge William Jessup, at one time president judge of the courts of Luzerne county. Henry White Dunning was educated at the Williston Seminary, East Hamp- ton, Mass., graduating from that institution in 1878. In 1879 he entered the freshman class of Princeton (N. J.) College and remained there for a year, but on account of his father's sickness did not return to the college. He commenced the reading of the law in the office of William H. Lee (son-in-law of Hiram Wentz, of this city), of Honesdale, and completed his legal studies in the office of Hubbard B. Payne, in this city. He was admitted
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GEORGE HOLLENBACK FISHER.
to the bar of Luzerne county June 5, 1882. Mr. Dunning is quite prominent in Presbyterian church circles, and was, while residing at Kingston, superintendent of the Presbyterian Sabbath school. He is at present the assistant superintendent of the First Presbyterian Sabbath school of this city. He is the recording secretary of the board of managers of the Young Men's Christian Association of Wilkes-Barre, and one of the vice presidents of the Luzerne County Sabbath School Association. He is also the lecturer in the commercial college attached to Wyoming Seminary on the law of decedents' estates.
Mr. Dunning's ancestry, as the foregoing brief record will make apparent, were of the kind from whom strong professional men might naturally spring, and it is not too much to say that, although as yet but a few years at the bar, he has already given evidence that, with ordinary good fortune, he may rise to a prom- inent position thereat. He is of the sort who face the serious side of life with a determination to meet it seriously, and to over- come obstacles by careful study and energetic effort. We have been impelled on more than one occasion to refer to the fact that too many young men go to the law in the belief that the rewards of its practice will come like the flowers and fruits of the tropics, without effort and for the mere taking. The delusion is a serious one, and has led to ignominious failure many a young man who might, beginning professional life with a different view of its duties and responsibilities, and capable of a little better application, have taken rank with the best of them. It is no unmeaning compli- ment, therefore, that we pay Mr. Dunning, in mentioning that he has begun his professional career in a manner to indicate that it will involve continued research and labor. His equipment is of the best, and the realization is likely to be satisfactory to his friends.
GEORGE HOLLENBACK FISHER.
George Hollenback Fisher was born in Wilkes-Barre, Pa., October 13, 1860. 'He is the son of the late William K. Fisher, for many years a resident of this city, but who was a native of
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MCATEE.
Rush township, Northumberland county, Pa. Joseph Fisher, the father of William K. Fisher, was a native of the state of New Jersey. The wife of William K. Fisher and the mother of George H. Fisher was Ann Ulp, a daughter of Barnet Ulp, a native of New Hope, Bucks county, Pa. The wife of Barnet Ulp was Sarah Treadway, a daughter of John Treadway, a native of Colchester, Conn. He was an early resident of Hanover town- ship, in this county. His name appears in the assessment list in 1796. His wife was Hester Camp, also of Colchester. John Treadway was drowned in the Susquehanna river, about the year 1800, while fishing for shad. George H. Fisher was educated in the public schools of Wilkes-Barre and at Selleck's Academy, Norwalk, Conn., graduating from that institution in the class of 1877. He read law with E. P. & J. V. Darling, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county June 5, 1882.
Of the younger men of the bar we cannot say much other than in the way of forecasting their probable future from such naturally few opportunities as they have had for exhibiting the material of which they are made. Mr. Fisher's mentors are among the best in the state. From their offices a large number of the brightest young practitioners at our and other bars have been graduated. Mr. Fisher has had the same training, and it is the testimony of those who have had a chance to know that he has turned it to good account. He has natural abilities of a high order and ought to succeed.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN McATEE.
Benjamin Franklin McAtee was born in Clear Spring, Wash- ington county, Maryland, December 28, 1843. He is a son of Thomas Walker McAtee, also a native of the same county. In the early settlement of Maryland two families of the name of McAtee emigrated to that colony. One was of the Roman Catholic faith, and they settled in Prince George county, and the other of the Protestant faith, of which the subject of our sketch
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MCATEE.
is a descendant, settled in Washington county. William A. McAtee, at one time a professor of mathematics and belles lettres in Princeton college, subsequently pastor of the Presbyterian church in Danville, Pa., and now pastor of a Presbyterian church in Detroit, Michigan; Walter B. McAtee, president of the Corn Exchange, Baltimore, Maryland; and John McAtee, a lawyer at Hagerstown, and who is a partner of A. K. Syester, who has been attorney general of Maryland, are sons of William B. McAtee, a brother of Thomas Walker McAtee, the father of the subject of our sketch. John Quincy Adams McAtee, pastor of a Lutheran church in Philadelphia, is a brother of B. F. McAtee. The mother of the subject of our sketch is Mary McAtee (nee Brinham). She is the daughter of John Brinham, a native of Beaver Creek, Washington county. Mr. Brinham is of an old Maryland family. He was a slaveholder, and in his will he pro- vided that all his slaves should be free at the age of twenty-eight years, and that none of them should be sold out of Washington county. He died in 1858. B. F. McAtee was educated at the Clear Spring Academy, and when eighteen years of age commenced to teach school in Hagerstown. During the late civil war he was second lieutenant in the First Maryland Cavalry. After his term of service was over he removed to Washington, Ohio, and studied law with John B. Priddy, and was admitted to the Fayette county (Ohio) bar May 15, 1871. After a short time he removed to Hereford township, Berks county, Pa., and in the fall of 1872 he was admitted to the bar of the counties of Montgomery and Ches- ter. About the same time he removed to Pottstown, Mont- gomery county. After residing there for several years he removed to Phoenixville, Chester county, keeping up his practice in both counties. In 1884 he concluded to remove to Pittston, where he now resides. He was admitted to the Luzerne county bar September 3, 1884. Mr. McAtee married Adelia Young Shelly, a daughter of Joel Yeakel Shelly, M. D., of Hereford- ville, Berks county, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. McAtee have no children living. Abraham Shelly, M. D., father of J. Y. Shelly, M. D., lived for many years in Milford township, Bucks county, Pa., near what is known as the Swamp church. The Doctors Shelly are evidently descendants of an old family by that name, for we find
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MCATEE.
that as early as May 25, 1725, Jacob Shelly was a land owner in Mil- ford, and in 1749 one Abraham Shelly was a petitioner for a road. Dr. Abraham Shelly was the father of twelve children-Captain Edward Shelly, of St. Paul, Minn., Edmund Shelly, who is now deceased, was a book publisher in Philadelphia, Benneville Shelly, M. D., who now resides in Florida, and Joel Y. Shelly, M. D., father of Mrs. McAtee, were sons of Abraham Shelly, M. D. Joel Y. Shelly, M. D., resided in Herefordville from his gradu- ation until his death. He was a public spirited citizen, and at the head of every movement for the' educational and social advancement of his neighborhood. He had eleven children, five of whom are now deceased. Two of his sons are engaged in the hardware business in Allentown, one son in the wholesale spice business in Philadelphia, and another son is a Reformed minister in Florida. Of his two daughters, one is married to Rev. O. F. Waage, a Lutheran minister at Pennsburg, Pa., and the other is the wife of B. F. McAtee. Dr. J. Y. Shelly was a cousin of Mary Clemmer, a prominent writer at Washington, D. C., and whose second husband was Edmund Hudson, a very able jour- nalist. Christian Young, father of Mrs. J. Y. Shelly, was a native of Bucks county, Pa., probably of Milford township, as a certain Felty Young was a landholder there as early as 1734. He removed to Hanover township, Lehigh county, Pa., and opened a store near Coopersburg in 1800. In 1812 he opened the Black Horse Tavern, which he kept till his removal to Bucks county in 1818. Samuel Young, M. D., was the eldest of his sons. He was a very successful physician, and practiced in Colebrookdale, Berks county, Pa., for over twenty-five years, but after the death of his son, Oliver Young, also a physician, removed to Milford Square, Bucks county, and thence for an easier field of practice in old age to Allentown, Pa. He died in 1882. Joseph Young, M. S. Young, and William Young were also sons of Christian Young. The first two named founded the extensive hardware establishment of M. S. Young & Co, the largest in the Lehigh valley. M. S. Young died in 1881. The business, however, continues as before. The wife of Samuel Young, M. D., was Anna Maria Dickensheid, daughter of John H. Dickensheid, M. D., of Allentown. Dr. Dickensheid
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BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MCATEE.
was a great grandson of Valentine Dickensheid, who emi- grated from Germany previous to 1765 and settled in Goshen- hoppen, and moved in 1768 to Upper Milford, Northampton (now Lehigh) county. Charles Frederick Dickensheid, M. D., father of John H. Dickensheid, M. D., was a surgeon in the war of 1812. Of the other children of Christian Young, James Young, one of his sons, is president of a bank in Germantown, Pa .; another son, Andrew Young, was a minister in the Reformed church, and professor of languages in Franklin and Marshall college, Lancaster, Pa. His widow married Professor Coffin, of Lafayette college, Easton, Pa. Ebenezer Young was a mer- chant in Belvidere, N. J. One of his daughters married a Mr. Sieger, whose only child is the wife of Hon. Edwin Albright, president judge of the courts of Lehigh county. The other daughter of Christian Young became the wife of Joel Y. Shelly, M. D.
Though but a short time a resident and practitioner in this county, Mr. McAtee has already built up a large and profitable practice. He is a hard working attorney, and impresses clients by the evident earnestness with which he takes up the advocacy of their causes. Very carefully read in the principles of the law, and devoting every spare hour to the study of new statutes and decisions, he carries to every proceeding in which he is employed what the brightest of men cannot without such application possess, for no possible natural ability, no degree of inborn eloquence can compensate for an inedequate understanding of what "the books " contain. He evidently likes the profession, which is far from being a drawback, and seeks to win as much if not more for the sake of winning than for the fees involved. His army experience and his practice in the other counties in which, as above recited, he has been located, adding so much to his knowl- edge of men and things generally, are necessarily an aid to him in his present situation. He stands well with the people of Pittston, and has already an enviable reputation with his fellow-professionals at the county seat.
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PERCIVAL COOVER KAUFFMAN.
PERCIVAL COOVER KAUFFMAN.
Percival Coover Kauffman, of Hazleton, is a native of Mechan- icsburg, Cumberland county, Pa., where he was born August 13, 1857. His great-great-grandfather, Christian Kauffman, emi- grated to America from Germany about 1750, and settled in Manor township, Lancaster county, Pa., where he died March I, 1799. He was married to Barbara Bear, whose death occurred January 12, 1801. They had six children, of whom Isaac, the second son, and great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Manor township in 1762, and died January 4, 1826. In the year 1786 he married Catharine Baughman, who died July 9, 1833. Their youngest son, Andrew I. Kauffman, father of Levi Kauffman, was born August 24, 1802, at the old homestead in Manor township, and spent the greater part of his life in that township. He represented Lancaster county in the House of Representatives in the state legislature, and was closely asso- ciated with George Wolf, Thaddeus Stevens and Thomas H. Burrows in the establishment of our justly prized common school system. In 1850 he became a resident of Cumberland county, and in 1853 removed to Mechanicsburg, where he engaged in mercantile pursuits, and continued therein until his death, which occurred December 14, 1861. Andrew I. Kauffman was married March 24, 1825, to Catharine Shuman, who was born July 16, 1806, and was the only daughter of Christian Shuman, of Manor township. She died at Mechanicsburg May 18,1875.
Levi Kauffman, their fourth son, was born at Little Washing- ton, Lancaster county, Pa., September 13, 1833. At the early age of thirteen he left home and entered the drug store of Dr. George Ross, at Elizabethtown, as an apprentice. At the end of four years he received from Dr. Ross a strong testimonial of his ability as a druggist, aptness, intelligence, and integrity of char- acter. Mr. Kauffman remained in the drug business in Eliza- bethtown until April, 1854, when he removed to Mechanicsburg, and opened a new drug store in that place. A year or two later,
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in connection with his father, Andrew I. Kauffman, and Henry C. Rupp, he entered the hardware business, connecting his drug store therewith, and continued therein until 1859, when he accepted the position of cashier in the banking house of Merkel, Mumma & Co., subsequently chartered as the First National Bank of Mechanicsburg, Pa. This position he resigned in 1862, when he was appointed, by President Lincoln, collector of internal revenue for the Fifteenth district of Pennsylvania, comprising the counties of Cumberland, York and Perry. He held that position until September, 1866, when he resigned. His letter of resignation, published in the Philadelphia Press, we here reproduce. It shows his character and sterling patriot- ism :
COLLECTOR'S OFFICE, U. S. INTERNAL REVENUE, 15TH DISTRICT, PA. MECHANICSBURG, PA., July 30, 1866.
HON. A. W. RANDALL, President National Union Club, Wash- ington, D. C .- SIR :- Your call for a National Union Convention at Philadelphia for August 14th next has just been received. You say if the call meets my approbation to signify it by a brief letter with authority to publish the same. I assisted in placing in nomination President Johnson at Baltimore, and I believe in the doctrine that "Treason is a crime and must be punished," but I dot not like the manner of punishing traitors adopted by him ; and as I am an ardent admirer of the wisdom and statesmanship of Hon. Thaddeus Stevens and his co-laborers, who have ren- dered themselves immortal in the Congress just closed, I cannot endorse the doctrines contained in the "call." Again, I am doing all I can to aid the election of Gen. Geary as Governor of Penn- sylvania; and believing, as I do, that one of the objects of the Philadelphia convention is to aid in his defeat, I am decidedly opposed to it.
I write this, of course, with the understanding that it involves my removal from office. I trust, however, that you will have a good soldier appointed in my place. All other things being equal, the faithful soldiers should have the preference; and more than a year ago I wrote to the President proposing to resign in favor of any faithful soldier who would apply for my position.
I would therefore most respectfully name for your considera- tion, as my successor, Lieut. J. T. Zug, who lost his arm at Fred- ericksburg, or Capt. J. Adair, or Capt. Beatty, all of Carlisle, Pa.,
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