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 21
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GEORGE DRUM HEDIAN.
after entering the army. The son became a farmer, and in time the owner of a valuable farm in Williams township. George Drum, early in the present century, removed from Williams township to Sugarloaf (now Butler) township, in this county, and bought the farm now owned and occupied by his grandson, George Drum. He was appointed by Governor Simon Snyder, February 17, 1810, a justice of the peace. This office he held for life. He died February 27, 1831. The wife of George Drum was Polly Woodring. Abraham Drum was the third son of George Drum. In addition to his being the sheriff of Luzerne county he was the first postmaster of the village of Drums, in Butler township, after whom the post office was named. The wife of Abraham Drum was Magdalena Winters, who was the daughter of John Adams Winters, who was born in Berks county in 1760. He made his home in Quakeake Valley for a time, and afterwards removed with his family to Beaver Meadows, where he purchased a farm, upon which he first discovered the coal in that locality. Hon. George W. Drum, of Conyngham, who represented Luzerne county in the legislature of the state from 1879 to 1882, is a nephew of Abraham Drum.
George Drum Hedian was educated in the public schools and at the Pennsylvania State Normal School, at Millersville, Pa., from which he graduated in 1879. For six years he was a teacher in the public schools of this county, having taught at Milnesville, Butler township, and in the schools of this city. Of his ability as a teacher, Cyrus Straw, now one of the com- missioners of Luzerne county, and at the time he wrote secretary of the Butler school district, speaks as follows : "His qualifica- tions as a teacher, combining discipline, thoroughness, earnestness, and good christian habits, place him among the first men of the pro- fession." Edward Brooks, principal of the State Normal School at Millersville, says : " He has shown himself to be an excellent teacher and a thorough disciplinarian ; he is a young man of excellent moral character, and is in every way worthy of public confidence, and as such I give him my cordial and hearty indorse- ment." He attained an honorable standing in his class. Mr. Hedian's taste for literature led him to the study of phonography, which he pursued by piece-meal while attending the normal
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GEORGE DRUM HEDIAN.
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school, going to New York on several occasions for instruction in Browne's college of phonography. After finishing his course he secured an engagement with George Bancroft, the historian. Mr. Hedian worked in the Senate reporting room for D. F. Murphy during the winter of 1881-2, in hours when not employed by duties with Mr. Bancroft or with law studies. After conclud- ing his law course Mr. Bancroft voluntarily gave him the follow- ing recommendation : " Mr. George D. Hedian has been in my employ for four years as private secretary. In this capacity he has shown fidelity and assiduity, and has won my entire confi- dence in his integrity, uprightness, and pure moral character. He leaves me of his own accord, being disposed to enter the legal profession, for which he has prepared himself at our well known Columbian University, under the charge of President Welling, and having for its teachers in the profession lawyers of the highest standing on the bench and at the bar. Washington, D. C. George Bancroft. June 3, 1885." Mr. Hedian graduated as LL. B. from the law department of the Columbian University June 12, 1883, and as LL. M. June 3, 1884, and was admitted to the bar of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia June 23, 1884. In 1885 he came to Wilkes-Barre and entered the law office of Hubbard B. Payne, and was admitted to the bar of Luz- erne county June 4, 1886. Mr. Hedian is an unmarried man, a democrat in politics, and a Methodist in religious belief. He is also a member of the United States Senate Reporters' Asso- ciation.
Mr. Hedian is a man of active mind and business experience, which, in addition to his having been an apt and careful reader in the law, equips him admirably for its practice. His ex- perience and success as a school teacher, his association with the eminent historian, as above related, and his practice as a stenographic reporter, have given him a knowledge of men and measures that must needs add largely to his qualifications for advancement as a lawyer. As has been more than once remarked in these sketches, such knowledge, other things being equal, almost invariably decides which of two men is the better lawyer, for, though familiarity with the statutes and with the decisions is indispensable, the successful application of the fruits of such
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PETER AUGUSTUS MEIXELL.
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familiarity to the settlement of the disputes of men in the courts depends largely upon the practitioner's understanding of men and of general business procedures. Socially Mr. Hedian is all that makes a gentleman.
PETER AUGUSTUS MEIXELL.
Peter Augustus Meixell was born in the township of Salem, Luzerne county, Pa., August 16, 1857. He is a descendant of Philip Meixell, a native of Bushkill, Northampton county, Pa., and who removed from that place to Salem township in 1810 and purchased a farm, which the father of P. A. Meixell now owns. His wife was Elizabeth Varner. Philip Meixell, jr., son of Philip Meixell, was born in Bushkillin in 1796, and removed with his father to Salem township. In 1845 he was elected one of the commissioners of Luzerne county. His wife was Catharine Lanehart, a daughter of Peter Lanehart, who came to America in 1774 from Germany. His brother, George Lanehart, was a soldier in the revolutionary army. The wife of Peter Lanehart was Susannah Boyer, a daughter of John Boyer. He was at one time captured by the Indians near Drylands, Northampton county, Pa., and conveyed to Canada. He subsequently returned to his home, after enduring innumerable hardships while a captive. Peter Meixell, father of the subject of our sketch, is a native of Salem township, where he was born September 15, 1820. He is a prominent citizen of his township and has filled the various town- ship offices, such as school director and supervisor. The wife of Peter Meixell is Elizabeth Fenstermacher, a daughter of the late John Fenstermacher, a native of Montgomery county, Pa. His grandfather, George Fenstermacher, was born in Germany on or about the first quarter of the eighteenth century. He came to America with his parents when about nine years of age as a refugee after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, Philip Fenstermacher, son of George Fenstermacher and father of John Fenstermacher, was born in Montgomery county about 1770, and removed to
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HENRY DUDLEY PATTON.
what is now Conyngham township, in this county. His wife was Gertrude Harter. John Fenstermacher was commissioned a justice of the peace for Nescopeck township April 25, 1840, and held the office for nearly forty years. He died July 29, 1885, aged about eighty-three years.
P. A. Meixell was educated in the public schools of his native township, at Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Pa., and at Blooms- burg State Normal School, graduating from the latter institution in 1878. At the age of eighteen he taught his first school, and was engaged in that occupation for about eight years. He was principal of the public schools at Nanticoke, Pa., for one year, and of Blakely, Pa., for two years. He also taught a select school in Beach Haven. He read law with Hon. G. M. Harding and John McGahren, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county September 20, 1886.
Mr. Meixell evinces a happy understanding of the require- ments of the profession, being a close and patient student, and conscientious and energetic in the elucidation of all the material facts in such causes as are given into his keeping. He is already a first rate office lawyer, and with reasonably good fortune is assured of a large and lucrative practice. He has a taste for pol- itics, and has given much time and attention to the direction of the last two or three campaigns under Democratic auspices in Luzerne county, taking upon himself much of the detail office work that is so arduous, that few know so little about, and that is so essential to success, even where a party is supposed to be strongly fortified in the confidence of the people, and with an un- exceptionable ticket. He is personally very popular with all who know him, being of a genial and obliging temperament, honest and earnest in his friendships, and faithful in his every undertaking.
HENRY DUDLEY PATTON.
Henry Dudley Patton is a native of Fayette county, Pa. On the paternal side he is of Scotch-Irish descent. At an early day his grandfather, John Patton, who married Nancy Woodrow, of
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HENRY DUDLEY PATTON.
Lancaster county, with three brothers, inherited a tract of land in Washington township, Fayette county, Pa. The youngest son of John and Nancy Patton is Hirim Patton, who now occupies the old homestead. Hirim Patton married Harriet Wright, of Westmoreland county, a descendant of that family of Wrights so largely instrumental in establishing Presbyterianism west of the mountains. To Hirim and Harriet Patton were born ten chil- dren (eight now living), the fourth of whom is H. D. Patton, who was born July 28, 1845.
Desiring an education, and his parents not being in circum- stances to afford help, H. D. Patton got their consent to attend a high school at Fayette city, Pa., three miles distant. In the summer of 1863, earning book-money by working in a neighbor's hay-field, he entered school the following Monday, attending during four quarters. In the summer of 1864 he was a student at the Millsboro Local Normal School. The winters of 1864-65 Mr. Patton was principal of the Allenport public schools. During the summers of 1865 and 1866 he attended the South Western Normal College, at California, Pa .- since having become the South Western State Normal School-where he not only better fitted himself for teaching, but also laid the foundation for a more liberal education. In the autumn of 1866 Mr. Patton accepted the principalship of the West Middletown (Pa.) public schools, holding the same also during the winters of 1867-68-69. Dur- ing these winters he took an active part in county institutes. During the spring and summer of 1867 he taught a select and normal school at West Middletown. The summer of 1868 Mr. Patton was employed as a teacher in the South Western Normal College, in which he had been a student. The spring and sum- mer of 1869, desiring to gain practical knowledge of the advan- tages offered by the eastern schools, Mr. Patton attended the Mas- sachusetts State Normal School, at Westfield, where, applying himself assiduously, he acquired the Prussian system of teaching as taught there. While in the east he visited a number of schools in Springfield, Boston, etc.
During the school term, at the invitation of Prof. J. C. Green- ough, vice-principal of the Westfield school, Mr. Patton attended a teachers' association at Holyoke, where, among other addresses,
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HENRY DUDLEY PATTON.
Dr. Seelye, of Amherst college, spoke on the advantages of clas- sical studies. The address modified Mr. Patton's views on this question, and he began to plan to seek a more liberal education than the normal schools could afford. Accordingly, after return- ing and filling his engagement at West Middletown, in the spring of 1870 he entered Waynesburg college in the middle of the sopho- more year, remaining to complete the course, graduating in the class of 1872. On entering college his reputation as a teacher had preceded him, and death having caused a vacancy in the faculty, he was employed to teach two hours a day during the entire course, which he did in addition to pushing his own. studies. During the summers he taught normal classes. On his graduation , in 1872, the Pennsylvania synod of the Cumberland Presbyterian church, of which he is a member, nominated Prof. Patton to the vice-presidency of the college faculty and to the chair of English. The board of trustees of the college confirmed the nomination, and at the opening of the next college year he entered on his larger sphere of labor and responsibility. He held these positions until the spring of 1876, when, the institution getting into financial straits, he resigned. During a portion of this time, the president of the college being abroad, and also taking part in institute work in other states, his duties and responsibilities fell upon Prof. Patton as vice-president. He also took active part in county institute work, and became widely known in south- western Pennsylvania as an educator.
On September 14, 1875, Prof. Patton was married to Miss Lucy V. Inghram, M. M., a graduate of Music Vale Seminary, Connec- ticut. Mrs. Patton is the youngest daughter of Dr. Arthur and Elizabeth Inghram, of Waynesburg, Pa. (both deceased), and the youngest sister of Hon. James Inghram, president judge of the Fourteenth judicial district of Pennsylvania. Mr. and Mrs. Pat- ton have no children.
In the autumn of 1876 Prof. Patton accepted the principalship of the public and normal schools of Youngsville, Pa., which po- sition he resigned in the spring of 1877 to accept the principalship of the Eclectic Institute, Jersey Shore, Pa., a position more con- genial to his tastes. While holding this position he gave many. educational lectures and contributed largely to the press.
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HENRY DUDLEY PATTON.
In the summer of 1881 he abandoned teaching and entered the larger field of law and politics. Coming to manhood in stirring war times, Prof. Patton became a student of history and politics. Though reared in the democratic faith, he cast his first ballot for the republican party, Governor Geary receiving his first guberna- torial, and General Grant his first presidential, vote. Supporting that party until 1879, he became a prohibitionist, believing the liquor traffic to be the greatest moral and political evil afflicting society, and endangering the stability of our free institutions.
Having abandoned teaching in June, 1881, in December of the same year he registered as a student of law with his brother-in- - law, James Inghram (now Judge Inghram), and on January 7, 1884, was admitted to the bar of Greene county.
Prof. Patton, believing a reorganization of the body politic a necessity in bringing the liquor question squarely before the peo- ple, and in effecting an adequate extirpation of the evil, volunta- rily threw himself into the work of party organization. So during the period of his legal studies, as opportunity afforded, and since to a greater degree, he has devoted himself largely to that work. To give an adequate account of this work in these limits is impossible. From August 25, 1881, at Wilmington, Law- rence county, till August 23, 1886, at Gettysburg, five full years, he had addressed near six hundred audiences in Pennsylvania, besides filling engagements in other states.
Discussing the principles of the prohibition party throughout the state, in school house, church, hall, court house, in groves, and on the street, and organizing clubs, effecting township, ward, and county organizations, assisting in holding county conventions, and setting local forces at work-Prof. Patton is personally better known in Pennsylvania than any other member of the prohibi- tion party.
On September 13, 1882, in an unfinished store room of the Wood estate, 34 South Main street, Prof. Patton made the first public prohibition speech ever made in Wilkes- Barre. He speaks wholly off-hand, has the reputation of treating his opponents with courtesy and fairness, illustrates his points with clearness, and builds his arguments with logical solidity. He has also taken part largely in moral suasion and non-partisan temperance work ..
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HENRY DUDLEY PATTON.
Prof. Patton was an elector on the Neal Dow ticket of 1880. He was also a delegate to the national prohibition conference which met at Chicago, August 23, 1882, and on the call of states, was chosen by the Pennsylvania delegation to represent the state from the platform on the progress of the work therein. He was a delegate to the national prohibition convention which met at Pittsburgh, July 21, 1884. To the Pennsylvania state conventions of his party he has been repeatedly sent, always being placed on its working committees.
Being well acquainted throughout the state, and knowing the wants of the party, he was unanimously chosen chairman of the state executive committee, at Harrisburg, at the late state conven- tion, August 25-26, 1886.
On the evening of August 31, at headquarters, in Philadelphia, where he had gone to open up the campaign, he was met and op- posed by the leading candidate, Hon. Charles S. Wolfe, and ten or more others-Mr. Wolfe's friends. The opposition was osten- sibly on the ground of Mr. Patton's want of legal standing as chairman and his lack of fitness for the position. The conditions of his remaining chairman were such as Chairman Patton believed to be a compromise of his manhood and a betrayal of the integrity of the party whose honor he should preserve. He resigned, when at a hastily called meeting of the state committee, at Har- risburg, September 10, he was denied the right and privilege of stating his reasons for resigning before his resignation should be acted on. A vote was promptly taken accepting his resignation, in the face of the most strenuous protest on the part of his friends, a large part of the delegates not understanding the situation of affairs. This created division in the party ranks, by which can- didate Wolfe lost, as estimated by many of his friends, from twenty to thirty thousand votes in the state.
Prof. Patton is assiduously studious, is a lover of metaphysics, mathematics, the classics, and political economy.
On January 5th, 1887, on certificate from Greene county, Mr. Patton was admitted to the Luzerne county bar, and is a partner in the firm of Patton & Nichols, of this city.
Comparatively few men pass through such varied experiences before coming to the practice of the law as Mr. Patton. Many
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JAMES ROBINSON SCOUTON. 1
young men adopt teaching as a temporary makeshift or most available means of earning a livelihood while preparing them- selves for admission to the bar; but Prof. Patton continued in that line of useful endeavor until he had reached an age at which most men similarly situated regard their vocation as fixed for life. The means by which he got his start, however, showed of what superior material he was made. Young men whose parents are without the means of assisting them to an education, and who are on that account willing to undergo the toils of the hay- field to make up that deficiency are not numerous in the modern world, and when circumstances have developed one such it is . safe enough to assume that he will not rest content with what he has, so long as he believes there are any greater heights attainable. Prof. Patton has come to the practice of what he finally concluded should be his profession with the convictions of matured middle life and all the experiences that precede it to guide him in making of that profession a thing of profit and honor to himself and advantage to those who employ his services. He is a man of pronounced views, with a disposition to be useful as a citizen, and many companionable qualities, and he will make in all respects a good lawyer.
JAMES ROBINSON SCOUTON.
James Robinson Scouton is a native of Elwell, Bradford county, Pa., where he was born September 26, 1858. His father, W. W. Scouton, is a native of Forkston, Wyoming county, Pa., where he was born in 1821. William Scouton, father of W. W. Scouton, was a native of Connecticut, as also Jacob Scouton, father of William Scouton. The mother of the subject of our sketch, and wife of W. W. Scouton, is Luray Ann Robinson, a daughter of Ira Robinson, who was also a native of Forkston. He was the son of Rewell Robinson, who was the son of Chandler Robinson. The Robinson family originally came from Connecticut to Pennsylvania. James R. Scouton was educated. in the public
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ANDREW FEIN DERR. .
schools, at Susquehanna Collegiate Institute, at Towanda, Pa., and at the Wyoming Seminary, Kingston, Pa. He has taught school more or less for twelve years in Wyoming, Bradford and Luzerne counties, and was only about seventeen years of age when he taught his first school. He read law and was graduated from the law department of the Michigan University, Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1886. He then came east and was admitted to the Sullivan county bar in September, 1886. He was admitted to the Luzerne county bar January 6, 1887. He is a young man of good mental parts and will, undoubtedly, succeed in his chosen profession.
ANDREW FEIN DERR.
Andrew Fein Derr was born May 29, 1853, in Upper Augusta township, Northumberland county, Pa, near the village of Kline's Grove, about six miles from Sunbury, Pa. He is a descendant of Johann Heinrich Dörr, who emigrated to America September 3, 1742, arriving "in the ship Loyal Judith, James Cowie, Master, from Rotterdam, last from Cowes." He was an elder in the old Swamp church, in Upper Milford township, Bucks county, Pa., and his two sons, Jacob and Michael, are entered on the church records as having been confirmed on the same day. The origin of this church antedates all existing records. The first log build- ing was probably erected prior to 1736, soon after the German and Swiss immigrants settled in that wilderness region, for the church register opens April 24 of that year. A patent was obtained for one hundred and thirteen acres September 27, 1738, consideration £17, 3s., 7d., and the tract is still owned by the church. From that date the congregation has been Reformed. In 1772 the log building gave way to a substantial stone struc- ture; the flooring was flagstone and brick, the pews rough and inconvenient for napping during the sermon, and a stove never obstructed its aisles. A third building was erected in 1837 and a fourth in 1872. The latter is a handsome stone edifice seventy by fifty feet, costing $30,000, and is adorned with a tall spire.
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ANDREW FEIN DERR.
The basement is divided into Sunday school rooms, pastor's room, and broad vestibule, and the audience room is handsomely finished with frescoed walls. In the loft is an organ which cost $2,300. The Sunday school was inaugurated in 1841, amid the cry of "innovation" and fierce outside opposition, but they availed naught, and it now numbers three hundred scholars. The church has now about five hundred members, and since 1869 service has been held every Sunday, which is the case with but one other country German church in eastern Pennsylvania. Since 1872 it has been known as Trinity Reformed church, but down to that period it was called the Swamp church. Opposite. the church stands the little old house of the organist and the music teacher, in which is still taught the music lessons of the young people of the congregation, as was the custom one hundred years ago, and was the custom many years before in the Father- land on the Rhine, from which these quiet, peaceful Germans came.
It is more than probable that Johann Heinrich Dörr was the son or descendant of Sebastian Dörr, who came to Pennsylvania September 11, 1728, in the ship James Goodwill, and who took the oath of allegiance to Pennsylvania in 1743, but there are no cer- tain records of their relationship. The Dörr family were all of the Reformed faith, being a portion of that large body of German Protestants who were driven out of the Palatinate in the early part of the eighteenth century, and who came to the free com- monwealth of Pennsylvania in such enormous numbers that it is estimated that more than thirty thousand emigrants from that portion of Germany landed at Philadelphia between 1720 and 1750. Though all communication has long since been severed with the fatherland, within recent years inquiries have developed the information that some of the family still remain in the neigh- borhood of Heidelberg, and there was, some ten years ago, a professor of that name in the university there.
Jacob Dörr, son of Johann Heinrich Dörr, was born in Penn- sylvania in 1752. He enlisted in Captain Thomas Church's company of General Anthony Wayne's regiment, fourth Pennsyl- vania battalion, and served through the Revolutionary war, having been wounded in the battle of Brandywine. After the war he returned to Bucks county, settled on his farm in Upper
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ANDREW FEIN DERR.
Milford township, where he built the house in which he lived for many years until his death in 1829, and it is still standing in good condition at the present day. His remains are interred in the grave-yard at the Swamp church. Michael Derr, eldest son of Jacob Dörr, was born in Upper Milford township in 1776. He served as a soldier in the war of 1812 with Great Britain, having gone into the service from his native county, and after leaving it lived and died, in 1862, in Springtown, Bucks county, Pa., having reared a family of ten children -- two sons and eight daughters.
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