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 4
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JOHN McGAHREN.
John McGahren was born near Ellicottville, Cattaraugus county, N. Y., March 8, 1852. He is a son of Patrick McGahren, a native of Cavan, Ireland, who emigrated to this country in 1846, and is now a prosperous farmer in Wysox, Bradford county, Pa. His mother is Catherine Masterson, daughter of the late Cor- nelius Masterson, a native of Trim, county of Meath, Ireland, who resided in Newark, N. J., at the time of his death, at which place the elder Mr. McGahren was married. John McGahren was educated in the public schools of Wysox and at St. Bonaven- tures College, Alleghany, N. Y., graduating in the class of 1872. After Mr. McGahren left college he taught two terms in the public schools of Wilkes-Barre. He then entered the law office of Foster (C. D.) and Lewis (T. H. B.) as a student at law, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county February 14, 1876. He was associated with Mr. Foster until 1881, and with Garrick
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M. Harding until the early part of the present year. In 1882 he was the democratic candidate for district attorney, and was elected for a term of three years by a vote of 10,358, as against F. M. Nichols, republican, who had a vote of 9,394. Mr. McGahren is an unmarried man, and a typical self-made young man. His start in life was unaccompanied by any auspicious influences apart from the mother wit and disposition to industry with which nature had endowed him. His studies were prosecuted without meretricious aids, and at times amid discouragements that would have overcome less ambitious and determined young men, and his admission to the bar and entry upon active practice had only the promise which good abilities and honest use of them will always fulfil. He became associated in business with Mr. Foster, and afterwards with Judge Harding, and thereby ac- quired advantages of which he plucked the most that they af- forded. He is a democrat in politics and did good service on the stump and otherwise for his party whenever called upon. In due time friends proposed to repay him with a nomination for the district attorneyship. He consented, and after a sharp strug- gle secured a place upon the ticket and was elected. His ser- vices in the office have been profitable to the county and have brought him a reputation as a practitioner that is certain to stand him in good stead for so long as he shall need such assistance. He prosecutes the pleas of the commonwealth with all necessary vigor, and yet not vindictively towards those whose misfortune it is to fall into the clutches of the violated law. He has man- aged in the pursuit of these methods to secure conviction in al- most every case in which justice required it, and yet avoid that persecution which so often follows the unfairly accused. Mr. McGahren's measure of success equals that of any other member of the bar of no greater age, and his prospects are full of the brightest possibilities.
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NATHANIEL TAYLOR. ; .
NATHANIEL TAYLOR.
Nathaniel Taylor was born in Danville, Montour county, Pa., January 28, 1848. He is the son of William Taylor, a farmer who resides near Mooresburg, Pa., and who is a native of Here- ford, England. The mother of Nathaniel Tayler was Maria Michael, the daughter of John Michael, of London, England. Mr. Taylor, the subject of this sketch, was educated at La Fay- ette College, Easton, Pa., from which he graduated in 1873. During portions of the years 1875 and 1876 he attended the Law School connected with Columbia College, New York. He also read law with Isaac X. Grier, of Danville, and was admitted to the bar of Montour county in February, 1876. On April 5, 1876, he was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county, and has been in continuous practice since. He married, February 21, 1878, Annie Vincent, of Danville, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Taylor have no children living. Nathaniel Taylor is a man of quiet demeanor and kindred temperament, who owes all that he is or has at- tained to hard work and perseverance in study and practice. He takes but little interest in politics, or in anything outside of his profession, of which he is, as a consequence, one of the most useful of the junior members. In the writing of these biogra- phies we have been many times impelled to what may seem to the reader to be dull homilies upon the superiority of even mod- erate talents when accompanied by industry, to greater natural qualities without that aid, as a means of evoking success in the legal or any other profession. It is as true, nevertheless, as any- thing can be in this world. When it can truthfully be said of a lawyer that he works, no stronger evidence can be given of the fact that he is worth employing. And when, on the other hand, necessity compels the admission that he makes his practice wait upon his personal convenience or pleasure, there is certain to be risk in calling his services into requisition, no matter how bril- liant may be his endowments at Nature's hands. Mr. Taylor has improved his opportunities, and, with the aid of a fine education, has succeeded in securing a profitable clientage.
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ERNEST JACKSON.
ERNEST JACKSON.
Ernest Jackson was born in Wilkes-Barre August 6, 1848. His father, Angelo Jackson, was born at Erie, N. Y., and was of New England extraction, and being left an orphan at an early age, his mother married for her second husband Reuben Mon- tross, M. D., of Northmoreland township, Luzerne (now Wyo- ming) county, Pa. Here Mr. Jackson spent his boyhood days, and in the year 1847 graduated from Yale College. He then en- tered upon the study of the law, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county April 1, 1850. He was for some years a law partner of the late Charles Denison. In 1858 he was a candi- date for prothonotary on the republican ticket against David L. Patrick, and in 1861 against William H. Pier, M. D., but was defeated in both instances. On October 20, 1861, he entered the army as first lieutenant of Company I, Fifty-Eighth Regiment Infantry, Pennsylvania Volunteers, and on June 5, 1863, was pro- moted to the captaincy of the company. He was mustered out with his regiment September 25, 1865. He then took a position in the treasury department at Washington, D. C., as chief of a division. He died in that city in 1874. The first wife of Angelo Jackson, and the mother of the subject of our sketch, was Eliza- beth Whitney. She was the daughter of Asa C. Whitney, M. D. Doctor Whitney was the son of Elisha Whitney, who moved to the Wyoming Valley in 1810, and went to Wysox, Luzerne (now Bradford) county, Pa., with his family in 1816. He was born in Spencer, Mass., in 1747. He married Esther Clark, of the same place, in 1782. She was born in 1763. Her father's name was Asa Clark, a school teacher by profession. She was present with General Warren's wife when she learned the sad fate of that gallant officer and patriotic gentleman. Soon after their marriage they removed to Stockbridge, Mass., and were among the first settlers of that place. They had ten children born to them between the years 1783 and 1801. Mr. Whitney was a revolutionary soldier. He died in 1832, and his wife in
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1851, and both are buried in Wysox. Doctor Whitney was their second child, and married for his first wife a daughter of George Dorrance, of Kingston. He was a physician of great ability, and was the first resident physician of Kingston, and lived in a house from which the late Samuel Hoyt removed when he erected his residence. He removed there before 1817. He was commissioned in 1810 a justice of the peace for the townships of Wysox and Burlington, including Towanda, Luzerne (now Bradford) county. In 1820 he was elected register and recorder of Luzerne county. He married for his second wife Susan In- man, a daughter of Colonel Edward Inman. She was the grand- mother of the subject of our sketch. Doctor Whitney's sister, Elizabeth, married J. W. Piollet, who came to America from his native France about the beginning of the present century. He was captain of a troop of horse at the battle of Marengo, and by his bravery won the favor of Napoleon, who promoted him to the position of postmaster in the Army of the Alps. He was a well educated gentleman, and settled in Wysox. Victor E. Piol- let, a prominent citizen of Bradford county, is his son.
Ernest Jackson was educated in the academies of." Deacon " Dana and W. S. Parsons, in this city, and at Union College, Schenectady, N. Y., from which latter institution he graduated in 1869. He read law with William S. McLean, and was ad- mitted to the bar of Luzerne county September 9, 1872. Imme- diately upon his admission he entered into partnership with his preceptor under the firm name of McLean and Jackson, which continued until January 1, 1883. Mr. Jackson removed to West Virginia during the last named year and engaged in other pur- suits, and but recently removed again to this city. He is the now junior member of the firm of McCartney (W. H.) and Jack- son. He married, October 2, 1878, Mary Emma, daughter of the late G. Byron Nicholson, who in his lifetime was a member of the bar of this county. The mother of Mrs. Jackson was Mary A., daughter of Riley Stone, a son of John Stone, one of the early settlers of Abington township, Luzerne (now Lackawanna) county, Pa. Mr. and Mrs. Jackson have but one child living : Byron Nicholson Jackson. No man of his years is better known or better liked in Luzerne county than Ernest Jackson. As an
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office lawyer he has few equals and scarcely any superiors. In looking up the law in support of his client's cause he is patient, painstaking, and always sagacious. Few men know better, or even as well, how to "prepare a case," which, as all attorneys know, means the outlining of what is to be done in court as to witnesses, the questions to be asked of them, etc., and the pro- vision of references to authorities that will provide defense for a case against attack from any quarter. Fortified with a case pre- pared by Mr. Jackson it is a poor lawyer who cannot go out of court triumphant, if the case be one deserving of triumph. Mr. Jackson is not much given to oratory in or out of court, though he can make a neat plea or speech when the occasion demands it. It is as a politician, however, that Mr. Jackson is best known. He is a democrat, and for years was a conspicuous figure in every campaign. He worked aggressively yet quietly, and in the doing of his work his genial face and sturdy form became familiar in all parts of the county. He was a strategist as well as a worker, and but few points of vantage were overlooked in matters of which he was given charge. He was never a candidate for office himself, but labored unselfishly and assiduously for all who were nominated regularly in a democratic convention. A few years ago he went to West Virginia to engage in the coal business, but the venture not proving satisfactory he recently returned to Wilkes-Barre and entered into a partnership with General Wil- liam H. McCartney, since when he has eschewed politics and given his time wholly to his professional duties. It is difficult to believe that Mr. Jackson can have an enemy. He is the soul of good nature, never has an ill word to say of any body, but, on the other hand, has a smile and a kindly word for all, whereby he has achieved a personal popularity that few other men in his profession can be truthfully said to enjoy.
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GEORGE WASHINGTON SHONK.
GEORGE WASHINGTON SHONK.
George Washington Shonk was born April 26, 1850, in the township (now borough) of Plymouth, Pa. He is a grandson of Michael Shonk, who was born on the ocean in September, 1790, while his father was emigrating to this country from Germany. His great-grandfather, John Shonk, father of Michael Shonk, was a nailer by trade and settled in Hope, one of the interior . townships of Warren county, N. J., which derived its name from the Moravian pioneers who located there in 1769, and gave that name to the locality in which they settled. The house that he built is still standing, and his body is interred in the Moravian graveyard in that village. The place was visited the present year by John Jenks Shonk, father of George W. Shonk, and this after a lapse of sixty-one years since he left Hope. Michael Shonk removed from Hope to Plymouth in 1821, where he died in 1844. His wife was Beulah, daughter of John Jenks. In General Davis's History of Bucks County we find the following regarding the family : "The Jenkses are Welsh, and the gene- alogy of the family can be traced from the year 900 to 1669, when it becomes somewhat obscure. The arms which have long been in the possession of the family at Wolverton, England, de- scendants of Sir George, to whom they were confirmed by Queen Elizabeth in 1582, are supposed to have been granted soon after the time of William the Conqueror for bravery on the field of bat- tle. The first progenitor of the family in America was Thomas, son of Thomas Jenks, born in Wales in December or January, 1699. When a child he came to America with his mother, Susan Jenks, who settled in Wrightstown and married Benjamin Wig- gins, of Buckingham, by whom she had a son born in 1709. She died while he was young, and was buried at Wrightstown meeting. Thomas Jenks was brought up a farmer, joined the Friends in 1723, married Mercy Wildman, of Middletown, in 1731, and afterwards removed to that township, where he spent his life. He bought six hundred acres southeast of Newtown,
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on which he erected his homestead, which he called Jenks Hall, and built a fulling mill on Core creek, that runs through the premises, several years before 1742. He led an active business life, lived respected, and died May 4, 1797, at the good old age of ninety-seven. * * At the age of ninety he walked fifty miles in a week, and at ninety-two his eyesight and hearing were both remarkably good. He had lived to see the wilderness and haunts of wild beasts become the seats of polished life. Thomas Jenks left three sons and three daughters: Mary, Elizabeth, Ann, John, Thomas, and Joseph, who married into the families of Wier, Richardson, Pierson, Twining, and Watson.
The descendants of Thomas Jenks, the elder, are very numerous, and found in various parts, in and out of the state, although few of the name are now in Bucks county. Among the families of the past and present generations with which they have allied themselves by marriage, in addition to those already named, can be mentioned Kennedy of New York, Story, Car- lisle, Fell, Dixson, Watson, Trimble, Murray, Snyder (governor of Pennsylvania), Gillingham, Hutchinson, Justice, Collins of New York, Kirkbride, Stockton of New Jersey, Canby, Brown, Elsegood, Davis, Yardley, Newbold, Morris, Earl, Handy, Rob- bins, Ramsey (governor of Minnesota), Martin, Randolph, etc. Doctor Phineas Jenks, and Hon. Michael H. Jenks, of Newtown, deceased, were descendants of Thomas, the elder."
As already stated, Beulah Shonk was the daughter of John Jenks, son of Thomas Jenks, jun. Her brother, John W. Jenks, M. D., in company with his father-in-law, Rev. David Barclay, set- tled in Jefferson county, Pa., in 1819. The latter laid out the town of Punxsutawney the same year. It is the oldest town in the county, and had a store long before there was one in Brook- ville, the county-seat. Jefferson county was organized from a part of Lycoming county by an act of the legislature approved March 26, 1804. By the thirteenth section of the same act it was placed under the jurisdiction of the courts of Westmoreland county. An act passed in 1806 authorized the commissioners of Westmoreland county to act for Jefferson county. For many years after its establishment the county was little better than a hunting ground for whites and Indians .. The first commission-
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ers were not appointed until 1824, John W. Jenks, M. D., being one of the number. Doctor Jenks was the father of George A. Jenks, of Brookville, who occupies at present a very impor- tant position in the interior department at Washington, D. C., and also of William P. Jenks, who was for many years president judge of the courts of Jefferson and Clarion counties. In 1880 George A. Jenks was the democratic candidate for judge of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, but was defeated by Henry Green, the candidate of the republican party. Isaac G. Gordon, at present one of the judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylva- nia, is a son-in-law of Doctor Jenks.
John Jenks Shonk was born at Hope, N. J., March 21, 1815, and is one of the most prominent business men of Plymouth. He was one of the earliest coal operators in the valley, as well as a merchant. As early as 1832 he commenced to mine coal for market, and has been engaged almost continuously in the business since. He is also largely interested in the mining of bituminous coal in West Virginia. He is the president and one of the directors of the Cabin Creek Kanawha Coal Company, and also of the Williams Coal Company, of Kanawha. He is also a director and the president of the Kanawha Railroad Com- pany. He is the president and one of the directors of the re- cently incorporated Wilkes-Barre and Harvey's Lake Railroad Company. In 1875 he was the candidate of the prohibition party in the Third legislative district for the legislature of the state, and was elected by a majority of five votes over M. A. Mc- Carty, the democratic candidate, and four hundred and nine over J. N. Gettle, the republican candidate. In 1876 he was re-elected as a republican and defeated Bryce S. Blair, his democratic com- petitor, by a majority of five hundred and forty-six votes. Mr. Shonk has been married three times. His first wife was Eliza- beth, daughter of the late Ebenezer Chamberlain, M. D., a native of Swanzey, Cheshire county, N. H., where he was born Decem- ber 1, 1790, and was the practicing physician of Plymouth from the time of his immigration in 1816 until his death, April 12, 1866. He was one of the commissioners of Luzerne county from 1843 to 1846, and also held for a long time the commission of justice of the peace. The second wife of J. J. Shonk was
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France's Rinas, daughter of Carpenter C. Rinas, of Plymouth. Neither of the above named wives left any children surviving. The third wife of John Jenks Shonk, whom he married in 1847, and the mother of the subject of our sketch, is Amanda, daughter of the late Thomas Davenport. Colonel Wright, in his " Histor- ical Sketches of Plymouth," speaks thus of the Davenports : "They were among the early settlers of the town, and one of them was of the original Forty. I am not able to ascertain the length of time he remained in Plymouth after his immigration. The name of Davenport is on the original list. The Christian name is so obliterated that I cannot decipher a letter of it. It was undoubtedly Robert, however, father of Thomas, who came a few years afterwards. [The family is of New England origin.] The name of Conrad Davenport is upon the dead list of the Wyoming battle. The Davenport whose name appears upon the roll of the Susquehanna Immigrant Company, and to whom was allotted some of the lands still in possession of the family, came out, most likely, as an explorer ; and on his return giving a favorable account of the new country, his son, Thomas, suc- ceeded his father in the Plymouth possessions. Robert does not seem to have returned to the valley. It is also pretty well settled that he was a member of Captain Whittlesey's company in the battle, and a survivor of that terrible disaster. Such is the tradition of the family at the present time, and most likely a correct one. [Thomas Davenport, the ancestor of the now resi- dent family, came from Orange county, N. Y., in the year 1794.] His name is registered on the assessor's list of 1796, and he was then the owner of a large landed estate. He purchased from Joseph Reynolds, of Plymouth, December 6, 1799, 105 acres of land for '65 pounds current, lawful money.' He died in the year 1812, leav- ing a large family-six sons and four daughters. His wife was. a member of the Methodist Episcopal church of Plymouth be- fore 1795. His sons were Thomas (father of Mrs. Shonk), John, Robert, Samuel, Daniel, and Stephen. A considerable part of the old homestead farm is still owned by the descendants. . * * The Davenports were among the substantial business men of the town for a great many years. They were of that class which, above all others, are entitled to public consideration, because they were
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devoted to their own affairs, and were not in the habit of med- dling with those of others. They faithfully maintained their credit, and their lives were marked with strict economy, indus- try, and fair dealing. The six sons were all farmers." Stephen Davenport, the youngest son, was one of the commissioners of Luzerne county from 1862 to 1865. He died but a few weeks since. The wife of Thomas Davenport, sen., was Charity Lam- eroux, a native of Litchfield county, Conn. She was a descend- ant of one of the Huguenot families of France. Her ancestor came to this country after the Revocation of the Edict of Nantes, October 20, 1685. It was then "ordered that all Protestant - churches be immediately demolished ; that Protestants should not assemble in any house or other place for their religious wor- ship; that ministers were to leave the kingdom within fifteen days if they did not become Catholics. If they attempted to exercise their functions they would suffer as the vilest criminals. Parents were to send their children at once to the Catholic churches for baptism or suffer heavy penalties. But if Protest- ants attempted to leave the kingdom they would be sent to the galleys." It is vain to attempt to specify the numerous methods by which the Revocation made life intolerable and death wel- come to the purest and noblest of the French population. "It was," says the Duke of St. Simon, a Roman Catholic courtier of Louis XIV., " a plot that presented to the nations the spectacle of so vast a multitude of people, who had committed no crime, proscribed, denuded, fleeing, wandering, seeking an asylum afar from their country. A plot that consigned the noble, the wealthy, the aged ; those highly esteemed, in many cases, for their piety, their learning, their virtue; those accustomed to a life of ease, frail, delicate, to hard labor in the galleys, under the driver's lash, and for no reason save that of their religion." All this pro- longed barbarity proceeded from a court equally remarkable for its æsthetic culture, its undisguised licentiousness and its piety (?). Under the same influence, in the same century, the Austrian court was no less merciless. Bohemian Protestants were ban- ished or caged like wild beasts, their children were declared ille- gitimate, their goods were spoiled. "Mothers were bound to posts with their babies at their feet, to see them die of hunger
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unless they should renounce their faith." All this occurred within two hundred years in the most civilized nations, and under the most religious governments (?). Doctor Lord, in his "Beacon Lights of History," says, in his lecture on Louis XIV., that " it is a hackneyed saying that ' the blood of martyrs is the seed of the church.' But it would seem that the persecution of the Protestants was an exception to this truth ; and a perse- cution all the more needless and revolting since the Protestants were not in rebellion against the government, as in the time of Charles IX. This diabolical persecution, justified, however, by some of the greatest men in France, had its intended results. The bigots who incited that crime had studied well the princi- ples of successful warfare. As early as 1666 the king was urged to suppress the Protestant religion, and long before the Edict of Nantes was revoked the Protestants had been subjected to humil- iation and annoyance. If they held places at court they were required to sell them ; if they were advocates they were forbid- den to plead ; if they were physicians they were prevented from visiting patients. They were gradually excluded from appoint- ments in the army and navy ; little remained to them except com- merce and manufactures. Protestants could not hold Catholics as servants; soldiers were unjustly quartered upon them; their taxes were multiplied ; their petitions were unread. But in 1685 dragonnades subjected them to still greater cruelties ; who tore up their linen for camp beds, and emptied their mattresses for litters. The poor, unoffending Protestants filled the prisons and dyed the scaffolds with their blood. They were prohibited, under the severest penalties, from the exercise of their religion ; their ministers were exiled, their children were baptised in the Catho- lic faith, their property was confiscated, and all attempts to flee the country was punished by the galleys. Two millions of peo- ple were disfranchised ; two hundred thousand perished by the executioners, or in prisons, or in the galleys. All who could fly escaped to other countries, and those who escaped were among the most useful citizens, carrying their arts with them to enrich countries at war with France. Some two hundred thousand con- trived to fly, thus weakening the kingdom, and filling Europe with their execrations. Never did a crime have so little justifica-
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