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 7
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ROBERT DAVENPORT EVANS.
can possibly know too much law, he still devotes all the time which his rapidly growing practice allows him, to increasing his stock of knowledge on the subject. In this connection we recall the case of a noted Pennsylvanian who recently died full of years and honors, and who in his day was without a peer at the bar at which he practiced. To assign him a case was to win it, if it had a peg of any kind to hang a favorable verdict or decision upon. His years multiplied without in the least impairing his faculties, and a remarkable memory retained all he had ever learned. But, though he continued to practice almost up to the day of his death, he was finally compelled to forego his studies, and, while never in error as to long established principles of the law, his unfamiliarity with the more recent statutory enactments and judicial decisions became painfully apparent towards the last, and where these could be brought to bear against him he was no match for even the babes of the bar, so to speak, who, with a much more limited understanding of the law in its essence, were read up in the latest legal literature. This only goes to prove that the wisest men and greatest lawyers can never safely cease to be students. Mr. Hughes is already one of the best known and most highly respected citizens of Pittston, and is honored with much more than an average share of the legal business of its people.
ROBERT DAVENPORT EVANS.
Robert Davenport Evans was born in Lewisburg, Union county, Pa., August 17, 1856. He is the great-great-grandson of Joseph Evans, who, in 1785, when Lewisburg was laid out, was a resident thereof. Beyond this fact but little is known of the paternal ancestor of Mr. Evans. The probability is, that he came from Montgomery county, Pa., and was a descendant of one of the early Welsh settlers of Pennsylvania. William Evans, son of Joseph Evans, and Joseph Evans, son of William Evans, as also Thompson Graham Evans, son of Joseph Evans, were all natives of Lewisburg. The latter is the father of Robert D.
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ROBERT DAVENPORT EVANS.
Evans, and is a prominent business man in that place. The mother of the subject of our sketch, and the wife of Thompson G. Evans, is Rhoda, daughter of the late Robert Davenport, of Plymouth. He was the son of Thomas Davenport, the ancestor of the now resident family in that place, who came from Orange county, N. Y., in 1794. Hon. Hendrick B. Wright, in his " His- torical Sketches of Plymouth," says the Davenports are " of Low Dutch origin." He is in error in regard to this, as the family is of English descent, and removed from New England to Orange county, N. Y., and from thence to Wyoming. The wife of Robert Davenport was Phœbe Nesbitt, daughter of James Nesbitt, jun. He was the son of James Nesbitt, sen., who emigrated from Con- necticut in 1769, and was one of the Forty. He was in the Wyoming battle and massacre, and was one of the survivors of Captain Whittlesey's company. Robert D Evans was educated at the University at Lewisburg, and graduated in the class of 1875. He read law in Lewisburg with the firm of Linn (J. M.) and Dill (A. H.), and was admitted to the bar of Union county in September, 1880. He then removed to this city and was ad- mitted to the bar of Luzerne county November 15, 1880, and has been in continuous practice here since his admission. In 1884 he was assistant secretary of the republican county com- mittee. He is at present the attorney of the county commis-
sioners of Luzerne county. He is an unmarried man Mr. Evans is a man of studious habits, devoted to his profession and in a fair way of some day taking a leading position at the bar. His preceptors were men of high standing in the profession, Mr. Dill being especially well known throughout the state by reason of his long service in the house and senate at Harrisburg, and his having been a democratic candidate for governor of Pennsyl- vania. From these he imbibed a thorough understanding of the law and excellent business precepts, which he has since put to profitable utilization. His present position of counsel for the county commissioners is one in which careful scanning of the statutes is necessary, and knowledge of great practical value to an attorney is necessarily acquired. He has performed its duties well, to the satisfaction of the commissioners and the profit of the county.
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WILLIAM ROBERT GIBBONS.
WILLIAM ROBERT GIBBONS.
William Robert Gibbons was born in Baltimore, Md., Septem- ber 18, 1857. His father, Robert Gibbons, was a native of West- port, County of Mayo, Ireland, and emigrated to the United States in 1852 in company with his wife, Margaret, daughter of Richard Mangan, also of Westport. When but eight years of age W. R. Gibbons, with his father's family, removed to Wilkes- Barre, and has resided here ever since. He was educated in the public schools of Wilkes-Barre, and read law with John Lynch and W. S. McLean, of this city, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county April 4, 1881. At the age of seventeen he com- menced to teach school, and taught four years in succession ; three years in the public schools of this city, and one year in Hanover township, in this county. In 1882 he was elected to the council of this city for three years, of which body he was an active and influential member. He is an unmarried man. Some of the best men in the profession have had no higher preliminary education than that which the public schools afford. A collegi- ate training is unquestionably advantageous, but there are scores of cases of men who have gone to the topmost rung of the lad- der without it, to prove that it is not always essential. Mr. Gib- bons, like many others, probably learned more as a teacher than as a scholar, for it is an undeniable fact that the charge of a pub- lic school offers an experience with, and an understanding of, human character-that of the man being, to close observers, but slightly different from that of the boy-that in an active business life is of great utility. Mr. Gibbons had a capable tutor in the law in Mr. McLean, and like him has become an expert office lawyer, who handles his cases carefully and with much deftness. In the council, as stated, he was an active and influential mem- ber, always alert in behalf of the interests of his ward in partic- ular and of the citizens generally. He has done some valuable committee service in behalf of the democratic party, in whose tenets he is a believer. 'He stands well with his brother profes- sionals and with the community at large.
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JOHN DAVID HAYES. .
JOHN DAVID HAYES.
John David Hayes was born in the city of Limerick, Ireland, April 4, 1853. He is the son of Thomas and Bridget Hayes, (née Fahy), daughter of James Fahy. They are both deceased, and never resided in this country. When sixteen years of age Mr. Hayes came to Hazleton, where he resided until 1876, and was employed in various capacities around the mines, principally as engineer and ticket boss. He was educated at St. Michael's Academy, at Limerick, and at the De La Salle College, at To- ronto, Ontario, graduating from the latter institution in 1878, receiving a prize for " general excellence." After graduation he returned to Hazleton and was employed as a teacher in the pub- lic schools of Hazle township during the years 1878, 1879, and 1880. In 1881 he taught in the public schools of Freeland bor- ough, where he now resides. He read law with Clarence W. Kline, of Hazleton, and was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county June 11, 1881. Shortly after his admission he removed to Freeland and is the only practicing attorney in that borough. He is a notary public, and is at present one of the school di- rectors of that place. He has been one of the auditors of the borough. Mr. Hayes married, June 27, 1882, Sally Edith . Reilly, daughter of the late Peter Reilly, a native of Cavan, Ire- land. The mother of Mrs. Hayes is Phoebe Smith, daughter of the late Benjamin Smith, who was a soldier in the war of 1812, and who for many years received a pension from the government. He was a native of Knowlton, Sussex county, N. J., and was the son of Josiah Smith and his wife, Sarah Kirkoff. Mr. Smith's wife was Mary Hicks, daughter of Robert Hicks, who emigrated from Ireland about 1750, and settled in New Jersey. Mr. and Mrs. Hayes have but one child living : Mary Marcella Hayes. Mr. Hayes is wholly a self-made man. Thrown upon his own resources at an early age, and compelled to earn his livelihood in positions affording him but little better compensation than that allotted a common laborer, he managed to fit himself for
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teaching school, and while engaged at that avocation to complete the preparations for his admission to the bar. The man who can achieve such victories over his circumstances and surroundings is necessarily made of good material, which is reasonably certain in the long run to bring him a fitting reward. He has chosen to hang out his shingle in the modest little burgh among whose people he has during the greater part of his life resided, and with whose interests he has so closely identified himself. In thus re- sisting the attractions of the larger towns, so potent with most newly admitted attorneys, he but gives additional evidence of the tact that has carried him successfully forward this far in his ca- reer, and that offers him a far brighter prospect of a good har- vest in the end. There is generally much greater wisdom in patiently waiting to grow up with a little town than in starting in to contend against the hot and vigorous competitors of the larger ones. Mr. Hayes is a frequent pleader in the county courts. He prepares a case well and argues it with much force and ability. He is a clever gentleman, an active democrat, and a citizen of unquestionably good parts.
HENRY AMZI FULLER.
Henry Amzi Fuller was born in Wilkes-Barre, January 15, 1855. From all the information in the possession of the family he is supposed to be a descendant of Samuel Fuller, who came to this country in 1620 in the Mayflower. The compact which was made by the pilgrims before landing was signed by forty in- dividuals, among whom were Samuel Fuller, who had two in his family, and Edward Fuller, with three in his family. There is now in the possession of the family a large iron kettle which has passed through successive generations and is supposed to have been brought over on the vessel above named. It is also known that some of Samuel Fuller's descendants settled in Kent, Conn. The first of the name of whom we have positive information is Dr. Oliver Fuller, who was a surgeon in the army during the
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revolution. His son, Captain Revilo (which is Oliver spelled backwards) Fuller was born in Sherman, Conn., July 26, 1768, and died October 31, 1846, at Salisbury, Conn. He married, July 10, 1791, Rebecca Giddings, daughter of Jonathan and Mary (Baldwin) Giddings.
From what particular branch of the Giddings family in Eng- land, or who were the immediate ancestors of George Giddings, the first of the name here, we are unable to say; but the fact is well authenticated that George Giddings, at the age of twenty- five, and his wife, Jane Tuttle, aged twenty, came from England, in 1635, and settled in the town of Ipswich, about twenty-five miles from Boston, Mass. Hotten's list of emigrants gives the names of George and Jane Giddings and three servants. The following is a copy taken from "Our Early Emigrant Ancestors," edited by John C. Hotten :
" 2 APRIL, 1635.
" Theis underwritten are to be transported to New England imbarqued in the Planter, Nicholas Frarice, MR, bound thither, the parties have brought certificates from the Minister of St. Albans, Hertfordshire, and attestacon from the Justices of peace according to the Lord's order :
" George Giddins, husbandman, 25 years.
" Jane Giddins.
" Thomas Carter, 25,
" Michael Willinson, 30,
" Elizabeth Morrison, 12, )
Servants of George Giddins."
They are said to have had as companions on their voyage Sir Henry Vane, fourth governor of Massachusetts, who, in 1662, suffered martyrdom for his zeal in the cause of liberty and relig- ion. "John Tuttle, of Ipswich," says Savage, "came in Ship Planter from London in 1635, ae. 39, with wife Jane, ae. 42, and ch .- Abigail, ae. 6; Simon, ae. 4; Sarah, ae. 2 ; and John, ae. I ; besides Jane Giddings, ae. 20, and her husband George, ae. 25, who are known to be called children of Tuttle. They had pre- viously lived at St. Albans, Hertfordshire, England, and had em- barked April 2, to be joined four days afterwards by several others of the two families. He (Tuttle) died December 3, 1656, at Carric Fergus, where his widow wrote George Giddings as her son, and so called, also, John Simon and John Lawrence.
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John Tuttle was made freeman March 13, 1639, and representive 1644. After a few years he went home and was established in Ireland in 1654. His wife followed." The history of Litchfield county, Conn., has the following in regard to the Tuttles : "The Tuttle family came from Devonshire, England, and were probably of Welsh descent. In 1528, and again in 1548, Wm. Totyl was recorder of the ancient city of Exter, the capital of Devonshire, and the second city in England. Wm. Totyl was high sheriff of Devonshire in 1549, and lord mayor of Exter in 1552. He had a son Jeffrey, who was recorder in 1563. Jeffrey bought a fine estate, called 'Pearmore,' in the neighborhood of Exter. The estate had belonged to Gray, Duke of Sussex, who was executed by the crown. Jeffrey had a son Henry, who was high sheriff in 1624, and from him Wm. Tuttle and three brothers descended, who came to America in the ship Planter and landed in Boston in 1635. The brothers were Richard, who settled in Boston, John in Dover, N. H., and Simon in Ipswich, Mass." That George Giddings was a man of property and position is inferred from the fact that he brought over with him three servants, as in those days only people of means could afford the luxury of ser- vants. He brought with him a letter of recommendation from the rector, or minister, of St. Albans, Hertfordshire. St. Albans is an ancient borough, situate on the top and northern side of a picturesque hill, twenty-one miles northwest from London. The Ver, a small tributary of the Colne, separates it from the site of the ancient Verula, an important station in the time of the Ro- mans, and the scene of a terrible slaughter in the insurrection under Boadicea. In honor of St. Alban, said to have suffered martyrdom here in the year 297, a Benedictine monastery was founded by Offa, king of Mercia, in 796. The foundation of the town is supposed to be due to Ulsig (or Ulsin) who was abbot about one hundred and fifty years later. Two battles were fought near St. Albans during the War of the Roses, in 1455 and 1461. In the first Henry VI. became a captive ; in the other he was set at liberty by his brave queen, Margaret of Anjou. The old Abbey church, restored in 1875 by Sir Gilbert Scott, is a cruciform building of irregular architecture, five hundred and forty-seven feet in length by two hundred and six in breadth, with an embat-
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tled tower one hundred and forty-six feet high. Mr. Giddings was one of the twenty sworn freeholders who paid the highest rates out of two hundred and thirty in 1644, deputy to the General Court in 1641, 1654, 1655, 1659, 1661, 1663, 1664, 1668, 1672, and 1675. He was a selectman from 1661 to 1675, and for a long time a ruling elder of the first church. He was born in 1608, and died June 1, 1676, and his widow, Jane, died in March, 1680.
Ipswich is said to have been the first place in Essex county known to have been visited by Europeans. In 1611 Captain Edward Hardee and Nicholas Hobson sailed for North Virginia and touched at the place. In 1614 Captain John Smith mentions Agawam. It was first settled in 1633 and incorporated Ipswich in 1634. John Giddings, son of George Giddings, was born in 1639. He had a commonage granted him in 1667; was a commoner in 1678, and a lieutenant of militia, and was a deputy to the Gen- eral Court in 1653, 1654, and 1655. He died March 3, 1691. Thomas Giddings, son of John Giddings, was born in Ipswich, Mass., in 1683. He moved to Gloucester, Mass., in 1710, and to Lyme, Conn., about 1722, where he purchased land nearly every year for several years, and settled near Beaver Brook. He mar- ried, in 1708, Sarah Butler. Joseph Giddings, son of Thomas Gid- dings, was born in 1714, in Gloucester, and removed with his father to Lyme. He married, October 24, 1737, Eunice Andruss, or Andrews, of Ipswich, and about 1752 removed with his family to the North Society of New Fairfield, Conn., now Sherman. His name first appears on the church records of New Fairfield North Society October 6, 1752. in connection with the baptism of a daughter "Sarah." On July 15, 1754, he was admitted to the church by letter from the Third church in Lyme. He took an active part in the French war. In the colonial records, 1760, is the following: "This assembly do establish Mr. Joseph Gid- dings to be Captain of the north company or trainband in the North Society in New Fairfield." In 1775 he was at the head of a committee to build a "new House of Worship." His name is found on the records of the church and society on various other committees, and he seems to have been a leading man in those matters. Jonathan Giddings, son of Joseph Giddings, was born in Lyme, Conn., April 18, 1741, removed with his father to New
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Fairfield North Society, where he became a thrifty, enterprising farmer. He served in the revolutionary war, enduring many hardships. He was at one time sent by his superior officer at the head of a scouting party as captain, and they were nine days without food, having become lost in the woods, where they were obliged to subsist on roots and herbs. Having received a severe wound he obtained his discharge and returned to his family. He was one of the original proprietors of the Connecticut Western Reserve, in Ohio. In 1786 the state of Connecticut reserved three million five hundred thousand acres of land in northwestern Ohio, which became known as the "Connecticut Western Re- serve." Its claim on all other government lands was then ceded to the United States. This land was devoted to the use of the state of Connecticut for the free education of her children. In 1795 Elijah Boardman, of New Milford, and others, among whom was Jonathan Giddings, purchased, for sixty thousand dollars, a large tract of land on the reserve, the share of Mr. Giddings being one thousand, three hundred and eighty-three acres. He married, January 2, 1766, Mary Baldwin, adopted daughter of Benoni Stebbins, of New Milford, Conn., and daughter of Gamaliel Bald- win, she being then eighteen years of age. He afterwards came into possession of the farm of Mr. Baldwin on the west side of the Housatonic river. This property remained in possession of the Giddings family for about one hundred years. Mr. Giddings died April 8, 1817. Mr. Baldwin was a descendant of Joseph Baldwin, of Milford, one of the first settlers in 1639, born in Milford September 11, 1716, settled ir. New Milford, where he joined the church August 30, 1741. The widow of Jonathan Giddings married Captain John Ransom, of Kent, Conn., who came from Colchester, Conn., about 1738. Rebecca Giddings, daughter of Jonathan, was born January 2, 1.769, and married, July 10, 1791, Captain Revilo Fuller.
Charles Dorrance Foster, of the Luzerne bar, is a descendant of George Giddings through his great-grandfather, Rev. Jacob Johnson, who married Mary, a daughter of Captain Nathaniel Giddings, of Norwich, Conn., a great-grandson of George Giddings and the next youngest brother of John Giddings, son of George Giddings, the ancestor of Henry A. Fuller. George Giddings
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was also the ancestor of the late Joshua Reed Giddings, the great anti-slavery congressman from Ohio.
Amzi Fuller, son of Captain Revilo Fuller, was born in Kent, October 19, 1793. He obtained as his only fortune the ordinary academic education given to almost every young man in New England, and which has fitted multitudes of them for the discharge of honorable duties in every part of our country. At about the age of eighteen he left home to seek his fortune among strangers. Without friends or money he went to Milford, Pa., a little village on the banks of the Delaware, the county town of Pike county. There he taught a school and entered himself as a student at law in the office of the late Daniel Dimmick, for many years a dis- tinguished practitioner in the courts of Pike and Wayne counties. Having completed his preparatory studies and obtained admis- sion to the bar, Mr. Fuller removed to Bethany, Wayne county, where, on August 25, 1816, he was admitted to the bar of that county. He immediately opened an office for legal practice, and thus became the first resident lawyer in Wayne county. The county at that time was wild, rugged, and sparsely populated. There were no great thoroughfares of business through it, and lumber was the main staple of commerce. The streams being small and difficult of navigation, the lumbering business was a precarious source of wealth, yet it so withdrew attention from agricultural pursuits as to leave the general face of the country unimproved. The legal business was very small. The courts sat but twice a year with juries, and were seldom occupied a week dispatching all the issues, criminal and civil, which arose. Nathaniel B. Eldred, subsequently president judge of the Eigh- teenth judicial district, had located himself in Bethany, a gay young lawyer of fine manners and commanding talents; and the very able gentlemen then at the bar of Luzerne county attended the courts in Pike and Wayne to share with Messrs. Eldred and Fuller the legal business which seemed scarcely enough for them. And there were Messrs. Mott and Dimmick, of Pike county, in practice also in the same courts. Into Wayne county such as it then was, and attended by this formidable competition, came Mr. Fuller to seek his livelihood. And his dependence was to be wholly on his profession. He had no adventitious aids, and he
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engaged in no other business. He sat himself down to the care- ful study of the few law books he possessed, and to the correct transaction of the business entrusted to his care. Cultivating the strictest habits of integrity, industry, temperance, and frugal- ity, he rose rapidly in public confidence, his business increased, and in a few years he was able to marry, to build him a fine house, and to establish himself in circumstances of great com- fort. There in the little highland village of Bethany he resided until 1841, accumulating a fortune by faithful attention to a con- stantly increasing business, and by rigid adherance to habits of economy, which had been forced upon him in the beginning, but which he never sought to change. He made himself a sound and well read lawyer. No man's integrity was ever more un- doubted, and business never suffered in his hands from procrasti- nation, rashness, or unskillfulness. Strictly honest and eminently punctual in all his dealings, his credit with the community be- came unbounded. Indeed, it is doubted whether his name ever stood a month as debtor on any man's books. He never held but one civil office, and that he sought not, though he was re- appointed to it several times. It was the office of deputy attor- ney general, which was conferred upon him by successive admin- istrations of various politics for many years, and the duties of which he discharged with the same zeal, punctuality, and skill that characterized all his business transactions. During his res- idence in Bethany his house was ever open with a ready and an elegant hospitality. He was an efficient supporter of the public schools, and of the interests of religion, as well as of every pro- ject for the internal improvement of the county. He loved Wayne county with a pure affection. There had been the scene of his early professional struggles and of his final triumph. He had mixed with the hardy and enterprising people on terms of the utmost familiarity, had assisted them and been assisted by them, and mutual confidence and affection were the growth of such intercourse. Long before he had removed from Wayne county he had the satisfaction of witnessing a great improvement in the face of the country and in the social condition of the peo- ple. As the more valuable kinds of lumber disappeared, in- creased attention was given to farming and its associate com -.
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forts ; the population, originally from New England, was swelled by a continually incoming tide ; turnpikes were projected and built, and finally the works of the Delaware and Hudson Canal Company were introduced which built up towns, created markets, and stimulated enterprise and industry in every department of life. These causes wrought magic effects among the rude hills of Wayne, and have made it a wealthy and interesting county, whilst its population in intelligence and enterprise is equal to that of any county in the state. Very deep and hearty was the pleasure with which Mr. Fuller witnessed the advancement and prosperity of a community with whose interests his own had been so long and thoroughly identified, and, although he removed his residence to this city, the amor patric that glowed incessant in his bosom belonged to Wayne. In 1840 an act of assembly was passed providing for the removal of the county-seat of Wayne from Bethany, where he had so long resided, to Honesdale, three miles distant. Having acquired an ample fortune Mr. Fuller de- termined to retire from the toils of his profession, and the better to do this he waited until after the removal of the county-seat, when he removed to Wilkes-Barre, where his son Henry Mills Fuller, was then already established. While here he did not en- gage in the active practice of the law, though he continued to act as advisory counsel for many of his former clients. While resident in Wilkes-Barre Mr. Fuller attached all hearts to him. He had cultivated the social virtues with great success, and taken a deep interest in the prosperity of the Protestant Episcopal church, to whose venerable forms he was strongly attached. Though not a communicant in the church, he was a constant at- tendant upon its services, a liberal supporter of it, an active ves- tryman, and at the time Bishop Potter was elected Mr. Fuller was an efficient member of the diocesan convention. He was admitted to the bar of Luzerne county January 11, 1822. He died in Kent, while on his annual visit to that place with his wife, September 26, 1847, in the same room and house in which he was born.
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