USA > Pennsylvania > Genealogical and personal history of the Allegheny Valley, Pennsylvania, Volume I > Part 59
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a member of the body which approved for Connecticut the Declaration of Independence. He rendered various other services to the cause of the patriots and was accorded by his fellow citizens many evidences of their esteem.
Dr. Sibley's paternal great-grandmother's maiden name was Lucy Knowlton. She was a sister of Colonel Thomas Knowlton who won imperishable fame at the battle of Bunker Hill. He was a friend of Washington, who showed Knowlton several marks of apprecia- tion and respect. Colonel Knowlton was killed in 1776 at the battle of Harlem Heights. His statue has been erected by the state of Con- necticut at the capital at Hartford.
(VII) Hon. Joseph Crocker (2) Sibley, son of Dr. Joseph Crocker (1) and Lucy Elvira ( Babcock ) Sibley, was born in Friendship, Alle- gany county, New York, February 18, 1850. As a boy he was strong, active and quick, and like all other normal, healthy boys, fond of play. His father believed in training boys to work and to assume responsibilities, and therefore early assigned him numerous tasks suitable to his years and ability. It is noteworthy that in school he learned his lessons with great ease and that when six years old he was as far advanced in his books as the average child of twice his age. His mother, as well as his father, had been a school teacher and often encouraged him to devote himself to his studies. He had a taste for reading and his mother fre- quently related with pardonable pride that when nine years old he had on his own initia- tive read through a two-volume history of the life and campaigns of Napoleon Bonaparte. This love for reading has been a marked char- acteristic of Mr. Sibley throughout his life. He was fortunate in being endowed with a retentive memory for facts, circumstances, ideas and even for exact words. If his memory for faces had been equally strong, he would in after years as a man in public life have been equipped far beyond the measure of many others who have also been notably successful. It was in his boyhood days greatly to his ad- vantage that he lived in small country towns and that he was often brought into contact with nature on his father's farm and on farms belonging to his uncles. When he was nine years old the family removed from Bath, Steu- ben county, New York, to Boston, Erie county, New York. As was to be expected, the new boy in the village was at first set upon by those of his own size and age, and when he
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had successfully defended himself from their attempted drubbings he was then compelled to do the best he could for himself in rough-and- tumble struggles with the elder brothers of those whom he had worsted. The final out- come was that it was generally agreed that the newcomer was made of the right kind of material and could safely be admitted to the inner circles of the royal court of Boyville. Dr. Sibley noticed the ability of the boy to make money and encouraged his sense of responsi- bility and his pride in ownership by giving him one or more farm animals for his own. When the boy was twelve years old he was entrusted by his father with the sale in Buffalo of a drove of cattle from the farm which was located about twenty miles away. The busi- ness was attended to in as satisfactory a man- ner as it could have been done by one of mature years.
The death of Dr. Joseph C. Sibley occurred in 1866, when his son Joseph C. was sixteen. The boy had previously attended district schools, a German school, and the academies at Springville, New York, and Friendship, New York. He nominally continued to be a student at the Friendship Academy for a year or two longer, but during one winter he taught a country school, so that practically his student days were over some time before he was eighteen. The start he had made together with his fondness for books was sufficient to cause him to become in later years a man of exten- sive learning. Probably not one in a hundred of college graduates ever attains, even many years subsequent to graduation, the knowledge of history, law, diplomacy, sociology, eco- nomics and general literature, which Mr. Sib- ley by judicious use of his leisure time has acquired. In fact, if Mr. Sibley had not been favored through inheritance with strong vital- ity and if he had not in his earlier years strengthened his nervous system as well as his muscular system by plenty of manual labor and of outdoor sports, such as hunting, fishing, baseball, riding and driving, it is doubtful if he would have had, as he grew older, the cour- age to undertake or the ability to assimilate the authors that he so continuously and dili- gently studied. When, on account of limited funds, he finally decided that it was best for him to give up a college course, to which he had looked forward, he had considerable diffi- culty in deciding what business, trade or pro- fession he should take up. He clerked for a
while in a country dry goods store. At one time he thought of becoming a physician, and while a clerk in a drug store began the reading of medicine. So numerous were his talents that it is likely that he could have made a suc- cess in any one of half a dozen lines of worthy endeavor. On the death of his father he had chosen his brother-in-law, Charles Miller (in later years major-general of the National Guard of Pennsylvania), as his guardian. From the inception of this guardianship until the present day the business interests of Joseph C. Sibley and Charles Miller have often been closely identified. His first employment in Franklin was as a clerk in the dry goods store of Miller & Coon. This was in 1869.
For two years prior to 1873 Mr. Sibley was agent at Chicago for the Galena Oil Works of Franklin. He lost all his effects and came near losing his life at the time that Chicago was devastated by its great fire. The begin- ning of Mr. Sibley's noteworthy success in business may be said to date from 1873 when, having returned to Franklin, he began market- ing for railway use a signal oil compounded by him which was superior in illuminating power, in safety and in cold test to any that had ever been previously in use. About this time the Signal Oil Works was formed, with Mr. Sib- ley as president. A few years later he com- pounded also the first successful valve oil ever produced from petroleum stocks. Both of these oils after a lapse of over thirty-five years are still considered the standard of excellence. When the Galena-Signal Oil Company was formed, about 1902, General Miller was made president and Mr. Sibley chairman of the board of directors.
When he was twenty-nine years old, Mr. Sibley was, after an exciting contest, elected on a progressive platform. mayor of the city of Franklin. Old residents state that he was the first man in the history of the city who had been elected to this office before he had attain- ed the age of thirty.
The noted stock farm enterprise of Miller & Sibley was inaugurated in 1882. By insist- ing on the importance of constitution and healthfulness in cattle; by calling attention to the best type for milk, cheese and butter; by emphasizing the necessity for proper feed and care ; and, especially, by demonstrating in great competitive contests the correctness and prac- tical value of the propositions which he had advocated, Mr. Sibley has rendered inesti-
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mable service not only to the dairy and live stock interests of the country, but also to the general public, the consumers of animal pro- ducts, as well. A few of the remarkable achievements of the stock farm may be briefly summarized. It produced the Jersey cow, Ida Marigold, that won two sweepstakes prizes at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893. One of these prizes was in the show ring ; the other was in practical contests for thirty days for milk, cheese and butter (open to all breeds). The Miller & Sibley herd won a total of two hundred and twenty-four first prizes and sweepstakes at twenty-two state fairs or greater expositions, a record believed to be unequalled by any other herd of Jerseys in the world. Matilda 4th, the first Jersey cow in the history of the breed to give over sixteen thousand pounds of milk in one year, was owned, developed and made her record at this farm. Mr. Sibley bought her at auction before she had had her first calf, but he stated at the time of purchasing her that she had the making of a great cow. Mr. Sibley was a superior judge of form and a student of pedigrees as well. The success of this particular cow was the more gratifying to Mr. Sibley because, according to the Escutcheon Theory then in vogue, she should have proven a small milker and unprofitable as a dairy animal. In fact, Mr. Sibley had been advised by theorists to get rid of her, as they predicted that she would be unworthy a place in the herd. Adelaide of St. Lambert, another of the famous Prospect Hill Jerseys, gave over one ton of milk (2,0051/4 lbs.) in thirty-one days. This con- stituted at the time, June 24, 1898, the world's record for this period for the Jersey breed, and it is still unequalled. The bull Pedro was pur- chased by Mr. Sibley for $2.500 and sold the following year for $10,000. This bull, a few years after he had been sold by Messrs. Miller & Sibley, won the sweepstakes prize in the show ring at the World's Fair at Chicago. Stoke Pogis 5th and Ida's Rioter of St. L., two other bulls selected by Mr. Sibley, were esteemed as among the most successful sires in the Jersey breed. Each bull lived until his fifteenth year. Stoke Pogis 5th was bought at auction for $130. Subsequently $15.000 was offered and refused for him. In 1903 he had more granddaughters with standard butter records ( 14 lbs. of butter or more a week) than any other bull that ever lived. Fawn of St. Lambert, La Petite Mere 2d, and Ida of St. Lambert were also the
holders at one time of the world's records for the Jersey breed for milk or for butter. The descendants of the Miller & Sibley herd are to be found in the leading herds of Jerseys throughout the world. Fourteen head of Jer- seys from their farm were sold to a breeder in Japan.
In the era for high prices for trotting horses, Miller & Sibley owned as many as two hun- dred and fifty head. St. Bel, purchased by Mr. Sibley for $10,000, could show when not in training a gait of 2:02. Fifty thousand dol- lars were offered and refused for him. He was regarded by horsemen as the best son of the famous Electioneer. On the very day that St. Bel was to have been shipped from Frank- lin, Pennsylvania, to Independence, Iowa, to take a low record, he was seized with a spell of indigestion, which resulted in his death the day following. Many of his get were noted race horses. Conductor, another son of Elec- tioneer, was purchased for $7,500. A short time later, after he had won a hard-fought race in Chicago, he was sold for $35,000. It was not uncommon at Prospect Hill Stock Farm to sell young colts and fillies for from $5,000 to $10,000 each.
Mr. Sibley first became a figure of national importance in 1892 when he was nominated for congress in the Twenty-sixth Pennsyl- vania district, though he was a resident of the Twenty-seventh. At the outset it looked as if the chances were against him, as his Repub- lican opponent had a regular party majority of over five thousand behind him, and had also an extensive acquaintance throughout the two counties of Erie and Crawford, which consti- tuted the district. Moreover, the Republican nominee had wealth, business alliances and church connections which were supposed to render him an unusually strong candidate. Mr. Sibley was supported by the Democrats, the Prohibitionists and members of the People's party, elements which left much to be desired in the matter of organization and in the unity of interests. A more strenuous or amusing campaign would be hard to imagine. Mr. Sib- ley worked heroically, sometimes delivering as many as six addresses a day, and succeeded in arousing the highest enthusiasm. It was at once recognized that he was a reasoner, a wit, a man of affairs, an orator, and, best of all, a strong, courageous man with a big heart and helpful impulses. The roorbacks started against him were easily refuted, and merely
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served to win new friends and to make the old ones more zealous in his behalf. The elec- tion returns showed that he had not only over- come the big hostile majority with which at the start he had been handicapped, but also that he had piled up for himself the surpris- ing plurality of three thousand, three hundred and eighty-seven over his principal competi- tor, and a total majority of three thousand, two hundred and five. Four times subsequently Mr. Sibley was elected to congress, twice be- ing from the Twenty-seventh Pennsylvania district and twice from the Twenty-eighth. At the close of his fifth term Mr. Sibley de- clined a renomination, stating that he desired to retire from public life. However, four years later, in 1910, yielding to the urgent appeals of hundreds of his former constituents of the Twenty-eighth district, he consented to be- come again a candidate. In March, shortly after the announcement of his candidacy had appeared, Mr. Sibley underwent in a Wash- ington hospital an operation for the removal of cataract. About the same time he had a re- currence in aggravated form of an organic trouble of the heart, from which, without his being aware of the real difficulty, he had been a sufferer for about two years previous. Mr. Sibley's condition became so serious that for weeks doctors and nurses feared that the end might come at any moment. With the excep- tion of two days when he went by train to two or three places in Mercer county, he was practically unable to give any assistance or advice whatever as to the conduct of the cam- paign. In fact, for a considerable portion of the time he was in absolute ignorance of any- thing that was being done in his behalf. Never- theless, at the primaries in June he won the nomination for a sixth term. He was assured by party managers and friends in various parts of the district that his majority at the November election would be the largest he had ever received. However, as the heart dis- ease, instead of improving as he had hoped, became more and more a fixed certainty, he resigned the nomination, feeling that if elected he could not properly attend to the duties that would devolve upon him.
While Mr. Sibley was a member of the house of representatives, few were more active and few had a wider acquaintance or wielded more influence. He was a ready de- bater, well fortified with facts, and stated them in an interesting and effective way.
Many of his efforts were listened to by im- mense audiences, and he was often the recip- ient of congratulations from practically all of his colleagues. During his first term he was a member of the committee on appropriations. He was also for several terms on the commit- tee on post offices and post roads. In this capacity he did much to favor rural free de- livery, which has proven such a boon to all farmers wherever it has been put in use. He was chairman of the committee on manufac- tures and a member of the committee on in- sular affairs. Mr. Sibley believed in looking at all questions from the standpoint of com- mon sense, of patriotism and of humanity, re- gardless of the dictates of politicians and party managers. Party names with him counted for but little. As a matter of fact, he was classed in congress as a Democrat prior to 1900; after that time, as a Republi- can. As early as 1895 he boldly declared that the tariff should no longer be regarded as the plaything of political parties, but should be put into the hands of a commission composed of able and patriotic financiers, who should consider it as the greatest practical business problem with which citizens and the govern- ment are called upon to deal. Under Presi- dent Taft a beginning has been made in this direction. Several measures advocated by Mr. Sibley many years ago and which received scant recognition then, are now generally ap- proved and are likely to become soon the law of the land. One of these was that of chang- ing the presidential term from four to six years and making the holder ineligible to re- election. A bill to this effect was introduced by Mr. Sibley in two or three different con- gresses, but was not pressed because, in the judgment of his colleagues, the time was not then ripe. Mr. Sibley always desired to do justice to the laboring man and to the one whose condition in life is hard. He, there- fore, was an early advocate of the cause of bi-metallism. When the world's stock of gold began greatly to increase through the discovery of new fields and the improvement of the processes for extracting the ore, he ceased to be a champion of the free coinage of silver. While hoping for the day to come when nations shall learn the art of war no more, Mr. Sibley was not so childish and imprac- tical as to suppose that the day was already here. He, therefore, regarded it as the plain duty of the representatives of the people to
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provide a navy adequate in strength to pro- tect our coasts and to insure the continuance of our welfare and our national independence. Nor did he, like too many others, shrink from this country's bearing the burdens and per- forming the obligations which the war with Spain imposed upon us.
Toward those who had risked their lives in defense of the nation, Mr. Sibley held that the government should maintain a liberal attitude. He was disgusted with parsimonious and red tape methods which so often prevented the payment of pensions to which soldiers were entitled and of claims which were just and should have been accorded recognition. Largely through Mr. Sibley's efforts legisla- tion was enacted which removed technicali- ties which had too long debarred many a suf- fering and worthy veteran from receiving from the government what he and all fair- minded men considered right and due.
Mr. Sibley's talents have in many ways been recognized by those who have had an opportunity to know him thoroughly. He was permanent chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican state convention in 1902. In the national house of representatives he was often called upon to preside when the speaker wished to take part in debates or for other causes could not occupy the chair. At the Democratic national convention in 1896 he received votes for president of the United States, and a large number of votes for vice- president. Probably no other man in North- western Pennsylvania has so many warm en- thusiastic friends and so few personal enemies as has Joseph C. Sibley. This is due to his kindness of heart, to his frankness, to his in- tegrity, to his courage, and to his loyalty to his friends. Mr. Sibley has often in fires, floods and accidents of various kinds risked his own life to save the lives of others. Frank- lin feels proud to claim him as a citizen. He was the first man to propose a hospital here and the largest individual contributor to the fund necessary for its construction. While he was mayor he set on foot a movement to replace the city bonds which bore seven per cent interest with an issue bearing only five per cent. Though, owing to legal technicali- ties, the desired result was not accomplished until after his term of office had expired, yet he is entitled to part of the credit for lighten- ing the burdens of city taxation. The Franklin Opera House was built by a company of which
Mr. Sibley was the organizer and the first president. Mr. Sibley gave to the legal frater- nity of the county his extensive law library, which is kept in the Court House where it can be readily consulted. He has been a liberal supporter of the churches, also of the Young Men's Christian Association, and for many years past has maintained at his own expense a club for workingmen, where they can meet under wholesome conditions, read the papers, enjoy a chat with their friends, play harmless games, use the baths, and in short be fur- nished with comforts which in former times were restricted to the rich, or at least were likely to be found only where there was an opportunity and a temptation to indulge in late hours and to use spirituous liquors. For several years, as a commissioner of the public parks of Franklin, Mr. Sibley did much to im- prove their appearance. He made the largest contribution to the fund for erecting the Eg- bert Memorial fountain. The Venango County fairs which used to rival the State fairs in the important and excellence of ex- hibits owed no little of their success to Mr. Sibley's zealous and untiring efforts. Mr. Sibley was formerly a director of the Ameri- can Jersey Cattle Club and had much to do with framing and introducing a new scale of points which rightly emphasized the practical utility of the breed rather than its gazelle-like appearance, which had previously received too much attention. For a number of years Mr. Sibley was an efficient member of the Pennsyl- vania State Dairymen's Association, of which he was president for two or more terms. He was also a member of the State Board of Agri- culture. He took the initiative in forming the American Trotting Register Association, and also served the organization in the capacity of a director. He was vice-president of the Na- tional Half-Mile Track Association, and for many years a member of the Board of Review of the National Trotting Horse Association. He was one of the directors of the Allegheny River Improvement Association. Within the past two years Mr. Sibley was the recipient of a silver platter, suitably inscribed, from the Lake Champlain Yacht Club, of which he has been the commodore. Mr. and Mrs. Sibley were presented during 1911 with a silver loving cup as a testimonial of respect and esteem from the First Baptist Church of Franklin, of which both he and his wife had been mem- bers since early life, and of which Mr. Sibley
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has for many years been chairman of the board of trustees. Mr. Sibley has been hon- ored by the friendship of many of the leading men of the nation, including not only the mem- bers of the house and senate, but also officers of the army and navy, ambassadors, mem- bers of the cabinet and justices of the supreme court. He received the degree of LL.D. from two colleges and was offered it by a third.
As human nature is at present constituted, 110 one so conspicuous as Mr. Sibley has been in the affairs of the nation could hope to escape hostile and bitter criticism. It is safe to assume, however, that one whose record in private life is such as to command the re- spect of all who know him intimately, will not in dealing with greater matters in a public capacity be actuated by a totally different set of motives or principles. During one of his heated campaigns Mr. Sibley repeatedly stated that if he had ever throughout his lifetime taken from anybody one dollar or any other sum wrongfully, he would cheerfully refund it fourfold. It is almost needless to add that no claimant ever appeared to take advantage of the offer.
Mr. Sibley is a man of the progressive, but not of the fanatical or anarchistic type. He does not harbor feelings of hatred or revenge. He believes in dealing fairly and honorably with individuals, with organizations and with all legitimate business interests. Besides those who would for ordinary political reasons be opposed to him, Mr. Sibley has antagonized two other radically different classes of men. These are on the one hand, those who by na- ture do not favor change of any kind, and on the other hand those who from whatever cause, selfish or otherwise, seek to forward all sorts of wild, impracticable and unjust schemes which tend ultimately to the overthrow of government and of social order itself. Three suits, each of a political nature, have in the course of his lifetime been brought against Mr. Sibley. They were widely heralded in sensational newspapers. When, however, two of the most important suits were dropped on the petition of those instituting them, perhaps not one in a thousand of those who had read of legal proceedings having been entered ever saw any notice of the final outcome of the cases, or came to realize the fact that the charges were baseless and absurd. The other suit referred to was many years ago called for trial in the courts of Crawford county, but
before testimony on behalf of Mr. Sibley was fairly under way, the plaintiff by reason of evidence contained in his own letters, which he had forgotten or had supposed were no longer in existence, asked that the case be dismissed.
Mr. Sibley's life has been a most stirring and eventful one, and a large volume would be required to set forth adequately the part he has played. Enough has been said, however, to show that he merits the love and esteem which he at present enjoys from his fellow- citizens, and that he will long be remembered after all that is mortal of him shall have been put underneath the sod.
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