USA > Pennsylvania > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania Vol. II > Part 12
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PROFESSOR GEORGE TAYLOR ETT- INGER, PH. D. For the past seventy years the Ettinger family has been well-known in the busi- ness, musical and educational life of Lehigh county. The founder of the Allentown branch of the family was Major Amos Ettinger, the son of a hat-maker, born in Lynn township, Lehigh county, March 23, 1817. His mother's maiden name was Smith. When still a very young man he came to Allentown, where he learned the trade of a coppersmith, in the establishment of Solomon Gildner, and later he started in the same business for himself at the southeast corner of Hamilton and Eighth streets. Still later he enlarged the field of his business by buying out his brother-in-law, Nathan Laudenschlager, who was engaged in the stove and tinware trade. For a long time his store was at 738 Hamilton street, until, his busi- ness requiring greater and better accommodations, he purchased the property at 732 Hamilton street, and erected one of the largest and best ap- pointed buildings in the city. At that time his store-room was the largest in Allentown. He prospered, and for many years the phrase "Ett- inger's Stove Store" was almost a household ex- pression in Lehigh county.
Tall and dignified in appearance, Amos Ettinger was one of the most genial of men, with an unusual fund of wit and humor. Many are the witticisms and practical jokes that he has had to father. In this respect his reputation in his na- tive county was proportionately as great as that of Abraham Lincoln in the United States.
George 9. Ettringen
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For many years he was the leader of the Al- lentown Band, the first organization of the sort started in Allentown. Of this musical organiza- tion Henry's "History of the Lehigh Valley," published in 1860, says: "Although the greater part of the time is devoted by the citizens of Al- lentown to their various business pursuits and callings, they still find time for recreation and amusement. The Allentown Band, of which Amos Ettinger is leader, is considered one of the best in the state, and is composed entirely of the business men of the place." There is still in the possession of the family an excellent oil portrait of the genial face of Amos Ettinger, presented to him by the members of this musical organization. He was especially prominent also in the military life of his time, and held many important offices. He was captain of a model volunteer company called. "The Lehigh Fencibles," and for seven years was brigade inspector of the Second Brig- ade, Seventh Division. During his lifetime his fellow-citizens honored him with various posi- tions of trust and responsibility, and at the time of his death he was the president of the town council ..
On Christmas Day, 1836, he married Susan, a daughter of Henry and Lydia Hamman Lau- denschlager, who was born at Macungie (then known as Millerstown) Lehigh county, Decem- ber 22, 1818. The Laudenschlager family moved to Allentown, and for many years the father was a carpet-weaver, living in a large stone-house on Union street, near Seventh. From this marriage were born four sons : William Jacob, who died in 1863; Alfred Henry; Richard Carlos, who died in 1896; and George Taylor Ettinger.
Amos Ettinger died February 1, 1866, in the forty-ninth year of his age. In speaking of his death the Lecha County Patriot of February 6, 1866, said: "Through his affable, sociable de- meanor the deceased won for himself the affection of all that came into contact with him. He was one of the best loved, most highly esteemed and most benevolent citizens of this town." The Al- lentown Friedens-Bote of February 7, 1866, summed up his life and character as follows : "He was an honorable, upright citizen, and a host of
friends sincerely mourn his early demise. He was a true friend and a good neighbor, and, the Spirit saith, he resteth from his labors and his works do follow him."
George Taylor Ettinger, the youngest son of Amos and Susan Ettinger, was born in Allen- town, Pennsylvania, November 8, 1860. He re- ceived his elementary training in the excellent private school of Miss S. V. Magruder from 1869 to 1873, and in the fall of 1873 he entered the academic department of Muhlenberg College, with which institution he has been connected as student and teacher for nearly thirty-one years. As a student he has the remarkable record of not hav- ing missed a single recitation in seven years. He prepared for college in the academic department from 1873 to 1876, and in September of the latter year he entered the freshman class of Muhlenberg. He was graduated with first honor and the vale- dictory, June 24, 1880. In 1879 he received the junior oratorical prize of twenty-five dollars for the best oration as to matter and manner, the sub- ject of his oration being "The Folly of War- fare." During his college course he was a mem- ber of the Euterpean Literary Society and the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity.
Immediately upon his graduation in 1880 he began to teach in the academic department of Muhlenberg College as assistant to Rev. A. R. Horne, D. D., from 1880 to 1882, and to Rev. John Kohler, D. D., from 1882 to 1884. From 1884 to 1892 he was principal of the academic department in connection with Prof. E. S. Dieter, now of the Allentown high school. During these years the annual enrollment of the department in- creased from thirteen to seventy-five students. Upon the occasion of the quarter-centennial cel- ebration of Muhlenberg College in 1892, he was elected professor of pedagogy and associate pro- fessor of Latin. Several years later the title of the chair (which he has filled ever since) was changed to professor of the Latin Language and Literature and Pedagogy. In 1888 he enrolled in the graduate department of New York Uni- versity, which three years later conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph. D.) for work done in pedagogy, under Dr. Jerome
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Allen and Dr. Edgar D. Shimer, and in German under Dr. A. S. Isaacs.
Upon the death of Professor Davis Garber, Ph. D., Dr. Ettinger became librarian of his alma mater, and upon the death of Professor Matthias H. Richards, D. D., he was chosen sec- retary of the faculty. He has been the alumni editor of The Muhlenberg since 1886, and for many years corresponding secretary and treasurer of the Alumni Association and a member of its board of managers. He has also been a member of the editorial committee of the Muhlenberg Col- lege Bulletin, the official quarterly publication of the institution since its begining in 1902. In 1904 the board of trustees elected him dean of the faculty.
For nearly fifteen years Dr. Ettinger was a director of the public schools of Allentown, dur- ing which period he was repeatedly elected presi- dent of the board of control, later served as secre- tary of the same body and was chosen president of the Lehigh County Directors' Association. For nine years he was connected with the Pennsyl- vania Chautauqua at Mt. Gretna, serving in vari- ous positions as instructor in Latin and Greek, dean of the faculty and member of the board of managers. In 1905 he was chairman of the com- mitttee under whose auspices a successful series of University Extension Lectures was delivered in Allentown by Professor J. C. Powys, M. A., of Cambridge, England, on "The History of Liberty."
He has published "Pedagogy the Fourth Pro- fession," an address delivered before the Lehigh County Teachers' Institute, and "The Relations and Duties of Colleges to their Preparatory Schools," a paper read before the Association of Colleges and Preparatory Schools of the Middle States and Maryland, at Cornell University. In 1904-5 he was associated, as supervising editor, with John W. Jordan, LL. D., librarian of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, and Dr. Edgar M. Green, of Easton, Pennsylvania, in the publication of an extensive "Genealogical His- tory of the Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania," in two handsomely illustrated volumes brought out by
The Lewis Publishing Company of New York and Chicago. When the Liberty Bell Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution dedi- cated the tablet commemorating the hiding of the Liberty Bell in the old Zion's Reformed church, Allentown, the prominent gentleman that had promised to deliver the principal address found that it would be impossible for him to keep his engagement. As a special favor to the regent of the chapter, Dr. Ettinger consented to serve as a substitute and, with but three days for prepara- tion, delivered what the local press was pleased to call "a masterpiece." On September 1, 1904, he also delivered the opening address at Muhlen- berg College on "The American College and its Problems," which was afterwards published by the board of trustees. His services as a speaker and lecturer are in frequent demand, his two most popular lectures being "Life's Lottery" and "An Evening with the Dictionary."
The subject of this sketch is a member of the American Philological Society, the Pennsylvania- German Society, and the Pennsylvania Society of New York, of which organization he is the chair- man for Lehigh county. He is also the first pres- ident of the recently organized Lehigh County Historical Society, and a contributing member of the Allentown Hospital Association, the Lehigh Saengerbund, and the Allentown Oratorio So- ciety. Since 1897 he has been the efficient secre- tary of the Livingston Club of Allentown, one of the largest and most representative social clubs of the Lehigh Valley.
Although busily engaged as student and edu- cator, he still finds time to share in the larger life of the community and to discharge his duties as a citizen of the same. At various times he has served as a delegate to city and county conven- tions of the Republican party, and he presided over the stormy sessions of the Lehigh county convention in the historical contest for political supremacy in the state of Pennsylvania waged between Governor Daniel H. Hastings and Sen- ator Matthew Stanley Quay, with such tact and ability that special mention was made of it in the press of the state. In 1902 Judge Edwin Albright
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appointed Dr. Ettinger inspector of the Lehigh county prison, and his successor, Judge Frank M. Trexler, has continued him in this position from year to year. For several years he has served as secretary of the Frison Board of Lehigh county. He is associated with a number of Pennsylvania and Colorado gentlemen in the Key- stone Mining and Development Company, which owns six hundred acres of rich gold and copper property in Boulder county, Colorado, and in Car- bon county, Wyoming, including the town-site of Downington in the latter state. He is the presi- dent of this corporation.
Since his confirmation in 1877 he has been an active member of St. John's English Lutheran congregation. For many years he was an officer and teacher in the Sunday school, served as pres- ident of the Young People's Society, was a deacon and secretary of the vestry, and is now an elder and vice-president of the same.
On August 17, 1899, he married Emma C., the only daughter of Gustav A. and Emilie F. Aschbach, of Allentown. This union has been blessed with one son, Amos Aschbach Ettinger, born May 24, 1901, and named after his paternal grandfather.
As Dr. Ettinger was but five years old when his father died, he was raised by his mother, a woman of strong mental and moral character, to whose excellent Christian training he gladly as- cribes whatever measure of usefulness and suc- cess he has attained in life. At the uncommon age of eighty-six she is still living, with mind active and able to recall and describe the scenes, incidents and persons of the days when Allen- town was hardly more than a large village.
In the words of one of his friends: "Dr. Ettinger possesses a sympathetic nature, com- bined with that true modesty which causes him to carry his learning as a man carries his watch- to be kept out of sight till some one wishes to know the time. No man has less of the pedant about him. The lark needs no trumpet to herald the fact that it is a sweet singer. His advice and criticism are often sought. The one is always marked by good sense, and the other by the utmost kindliness, but at the same time combined with
justness and fairness. He is keen in his observa- tions, and can find "sermons in stones, books in running brooks, and good in everything."
REV. C. J. COOPER, D. D., to whom Muh- lenberg College is deeply indebted for its substan- tial development and the excellent financial basis upon which it now rests, belongs to one of the oldest families of the Lehigh Valley.
William Cooper, of Dillenberg, in the duchy of Nassau, Germany, was born August 24, 1722, and his wife Gertrude, was born September 12, 1724. They came to America in the latter part of the eighteenth century and, spending their last days in Lehigh county, their remains were in- terred in the burying ground surrounding St. Paul's church at Upper Saucon. Their son Dan- iel preceded them, however, to the new world, coming about 1770. He was born at Dillenberg, in the duchy of Nassau, March 31, 1752, and on crossing the Atlantic settled at Goshenhoppen, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. On the 3d of November, 1775, he married Elizabeth Gery, a daughter of Jacob Gery, of. Goshenhoppen. Daniel and Elizabeth Cooper became the parents of ten children: Jacob, John, Peter, William, Charles, Daniel, Catherine, Elizabeth, and two who died in infancy. Of this family Jacob re- moved to Philadelphia, where he was engaged in mercantile pursuits. He was married twice, and by his first wife had a son Daniel, who became a physician and practiced his profession in Jones- town, Lebanon county, Pennsylvania. His sec- ond wife was in her maidenhood Miss Fink, but at the time of her marriage to Jacob Cooper she was Mrs. Owen, a widow. They had one son, Jacob. Jacob Cooper, Sr., having occasion to go to New Orleans, was taken ill on the ocean with yellow fever, died and was buried at sea. John Cooper, the second son of Daniel Cooper, died in 1847, leaving a daughter, Fayette, who was mar- ried to Elias Nitrauer. Feter Cooper, another son of the family, was born December 26, 1790, married Susan Buchecker and died May 19, 1837, leaving four children. He was the founder of Coopersburg, Lehigh county, and served as de- puty surveyor general of Pennsylvania. Of his
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children Milton is still living in Coopersburg, and has passed the eightieth milestone on life's jour- ney. Charles W. became the first county super- intendent of the public schools of Lehigh county, and was cashier and president of the Allentown National bank. He left a son, Harry, who resides in Emans. Dr. Thomas B. Cooper, a physi- cian, became prominent in public affairs, repre- sented his district in congress, and died in 1862. His son, Tilghman S., resides at the old home- stead in Coopersburg, and is a leading breeder and importer of cattle. Anna Matilda Cooper be- came the wife of Dr. Fred Martin, and died in Bethlehem, leaving two daughters, who are resi- dents of Philadelphia. William Cooper, son of Daniel Cooper, the founder of the family, re- moved to Schuylkill county. Daniel Cooper mar- ried Sarah Ott, and died in April, 1864, leaving several children. Charles died in childhood. Catherine Cooper became the wife of Jacob Sei- der, and is the grandmother of Mrs. Edwin Kline, of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Elizabeth Cooper married Abraham Slifer, and removed to Flourtown, Pennsylvania, where she died in 1867.
Jacob Cooper, father of Rev. C. J. Cooper, D. D., was born March 18, 1820, in Upper Saucon, Lehigh county. He received a very limited educa- tion, but was trained to active labor, learning the tanner's trade, which he followed for many years. He became a member of the German Reformed church in early manhood, but afterward united with the Evangelical Lutheran church. In poli- tics, he was a staunch Democrat, and for many years he resided in Coopersburg, where he took an active and helpful interest in many movements for the general good. His death occurred in Al- lentown, February 18, 1899. His wife, Mrs. Sarah Ann Cooper, was a daughter of John and Mary Catherine (Egner) Horlacher and was a native of Upper Saucon, Pennsylvania. She traced her ancestry back to the founder of the family in America, who came from Wurtemberg, Germany, about 1730. His son, Daniel Hor- lacher, was the father of John Horlacher, who wedded Mary Elizabeth Schaeffer, and one of their children was John Horlacher, the father of
Mrs. Cooper. Jacob Cooper and Sarah Ann Hor- lacher were married in June, 1827.
Dr. C. J. Cooper was born in Upper Saucon township, Lehigh county, near Lanark, Pennsyl- vania, April 1, 1847. In 1850 his parents re- moved to the vicinity of Coopersburg, and enter- ing public schools of that locality he began his education, which he continued in the Allentown Academy, the Bucks County Normal and Classi- cal Institute at Quakertown, Pennsylvania, and in the Allentown Seminary, now Muhlenberg Col- lege. On leaving the last named institution he matriculated in the sophomore class at Pennsyl- vania College at Gettysburg in 1864, and was graduated in 1867. The same year he entered the Lutheran Theological Seminary of Phila- delphia, and completed his course of study there by graduation in 1870. He was then ordained by the Lutheran Ministerium of Pennsylvania in Pottsville, and was elected pastor of St. Peter's Lutheran church at South Bethlehem, Pennsyl- vania, at a salary of three hundred dollars per year. Subsequently Freemansburg and Lower Saucon were connected with this parish. Dr. Cooper ministered to the three congregations un- til 1881, when he resigned the work at Lower Saucon, and in 1886 he resigned as pastor of the church at South Bethlehem and Freemansburg in order to accept the position of treasurer and finan- cial agent of Muhlenberg College. He built new churches in the three places named, and promoted a work of far-reaching importance. He was sec- retary of the Second Conference of the Minister- ium of Pennsylvania, secretary of the Minister- ium, and has been a trustee of Muhlenberg Col- lege since 1876, and has repeatedly been a dele- gate to the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of North America, has been a member of its board of publication since 1901, and is a member of the Pennsylvania German So- ciety. His work in behalf of Muhlenberg Col- lege entitles him to the gratitude of all of his de- nomination who have interest in Christian educa- tion. He accepted his position when the financial foundation of the college was very insecure. There was a debt of seventy-five thousand dollars rest-
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GENEALOGICAL AND PERSONAL MEMOIRS.
ing upon the institution, and through the untiring and effective efforts of Dr. Cooper this was re- duced to thirty-two thousand, five hundred dol- lars. He was also instrumental in increasing the endowment from one hundred and twenty thou- sand to one hundred and seventy thousand dollars, and in doubling the number of students. His ef- forts also resulted in the improvement of the libra- ry and the apparatus of the school, and he was the chief instigator and prime mover in the effort to raise two hundred thousand dollars for the pur- chase of new grounds and the erection of new buildings west of Allentown. This project has every promise of success, fifty-five acres of ground having been purchased, while at present there is approaching completion the Administration building, one hundred and ninety by sixty-five feet, and a dormitory one hundred and eighty-three by forty feet, a power house and a president's residence. In his work in behalf of church and college he has ever looked beyond the exigencies of the moment to the possibilities of the future, laboring not only for the present but also for the later development of the school, and bringing to his work the zeal and consecration of a strong nature that fails not in the accomplishment of its purpose.
On the 4th of October, 1870, Dr. Cooper was married in Philadelphia to Emma S. Knause, who was born in Locust Valley, Lehigh county, and in her childhood days removed to Philadelphia, where she was educated in the public schools. Her parents were George and Caroline (Jacoby) Knause, the former a merchant of Philadelphia. To Dr. and Mrs. Cooper have been born eight children. William Henry, born July 6, 1871, in South Bethlehem, is an alumnus of Muhlenberg College of 1891, and of Hahnemann Medical College of Phila- delphia in 1894. He was then interne in the Homeopathic Hospital of Pittsburg, and is now a practicing physician at Oakmont, Allegheny county, Pennsylvania. He married Harriett Bettis, of Titusville, Pennsylvania. Frederick Eugene, born October 16, 1876, in South Beth- lehem, was graduated in Muhlenberg College in
1896, and in the Lutheran Theological Seminary at Mount Airy, Pennsylvania, in 1899. He is now pastor of St. Mark's church at South Beth- lehem. He married Rosa M. Richards, a daughter of the late Professor M. H. Richards, D. D., of Allentown, Pennsylvania. Caroline Jacoby, born August 3, 1878, is a graduate of the high schools of Allentown, and is now cashier and bookkeeper for E. Keller & Sons, jewelers of Allentown. Emma Malinda, born March 6, 1880, in South Bethlehem, is a graduate of the high school of Allentown, and is now teaching in the public schools there. Sarah Alice, born May 9, 1883, in South Bethlehem, is a graduate of the Allentown high school, and is taking a course in kinder- garten work in the Mary J. Drexel Home, Phila- delphia. Anna Rebecca, born December 19, 1886, in Muhlenberg College at Allentown, graduated from the high school of that place in 1904. Two other children, Charles Jacob and Mary Cath- erine, died in childhood.
STILES. The Stiles family is one of great antiquity, and in its wide dispersion is found in all parts of the United States. In its various gener- ations from the coming of its immigrant ancestor its members have been known for great ability and nobility of character.
The family is of early Anglo-Saxon origin, and, as remarked by the scholarly Henry Reed Stiles, M. D., the family historian and an accom- plished genealogist, "if other families claim that their ancestors came into England with William the Conqueror, ours may rest assured that it was in Britain before the conquest," and in the argu- ment upon which he bases his proposition he adduces some philological evidence which is at once interesting and convincing. The family seat was in Melbroke, Balfordshire, England, whence came the founders of the American family of Stiles-Francis, Thomas, Henry and John. They came March 16, 1634, in the ship "Christian," a small vessel of forty tons. They were of a com- pany of twenty-two adult males, three adult fe- males, and two children. The Rev. Ezra Stiles, pastor of the Second Church of Newport, Rhode
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HISTORIC HOMES AND INSTITUTIONS.
Island, writing in 1762, with the family records before him, said of them that they were of those who "for the sake of a free exercise of pure re- ligion fled out of England from the tyranny and persecution of King Charles the First, and settled in New England. Our family of Stiles was one of this original accession, and purely English blood."
John Stiles (I), the immigrant, was born in Milbroke, Bedfordshire, England, December 25, 1595. He came to America with the company above mentioned, and March 16, 1634, was inden- tured to his brother Henry as a carpenter's ap- prentice. He settled in Windsor, Connecticut, and was apportioned land near his brothers. He be- came a man of considerable property, as shown by various minutes in the records of the church and town. In the seating of the meeting house (1659-60) among those who "have paid and were placed in the long seats when they were paid" were John Stiles, Sr., and his wife. His wife was Rachel (family name unknown) and she was presumably of the company of immigrants with which he came. He died June 4, 1662-3, aged sixty-seven years, in Windsor. He made his will "the last day of May, 1662," a few days before his decease, making an equitable division of his estate, which was inventoried at £222.4S -a large sum for that day. His wife survived him more than twelve years and died September 3, 1674. They were the parents of four children : Henry, born in England, 1629; John, born in Eng- lang, about 1633 ; and Isaac and Sarah, born in Windsor, Connecticut.
John (2), son of John (I), is referred to by Dr. Stiles in his "Genealogy of the Stiles Family," who relates a family tradition that "a woman and her child paid only a single passage, but double if . the child were weaned; and though John Stiles was old enough to wean when they came from England in 1634, yet his mother suckled him (during) the voyage, and so gained his passage." This John (2) grew up in Windsor, Connecticut, and was a citizen of good repute. June 5, 1656, he was defendant in quarterly court in an action brought against him for carrying passengers over the river, and judgment was given in his favor.
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