History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. III, Part 20

Author: Davis, W. W. H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910; Ely, Warren S. (Warren Smedley), b. 1855; Jordan, John W. (John Woolf), 1840-1921
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1040

USA > Pennsylvania > Bucks County > History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. III > Part 20

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The above is taken from the muster-out roll of the company. The company was mustered into service on the 6th day of July, 1898, and was mustered out of the service on the 29th day of October, 1898. It was the first volunteer company formed in the state of Pennsylvania, and was taken to help fill out the Third Battalion of the Ninth Pennsylvania Regiment. The other companies were Captain Green's, of Read- ing; Captain Mercer's, of Summit Hill, above Mauch Chunk; and Captain Moor's, of Towanda.

On Friday evening, April 22, 1898, there was a meeting held in the Fountain Hill Opera House, and a call for volunteers made. These met in Doxon's Hall after- ward and elected Henry Adams, captain ; Leighton N. D. Mixsell, first lieutenant ; and Dick Enright, second lieutenant. Mr. Enright failed to pass his physical ex- amination and was re-elected. A. Alison Mitchell, of Wilkesbarre, was appointed in his place. The South Bethlehem Market Hall was used as an Armory by the com. pany.

Henry Adams is a member of the Penn- sylvania German Society, 1899; a member of the Society of Foreign Wars, Pennsyl- vania Commandery, 1899; general manager of the Cuban Mining Company at Neu- vitas, Cuba, 1899-1902, and the mines of this company were discovered by him; a mem- ber of the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, and was pre- sented a medal of honor by the society for service in the Spanish-American war; and of Masonic bodies-Fernwood Lodge, No. 543, Philadelphia, and Caldwell Consistory, 32d degree. He was vice president and general manager of the San Domingo Ex- ploration Company and San Domingo Southern Railway Company, San Domingo, R. D., West Indies, 1902.

HON. GEORGE ROSS, an eminent jur- ist and statesman, was born in Doylestown, August 24, 1841. He came of a distinguished and honored ancestry. His earlier ancestors were of the clan Ross, of the Highlands of Scotland. His great-great-grandfather Thomas Ross was born in the year 1708, in county Tyrone, Ireland, where his parents had sought a refuge from the horrors of civil

and internecine war in their native Scotia. Emigrating to America at the age of twen- ty-one he settled in Solebury, Bucks county. He joined the Society of Friends and be- came a distinguished preacher. He was a man of superior education and intellectual ability, and traveled extensively in later life both in the American colonies and in Eng- land and Ireland. He died at the home of Lindley Murray, the great grammarian, in York, England, while on one of his relig- ious visits in 1786. He married Keziah Wilkinson in 1731, and had by her three children : John, Thomas, and Mary, who married Thomas Smith. John Ross mar- ried Mary Duer in 1754, and had seven children; Sarah, who died in childhood; Thomas; Keziah, who married Benjamin Eastburn; John; Joseph ; Isaiah ; and Mary, who died in infancy.

Thomas, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, as one of the execu- tors of his father's will, joined in the con- veyance of the Solebury homestead, pat- ented to his father in 1737, to Jacob Van Horn in 1787, and the latter conveyed it back to Thomas by deed dated two days later. In 1796 he conveyed it to his son Thomas, who by will in 1814 devised it to- his brother, Judge John Ross, of Easton, who devised it to his son Thomas, the fath- er of the subject of this sketch, who con- veyed it to Edward Vansant in 1853. Thus the original homestead of the Ross family in Bucks county remained in the family for one hundred and sixteen years, notwithstanding the fact that for three generations the owners had been much more eminent as jurists than as farmers. John Ross, eldest son of Thomas and Ke- ziah, removed to Philadelphia. His son Joseph removed to the West. John be- came an eminent physician. Thomas mar- ried Rachel Longstreth and settled in West Chester. He was a lawyer, and had a large and lucrative practice.

THOMAS Ross, younger son of Thomas and Keziah (Wilkinson) Ross, born on the old homestead in Solebury, was the great- grandfather of the subject of this sketch. He married (first) a Miss Clark, and (sec- ond) Jane Chapman, who was the mother of his six children : Thomas, John, Will- iam, Cephas, Hugh and Samuel. He lived on the Solebury plantation until 1796, when he removed with his family to Newtown, where he died about 1814. His eldest son Thomas was appointed prothonotary and clerk of the courts of Bucks county in 1801, and held those offices for eight years. He was born in 1767 and was admitted to the bar of Northampton county in 1793, but practiced but a year or two, when he re- moved to New York city. He returned to Newtown in 1800 and practiced law until appointed prothonotary and clerk. His wife- was Mary Lyons, of Long Island. He died in 1815, while visiting his brother John at Easton and left no children. Hugh Ross studied law with his brother John at Easton and on being admitted to the bar returned

6-3

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

to Newtown, later went to Trenton, New Jersey and finally settled in Milford, Pike county, Pennsylvania. Samuel, the young- est child of Thomas Ross (2) born 1779. married in 1815 Mary Helena Wirtz, and settled in Philadelphia. He had six chil- dren. Cephas Ross, another son of Thomas (2) remained in Bucks county, where he still has numerous descendants. He died in Plumstrad in 1840.

HON. JOHN Ross, the grandfather of the subect of this sketch, son of Thomas and Jane (Chapman) Ross. was born on the Solebury homestead. February 24, 1770. He received a liberal education, but it appears that his family were averse to his follow- ing a professional career. From a number of letters written by him in 1790 to his benefactor, Richard Backhouse, it would seem that by reason of the difference with his parents as to his future career he was cast upon his own resources. These let- ters are now in the possession of the Penn- sylvania Historical Society. He commenced life as a school teacher at Durham, where he attracted the attention of Richard Back- house, then proprietor of the furnace. To Mr. Backhouse the youth confided his in- tention of going South to seek his fortune. Mr. Backhouse urged him to take up the study of law, and generously offered to give him sufficient financial aid to complete his studies and start him in the practice of law. Taking up with this generous offer, the embryo judge began the study of law with his cousin, Thomas Ross. of West Chester, then in the same judicial dis- trict as Bucks county, and he was admitted to the bar of the district in 1792. He set- tled at Easton. Northampton county and began the practice of law. and at once sprang into prominence. Hon. Henry P. Ross, his grandson, once said: "No member of the family approached him in ability," and his brilliant professional ca- reer warrants the assertion, superlative though it be. A born politician, he early launched into the arena of politics. He was elected to the state legislature in 1800. In 1804 he was a candidate for congress. but the jealousies aroused by the rival claims of the three counties of Northamp- ton, Bucks and Montgomery, then compos- ing the district, caused his defeat. He re- newed the fight in 1808 and was then elected. At the expiration of his term he was appointed prothonotary of Northamp- ton county. Was elected to congress again in 1814, and re-elected in 1816 and resigned to accept the appointment of judge of the seventh judicial district, comprising the counties of Bucks, Montgomery, Chester and Delaware, January 25. 1818. He had married November 19. 1795. Mary Jenkins, whose family resided at Jenkintown, and on taking up the duties of his office he located there. The act of March. 1821. placed Montgomery and Bucks in one ju- dlicial district and Judge Ross removed to Doylestown, then the county seat of Bucks.

He purchased the old tavern stand where the National Bank now stands, and con- verted it into a residence, and it remained the home of his descendants until 1896. Judge Ross was appointed justice of the supreme court April 16, 1830, after which much of his time was spent in Jenkintown. He died of apoplexy in Philadelphia Jan- uary 31, 1834, in his sixty-fourth year. While in Northampton county he had pur- chased a tract of 348 acres near the Wind Gap in what is now Monroe county, and named it Ross Common. He set apart upon this tract a family burying ground. Here his favorite brother Thomas was bur- ied, and here the famous jurist and states- man himself lies buried.

The children of Judge John Ross were : George, a graduate of Princeton, who stud- jed law with his father and was admitted to the bar in 1818; (he became involved in a quarrel which resulted in a duel on the Delaware river, and he was never after- wards heard from) Charles J. ; Lord : Cam- illa, who married General Peter Ihrie, of Easton : Serena: John, an invalid, though he lived until 1886; Thomas: Jesse Jen- kins, who was at one time consul to Sicilv; Adelaide, who married Dr. Samuel R. Dubbs, and Mary. Of these. George, Thomas, William and Jenkins all were col- lege graduates and all lawyers, though Thomas was the only one who continued to practice. William became a teacher. Mary Jenkins Ross died in December, 1845.

THOMAS Ross, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Easton. Decem- ber 1, 1806. He graduated at Princeton in 1825. studied law, and was admitted to the bar February 9. 1829. Inheriting the abilities of his distinguished ancestors, he was a fine pleader and a logical thinker and hecame one of the eminent lawyers of his day. He was elected to congress from the tenth district comprising Bucks and Lehigh in 1848, and re-elected in 1851, and the district was never more ably repre- sented. As an orator he obtained a na- ional reputation. He died July 7. 1865. His wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Levi Pawling of Montgomery county, a member of the fiftieth congress. and grandaughter of Governor Heister. The children of this marriage were Henry P., George and Mary.

Henry P. Ross, born December 16, 1836, who became president judge of the seventh judicial district, graduated at Princeton in 1857. studied law with his father and was admitted to the bar in December. 1859. He practiced law with his father until the death of the latter in 1865. when he took his brother George into the firm. He was elected district attorney in 1862. He was a brilliant lawyer and an accomplished speaker. He was a leader of his party, and twice its candidate for congress. He was elected additional law judge in 1860. and succeeded Judge Chapman as president judge two years later. When the district was divided in 1874 he chose Montgomery

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

county and, finishing his term there, was re-elected in 1881, but died at Norristown, April 13. 1882.

George Ross, son of Thomas and Eliza- beth (Pawling) Ross, was born August 24, 1841. He obtained his preparatory edu- cation at the Tenent school at Hartsville, conducted by the Rev. Mahlon and Charles Long, and at the Lawrenceville, New Jer- sey Academy, under the tutorship of Dr. Hamill. Ile entered Princeton in January, 1858, and graduated in the class of 1861. He at once began the study of law with his father and brother at Doylestown and was admitted to the bar of the county June 13, 1864. At the death of his father the fol- lowing year he formed a partnership with his elder brother. Hon. Henry P. Ross, which lasted until the elevation of the lat- ter to the bench in 1869, when he became associated with Levi L. James, under the firm name of George Ross & L. L. James. At the death of Mr. James in 1889. J. Ferd- inand Long became the junior partner.

Mr. Ross, like his father and grandfather, was a trained and erudite lawyer, by years of study and patient industry he had mas- tered the great principles of common and statute law, and soon earned the proud distinction of being the recognized leader of the bar in his native county. He was a forceful speaker, quiet and undemonstra- tive in his manner, not given to self-asser- tion in oratory. One of his contemporaries has said of him. "if the absence of art is the highest quality of oratory, he was an orator indeed. His remarkable knowledge of the law, his subtle power of logic, and his indomitable perseverance in the ad- vocacy of the cause of a client, have made his memory dear to the people he served, and made his name remembered and hon- ored in the community in which he lived." In 1872 he was a member of the constitu- tional convention that framed our present state constitution, representing the counties of Bucks and Northampton in that body. He was elected to the state senate in 1886, and succeeded himself four years later, a distinction exceedingly rare in the history of his county. He was a life-long Demo- crat, and therefore represented the minority in the law-making body of the state. Not- withstanding this fact he soon became known as the recognized leader in all that pertained to the best interests of his state. At the organization of the senate on Janu- ary 2, 1895, Senator Brewer, of Indiana county, who was not of his political faith, in calling the attention of the body to the death of Senator Ross, said in part: "Sel- dom has any legislative body been called upon to mourn the loss of a more disting- uished member. This is not the proper time to pay a tribute to the distinguished services he rendered his state. There is such a thing as leadership, known and rec- ognized among men, and the members of this body. irrespective of party, accorded to George Ross leadership. Although we

have scarcely passed the threshold of this session, his absence is noticed and his coun- sel is missed. " Mr. Ross stood deservedly high in the counsels of his party. He was a delegate to the national conventions of 1876. 1884. and 1892. He was the Demo- cratic nominee for congress in the seventh district in 1884, but was defeated at the polls by Hon. Robert M. Yardley. He was also the caucus nominee of his party for the United States senate in 1893. He was deeply interested in the local institutions of his county and district was one of the original directors of the Bucks County Trust Company, and its president at the time of his death. He was also a trustee of the Norristown Insane Asylum until his death. He died at his home in Doyles- town, November 19, 1894. The disease which caused his death had given his fam- ily and friends much concern for probably a year. The state senate, of which he was a member at the time of his death, ap- pointed a committee of five to draft resolu- tions expressive of the sense of that body upon his death, and fixed a special session on January 23, 1895, to receive and con- sider the report of such committee. At this special session the resolutions adopted and the speeches of his colleagues show the merited appreciation of his public ser- vices and private virtues. We quote from one of these speeches the following: "Our friends was not of humble origin, nor could he boast of being wholly a self-made man. He had great advantages, coming from a long line of distinguished ancestors, a race of lawyers, some of whom had worn the judicial ermine: he had the benefits of a most liberal education, and claimed the famous college of Princeton for his alma mater. This scion of one of the most il- lustrious families of Pennsylvania, in whose veins flowed some of the best blood in this grand old Keystone state, worthy of his origin. was a prince among men."

George Ross married. December 4. 1870, Ellen Lyman Phipps, a daughter of George WV. Phipps, of Boston, Massachusetts. The children of this marriage are : Thomas, born September 16, 1873; Elizabeth P., George; Ellen P .. Mary; Gertrude.

Thomas, the eldest son, was educated at Lawrenceville and Princeton, and gradu- ated at Princeton in the class of 1895. He studied law under the preceptorship of Hon. Harman Yerkes, and was admitted to the bar December. 1897. He formed a partner- ship with his father's old partner, J. Ferd- inand Long, which terminated with the death of the latter in January, 1902.

George Ross was born May 28, 1879. He graduated at Lawrenceville in 1896 and at Princeton in 1900. He studied law with his brother Thomas at Doylestown and at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and was admitted to the bar December 22. 1902, and entered into partnership with his brother. In 1904 Hon. Harman Yerkes be- came a member of the firm.

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

HON. MAHLON H. STOUT, president judge of the courts of Bucks county, was born in Richland township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, March 10, 1852, being the son of Jacob and Amanda (Headman) Stout, both of German descent.

Jacob Stout, the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in Germany in the year 1711, and came to this country at the age of twenty-six years. He arrived in Philadelphia in the ship "Sam- uel," August 30, 1737, accompanied by an elder brother John, aged thirty years. In the year 1739 Jacob Stout married Anna Leisse, widow of John Leisse, of Rockhill

township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania. John Leisse, LaCene, Lacey, or Licey, as the name has been variously spelled, ar- rived in the ship "Adventurer," from Rot- terdam, with wife Anna, aged twenty-four years, a brother, Patil La Cene, with his wife Luisa and three children, and a broth- er-in-law. Michel Miller, September 23, 1732. John Leisse purchased in 1735 two hundred acres in Rockhill under the name of "John Lacey." He died in 1738, and the following year his widow married Jacob Stout. The two hundred acre farm pur- chased by Leisse. included a large part of the present borough of Perkasie. In 1759 Johannes and Hendrick Licey, the sons of John Leisse, deceased, conveyed this tract to their stepfather, Jacob Stout. and he and wife in turn conveyed to them tracts in Hilltown, portions of 266 acres purchased by Jacob Stout in 1757. The first purchase of land by Jacob Stout was a tract of land adjoining the Durham tract, now in Will- iams township, Northampton county, 243 acres, purchased September 9, 1750; his residence at that date was given as "Dur- ham township, Bucks county." In 1753 he purchased a mill property at Church Hill, in Rockhill township. In 1767 he purchased the Pine Run mill property and one hun- dred and nineteen acres, and in 1774 a tract of one hundred and fifty acres in New Britain township. These later pur- chases were doubtless to provide homes for his daughter, Salome, who had married Abraham Freed, a miller, and to whom he conveyed the mill and forty-one acres three years later; and Catharine, who had mar- ried Jacob Schlieffer, who occupied and later heired the New Britain property. Jacob Stout was a potter by trade and was a successful and prominent man in the com- munity. The last twenty years of his life were doubtless spent on his Perkasie farm. · where he lies buried in a neat little burial lot close to the P. & R. R. R. station. He died April 30, 1779, aged sixty-eight and a half years. The children of Jacob and Anna ( Miller-Leisse) Stout were: Abraham. Isaac; Salome, married (first) Abraham Frecd and ( second) Gabriel Swartzlander ; and Catharine, wife of Jacob Schlieffer

Abraham Stout, eldest son of Jacob and Anna Stout, was born August 17. 1740. He was probably one of the best educated Pennsylvania Germans of his time in Bucks

county. Most of his education was ac- quired in the old Germantown Academy, under the tuition of Hilarius Becker, pro- fessor of German, and David J. Dove as instructor in English. He thus acquired a thorough knowledge of the English lan- guage, a rare accomplishment at that date or for many years later among the German colonists of upper Bucks. He was an ex- cellent accountant and penman as well as a good business man, and his services were much in demand as a surveyor, scrivener and accountant among his German neigh- bors for over a quarter of a century. From an examination of the old papers on file in the county offices it would appear that he drew a great majority of the deeds, wills and other legal papers for the middle sec- tion of upper Bucks during that period. In addition to this he was constantly in de- mand by the court to serve as one of the auditors appointed to prepare and state the accounts of administrators and executors under the rule then in vogue, and many of these papers now on file in the orphans' court are models of penmanship, concise- ness and neatness. At the death of his father in 1779 his brothers and sisters con- veyed to him the homestead farm at Per- kasie, whereupon he was born, and he spent his whole life there, the Durham farm go- ing to his brother Isaac, while the sisters were provided for as before stated. He died June 8, 1812, and is buried beside his father, mother and wife in the family burial lot at Perkasie. His life presents a fine example of German-American citizen- ship. Though he was in the height of his local usefulness during the period of the Revolutionary war, he seems to have held aloof from active participation therein. He was elected to represent Rockhill township. in the committee of safety in 1775, but after several meetings had been held he asked to be relieved and another was ap- pointed in his place. It is probable that the traditions of the sufferings of his ancestors from the civil wars in the Palatinate had their effect in deterring him from taking an active part in the struggle. He was a delegate from Bucks county to the constitu- tional convention of 1790, and took an ac- tive part in the framing of the constitution of our commonwealth. He married Octo- ber 21, 1772, Mary Magdalen Hartzell, daughter of Henry Hartzell of Rockhill. She died November 8, 1811, in her sixty- first year. Their children were: Hannah, who married a Worman, and was left a widow young and for many years resided with her parents; Abraham: Henry H .; Jacob H. ; Anna, who married Jacob Hart- man; Margaretta, who married Tobias Rule ; (later spelled Ruhl) and Magdalene, who married John Gearhart.

Jacob Stout, second son of Abraham and Magdalen, was the grandfather of Judge Stout. He was born on the Perkasie homestead January 9, 1775. and died there August 15, 1820. His wife was Elizabeth Barndt, born November 27, 1778, and died'

Mahlone H Stout

HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY.

November 7, 1821. They resided on a por- tion of the old homestead and raised a family of eight children, viz: Isaac; Abra- ham; Jacob B .; Samuel; Sarah, who mar- ried Charles Leidy; Anna, who married Isaac Drumbore; Mary Magdalen, who married Jacob Groff; and Elizabeth, who married Enos Kile.

Jacob B. Stout, the father of Judge Stout, was born at Perkasie, November 8, 1814, and died near there in April, 1896. He mar- ried Amanda, daughter of Michael Head- man. They resided for a time at the old Headman Pottery in Rockhill, but returned later and purchased a farm adjoining the old Perkasie homestead, where the re- mainder of their lives were spent. The children of Jacob and Amanda Stout were : Maria, who married Tobias Weil; Emma, who married George W. Kratz; and Mah- lon H., the subject of this sketch.

Judge Stout spent his boyhood days on the Rockhill farm and attended the public schools of the neighborhood and the First State Normal School at Millersville, and taught school for four years. He after- wards entered Franklin and Marshall College, at Lancaster, Pennsylvania, from which he graduated in 1878. He at once took up the study of law in the office of Adam J. Eberly, Esq., at Lancaster, and was admitted to the Lancaster county bar April 4, 1880, and to that of his native county in May of the same year. After two years of practice at Doylestown he lo- cated in 1882 at Hulmeville, opening a law office there and having a branch office at Bristol. He was also a justice of the peace at Hulmeville. In 1886 he came to Doyles- town and formed a law partnership with ex-Judge Richard Watson, under the firm name of Watson & Stout, which continued until the death of Judge Watson in 1894. Mr. Stout was elected district attorney of Bucks county in 1888, and was unanimously nominated by his party to succeed himself three years later, but was defeated at the polls by the late Paul H. Applebach, the ·candidate of the then dominant party.

Mr. Stout was married November 13. 1894, to Miss Harriet Miller, of Downing- town, Pennsylvania. In 1898, his wife's health failing, he sacrificed his business and removed with her to Pasadena, California, with the hope of saving her life. While there he was admitted to the bar of that state and practiced law at Pasadena. His wife died December 24, 1899, and their in- fant son Max on December 25, 1898.

Mr. Stout returned to Doylestown in the spring of 1900, and again took up the prac- tice of law. In 1901 he formed a partner- ship with Harvey S. Kiser, Esq., under the firm name of Stout & Kiser, which con- tinned until the elevation of Mr. Stout to the bench. He was elected president judge in November, 1903, and entered upon the duties of his office in January, 1904. Judge Stout has always been a close student, and as a lawyer had the reputation of being one of the best counsellors at the bar, and his

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History of Bucks county, Pennsylvania, from the discovery of the Delaware to the present time, Vol. III, Part 20

Author: Davis, W. W. H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910; Ely, Warren S. (Warren Smedley), b. 1855; Jordan, John W. (John Woolf), 1840-1921 Publication date: 1905 Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1040

Author: Davis, W. W. H. (William Watts Hart), 1820-1910; Ely, Warren S. (Warren Smedley), b. 1855; Jordan, John W. (John Woolf), 1840-1921
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: New York ; Chicago : The Lewis Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1040