History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 81

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314

USA > Pennsylvania > Fayette County > History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 81

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S. m.Baily

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UNIONTOWN BOROUGH.

Railroad, which division was completed in 1872, the charter for which he had caused to be granted in the session of 1871. In 1872 he was defeated as a candi- date for the Senate at the Democratic primary elec- tions by Hon. Wm. H. Playford.

He continued the practice of the law, and in 1876 was again elected to the General Assembly for the session of 1877-78, and at the November election of 1878 was elected State senator for the Fortieth Dis- trict, composed of the counties of Fayette and Greene, for the period of four years.

In the House he served on general and local judi- ciary committees; in the Senate, on local, judiciary, railroad, and corporation committees. In both House and Senate, in all legislative controversies between capital and labor, he was always on the side of the oppressed, constantly looking out for the interests of the laboring classes, and was not tenderly loved by the grasping monopolists of Pennsylvania.

He originated the bill abolishing, under severe penalties, the odious female-waiter system then in vogue, with all its iniquities, in the cities of the State. He was also the projector of the Senate bill entitled "An act to secure to operatives and laborers engaged in and about coal-mines, manufactories of iron and steel, and all other manufactories the payment of their wages at regular intervals, and in lawful money of the United States." In the session of 1880 this bill was passed, but was vetoed by Governor Hoyt; but it was introduced by Senator Schnatterly in the succeeding session of 1881, and again passed, and then received the Governor's approval, and became the law.

The struggle over this bill was a test fight between capital and the interests of labor in the State. The senator did brave work in pushing the bill on to recognition in law, and by a powerful array of facts convinced a Senate at first in active opposition to the bill of the justice of his propositions and the necessity for the act.

Another important fact in Senator Schnatterly's career as a legislator should not fail of record here, and it is this, that he has uniformly voted for the largest appropriations for the public schools and the public charities (a species of "demagogism" almost as discreditable as his legislative warfare in favor of the rights and interests of the laboring classes). He can well afford to be criticised for voting decent ap- propriations for the blind and the maimed. The foes who censure him for so doing are the men who also look upon the working classes of the State as un- worthy a better fate than that they suffer under.

The act above referred to, looking to the emancipa- tion of labor, is now generally evaded by those whose injustices it was intended to decrease and prevent, but in time will compel itself to be respected, when the senator, it is to be hoped, will be sustained by popular approval in all parts of the State in his efforts in the cause of humanity.

Senator Schnatterly las of late returned to rail- roading as a contractor in the construction of the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston road, and in that of the Southwest Pennsylvania Railroad, and has just completed (March, 1882) several sections of the Red- stone Division of the Pittsburgh, Virginia and Charleston Road.

In 1867 he married Miss Mary Morrison, daughter of George and Anna West Morrison, of Uniontown.

GEN. SILAS MILTON BAILY.

The late war of the Rebellion opened a field for the active exercise of talents and virtues that might other- wise have ever remained hidden in great part from the knowledge of the public under the innate modesty of men of the true heroic type. Of this type is Silas Milton Baily, now (1882) treasurer of the State of Pennsylvania, and who was born in Brownsville, Fayette Co., in 1836, and is the son of William Baily, Esq., who migrated in childhood with his parents to Fayette County from Maryland. The father of Gen. Baily, growing up, at first entered upon and for some years pursued the trade of jeweler, but turned his attention to the study of the law, and was admit- ted to practice in 1845, and follows his profession in Uniontown. Gen. Baily's mother's maiden name was Dorcas Nixon. She was a farmer's daughter of Georges township.

Gen. Baily was mainly reared in Uniontown ; at- tended the common schools till about seventeen years of age, and entered Madison College (now extinct), and pursued his studies there for a while. Leaving the college he entered as apprentice upon the jewel- er's trade, which he practiced for about three years in Uuiontown, and finally opened business for himself in Waynesburg, Greene Co., in 1858, and conducted the same with success for some three years or more, when, on the breaking out of the war of the Rebellion, he " took fire," and, though without military experi- ence, raised a company which was the first one organ- ized in the county ; but it failed to be mustered in under the first call for three months' troops. But its organ- ization was preserved, and it became the first com- pany which was duly mustered into the three years' service from the county of Greene. Of this company, called " the Greene County Rangers," Baily was made captain. This was Company I of the Eighth Regi- ment Pennsylvania Reserve Corps, and participated in all the battles of the war, from Dranesville to Spottsylvania Court-House, inclusive, the period of three years.

In May, 1862, Baily was elected to the post of major of the Eighth Regiment, though not commis- sioned till June 4th. He took part in the fight at Mechanicsville, the first of the Seven Days' battles, and was on the second day, in the battle of Gaines' Mill, seriously wounded in the head,-his wound at

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

first being thought mortal,-and carried off the field. Eventually he returned home to recruit, and recover- ing after four months' nursing, resought his regiment, which he met in Maryland on the 13th of Septem- ber, 1862, and took command, the colonel having resigned, and the lieutenant-colonel having lost his hearing during a battle. The next day was fought the celebrated battle of South Mountain, into which the major led his regiment with a gallantry and in- spiring courage which the veterans love to "tell o'er" in their days of peace. The Eighth held the extreme left of the division. On Wednesday, the 17th of Sep- tember, 1862, occurred the battle of Antietam, in which Maj. Baily's horse was killed under him in the famous " corn-field fight." The battle of Fredericksburg fol- lowed on the 13th of December. In this battle Maj. Baily displayed his usual gallantry, fighting at the head of his regiment, the division being almost torn to pieces. He was carried wounded from the field. Im- mediately after Fredericksburg, Maj. Baily was pro- moted to the colonelcy, his commission dating back to South Mountain, the 16th of September, 1862. The shattered division was relieved from active duty at the front and sent to Alexandria, Va., to reeruit and perform provost duty. There it remained for nearly a year, Col. Baily being almost continually employed in court-martial.

With his division, Col. Baily was next called to active duty with Gen. Grant in the Wilderness, and had direct command of his regiment throughout, ex- cept for a day or two when called to command the brigade. The term of service expiring at Spottsyl- vania Court-House, Col. Baily was ordered to take his regiment home to be mustered out at Pittsburgh on the 24th of May, 1864. On the 13th of May, 1865, Col. Baily was breveted by President Johnson to be a brigadier-general of volunteers for gallant and meri- torions conduet during the war.

After the war Gen. Baily settled in Uniontown, opened a store for the sale of jewelry, and resumed his business as silversmith,-a military hero taking on his duties as private citizen as quietly as if he had never heard the clarion of battle or even the name of war, winning universal esteem for the exceptional modesty of his every-day demeanor. Gen. Baily has never solicited political preferment. He arrived at his majority about the time the Republican party was crystallizing into effective organization and entered it upon principle, having always given it his unwaver- ing allegiance. In 1878, without solicitation by him- self, of course, or even by his special friends, the Re- publican Convention of the Twenty-first Congressional District, Pennsylvania, unanimously selected him to lead them against the ever-prevailing foe, the Demo- cratie party of the Twenty-first. Knowing that the contest was hopeless, he bent to his duty, made a vigorous campaign, and led the Republican State ticket by a considerable vote. In 1880, Gen. Baily was elected to represent Fayette County in the Har-

risburg Convention which chose delegates to repre- sent Pennsylvania at Chicago. At Harrisburg he was elected one of the delegates to Chicago, representing the Grant wing of the party. But Garfield, instead of Grant, was nominated at Chicago; and in the can- vass which followed Gen. Baily gave the best of his time, talents, and means to the support of the nominee. Sept. 8, 1881, he was nominated by the Republican Convention at Harrisburg for State treasurer for the term of two years, and after a spirited campaign, in which Charles S. Wolfe, an " Independent" Repub- lican candidate, was run by the Blaine wing of the party, diverting a portion of the Republican votes, Gen. Baily was elected treasurer in November of that year by a "plurality" vote, but a majority vote over his chief competitor, the Democratic candidate, of six thousand nine hundred and six.

GEN. JOSHUA BLACKWOOD HOWELL.

Gen. Joshua B. Howell, who was from the year 1828 to the time of his death on the field, during the war of the Rebellion, identified as a lawyer and a citizen, adorning the bar and distinguishedly exem- plifying the amenities of social life, with the history of Fayette County, and whose final consecration as an adopted citizen of hers to service in the cause of his country, sacrificing his life therefor, reflects honor upon the county, was born at " Fancy Hill," the site of the family mansion of the Howells, near Wood- bury, N. J., Sept. 11, 1806. He was educated in the academy of that place and in Philadelphia, where he studied law under the direction of Richard C. Wood, Esq., an able lawyer of that day, and after admission to the bar, removed in the fall of 1828 to Uniontown, where he commeneed the practice of his profession, and where he easily won eminence. But due ref- erence having been made to his career as a lawyer in the chapter of this work devoted to the history of the bar, this brief biographical sketch will be mainly confined to Gen. Howell's career as a soldier. Trained in the Northern school, and having studied the na- tional constitution with a lawyer's understanding, patriotic in instinet and education, and having some years prior occupied the rank of brigadier-general in the State militia, and withal having a more than ordinary love of martial exercises and skill therein, and knowledge of military tacties, as well as the his- tory and plans of many of the great battles of the world, Gen. Howell, though nearly fifty-five years of age at the breaking out of the war of Rebellion, and therefore unlikely to be called upon by his fellow- citizens to lead them, as a duty devolving upon him, to the field of battle in the cause of the country, nev- ertheless promptly offered his services to the national government, and was authorized to raise a regiment, and soon presented himself at Washington at the head of the Eighty-fifth Regiment Pennsylvania Vol- I unteers, of which he was commissioned colonel.

Oshua tonello

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UNIONTOWN BOROUGHI.

From November, 1861, until the spring of 1862 he was stationed at Washington, and meanwhile dili- gently trained his men for the field. As a part of Gen. Casey's division, his command was trans- ferred to the Peninsula of Virginia, and participated in the marches, hardships, and battles of the first campaign against Richmond. His first battle was fought at Williamsburg, during the early part of which, in consequence of Gen. Keim's illness, Col. Howell commanded the brigade. On this occasion his services merited and received the distinction of special notice in the report of Gen. Peck, who com- manded the division. At Fair Oaks the gallant Eighty-fifth, under his command, sustained the con- flict with an overwhelming force of the enemy. In the subsequent retreat from the White Oak Swamp to Harrison's Landing its post was for a considerable part of the time in the rear of the retiring army and facing the exultant and advancing foe.

Upon the close of the Peninsular campaign, Col. Howell's health being seriously impaired, he was urged by his medical advisers to obtain leave of ab- senee, which was granted for twenty days, which time he spent among the friends of his youth in New Jer- sey. Improved, but still unfit for duty, he hastened back to his command, then in the vicinity of Fortress Monroe, forming part of Gen. Peck's division, His regiment occupied Suffolk, occasionally engaging the enemy in that region, until the beginning of 1863, when, under command of Gen. Foster, he was placed, January 5th of that year, at the head of a brigade, a position which he retained until the end of his ca- reer. He was attached to the expedition organized under Gen. Hunter against Charleston, S. C. Here Howell with his brigade was the first to seize upon Folly Island, a foothold by means of which Gen. Gill- more, when placed in command, was enabled to cap- ture Morris Island, the gateway to the harbor of Charleston. Shortly before the fall of Fort Wagner he suffered a concussion of the brain from the explo- sion of a ten-inch shell in a signal-station whence he was watching the effect of the firing therefrom, and which created an impediment in his speech with other symptoms of illness, constraining him to seek rest and recovery, which he did under a short fur- lough in New Jersey and at Uniontown.

He returned to his post greatly improved in health, although there is cause for suspecting that the con- cussion referred to bore a potential relation to the final catastrophe of his life. He was ordered with his brigade to Hilton Head to relieve Gen. Seymour, in command of that district, including Fort Pulaski and Tybee and St. Helena Islands, the approaches to Savannah. This command constituted in fact that of a major-general. Gen. Seymour had been ordered to Florida in command of that unfortunate expedition which resulted in the disaster of Olustee, upon the occasion of which he publicly remarked, "This would not have occurred if I had had Howell and his

gallant boys with me." Gen. Howell remained in command at Hilton Head until ordered to Fortress Monroe to join the forces of Gen. Butler in the cam- paign against Richmond. There his name soon be- came a synonym for gallantry in our own army ; and his noble form and whitening head were familiarly known and distinguished above all others by the foe, by whom he was alike admired and feared. Some time in August, 1864, he spent a short furlough in New Jersey, during which he caused to be repaired and adorned the graves of his kindred there. An- ticipating that the war would soon end he returned to the field, and found a part of the Tenth Corps, including his brigade, with Hancock on the north side of the James River, accomplishing that diver- sion which enabled Grant to seize the Weldon Road. The very day after Gen. Howell's return the rebels assailed his position with terrific fury, but were driven back upon their own works in utter dis- order. Upon the return of the expedition to the south side of the James, Gen. Wm. Birney, the division commander, having obtained a temporary leave of absence, Gen. Howell was assigned to the command of the division, -the Third Division of the Tenth Corps, a major-general's command,-which he held at the time of his death.

Having occasion to visit the headquarters of the corps during the night of Monday, the 12th of Sep- tember, 1864, he mounted his horse between the hours of twelve at midnight and one in the morning to return to his own quarters. At starting the horse turned into a divergent path, and being suddenly checked reared and fell back upon his rider. The general was immediately borne to the tent of the medical director, by whom he was carefully examined in search of external injuries, but none appeared. At that time he was perfectly sensible, answering the questions of the surgeon, declaring that he felt no sense of pain, and freely moving his limbs as requested. But in about fifteen minutes after his accident vomit- ing supervened, the blood thrown from his stomach bearing testimony to internal injury. A state of stupor immediately ensued, from which the general was never aroused, and at seven o'clock in the even- ing of the 14th of September he breathed his last.

In closing this brief recital of Gen. Howell's mili- tary life, it is but fitting to append the following lit- eral extract from a late letter of Maj .- Gen. Alfred H. Terry, in reply to one which had been written him inquiring his estimate of the late Gen. Howell as a military man. Gen. Terry's letter is dated at Fort Snelling, Minn., March 3, 1882:

" At this distance of time I cannot speak of par- ticular incidents of Gen. Howell's military career ; but my recollections of him as a man and an officer are as clear and distinct as they were eighteen years ago. I have never known a more courteous gentle- man ; I never saw a more gallant and devoted officer. The record of his service was without spot or blemish.

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HISTORY OF FAYETTE COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA.

" In the army corps in which he served he was widely known and universally respected and admired. "His untimely death was lamented by all his com- rades as a loss wellnigh irreparable, not only to them- selves, but to the country also."

Of Gen. Howell's personal attractions, his com- manding carriage and graceful manners, and of the excellencies of his character as a private citizen, they of Uniontown and Fayette County who knew him will preserve lively memory while they live, for he was greatly admired and beloved by his friends, and it is believed that he had no foes.

JAMES THOMAS REDBURN.

James T. Redburn was born in Masontown, Fayette Co., Pa., May 19, 1822, and was the son of James Tully and Rebecca Harrison Redburn. He in early life displayed an unusual aptitude for business, and during several years of his minority was connected with Zalmon Ludington in the leather trade at Addison, Pa. In 1848 he married Harriet Ann, youngest daughter of Mr. Ludington, and shortly after removed to Washington, Pa., where he em- barked in the boot and shoe trade. In 1850 he came to Uniontown and reassociated himself with Zalmon Ludington in the boot, shoe, and tanning business, which he carried on successfully for a number of years. In 1858 he was chosen cashier and manager of the Uniontown banking-house of John T. Hogg. This soon after became the banking-house of Isaac Skiles, Jr., Mr. Redburn continuing its cashier. In 1863 he became one of the incorporators of the First National Bank of Uniontown, Pa. (which succeeded I. Skiles, Jr.), which opened for business May 2, 1864. He was elected a director and cashier, to the positions of which he was unanimously re-elected year after year until his death. which occurred at his residence in Uniontown, Wednesday evening, May 23, 1877. He was also one of the originators of the Uniontown and West Virginia Railroad Company, and was its treasurer. Ile was also instrumental in starting the Uniontown Woolen Manufacturing Company, one of the few manufacturing establish- ments Uniontown could boast of and now unluckily destroyed by fire, and was treasurer of the company.

It was, however, as a bank officer that James T. Redburn was most widely known. To the position of cashier and director he brought taet and wisdom second to none in the county. He possessed in an eminent degree those sterling qualities of truth and justice, honor and temperance which drew to him by the most endearing ties of affection a large circle of friends wherever he went and wherever he was known throughout his entire life. Reserved, quiet, unosten- tatious, he was dearly loved and thoroughly relied upon by the numerous friends and customers that

sought his advice. A statement from his lips needed no investigation to test its accuracy. Statements or rumors that found credence through current gossip he met with thorough but not effusive detestation, and those most intimately associated with him bear testimony to the silence with which he treated sub- jects regarding which he had only the information of rumor. He preferred to leave the impression that he had no knowledge of a subject rather than give credence to a statement he did not know to be also- lutely true. In this as well as in many other par- ticulars Mr. Redbarn exerted an influence that was manly, noble, generous, and self-sacrificing, and that bore most bountiful fruit through his many warm friendships throughout Fayette and adjoining coun- ties. In his private and home life he was ever kind and watchful of the wants of others. He let not the cares or the worriment of the day follow him home to disturb the peace and quiet of his family. Never of a very rugged constitution, he was from boyhood subject to occasional periods of physical depression from that dread disease, consumption, which had carried away his four sisters and two brothers; yet he had that tenacity and will power which often held him to his desk when his strength would scarcely keep him on his feet. He was an earnest and consistent member and trustee of the Methodist Episcopal Church in Uniontown, and in life followed the Master with reverence and godly fear. Possessed of a naturally kind and sympathetic heart, he was ever ready to assist the poor and desti- tute or impart consolation to a sorrowing soul. His funeral took place Friday evening, May 25, 1877, Rev. Dr. J. J. Moffitt and Rev. S. W. Davis, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, conducting the services. The pall-bearers were Eleazer Robinson, Sebastian Rush, Uriah Higinbotham, Jasper M. Thompson, Charles S. Seaton, William MeCleary, John Wilson, and Alfred Howell. Mr. Redburn having lost his wife in December, 1860, did not marry again. Of his two children but one, Minnie L. Redburn, sur- vives him.

CAPT. ADAM CLARKE NUTT.

Adam C. Nutt, present cashier of the National Bank of Fayette County, is the son of Joseph Nutt, a far- mer, and Anna Randolph, his wife, and was born on the 8th of January, 1839. Although the 8th was " New Orleans day" and the elder Nutt a strong Democrat, he was also an ardent Methodist, and his Methodism then getting the better of him, the boy was named for the great commentator instead of Andrew Jack- son. Both the families Nutt and Randolph migrated into Western Pennsylvania from New Jersey, and were of Quaker stock. Joseph Nutt, the father, died in California in 1851. when Adam C. was twelve years old. The boy was sent to the common schoois, and for one term attended the graded school taught by L.

2 Hurtowo

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UNIONTOWN BOROUGH.

F. Parker, in Bridgeport, in the fall of 1855, walking to and from school daily, a distance of three miles each way. There he studied geometry and Latin. After private studies conducted at home, he entered the preparatory department of Allegheny College, in Meadville, in 1856, and, supporting himself by teach- ing during the winter months, graduated from the college in 1861 with the highest honors of his elass as valedictorian. While connected with the college he paid much attention to general literature, and re- ceived the Woodruff prize for the best essay in the Philo-Franklin Literary Society on the subject pro- pounded for competition, "The Western Continent as a field of laudable ambition."

In the war of the Rebellion he was connected with a three months' company in 1861. From October, 1862, to July 29, 1863, he served as a private soldier in the One Hundred and Twelfth Pennsylvania Vol- unteers, and from the last-mentioned date to Oct. 31, 1865, he was captain of the Third United States Col- ored Troops under Col. B. C. Tilghman. He partici- pated in the siege of Fort Wagner and in operations on Morris Island until Feb. 8, 1864. He went into Florida under Gen. Truman Seymour in the Olustee campaign, being for a time in the brigade commanded by Gen. Joseph R. Hawley. After the disaster at OInstee he was engaged in the fortifications around Jacksonville, Fla., until April, 1865, and subsequently commanded the post at Lake City, Fla., until October of that year. And here may be mentioned a matter of national history with which he was connected while at Lake City, and which may otherwise escape record in connection with the history of Payne, who attempted to kill Secretary Seward at the time of the assassination of Present Lincoln. The govern- ment wishing to fix the identity of Payne, Gen. Foster sent Capt. Nutt on the delicate mission of visiting the alleged family of Payne and securing the evidence; the result of his mission being the determining of the fact that Payne's correct name was Lewis Thornton Powell, and that he was the son of a Baptist minister living about twelve miles from Lake City. Capt. Nutt returned home in December, 1865, and in April, 1866, removed to Uniontown, where he has since resided. He read law with Hon. Daniel Kaine, and was admitted to the bar in Decem- ber, 1868, practiced a while, and became connected in 1871, as teller, with the National Bank of Fayette County, where he has meanwhile served, having been cashier since Ang. 20, 1878. He was Republican can- didate for prothonotary of Fayette County in 1881, and was beaten by only one hundred and eighty-seven votes by Col. Thomas B. Searight, the Democratic can- didate, in a proverbially Democratic County, many leading Democrats openly voting for Capt. Nutt in honor of his talents and moral worth.

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History of Fayette County, Pennsylvania : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 81

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885 Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co. Number of Pages: 1314

Author: Ellis, Franklin, 1828-1885
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Philadelphia : L.H. Everts & Co.
Number of Pages: 1314