USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > History of Northampton County [Pennsylvania] and the grand valley of the Lehigh, Volume I > Part 32
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THE LAST HALF CENTURY
Peyton Conway March, the present chief of staff of the United States Army, graduated from the United States Military Academy at West Point, New York, in 1888. After his graduation the young cadet was attached to the artillery branch of the United States service, and at the time of the commence- ment of hostilities with Spain he was first lieutenant in the Fifth Artillery Regiment. He commanded the Astor Battery presented to the government by Colonel John Jacob Astor in the Philippines, and was in command of the forces in action at Tilad Pass, Luzon, December 2, 1899. Previous to this he had been assigned as major to the Thirty-third Volunteer Infantry, and was in command of the expedition that received the surrender of General Venancio Conception, chief of staff to Aguinaldo. General March had charge of the military and civil government in the district of Lepanto-Bontoc and the south- ern half of Hocus Sur from February to June, 1900, also the province of Abra to February, 1901. He was discharged from the volunteer service June 30, 1901, and assigned as captain to the artillery corps of the United States Army. He was a member of the general staff from 1903 to 1907, and was appointed military attache to observe the Japanese army in the Russo-Japanese War. He was made major January 25, 1907, and assigned to the Sixth Field Artil- lery ; he received the promotion to lieutenant-colonel February 8, 1912, and was commissioned colonel of the Eighth Field Artillery, August 26, 1916. General March, in June, 1917, was commissioned brigadier-general in the United States Army and major-general September 3, 1917. At the time of the first American Expeditionary Force in France he was the artillery commander of the army, but was subsequently appointed chief of staff, United States Army, which position he now holds.
CHAPTER XX
POLITICAL
The political history of Northampton county is a story of Democratic success with only one break. On the formation of political parties, at the commencement of the nineteenth century, the voters of the county, being largely descended from those pioneers who had left their foreign homes on account of the oppression of those identified with the aristocratic element, would not affiliate with the Federalists, and looked for true democracy under the banners of Thomas Jefferson. The house tax law, passed during Adams' administration, which was the occasion of the outbreak of the Fries rebellion, was only another link in the chain that riveted the people more firmly to democratic principles. The Whig party, which was the heir of the Federalist, did not receive any warmer welcome or gather to its folds any increased majority of the voters. The democratic voters of Northampton county ascended the hill of triumph time after time in the first half of the last century, and the following morning after each election they had the satisfaction of reading in the newspapers that the State had been favorable to their demo- cratic doctrines.
Pennsylvania was a true endorser of Jeffersonian democracy until 1840, when the Whig candidate, General William H. Harrison, in the Log Cabin and Hard Cider campaign, carried the State by a narrow plurality of only about three hundred votes. The Democratic candidates in 1842 were success- ful over the fusion ticket of Independents and Whigs. The following ycar Richard Brodhead was elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket. The newly elected congressman was born in Pike county, Pennsylvania, January 5, 18II; he was graduated from Lafayette College, admitted to the bar, and became a member of the State legislature. He was elected in 1841 as treas- urer of Northampton county, was a member of the United States House of Representatives from 1843 to 1849, and served in the United States Senate in 1851-57. He died at Easton, September 6, 1863.
In the presidential campaign of 1844, when the idol of the Whig party, Henry Clay, was their nominee, the State as well as the county gave a Demo- cratic majority. For governor Northampton county gave Francis R. Shunk 3,466 votes, his opponent on the Whig ticket, James Markle, receiving 2,458 votes. The candidate of the Whig party in 1845, Henry D. Maxwell, was defeated for Congress by a vote of 1,217 for Richard Brodhcad, the former receiving 1,173 votes. The Democratic county officials were elected by small majorities, which were, however, increased two years later.
In the presidential election of 1848 the Frce Soil party became an clement which caused a division in the Democratic ranks, and the Whigs succeeded in carrying Pennsylvania for General Zachary Taylor. The county of North- ampton, however, stood true to its Democratic faith, and gave Lewis Cass, the party's candidate for president, 4,203 votes, while General Taylor received NORTH .- 1-16.
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3,191 votes. The following year the Democrats were again successful in the election of their county officials at increased majorities.
In the gubernatorial election of 1851, William Bigler, the Democratic nominee, received 4,150 votes, and 2,627 votes were cast for his Whig oppo- nent, William F. Johnston. The usual Democratic majority was given to Franklin Pierce in 1852 for president, and their candidates for county officers were elected with increased majority. William Bigler was defeated for gov- ernor in 1854 by a combination of the Whig and Native American parties; however, Northampton stood true to her democracy, giving an old-time majority of 2,750, and at the election for county officers the following year their candidates were elected with majorities ranging from 2,000 to 2,500 votes.
In the presidential election of 1856 a native son of Pennsylvania was at the head of the Democratic ticket. The Republican party in this year made its first appearance in the national election. The contest was close and excit- ing, as James Buchanan carried the State by only a majority of 815 votes, his plurality, however, being 27,152, as Millard Fillmore, on the American ticket, received 26,387 votes. This was the last victory in the State for the Demo- cratic ticket in presidential elections. In the counting of the votes cast, 5,260 in a total of 8,266 were given to the Democratic nominee. The following year, in the election for governor, the county still remained true to her early prin- ciples of democracy, and later the majorities for the candidates of that party ranged from 1,300 to 1,500.
In the four-party fight in the national politics in 1860, Northampton county still was found in the Democratic ranks. The representative for the Congressional district in 1862 was Philip Johnson. He was born in Warren county, New Jersey, January 17, 1818, and moved to Mount Bethel, Pennsyl- vania, in 1839. Graduating from Lafayette College in 1844, he spent two years as plantation tutor in Mississippi. Returning to Easton, he attended Union Law School, was admitted to the bar, and commenced practice in Easton. He was county clerk from 1848 to 1853, a member of the State legislature, a mem- ber of the Thirty-seventh, Thirty-eighth and Thirty-ninth Congresses, and died at Washington, District of Columbia, January 20, 1867. The Republican party in the county election of 1865 commenced to develop strength, and though the Democrats elected their candidates it was by majorities below their usual aggregate.
The national elections of 1864 and 1868 passed without any due excite- ment, but in 1869 Asa Packard was the Democratic nominee for governor. Though Northampton county gave this noted philanthropist a substantial majority, the Republican candidate, John W. Geary, was elected, his majority in the State, however, being less than five thousand. An old-time Democratic majority of nearly three thousand in 1871 was given the county ticket. The national campaigns, in which General Grant was the Republican nominee, passed in the usual manner, and with the same results as have been previously stated. The vote on the adoption of the new State constitution in 1873 resulted in the county with 3,245 votes for it and 2,581 against it. The candidacy of Samuel J. Tilden raised the hopes of the Democrats of Northampton county, and right royally they gave him their support. In the presidential election in
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1880 the National Greenback party showed some strength, and of the 12,978 ballots polled in the county, the candidates on that ticket received 1,079 votes. The Democrats of Pennsylvania were jubilant over the election of Robert E. Pattison as governor in 1882, and in this memorable victory for Democracy Northampton county nobly did her part.
Then came the Democratic victory of 1884, when Grover Cleveland was elected president, his opponent being the statesman, James G. Blaine. North- ampton county came loyally to the support of the Democratic nominee, the vote being 9,491 for Cleveland to 6,328 for Blaine. The success of the Repub- lican party in the gubernatorial election in 1886 caused discontent and dis- comfort in the Democratic ranks. An independent Democratic convention was held at Nazareth, October 8, 1887, and though the members declared their allegiance to the Democratic principles, endorsed the presidential administra- tion and county officials, they openly declared they were the only Democrats in the county, and as the party was bound hand and foot to ringleaders, the only chance for liberty was in revolution. These avowed declarations did not seem to have any effect on the election of that year, as the Democratic county officials were elected by majorities ranging from 1,700 to 3,000 and the State ticket received 3,314 plurality. The national election the following year was made memorable by the defeat of Grover Cleveland, who was seeking a re-election. In Northampton county Cleveland received 10,018 votes and Harrison 6,786; the prohibition candidate polled 244 votes, and the labor candidate 5.
Robert E. Pattison was again in 1890 the candidate of his party, and to his successful election Northampton county contributed her part by giving him a large majority. The national campaign in 1892 was made interesting, the heads of each of the tickets being the same candidates as four years previ- ous. President Harrison was seeking a re-election, and had for his opponent Grover Cleveland. There was an enthusiastic campaign in Northampton county, which resulted in Cleveland receiving 10,320 votes and Harrison 6,892.
The last quarter century of the political history of Northampton county, with few exceptions, was a succession of Democratic victories. In the county election of 1895 the Republicans elected their candidates for sheriff, clerk of the orphans' court and commissioner's clerk. In the national silver campaign of 1896 the theory of "sixteen to one" seems to have not been acceptable to some adherents of Democracy, as Bryan had only a majority of nine votes, he receiving, according to official count, 10,029, Mckinley 9,763, and scattering 357 votes. The majority of the county officials were elected by the Republi- cans. In the State election in 1898 the Democrats elected their candidates for State senator and representatives to the General Assembly. William S. Kirk- patrick, the Republican candidate for Congress, though his home city, Easton, gave him a majority of 581 votes, was defeated in the district by Laird How- ard Barber, of Mauch Chunk. The county election of 1899 resulted in com- fortable majorities for the Democratic candidates. William J. Bryan was again the party candidate in the presidential election of 1900; the delusion of free silver was not so prominent a feature as the preceding campaign; the majority for the silver-tongued orator of Nebraska was materially increased,
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he reeciving 11,412 votes, 9,948 were cast for Mckinley, and scattering 490. In the congressional district election in 1902 Dr. James H. Shull of Strouds- burg was elected. Easton supported Samuel W. Pennypacker, the Republican nominee for governor, by a majority of 32, while the nominee for Congress on the same ticket received a majority of 863.
Then came the landslide for the Republicans in the presidential election of 1904, when the doughty hero of the Rough Riders carried the county by storm. The Democratic majorities were swept to the winds, Roosevelt receiving a majority of 201, the vote being Roosevelt 11,105, Parker 10,278, scattering 624. The Republicans elected all of their candidates for State and county offices. The following year the fortunes of politics turned, and a plurality of nearly five thousand was obtained for the Democrat candidates for State and county offices. In the gubernatorial election in 1906 the county was carried for the Democratic nominee. Joseph Davis Brodhead, a native of Easton, a lawyer by profession, and a Democrat is politics, was elected by a majority of 3,000 in the congressional district to succeed Gaston Adolphus Schneebeli, a knitting goods manufacturer of Nazareth, whom the Republi- cans had elected to the Fifty-ninth Congress.
Northampton county was called upon in 1907 to vote for a judge of the common pleas court. Judge Russell C. Stewart, a resident of Easton, was the Republican nominee, and he carried the county by a majority of 787. In his home city his majority was 741. The Democrats, however, elected the bal- ance of their county ticket, though the race was very close for sheriff. In the presidential election in 1908 William J. Bryan again carried the county, receiv- ing 11,365 votes, William H. Taft receiving 10,875, scattering 522. In the con- gressional district A. Mitchell Palmer, the Democratic nominee, was elected. Mr. Palmer was born May 4, 1872, attended the public schools, prepared for college at Moravian Parochial School at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and gradu- ated from Swarthmore College in 1891. He was appointed stenographer of the fifty-third judicial district of Pennsylvania, studied law, was admitted to the bar in 1893, and practiced at Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania. He served several terms in Congress, and is the present attorney-general of the United States in the cabinet of President Wilson. In the election of 1908 the Democrat county officials were elected, with the exception of clerk to the county commissioners. A light vote was cast in the election for State and county officials in 1909, the Democrats having a majority of 1,444.
The injection of the Keystone party in the politics of the State in 1910 caused the election in Northampton county to be decidedly close, the Republi- can candidate for governor polling 5,395 votes, the Democratic 5,682, and the Keystone 4,810. In the county election the Democrats elected three county officials in the contest for sheriff, J. P. Richards, the candidate of the Demo- cratic party having 9,244, while his Republican opponent, Henry Myers, re- ceived 9,149 votes. The county commissioners were elected by the Democrats by a narrow margin.
The introduction of the Progressive party into national politics in 1912 caused a division in the Republican ranks. Roosevelt, however, retained his magnetic influence over the voters of Northampton county. The result of the
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battle of ballots was that Woodrow Wilson received 10,318, Theodore Roose- velt 6,588, and William H. Taft 3,890 votes. The Democratic candidate for Congress, A. Palmer Mitchell, received 10,217 votes in the county, the Repub- licans casting 9,030 votes for F. A. Marsh. In the election held in 1913 for superior court judge and county officials, the Democrats had a majority of over three thousand. In the election for governor in 1914 the Democratic nominee, Vance C. McCormick, received 8,416 votes, and his Republican oppo- nent, M. G. Brumbaugh, reecived 7,850 votes. The introduction of a third ticket for United States senator, the split being in the Democratic party, caused the county to be carried by Boies Penrose, the Republican candidate, by a plurality of nearly nine hundred votes.
The leading attraction in the county election in 1915 was the fight for judgeship between William McKeen, the Democratic candidate, and Judge J. Davis Brodhead, an appointee of Governor John K. Tenner, to fill a vacancy caused by death. In spite of a hard-fought battle the Democratic nominee won out, receiving 10,758 votes to his opponent's 8,421. In the exciting national campaign in 1916, when Woodrow Wilson was seeking re-election, Northampton county was still to be found in the front ranks of the Democratic party of the State. When the ballots were officially counted it was found that Mr. Wilson had received 11,000 votes, while there had been cast for his Repub- lican opponent, Charles E. Hughes, 9,610, scattering 1,048.
Here we draw the curtain on the politics of the county. Solid as a pha- lanx the Democratic party has stood for those Jeffersonian principles which are the fundamental rules of the party, and right nobly have the disciples of these doctrines maintained their organization, and though they have often suffered from reverses, again they approached the battle of the ballots with an enduring faith in the infallibility of the underlying principles of the party of which they are members.
COURT HOUSE IN 1840
THE OLD COURT HOUSE
CHAPTER XXI.
BENCH AND BAR By PARKE H. DAVIS
Among Northampton county's historical treasures let no one overlook the remote and recent personnel of its bench and bar. The roll of attorneys of this county at all periods from the founding of the county down to the present day has gleamed with names distinguished not only as great lawyers, when measured by the most exacting standards, but celebrated by other activi- ties comprising every phase of national service and success. The long array of counsel reflects the names of famous statesmen, soldiers, captains of indus- try, philosophers, educators and men of letters. The careers of many have been so transcendental that their memory has become a national heritage. Indeed, the achievement of the most notable deeds of some of these men in other theatres of action after their career here as lawyers closed has eclipsed local knowledge of the fact that these men once were members of the North- ampton county bar. For instance, how few know that the memorable bard who wrote "Hail Columbia," one of our country's famous patriotic anthems, began his career as a young lawyer at this bar, residing for a time in a little house on or near Easton's Centre Square? How many are there who are familiar with the fact that it was a Northampton county lawyer who was selected to serve as secretary to General Washington in 1775 and as his aide-de-camp in 1776? Or that it was an Easton attorney who penned the original constitution of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania?
The glorious history of the bench and bar of Northampton county may be said to have commenced with the passage of the famous "Act to estab- lish courts of judicature in this province," enacted May 22, 1722. "Whereas," runs the act, "the late King Charles the Second, by his royal grant and charter to William Penn of that tract of land called Pennsylvania did grant him free and absolute power to do all things for the complete establishment of justice, be it therefore enacted that there shall be a court styled the General Quarter Sessions of the Peace and Gaol Delivery, to be holden four times a year in each county of this Province."
This statute thereupon provided that the governor of the province should appoint "a competent number of Justices in every of the said counties who, or any three of them, should hold court according to law." The court thus estab- lished was one of criminal jurisdiction only, and the justices subsequently appointed thereto throughout the province were citizens of intellectuality and integrity, but unlearned in law. Their powers were limited to the issuance of recognizances, writs of capias, subpoenas, and to other proceedings and pre- cepts preliminary to trial.
This act further provided that the justices of the Supreme Court should hold court in each county for the trial of causes, civil and criminal, "as fully as the Justices of Nisis Prius in England may or can do." The civil court thus
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established was designated as the Court of Common Pleas. This judicial ar- rangement, subsidiarily modified from time to time, continued until 1791, when, under the constitution of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania, no longer a British province, but a State of the United States of America, North- ampton county, was erected into a separate judicial district, designated as the "Third," a number which it still bears, and given a separate judge.
The first session of court in the new county convened at Easton, June 16, 1752. The judges who presided at this first term of court of the county were Thomas Craig, Timothy Horsefield, William Craig, James Martin and Hugh Wilson. This court was held in a log tavern, but the pomp of a royal court under King George the Second nevertheless was not lacking. A corps of constables bearing ornately painted staves escorted the judges from their lodgings to the court, and the judges themselves similarly were impressive and imposing in three-cornered hats and other regalia of a British court.
The docket of this first court, as well as all of the other early dockets, are to be found in the files of the present court-house by the side of all the succeed- ing dockets. The primitiveness of the colonial records, however, is eloquent in the very titles, which are spelled sometimes "Docquet" and sometimes "Doggett." All of these dockets, however, reflect infinitely painstaking care in their entries and all compare in form and nicety with the current dockets of the present day.
In the original docket we find the first entry, as follows: "At a Court of record of our Lord the King held at Easton for the County of Northampton the sixteenth day of June in the twenty-sixth year of our Sovereign Lord George II, by the grace of God, King of Great Britain, France and Ireland, etc., Anno Doinini, 1752, before Thomas Craig, Timothy Horsefield, Hugh Wilson, James Martin, and William Craig, Justices of the Lord the King, the peace in said County to keep as also divers trespassers and felons and other offense in said County committed to hear and determine, assigned by commis- sions dated the seventh day of June instant."
With the call of the crier to those having business before the court, a young man by the name of Lewis Gordon arose and stated to the court that he was a member of the bar of Bucks county and that he desired to be admitted to the bar of Northampton county. Quickly approving his credentials, this young man was admitted, thereby achieving a distinction by that act alone which was to increase perpetually with the years, and which was to bestow upon him in his lifetime the honor of being the first lawyer in the county, and after his demise to celebrate his memory as the father of the Northampton county bar. But Lewis Gordon also achieved distinction in other ways. Let us acquaint ourselves with his career.
Lewis Gordon came to America from Aberdeen, Scotland, in 1750. The date of his birth as well as the early events of his life are lost in obscurity. The first we know of him is that he was a clerk in the office of Richard Peters at Philadelphia, Peters being the secretary for the Penns. While in this office he read law and was admitted to the bar of Bucks county. From the knowl- edge which he gained as a clerk for the proprietaries he evidently foresaw that Easton would be a fitting place in which to establish himself as a practic-
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ing attorney. At the time of his admission to Northampton's bar he moved his family to Easton and took up a residence there which lasted twenty-six years. His daughter Elizabeth became the wife of James Taylor, a son of George Taylor, the signer of the Declaration of Independence. During his long resi- dence in Easton, Lewis Gordon participated in all the public affairs of his time. We find him a promoter of the original schoolhouse. In 1760, when the trouble arose through the settlement of lands in the northeastern section of the State by settlers from Connecticut, Lewis Gordon was commissioned by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania to select twenty-one discreet men, among whom should be the sheriff of the county, to proceed to the settlements, make investigation and arrest the men from Connecticut who had settled within the State of Pennsylvania. It will be recalled that Connecticut at that time claimed the northeastern section of Pennsylvania as a part of their State. Gordon accordingly proceeded to this territory, made his investigations, but found the situation so huge that it could not be handled by civil processes. Accordingly he reported his findings and recommendations to the Supreme Court. In the meantime actual war broke out, the facts of which are gener- ally familiar under the name of the Pennamite War. With the outbreak of the Revolution, Gordon became the first member of the committee of safety for this county, and upon the appointment of the sub-committee known as the standing committee, he was made its chairman. Unfortunately for this man he now became the victim of an erratic disposition. Accordingly, when the darkly portentous events of 1777 broke, Lewis Gordon lost heart in the cause of the colonies, resigned from his various patriotic offices and in his acts became a Tory. In consequence, he came under the notice of the executive council at Philadelphia, which ordered his arrest and confinement to his home. This sad condition, however, did not last long, for on May 20, 1778, Gordon repented of his hasty act, took the oath of allegiance to the colony, and immediately was liberated on parole.
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