USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of Perry County, Pennsylvania, including descriptions of Indians and pioneer life from the time of earliest settlement, sketches of its noted men and women and many professional men > Part 77
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College student. All of Dr. Tressler's children are graduates of Carthage College. The death of Mrs. Ada J ( Melntire) Tress- ler, the mother, occurred May 2, 1909.
Carthage College property to-day is valued at $500,000; its en- dowment is $550,000 ; enrollment close to three hundred students. It is a member of the Association of American Universities.
CHARLES W. SUPER, LL.D., President of Ohio University.
CHARLES WILLIAM SUPER, UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT, AUTHOR, ETC.
That there should come from the little one-room schoolhouse of Perry County a university president and a college president is a credit to the educational inspiration of the community and the parents. Elsewhere appears an account of Dr. D. L. Tressler, the first president of Carthage College, born at Loysville. The other Perry County lad to attain such distinction was Charles William Super, born September 12, 1842, the son of Henry and Mary (Diener) Super, of Juniata Township, near Newport. While his
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birth occurred at Pottsville his parents migrated here when he was a mere child, and Perry County he has always claimed as his home county. Likewise, Perry Countians always refer to Prof. Super as one of their boys. Receiving the rudiments of his education in the local schools, he attended Prof. John B. Strain's Duane Academy in the schoolhouse which stood on the grounds now occu- pied by St. Samuel's Church, and a term at the private school conducted by Silas Wright at Millerstown. He taught in Oliver Township and, during one term at college, he taught a private school during the winter of 1865-66, at Hunterstown, near Gettysburg. In the fall of 1866 he tried to resuscitate the old academy at Mar- kelville, but did not succeed, and during the winter migrated to Canfield, Ohio, where he taught, also teaching at Lordstown. Later he conducted private schools at Milford and Frederica, Delaware, in connection with Rev. E. W. Caylord. Returning to Millerstown he became a member of the faculty of Prof. Wright's school for a term, and then went to Europe to pursue further studies. He had attended Dickinson College, and graduated in 1866, with the B.A. degree. He studied at Tubingen, Germany, in 1869-71, and received his Ph.D. degree from Illinois Wesleyan in 1874. In 1883 Syracuse University conferred on him the A.M. degree, and in 1894 Dickinson College made him an LL.D. He was married to Mary Louise Cewell, of Canfield, Ohio, in 1867. She died in 1913.
Prof. Super was Professor of Modern Languages in Wesleyan College at Cincinnati, 1872-78. While there he taught Greek, Latin, Hebrew, French, Spanish, Italian, and German at different times. During 1878-79 he read law, but preferred the educational field, and in 1882-1907 we find him Professor of Greek at the Ohio University. During 1883-84 he was the acting president of that institution, and from 1884 to 1901 he was its president. In 1907 he resigned his position as Dean of the Department of Lit- eral Arts in the college and devoted his time to business and lit- erary work. From 1887 to 1893 he was joint editor of the Journal of Pedagogy. Furthering his research work he visited Europe in 1882, 1896 and 1903. He is the author of a large number of books, including Weil's Order of Words of Ancient Languages, com- pared with those of Modern Languages translated from the French, 1887; History of the German Language, 1893; Between Heathenism and Christianity, 1899; Wisdom and Will in Educa- tion, 1907; A Study of a Rural Community, 1911; German Idealism and Prussian Militarism, 1916; Pan-Prussianism, 1918; Prohibition and Democracy, 1920. He has also written reviews of books in Greek, Latin, German, French, Italian, and Spanish. He is a contributor to about twenty educational and philosophical pub- lications in the English and German languages.
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The works of Dr. Super are noted for their broadness and thor- oughness. Judging thein all as excellent, the following opinion of Bibliotheca Sacra, in reference to his "Pan-Prussianism" is here reprinted :
"So far as we know, nothing has appeared in print which gives so com- plete and unanswerable verdict in condemnation of Prussian principles, aims, and activities as is done in Pan-Prussianism. This is more significant in that the author is of German descent, studied two years in a German university, has traveled much in Germany, and maintained an intimate friendship with a large number of German literati during his whole life. Up to 1914 Dr. Super was an 'ardent pacifist' and could not believe that the spirit that reigned in Wilhelmstrasse was 'capable of the perfidy that it soon came to make a part of its settled policy.' But his views rapidly changed as he watched 'the gradual deterioration of the German people, and the systematic way in which it was being corrupted by professors and clergy' (p. 305). The volume is specially valuable as dealing not with vague generalities but with specific facts. It also gives a large amount of biographical information concerning the leaders of German thought. The book deserves the widest attention."
The Ohio University, of which Dr. Super was long president, is the oldest institution of college rank northwest of the Ohio River, and was provided for before Ohio became a state. Owing to ad- verse legislation in 1843 its income was seriously reduced, and for years it "had a hard row to hoe." The well-known Dr. W. H. McGuffey was president at this time, but resigned shortly after- wards. In 1876 the matter began to be righted, and in 1884 an- other forward stride was made. In 1896 the Ohio Legislature passed an act placing the institution upon permanent footing finan- cially. This law now yields an annual income of $65,000, which represents an endowment of about one and a third millions at five per cent. During the college year 1919-20 the college had more than a thousand students, about twenty buildings, and an income of $330,000. During Dr. Super's connection with the University the system of state aid to higher education was completely revised, and records show much of the credit to be due him for the con- summation of this large task, and it was during his presidency that the Ohio Legislature made the first appropriation in the history of the state for the establishment of a normal department in any in- stitution. During the same period the University, the first in Ohio to recognize the fact that business has a legitimate place in any scheme of higher education, established a department of com- merce, which almost all universities now have. In the face of much discouragement and much opposition he also established a department of music, which has grown so that the services of no less than ten teachers are now required for that department alone. Drawing and painting was also added to the course of study. While Dr. Super was president he was at the same time professor
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of Greek, assistant in Modern Languages, and ever alert in any capacity to advance the institution.
Dr. Super resides in Athens, Ohio, the seat of the university over which he so successfully presided. One of his surviving sons spent about five years in Europe after receiving degrees from the University in 1895-96, in the study of languages. Part of this time he had charge of an exhibit at the Paris Exhibition, in 1900. For several years he has been professor of modern languages- mainly French and German-in Hamilton College at Clinton, New York. He is unmarried and was named Ralph Clewell, after his mother's family, which is largely represented in eastern Penn- sylvania.
The first Phi Beta Kappa chapter in Pennsylvania was organ- ized at Dickinson College, Carlisle, about 1887, and a few hon- orary members-less than a half dozen-elected to membership, among that number being Dr. Super, and his brother, Prof. Ovando B. Super, both former Perry Countians.
JESSE MILLER, CONGRESSMAN, SEC'Y OF THE COMMONWEALTH.
Jesse Miller was another of Perry County's noted men. His public life was coincident with that of the early years of the county's history, for he was clerk to the first board of county commissioners ( 1820-23), at an annual salary of $50. His birth occurred near Landisburg in 1800, and when he assumed his first office he was still under voting age. But he was ambitious, and in the Perry Forester-Perry County's first newspaper-on June 26, 1823, was this announcement :
"Encouraged by many of you I am induced to offer myself as a candi- date for the office of sheriff at the ensuing general election. Should you deem me worthy of the office, I will perform the duties thereof with fidel- ity." (Signed) JESSE MILLER.
Hle won the election and became sheriff at twenty-three, the youngest man who has ever filled that office. His education was that furnished by the subscription schools, but he was a widely read man, and while serving as sheriff was elected Member of Assembly to succeed Jacob Huggins, thus becoming the fourth man to represent Perry County in that body ( 1826-27), when but twenty-six years of age. In the fall of 1829 he was elected State Senator, serving from 1830 to 1834. At the fall election of 1834 he was elected to the United States Congress from the district com- prising Cumberland, Perry and Juniata Counties. This was dur- ing the Jackson administration, and Congress did not convene until December 30, 1835. He resigned October 30, 1836, to be- come the first auditor of the United States Treasury, a newly cre- ated position. The Van Buren administration had in the meantime
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entered office, and he assumed that position November 18, 1836, serving until 1842.
The Pennsylvania public works were then at their zenith, and in the fall of 1843 he was elected canal commissioner of the state, serving during 1844-45. When Francis R. Shunk became gover- nor of Pennsylvania, in January, 1845, Mr. Miller was appointed Secretary of the Commonwealth, serving throughout his term. The occupant of that office was then also Superintendent of Schools of Pennsylvania. He died August 20, 1850, at Harrisburg, where
JESSE MILLER, Congressman and Secretary of the Commonwealth.
rest his remains. Dr. Egle, the noted historian, describes Jesse Miller as "one of the purest and wisest public men who has ever helped to make for Pennsylvania an honest history."
JOSEPH BAILEY, STATE TREASURER AND CONGRESSMAN.
Joseph Bailey was born in Chester County, of Quaker parentage. on the banks of the Brandywine, March 18, 1810. In 1840 he be- came a member of the legislature from his native county. In 1843 he was elected to the State Senate from the same district. Becom- ing interested in Caroline furnace, in Miller Township, in a finan-
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
cial way, he removed to Perry County. The village which grew around the furnace came to be known as Baileysburg, taking his name, and to this day the station on the Pennsylvania Railroad at that point is known as Bailey.
During the term of 1851-53 he represented Perry and Cumber- land Counties in the State Senate. In 1854, the legislature, which then possessed that power, elected him as state treasurer. He then took up the study of law, although well advanced in years, and was admitted to the bar in 1860, being then fifty years old. The same year he was elected to Congress. During his term in Congress he was a war Democrat and was proud of the fact that he had voted for the Constitutional Amendment prohibiting slavery. He was elected as a delegate from his senatorial district by the Republi- cans to the Constitutional Convention in 1872. He died August 26, 1885, and his remains rest in the beautiful cemetery at the county seat of his adopted county. On his monument is inscribed :
"As a Member of Congress he voted for the Joint Resolution, submitting to the people of the United States the amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery."
WILLIAM H. MILLER, MEMBER OF CONGRESS.
William H. Miller was born at Landisburg, February 28, 1829, and was a son of Jesse Miller, also a Member of Congress, and once Secretary of the Commonwealth. He had an early desire for knowledge and a bright intellect. He graduated at Franklin & Marshall College and read law with Hermanus Alricks, of Harris- burg, being admitted to the bar in 1846. From 1854 to 1863 he was prothonotary of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. He was connected with the Harrisburg Patriot, and in 1862 was elected to the Thirty-Eighth Congress of the United States, from the district composed of Dauphin, Northumberland, Snyder, Union and Juni- ata, serving 1863-65. He died in his forty-second year. His widow, Ellen (Ward) Miller, and son, Jesse, survived. He had at that time the largest private library in the state, which his widow presented to Lafayette College.
GEN. J. HALE SYPHER, MEMBER OF CONGRESS.
The Sypher family was of Teutonic origin, and came to Amer- ica in the early part of the Seventeenth Century, settling near Ches- ter. Subsequently the family located in Pfoutz Valley, Perry County, where J. Hale Sypher was born July 22, 1837. He at- tended the local schools and was educated in Alfred University, New York State, in 1859. When the Sectional War came on he enlisted as a private in the First Ohio Light Artillery. He fought at Philippi and in other West Virginia engagements. He was pro-
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moted through all the grades, becoming colonel of the Eleventh U. S. Heavy Artillery in August, 1864. March 13, 1865, he was brevetted Major General of Volunteers. He was mustered out October 2, 1865.
During 1866 he practiced law in New Orleans. He also en- gaged in the cultivation of cotton and sugar cane. He represented Louisiana as a delegate in the National Republican Convention of 1868, and was elected by the Republicans to the Fortieth Congress from New Orleans, taking his seat July 18, 1868. He was re- elected to the Forty-First, Forty-Second, and Forty-Third Con- gresses, serving from 1868 to 1875, and successfully contesting his seat in the Forty-First Congress with another claimant. In Con- gress he was a warm supporter of measures to improve the navi- gation of the Mississippi River. After the completion of his last term he removed to Washington, D. C., where he practiced law. He died in Baltimore, May 9, 1905.
BENJAMIN K. FOCHT, MEMBER OF CONGRESS, EDITOR.
The present congressman from the Eighteenth District, to which Perry County belongs, and which is in size the largest district of Pennsylvania, is Benjamin K. Focht, a Perry Countian by birth. His district is so extensive that it is larger than several of the smaller states. While Congressman Focht is a native of Perry, his present home is at Lewisburg, Union County, from which he has been elected many times. His father was Rev. David H. Focht, pastor of the Lutheran churches at New Bloomfield and Newport for a number of years prior to the Sectional War, and to whom posterity is indebted for that valuable small volume, "The Churches Between the Mountains," which is devoted principally to the Lu- theran churches. Rev. Focht was an able advocate of the Union cause, and when the state was invaded by the Southern army, he went to the Kittatinny or Blue Mountain to help form a line of resistance. Through unusual exposure there his death followed.
After the death of the father of Benjamin K. Focht, his mother removed with the little family to Lewisburg, where he grew up and has since resided. He was born at New Bloomfield, March 12, 1863, the very year of the invasion. He attended the public schools, Bucknell College, State College, and Susquehanna Univer- sity at Selinsgrove. In January, 1882, he started the Lewisburg Saturday News, which is to this day a paper which has an individu- ality distinctly its own. But two men now in business in Lewis- burg were then in business there. Mr. Focht has published the News continuously since then, and has been longer continuously an editor and publisher than any individual from Erie to Harrisburg. He served in various local offices, and in 1892, 1894 and 1896 was elected to the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. In 1900 he was
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elected to the State Senate. He was then elected to Congress and has served in the Sixtieth, Sixty-First, Sixty-Second, Sixty- Fourth, Sixty-Fifth, Sixty-Sixth, and Sixty-Seventh Congresses. During 1912-14 he was Water Supply Commissioner of Pennsyl- vania.
While in the Pennsylvania Legislature and in Congress he has served on important committees, and from chairman of the War
BENJAMIN K. FOCHT, Member of Congress.
Claims Committee has been made chairman of the Committee of the District of Columbia, which is the governing body of the Dis- trict. He has on twenty-six occasions been a candidate for office, having been successful twenty-four. During the Spanish-American War, his brother, Dr. M. L. Focht, was made a major, having en- listed as a surgeon. A sister, Margaret, became the wife of the late Judge McClure. His brother, Rev. John B. Focht, D.D., is a Selinsgrove (Pa.) pastor, and another brother, George M., re- sides at Yonkers, New York.
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HARRIS J. BIXLER, MEMBER OF CONGRESS.
Since the commencement of work upon this volume another na- tive Perry Countian has been elected to the Congress of the United States. That man is Harris J. Bixler, of Johnsonburg, Pennsyl- vania, and he represents the Twenty-Eighth Congressional District, composed of the counties of Mercer, Venango, Warren, Elk and Forest. Harris J. Bixler was born September 16, 1870, at New Buffalo, Perry County, the son of Jacob and Sarah ( Faulkner)
HARRIS J. BIXLER,
Member of Congress.
Bixler. From his eleventh to his thirteenth year he was hired to farmers during the summer, going from that occupation to the canal, where, like the noted James A. Garfield, he drove mules on the towpath of the old Pennsylvania Canal. During the winter months he was diligently employed at school, so that by his seven- teenth year he was elected to teach Livingston's school, in the neighboring township of Watts. He then taught a term at Blanch- ard, Centre County. He also taught a summer term at New Buf-
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HISTORY OF PERRY COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA
falo. Following that he attended the Central State Normal School at Lock Haven, graduating in 1889. Hearing the call to outdoor life he went to the lumber camps of Elk County, where he became a bark peeler, at the same time taking a business course by mail. Ilis next position was conducting a store and keeping a set of books for a lumber firm. His greatest stride forward, until that time, was then made, when he became head of the shipping depart- ment of the New York and Pennsylvania Company, one of the largest paper mills in the world. He became a contractor for the same company, employing a large number of men during the past two decades.
There is usually a reason for the elevation of a man, politically, especially not a native, and it is not hard to find in the case of Harris J. Bixler. Johnsonburg was a fast growing, prosperous town, and naturally drew to it men and women of all types. Its earlier days were those of many a lumbering town. Mr. Bixler stood for a clean moral community, and on that single plank was nominated for chief burgess, by the Republicans, and elected, the entire better element supporting him. To this day he is named as the man who made the town morally clean. He also served on the board of education, having been its president. For a period of twenty-two years he served in all of the various city offices, begin- ning with auditor, and always made good. Naturally, the larger field of county offices were the next stepping stones, and he was elected sheriff of Elk County, and later county treasurer, in both cases almost unanimously. In addition he was also chairman of the Board of Reviewers and a member of the State Republican Com- mittee. In 1920 he received the Republican nomination of the Twenty-Eighth Congressional District, and it was later followed by the Democratic nomination. He was elected in November and took his seat in 1921. Mr. Bixler is also identified with a number of corporations in his territory and is a director in the Johnson- burg National Bank. He was in office as sheriff during the drafts for the U. S. Army during the World War, and used the same painstaking thoroughness and conscientious scruples that have characterized his whole life, and landed him in the lawmaking halls of the nation.
In 1898 he was married to Miss Jennie Pray, of Penfield, Clear- field County. Mr. Bixler has erected one of the finest homes in Elk County, at Johnsonburg, where he resides.
JOHN MILTON BERNHEISEL, DELEGATE TO CONGRESS.
John Milton Bernheisel was born near Blain, June 23, 1799, the son of Samuel and Susan (Bower) Bernheisel. He attended the subscription schools of the period, and graduated from the medical department of the University of Pennsylvania in 1827. He moved
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from Pennsylvania to Utah, where he located, and became a mem- ber of the Mormon Church. He arose to a commanding position among that people, and was elected as Delegate to Congress, for Utah was then still a territory. He was elected to the three suc- ceeding Congresses, serving from March 4, 1851, to March 3, 1859. After one term he was again elected and served as delegate in the Thirty-Seventh Congress, March 4, 1861, to March 3, 1863. He then returned to private life and to the practice of medicine, continuing until his death, September 29, 1881. During his service in Congress, according to the files of the Perry Freeman, he vis- ited his mother, still living in Perry County.
ARCHIBALD LOUDON, HISTORIAN.
To a boy reared in what is now Perry County, Pennsylvanians are indebted for the portrayal of much of its early history. That boy was Archibald Loudon, a son of James Loudon, and he was the author of Loudon's Narratives, copyrighted in 1808 and pub- lished in 1811, and now so rare that copies of it never bring less than twenty-five dollars for the two volumes. At one sale in a great city they brought almost $500. By referring to our chapter on Tuscarora Township it will be seen that different members of the Loudon family warranted large tracts of land there. Among these was Archibald, who warranted 296 acres, October 16, 1784, the others dating almost twenty years earlier, among them being that of his father in 1767. He was a boy and not old enough to warrant lands when the others did.
Reared here, then a veritable outpost of civilization, he knew whereof he wrote, and in at least one of his descriptions he tells of his boyhood and of living in Raccoon Valley, near the foot of Tuscarora Mountain, surely proof enough that he was a resident. The article is here reproduced :
"The editor of this work well remembers when he was a boy that shortly after what was called the second Indian War, I think in the year 1765, then living in Raccoon Valley, near the foot of Tuscarora Mountain. On Saturday we had a report that the Indians had begun to murder the white people and on Sunday in the forenoon as we children were outside of the house we espied three Indians coming across the meadow a few rods from us; we ran into the house and informed our parents, who were consid- erably alarmed at their approach; the Indians, however, set their guns down outside the house and came in, when they were invited to take seats, which they did: after taking dinner they sat a considerable time. Logan could speak tolerable English; the other two spoke nothing while there but Indian, or something that we could not understand.
"They appeared to be making observations on the large wooden chim- ney, looking up it and laughing, this we supposed to be from a man on the Juniata, not far distant making his escape up the chimney when their house was attacked by the Indians. One of my sisters, a child three or four years old, having very white curly hair; they took hold of her hair
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between their fingers and thumb, stretching it up and laughing: this we conjectured they were saying would make a nice scalp, or that they had seen such; otherwise they behaved with civility.
"After some time when they saw we had no hostile intentions, I took a Bible and read two or three chapters in the Book of Judges, respecting Samson and the Philistines. Logan paid great attention to what I read. My father, upon observing this, took occasion to mention to him what a great benefit it would be to the Indians to learn to read. . 'O,' said Logan, 'a great many people (meaning the Indians) on the Mohawk River, can read the Buch that speaks of God.'
"After remaining with us about two hours, they took their departure and crossed the Tuscarora Mountain to Captain Patterson's, two miles below where Mifflintown now stands. In a few days after, we were in- formed it was Captain John Logan, an Indian Chief. He was a remark- able tall man, considerably above six feet high, strong and well propor- tioned, of a brave, open, manly countenance, as straight as an arrow, and to appearance, would not be afraid to meet any man."
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