USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 76
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On quitting the position of naval officer Judge Eldred returned to his home in Bethany. The remainder of his life was passed in comparative retirement. The advancing years were beginning to make their approach felt ; he had be- gun to suffer in health ; and though frequently consulted in important cases, he declined to resume active professional employment. The decade following was spent mainly amid the tranquil pursuits and interests of rural life, and he passed the limit of three score and ten, loved and honored by all. He died January 27, 1867, just half a century from the day of his admission to the Wayne county bar, at the place which had witnessed the beginning of his career, and had for more than a generation been his home.
Judge Eldred was twice married. His first wife was a daughter of Dan Dimmick, his earliest preceptor in his profesion. She died in 1824. His second wife, who survived him, was a daughter of Dr. Samuel Dimmick, of Bloomingburg, Sullivan county, N. Y. He left three daughters and a son. The latter, Charles F. Eldred, studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1861.
In casting his lot among the people of Wayne connty, Judge Eldred iden- tified himself with them in purpose and action. He made their general interests his own and strove by every means in his power to promote them. In private and public life he was active in aiding the progress and development of the county, both as to material interests and educational advancement. By nature and by habit of thought and life he was essentially a man of the people, and no man in Wayne county ever had a stronger hold on the popular heart. The people of the county appreciated his services, and at all times gave him an unwavering support. During the first decade of his residence among them, the only office in their gift which he would consent to accept was bestowed upon him again and again. They viewed his elevation to the bench with a
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
feeling akin to personal satisfaction and pride. When his life closed, most of the generation which had witnessed his success and usefulness had preceded him to the grave; yet his fame, though it had become largely a tradition, was so enduring that his death was felt and mourned as a loss of no common mag- nitude.
As an advocate Judge Eldred was clear in argument, earnest and persua- sive, resting on the broad basis of equity, appealing largely to the natural preception of right, and arousing an aversion to every form of meanness, oppression, and wrong. He was a jurist of more than ordinary rank. On the bench, however, he was little given to legal subtleties and refinements, or to the habit of measuring questions of right by narrow technical rules. He regarded the judicial function as designed for practical administration of jus- tice, and his decisions aimed at a fair and equitable adjustment of the difficul- ties between the parties. He was well read in his profession, and possessed a legal mind of high order; but a controlling sense of justice that responded instinctively to all questions respecting rights as between man and man, pre- dominated over the strictly professional view of a case, and his conclusions, even when not in strict conformity with technical rules and precedents, rested on a firm and obvious basis of equity.
The essential justice of his purpose was so apparent as to command the respect of the bar, even when error was alleged in his rulings on questions of law. The people, without measuring his judicial action by professional tests, accepted its results as in the main just and equitable ; they recognized his strong common sense, and clear judgment, and had abiding faith in his judicial integrity. They gave him their confidence because they knew him to be up- right, impartial, and devoted to the administration of justice in its broadest and noblest sense.
It will not be out of place to preserve anecdotes illustrating some of Judge Eldred's characteristics. While he was on the Dauphin county bench a case of assault and battery was tried. The evidence showed that while the defend- ant and his wife were walking on the streets of Harrisburg, a rowdy used some grossly insulting language toward the wife, whereupon the husband knocked him down. Judge Eldred's charge to the jury was substantially in the following terms: "Gentlemen of the jury, the defendant is indicted for an assault and battery on the prosecutor. You have learned from the evidence the character of the offense. In law, any rude, angry or violent touching of the person of another is an assault and battery, and is not justified by any provocation in words only. But if I was walking with my wife, and a rowdy insulted her, I'd knock him down if I was big enough. Swear a constable." The verdict may readily be conjectured.
Another instance is related showing his readiness and fertility in resources. On reaching the county seat at which the first term of court was to be held,
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NATHANIEL BAILEY ELDRED. - MICHAEL MCGRAW.
on his appointment to one of the western districts, his commission was not to be found, having been forgotten on leaving home, or lost on the way. It hap- pened that the sheriff of the county had just been commissioned, and was to begin his official duties at that term of court. Judge Eldred at once decided on a line of action. Sending for the new sheriff, he told him that the practice of reading commissions in court on assuming office was a relic of the cere- monial established under a monarchy, and unsuited to the simplicity of re- publican institutions, and that he should dispense with it in the courts of his district ; that the sheriff and himself having been duly sworn, nothing further was required of them, and they should enter on their duties in a quiet, unostentatious manner. Accordingly the new judge and sheriff went into court together the next morning, took their respective places, and proceeded to the discharge of their duties without further ceremony, no question being raised as to their authority in the premises.
M CGRAW, MICHAEL, was born in Blair county, Pa., on the 9th of Sep- tember, 1809, and died in Triumph township, Warren county, on the 9th of December, 1880. He was a son of Peter and Catherine McGraw. The Mc- Graws were among the early settlers of Maryland, coming to America with Lord Baltimore. Peter was born at Antietam, Md., and his father served in the Revolutionary War. In 1830, after the death of his wife, Peter, with his four sons, Edward F., Michael, Benjamin, and John, and two daughters, Sarah A. and Mary E., moved to Triumph township as now constituted. The only member of this family now living is Sarah A., who married Edward McGarrell' (now deceased), and lives in Portland, N. Y.
The McGraws settled in a wilderness of pine timber, the lumber from which supplied their means of support while clearing up their farms. Michael settled on a tract of 260 acres, 240 of which he owned at the time of his death, and on a part of which is a beautiful farm. In 1836 he married Margaret McGar- rell, of Venango county, and to them was born a family of five sons, only two of whom are now living-John A., born in 1837, and William A., born in 1849. Margaret (McGarrell) McGraw was born in Venango county, April 18, 1812. Her parents, Michael and Grace (Griffin) McGarrell, were born in Ireland and married in Pennsylvania, and had a family of twelve children. Michael Mc- Garrell was born in 1778, and died in 1850. He served in the War of 1812, and his widow, Grace, drew a pension. She died in Portland, N. Y., in 1881, at the advanced age of ninety-five years.
Michael McGraw, being an early settler, became identified with the public business of his township, and honorably performed the duties of about all the local offices. Being a man of calm judgment and just disposition, he earned no enemies, and was never either plaintiff nor defendant in a suit at law. Through all the hardships and privations incident to a pioneer life and his vari-
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
ous dealings in more prosperous times, no man can point to one dishonest act. His sons, John A. and William A., enjoy the esteem of their fellow-citizens, and have filled many local offices. William A. was married February 8th, 1881, to Clara T. Kelsey, of Erie, Pa. They have a family of three sons, John E., Cyril W., and Hugh A.
D UNHAM, MINOR B., was born in Tompkins county, N. Y., on the 25th day of January, 1829. His grandfather, Thomas Dunham, emigrated from New Jersey to the town of Ovid in that county in 1805, and engaged in the occupation of a farmer. He died on the 22d of January, 1845, aged sev- enty-nine years, in Steuben county, N. Y., where he had passed the later years of his life. Richard Dunham, father of the subject of this sketch and the fifth of eight children, seven of whom are sons, was one of the most remarkable and prominent men who figured in the early history of Warren county. He was born in New Jersey in 1802, accompanied his father to Tompkins county, of course, when he was but three years of age. He received his education- a good one for those days-in Ithaca, Tompkins county, and at the age of eight- een years began to teach school. Although he became owner of a farm soon after, he continued teaching until 1832, when he exchanged his farm in New York State for one in Warren county, Pa. Meantime, in July, 1826, he was united in marriage with Laura, daughter of Enos Allen, of Yates county, N. Y., and a descendant of Ethan Allen, the famous leader of the Green Mountain Boys. Laura Allen was born in Saulsbury, N. Y., in 1805, and went to Yates county about the year 1817.
In March, 1833, Richard Dunham removed to his new farm in what is now the township of Cherry Grove, in Warren county, and built his cabin on the site afterward occupied by the first and greatest oil well in the once promising village of Garfield. At that time the town, which is far from clear of timber now, was indescribably wild. The weather was most inclement, there being sixteen inches of snow on the ground. In July, after his settlement, Richard Dunham began the life of a lumberman in earnest. At first he entered the employ- ment of a firm to help them in constructing a saw-mill and a dam, and soon after bought out first one of the partners, and then the other. He soon removed to Sheffield, in which township he had been preceded only by Tim- othy and Erastus Barnes. The history of that township refers to many of his business operations. There he was quite an active politician, and was for twenty consecutive years a justice of the peace. He remained at the head of his large lumbering interests until 1856, when ill-health forced him to a reluct- ant retirement. He had always been a man of strict morality, and had trained his children to correct habits and upright conduct. In 1858 he united with the Methodist Episcopal Church. He died in January, 1870, at Warren, and his widow still survives him at an advanced age, and resides near her son, M. B.
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MINOR B. DUNHAM.
Dunham. They had eleven children (six sons and five daughters), nine of whom reached maturity, and eight of whom are now living. Of these eleven children, Minor B. Dunham was the second.
The subject of this sketch attended the common schools of Sheffield, after which he passed some time in attendance upon the school at Havana, in Schuyler county, and at Alfred in Allegany county, finishing his education at the age of twenty-one years. Meanwhile he had been pretty thoroughly in- structed in the ways of the business world, having begun the management of his father's business as early as 1846. His father's health was never robust, and as soon as M. B. Dunham was old enough to execute his plans, he set the boy at work Indeed, his first trip on a raft to Pittsburgh was in 1841, when lie was but twelve years of age, and he followed the river to Pittsburgh and Cincinnati with great regularity after 1845. He was able to attend school only a small part of the year after twelve years of age. In 1858 he purchased his father's homestead and all the property, and while his father retired, he took complete control of the business, and has managed and increased it to the present time. In 1865, owing to the growing scarcity of timbered lands in Sheffield, he sold his interests there and removed his base of operations to Cherry Grove and Watson, where he has continued ever since. For three years previous to 1871 he was connected with a lumber yard and planing-mill in Sharpsburg, a suburb of Pittsburgh. In 1871 he removed his place of resi- dence to Warren, and in 1876 erected the dwelling house which he now occu- pies. In 1874 he and three other business men of Warren started a sash fac- tory where the one now owned and operated by L. D. Wetmore now stands, and he retained his interest in that mill for four years. Naturally with the change produced in methods since he began to deal in lumber, and the shift- ing of the channels of trade, caused by the opening of railroads and other ave- nues of communication, he has revised and altered his own methods. He is now principally engaged in sending lumber of his own manufacture to Phila- delphia and other eastern markets. He has enlarged his estate continually, and is now interested in timbered land in Forest county, where he also owns mills, and in West Virginia. Aside from his individual interests, he has been con- nected with Colonel L. F. Watson in the lumbering business since 1856, when they bought large timbered tracts. Incidentally, he has taken part in other ventures. He has been a director in the Warren Savings Bank for twelve or fifteen years, and now owns interests in mines, and operates to some extent in oil.
Although at all times intensely interested in public and political affairs, Mr. Dunham is far from being a seeker of office or political patronage. His whole life, since his majority, has been passed in sympathy with the Republi- can party. His second presidential vote was cast for the electors of John C. Fremont, and from that time to the present he has voted for every successful
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
nominee but Buchanan and Cleveland. He has not deemed it his duty, how- ever, to neglect his business for the sake of holding office, as he would have to do, while there are so many that are willing and eager for the opportunity. He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church. While residing in Sharps- burg he assisted in the construction of the Union Centenary Methodist Epis- copal Church, and when he removed to Warren he saw the need of a new Methodist Church edifice there. The present elegant edifice was commenced in June, 1885, and dedicated on the 19th of September, of the following year. In the work of building this house, Mr. Dunham most generously assisted, con- tributing liberally of his time, labor and money. This makes the third church building to the erection of which he has contributed, the first one being the Methodist Church in Sheffield. He is now a trustee of the church society in Warren.
On the 19th of February, 1852, he married Mary M., daughter of Harrison Person, of Ellery, Chautauqua county, N. Y. They have had four children, two of whom only are living. The eldest child, Clara E., was born on the 23d of August, 1853, and died on the 6th of February, 1875; George H., born October 27, 1854, married Fannie Crosby of Steuben county, N. Y., in 1884, after having had the advantage of a good education at Mount Union College, and at the Business College at Pittsburgh, and now aids his father in business ; Frank, born April 15, 1856, died about a year later from the effects of an injury received by falling ; and Jessie M., born April 6, 1862, named from Fremont's wife, is now the wife of Dr. Richard B. Stewart of Warren, and the mother of two children.
H UNTER, O. H. The subject of the present sketch was born March 28, 1823. He is of Irish descent. His great-grandfather, Archibald Hunter, emi- grated from Ireland in 1727 to New York, where he married Miss Constable, by whom James Hunter was born October 1, 1744. In time he removed to Sullivan county, and married Francis Gallation, September 12, 1782, by whom Peter Hunter was born, September 13, 1794. On the 14th of May, 1818, he married Lucinda A. Dimmick, to whom was born the subject of this sketch. O. H. Hunter was reared on a farm in Steuben county, N. Y., until he was eighteen years of age, when he went to Bath in that county to act as clerk in a dry goods house. This position he resigned in 1845, when he came to War- ren and formed a partnership with H. T. Baker, for the purchase and sale of dry goods. Warren at that time had a population of about 700, and merchan- dise had to be shipped to Warren from New York by way of canal to Buffalo, thence by lake to Dunkirk, from which place it was taken by teams. The transportation consumed three weeks of time.
O. H. Hunter married, January 6, 1848, Betsey J. King, sister of Judge King. By her he had four children, his eldest son, Henry P. Hunter, being
647
O. H. HUNTER. - RASSELAS BROWN.
now associated in business with him. His wife dying in 1862, he again mar- ried, his second wife being Lucy B., daughter of O. Mathews, of Panama, N. Y., and sister of the late Major Mathews, of the One Hundred and Twelfth Regiment of New York Volunteers.
Mr. Hunter has never sought political honors ; has been one of the directors of the Warren Saving Bank from its organization. But as a dry goods mer- chant he has attended faithfully to his calling, and has as such filled a large place, for more than forty-one years, in the local history of Warren. He is now the oldest dry goods merchant-the longest in the trade-in northwestern Pennsylvania.
B )ROWN, RASSELAS, was born in Brownsville, Jefferson county, N. Y., on the 10th day of September, 1812. Although himself a native of the State of New York, he traces his lineage back to an early day in Bucks county, Pa., his grandfather, John Brown, who died in Jefferson county forty or fifty years ago, being a native, and almost a lifelong resident of the county. His occupation was farming. He was related to the father of the gallant Major- General Jacob Brown, the founder of Brownsville, N. Y., and the celebrated defender of the American frontier along the great lakes in the War of 1812. His son, George Brown, the father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Bucks county and remained there until he was about eighteen years of age. He then accompanied his father to Brownsville, N. Y., where he engaged in farming for about fifty-eight years. He took an active part in public affairs, and among other positions held that of supervisor of the town of Brownsville for many years. The sterling worth of his character won him the respect of all who knew him. In 1860 he removed to Warren, Pa., where, in the spring of 1868, he died at the age of eighty-four years. In 1811 he married Tem- perance, daughter of Nathaniel Plumb, of Brownsville. They were the par- ents of nine children, four sons. Eight of the children attained years of ma- turity. Two sons and two daughters are now living, Judge Brown being the eldest.
Rasselas Brown was favored with good educational advantages. He at- tended the common schools of Brownsville, took thorough courses of study in the academies at Watertown and Belleville, N. Y., entered Union College in 1834, and was graduated in 1836. Immediately thereafter he came to War- ren, where he at once gained the distinction in local history of being the first teacher in the Warren Academy, a position which he filled most fruitfully for three years. In the mean time he began to study law in the office of Judge Lansing Wetmore, continued in the office of Struthers & Johnson, and was admitted to practice in all the courts of the county in the spring of 1839. In the fall of 1845 he became a practitioner in the Supreme Court of the State. After working for a time, following his admission to the
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
bar, for the firm of Struthers & Johnson, he became a partner of Hon. S. P. Johnson, and until 1860 remained a member of the law firm of Johnson & Brown. This relation was dissolved in that year by his appointment by Gov- ernor Packer as president judge of all the courts of the Sixth Judicial District, then composed of the counties of Erie, Crawford, and Warren, to fill the va- cancy caused by the death of Judge John Galbraith. At the expiration of this term he returned to an increasing practice, in which he has continued to the present time. He has had in this long period several partners. For the first few years he was the senior member of the firm of Brown & Jamieson, his partner being H. A. Jamieson ; then, after practicing about two years with- out a partner, he united his practice with that of Hon. C. W. Stone, and a few years later took into the firm his son, H. E. Brown. This triune partnership, which still exists, has continued since that time. His practice has always been of the best kind, and for years has extended over the entire northwestern portion of the State of Pennsylvania. He has been for a number of years an attorney for the Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railroad Company, and for the Dunkirk, Allegheny Valley and Pittsburgh Railroad Company, in which companies he is also director. He is a director of the First National Bank of Warren. Besides these positions of a quasi-public nature, he numbers among his clients many of the wealthiest and most intelligent men in this part of the State, who look upon him as the experienced Nestor of the profession.
Judge Brown's father was in his earlier days a member of the Republican party as opposed to the Federalists and believers in a strongly centralized gov . ernment. During the period beginning with the second quarter of the present century, he became a determined anti-Mason. Whether under the operation of the law of heredity or not, may not be said, but Judge Brown's political propensity is, like that of his father, toward decentralization of gov- ernmental power. He is a Democrat, though an independent voter. It is surprising, therefore, to find that notwithstanding his politics, unfavorable to the attainment of office in a Republican district and State, he has frequently been placed in positions of great trust and responsibility by the voters of this district. He was elected a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, was ap- pointed a member of the board of revenue commissioners for the Sixth Judicial District in 1852, and among other positions was chosen a member of the State Constitutional Convention to revise the constitution in 1873. His religious views are conservative. He is a regular attendant upon divine worship at the Presbyterian Church, though he is not a member of any denomination or re- ligious organization.
Judge Brown married on the 20th day of January, 1841, Elizabeth, daugh- ter of Nathaniel Sill, of Warren county. They have had four children, all of whom are now living. The eldest, Ada, is the wife of Dr. A. J. Part- ridge, of Kalamazoo, Mich., and the mother of three children ; H. E. Brown,
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RASSELAS BROWN. - ORRIS HALL.
the second child, now the partner of his father, married Ida, daughter of Boon Mead, in February, 1871 ; and George R. and Epp E. Brown are both unmar- ried and at the home of their parents.
H ALL, ORRIS, who died on the 3d day of November, 1881, was born in Wardsboro, Vt., on the 22d day of September, 1804, and was the young- est of twelve children. He was the son of William and Abigail (Pease) Hall. He received a fair education in the place of his birth, and came to Warren in 1824, where he engaged in teaching. It did not take him long, however, to perceive that the greatest promises of wealth lay in the prosecution of the lumber business, and with the boldness of a thorough business man he at once embarked in that trade. In the mean time he had for a time engaged in the mercantile occupation. In all his enterprises he was eminently successful. It was said at the time of his death that he undoubtedly had the clearest business mind of any man in Warren county. He weighed chances shrewdly and care- fully, and was therefore more uniformly successful in his ventures than most men. Although engaged in the lumber business through the most active of its periods, and having the care of many heavy investments, he was never at a loss for expedients to avert or destroy a difficulty. He never made money for the purpose of hoarding it, but rather for the purpose of investing it. A few years previous to his death he expended large amounts of money in brick stores and dwellings in Warren. His speculative mind was not content with one occupation. His investments reached into almost every possible field which promised a return. At one time he became an oil operator, and was thoroughly identified with the production of the same in various places. As he grew older he seemed to take more pleasure in improvements than formerly. In politics he displayed the same qualities that distinguished him in the business world. He was a Democrat, and worked without stint for the success of his party. He could usually predict with astonishing accuracy the outcome of a campaign, and seemed gifted with that prophetic knowlege of human motives, which can presage human conduct. He would have made a good lawyer, and though well informed upon business laws, seemed intuitively to understand the principles of law without the necessity of referring to professional attorneys or to books. This was a pre-eminent faculty of common sense. Although fitted to fill any position within the gift of the people, he naturally and persistently refused to hold office, because he could make more money in business than in politics, without the employment of dishonest methods, to which he would not resort. Not long before his death he was induced to accept the nomination for State senatorship against General Allen. He was ambitious to receive a flattering vote in his own county, which he did ; but here his efforts stopped, as he did not wish to be elected, feared that he would be, and consequently did not go into Venango or Mercer counties, which then formed with Warren this senatorial district.
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