USA > Pennsylvania > Warren County > History of Warren County, Pennsylvania, with Illustrations and Biographical Sketches of some of its Prominent Men and Pioneers > Part 78
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His children were Lansing D., Warren, Pa .; Jerome W., Erie, Pa .; Au- gustus P., Warren, Pa .; Sidney A., Warren, Pa .; Albert A., dead ; Caroline L., dead ; Charles C., dead ; Sarah M. Reese, Warren, Pa .; Catharine B. Hutchin- son, Albion, N. Y .; George R., Warren, Pa.
W ETMORE, C. C., son of Judge Lansing Wetmore, was born in Warren, Pa., on the 23d of June, 1829. A biographical sketch of his father is published in this work. C. C. Wetmore had rather unusual advantages for obtaining an education, and availed himself of them with unusual diligence. Taking especial delight in the exercise of his ratiocinative faculties, he wisely determined that destiny had appointed him for work of that nature, and ac- cordingly took a thorough mathematical course in Union College. He subse- quently adopted civil engineering as his life-work, and about 1856 surrendered a good position on the New York Central Railroad for the purpose of engag- ing in his chosen vocation in Warren. His success was assured from the first. He had one of the largest contracts on the Philadelphia and Erie Railroad, and was a pioneer in the projection and construction of the Oil Creek road.
He was a man of great executive abilities, was full of energy and activity, and was gifted with remarkable powers of endurance. He was, moreover, shrewd and enterprising in business matters, and in a few years accumulated a fortune. Just previous to his death he became largely interested in the lumber business, on the Allegheny River and its tributaries.
During the later years of his life he was much embarrassed by ill health, which threatened to result in consumption, and passed the winter of 1865-66 in Florida. But he was not to meet his death in this manner. On the 23d day of April, 1867, he was thrown from a spring wagon by a span of spirited horses, and received injuries on the head and back from which he died in a few hours. During his life he had won the respect and esteem of all who knew him, and because of his energy and great abilities would have been known, had he lived but a few years longer, not only for his great wealth, but for his pub- lic spirit and benefactions.
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659
C. C. WETMORE. - CHAPIN HALL.
He married Rose E., only daughter of Chapin Hall, on the 15th day of December, 1857, and at his death left two children-Chapin Hall and Charles Delevan.
H TALL, CHAPIN, was born in Busti, Chautauqua county, N. Y., on the 12th day of July, 1816. His father, Samuel Hall, and his mother, a daughter of Samuel Davis, came from the Green Mountain State to Chautau- qua county in 1814, and performed the arduous duties, suffered the privations and endured the hardships of pioneer life in a rough country. From them and their ancestors in Vermont Mr. Hall inherited great force and sturdy in- dependence of character. Naturally the common schools which he attended in his early boyhood were not of a very high type, nor possessed of an ad- vanced curriculum, but he made the most of these limited advantages, and at- tended for several terms the Jamestown Academy, then the leading educational institution in that part of the State. His school-boy days gave prophecy of the tireless energy and impatient determination to lead, which marked his character in more mature years.
At the age of twenty-one he married Susan Bostwick, of Busti, remaining upon the farm where he was born for nearly four years. About the year 1841 he moved to Pine Grove, Warren county, Pa., where he engaged in the lumber and mercantile business for eight years, then going to Fond du Lac, Wis., after- wards returning to Ridgway, Warren county. In 1851 he moved with his family to Warren, and engaged in the banking business. Later in life he be- came interested in manufacturing, and at the time of his death was the leading partner in the extensive manufacturing firms of Hall, Hatt & Parker, of New- ark, N. J., and of Hall & Eddy, of Louisville, Ky. He was also one of the owners of the Jamestown Worsted Mills, and was a large proprietor of real estate in Louisville, Ky., Fond du Lac, Wis., and other places.
Mr. Hall was a Republican in politics, and as would be expected of a man who was not born to compromise, he was a sturdy, though fair, partisan. He will long be remembered by politicians for the shrewdness and the executive power he displayed as the leader in the political revolution of Northwestern Pennsylvania in 1858. It was the year of the anti-Lecompton revolt, and Judge Gillis, a devoted Democrat and friend of Buchanan, was defeated for re- election to Congress by Chapin Hall. Judge Gillis had settled at Ridgway as the agent of the Philadelphia Ridgway estate, when there was not a road nor a settlement within fifty miles of that now pretty mountain village. He had been taken from there to New York to be tried for the murder of Morgan, of anti-Masonic fame. He had been in the House and Senate of Pennsylvania, and had been chosen to Congress in 1856, but the success of 1858, when the first Republican victory was achieved in the State, was too much for him, and the far-seeing wisdom of Chapin Hall was the instrument of his downfall. Mr.
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
Hall served but one term in Congress, for he did not relish public life, and was too much involved in important business matters to devote his entire time to the public service. While in Congress, however, he discharged his duties with the fidelity, energy, and integrity which marked him in every transaction of his life.
He was a man of unusually decided peculiarities of character, and it has been said that he was liable to strong prejudices. This was owing in a meas- ure to his direct and positive nature. Sham, hypocrisy, indecision, or weak- ness of character he despised, and was at times unable to conceal his dislike for these traits. No man, however, made more ample reparation than he when convinced that he had been in the wrong, and no man ever manifested greater fidelity to friends, or was more willing to help them than he. In all his busi- ness relations he was the soul of integrity and justice, and he gave all his ex- tensive interests his constant personal supervision, and familiarized himself with every detail. Though he held those in his employ to strict accountabil- ity for genuine hard work, he exacted no more than he was willing to render, and all the years of his life was noted for his great industry, and the amount of unremitting toil he was capable of performing. As a citizen he set an ex- ample worthy to be followed. His vast wealth, instead of being hoarded, was invested in active business, greatly benefiting various localities and employing hundreds of workmen, who were always paid good wages and received their just dues. He was also a generous man, exercising his liberality with wisdom and good sense. As a friend to young men engaging in business he was a powerful ally and a good adviser, and many men were placed on the road to financial prosperity through his instrumentality.
A short time before his death he purchased the old homestead of 600 acres, in Busti, Chautauqua county, N. Y., which he took great pride and pleasure in improving; but he had overworked and from the effects of this over-expendi- ture of physical strength, he died on the 12th of September, 1879, at the resi- dence of his brother, John A. Hall, proprietor of the Jamestown Journal.
Chapin Hall married Susan, daughter of Alexander and Lucinda Bostwick, November 2, 1837, of Busti, N. Y. His wife is now living. They have one daughter, Rose E., now the wife of A. M. Kent, of Jamestown, N. Y. Mr. Kent was, at the time of Mr. Hall's death, one of the proprietors with him of the Corry pail factory, of Corry, Pa.
J AMIESON, HUGHI A., was born in Berkshire county, Massachusetts, on the 31st of May, 1835. His parents, Hugh and Jeannette Jamieson, emi- grated from Paisley, Scotland, in 1824, to Hudson-on-the-Hudson, in the State of New York, and from there, in a short time, removed to the heart of the Berkshire hills. During his residence there, for years, Hugh Jamieson had charge of the weaving departments in large cotton factories. In the fall of
661
HUGH A. JAMIESON.
1843 he removed, with his family, to Sugar Grove, in this county, where he entered the employment of D. H. Grandin, of Jamestown, in the manufacture of woolen fabrics, and remained with him five years, walking to Jamestown every Monday morning and returning Saturday night. The later years of his life were passed on a farm in Sugar Grove. He died in 1880, aged seventy- seven years. His parents were for years residents of Freehold township, and lived, the father, to be ninety-eight years of age, and the mother, to be eighty- eight.
The subject of this sketch passed the greater part of his time until he was twenty-one years of age, at his father's home in Sugar Grove, excepting such times as he was away at school, or teaching. Excepting one term at the academy at Randolph, N. Y., his education was confined to such limits as are prescribed in the common schools, though he made long and rapid strides ahead of other students by the most persistent and industrious application to study at home. By this praisworthy means he fitted himself for teaching, and before saying his last good-bye to his home farm he taught three winters, the last at Jamestown, N. Y. In the spring of 1856 he accepted the offer of W. T. Falconer, a merchant of Kennedyville, Chautauqua county, N. Y., which he had received a short time after leaving home with the capital of fifty cents in his pocket. His previous earnings had been given to a younger brother to enable him to reach California, and Mr. Jamieson sent the rest of his wages, until his minority was a thing of the past, to his father. In the spring of 1857 he returned to Sugar Grove, purchased the interest in a dry goods business of Mark Wilson, and became a partner in trade with Isaac H. Hiller, who was afterward prothonotary of the county. At this time he had been on the point of going West, indeed, he had his trunk all packed for the journey, but was induced to remain in Sugar Grove. This business he disposed of in the spring of 1858, and for a year following he handled boats on the Ohio River for Daniel Griswold, of Jamestown, where he received the most useful portion of all his business education. During the winter of 1858-59 the well-known Joshua Van Dusen, of Sugar Grove, who had always taken a deep interest in him, persist- ently urged him to come to Warren and begin the study of law. After van- quishing what had before seemed serious obstacles, in August, 1859, he entered the law office of Johnson & Brown. In the fall of 1861 he was admitted to the bar. In the interim Mr. Johnson was elected president judge of the district, and Mr. Jamieson, after his admission to practice, remained in the office with R. Brown, with whom, in less than a year, he formed a co- partnership, under the firm name of Brown & Jamieson.
Being naturally of a speculative turn of mind, he was disposed to reach out in business, and in the fall of 1863 began his extraneous investments by purchasing an interest in lumber and mill property of Kinzua Creek, in the vil- lage of Kinzua. This he still owns, together with several thousand acres of
662
HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
timbered lands, out of which he has made large amounts of money. In the summer of 1865 his investments had grown to such proportions that it became evident that he must give up either his outside business or relinquish his law practice, and after mature deliberation he decided to abandon the profession. Accordingly the partnership with Judge Brown was dissolved. About this time he furnished the money and became interested in the hardware trade, and established a store in Warren under the name of J. H. Mitchell & Co. This was changed in 1871 to H. A. Jamieson. By shrewed and prudent man- agement Mr. Jamieson has developed this interest until now he is without question the proprietor of the largest hardware business in the county. To accommodate it requires the use of a large three-story brick building and a spacious cellar, besides a 40 by 50 warehouse four stories high.
In the summer of 1876 Mr. Jamieson took a small amount of stock in an enterprise known as the Warren Woodenware Works, which, unfortunately proved a losing investment to the citizens of Warren, and in consequence of being an endorser on their paper for a large amount, he was compelled to step in and run the business temporarily. He subsequently became the owner of this large establishment, employing about fifty hands and running under an invested capital of some $75,000. The necessities of this business prompted him to become an active power in the organization known as the Western Woodenware Association, the office of which is in Chicago, Ill., and of which he is and for years has been president. Through his influence the wooden- ware business has been made a success instead of the failure, which was pre- saged of it. During all these years he has not disconnected himself from the lumber business, but during his residence in Warren has interested himself in the flouring, and saw-mills, and sash, door and blind factories on the island at the foot of Liberty street. He is also very considerably interested in oil oper- ations, though he is careful not to permit that interest to absorb his other business.
He was one of the original incorporators of the Citizens' National Bank of Warren, and is now a director in the same. He has always readily taken stock in every enterprise which presented itself seemingly to advance the interests of Warren. He is recognized as a very active worker for the benefit of the War- ren Library Association and the good of Warren. He has always been a steady Republican, and is now a warm admirer of James G. Blaine, in spite, as he says, of the aspersions which have been used to stain his name. In the winter of 1882, against his own wish, he was elected burgess of the town, not- withstanding the opposition of a majority of Democrats and an independent Republican. He has for the last ten years been a member of the Presbyterian Church, to the support of which he has generously contributed.
Iu personal appearance Mr. Jamieson is tall, slender, and very straight. Though not robust, he has yet great powers of endurance, and has never had
663
HUGH A. JAMIESON. - SAMUEL GROSSENBURG.
a serious illness but once ; about four years ago he had a severe attack of a brain difficulty, which it was feared might prove fatal, but after about two years he recovered. Besides the encouragement which he has so readily given to every public enterprise in Warren, Mr. Jamieson has indirectly con- tributed to the wealth and beauty of the borough by his extensive building operations. He is now living in the third residence of his own construction in Warren. This house is an elegant brick structure, and is furnished in the best of taste, and without regard to cost. Mr. Jamieson is largely interested in real estate in Warren and other portions of the county.
CROSSENBURG, SAMUEL, the subject of this sketch, was born on the T 2d day of May, 1809, in Canton Berne, Switzerland. His parents, Sam- uel and Mary Ann (Stopfel) Grossenburg, were also natives of Switzerland. Mr. Grossenburg received his education in his native country, and when he was twenty years of age came to Pittsburgh, Pa., where he worked out for about six months as a common laborer, and then passed some three years and a half as a butcher. Thence he removed to Warren, where he engaged with unusual success in the same occupation. In 1839 he again moved-this time to the farm which is now in the possession of his widow, near Stoneham, in Mead township, Warren county. When he settled here he penetrated an al- most trackless wilderness, in which the right of nature's sway had scarcely been controverted by any daring act of man. By dint of tireless toil Mr. Grossenburg cleared his farm and forced from its reluctant soil the harvests of plenty. He united the kindred industries, farming and lumbering, by manu- facturing into lumber the trees which it was necessary to fell in clearing his farm. At first upon his arrival he built a log house on the site of the present woodshed, in which he lived until 1848. In that year he erected the dwelling now occupied by Mrs. Grossenburg and other members of his family. At that time he effected most of the improvements now perceptible about the farm. His original diminutive possessions he finally increased to three lots, one of ninety acres, comprising this farm, eighty-two in another lot, and two hundred and forty in the third - the last two of the lots being still wild land. It was about 1866 that Samuel Grossenburg, jr., erected a saw-mill on the 240-acre tract, but which was sold and removed in 1885.
The principal characteristics of this most useful but equally unostentatious man have been quite clealy denoted in the mere recital of his business under- takings. He was essentially a lover of home and its quiet enjoyments. His ambition was of that fibre which forms the only safe and trustworthy fabric of a nation's greatness and permanent prosperity. It was to acquire a home, un- encumbered by indebtedness, to be able to look upon a plot of ground, a dwell- ing, flocks and herds, and say to his loved and loving wife and children: "This I have gained by my labors for you; enjoy it with me ; share my acquisitions."
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
He took comparatively little interest in politics, only as much as an intelligent and thoughtful private citizen should. His partisan preference was decidedly Democratic. He was conservative in his religious views, having a strong lean- ing toward the Lutheran Church-the church of his fathers. Mr. Grossen- burg died on the 23d of September, 1885.
On the 19th of January, 1836, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Francis T. and Catharine Yost. His widow survives him, and, as has been stated, now occupies the old homestead. She was born in Alsace, that famous battle ground between the German and French people, on the 14th of June, 1818, and came to Warren with her parents when she was about eight years of age. There she resided until her marriage. She has borne her husband ten chil- dren, seven of whom, four sons and two daughters, are still living, as follows : Samuel, jr., born September 19, 1838, and now living on the homestead ; married Frances M., daughter of D. W. and Sarah A. (Cantrell) Brennan, of this township, March 16, 1875. He was the second child, the first, Mary Ann, was born September 6, 1836, and died November 6, 1838. The third child was William, born October 6, 1840, and deceased September 8, 1848 ; the fourth, Eliza, born March 28, 1843, is now the wife of Samuel J. Arnett, of Geneseo, Ill. ; the fifth, William H., born January 12, 1846, married Rosamond Carter, of Corry, Pa., November 22, 1878, and now resides in Stoneham, Pa .; the sixth, Jerome C., born November 6, 1848, still single, lives on the old home- stead ; the seventh, George F., born October 25, 1851, died January 25, 1852 ; the eighth, Albert G., born November 25, 1853, married Margaret Weaver, and lives in Geneseo, Ill .; the ninth, Clara E., born February 17, 1856, mar- ried first to Stephen Cochran, of Wellsbury, N. Y., in June, 1874, and secondly to Mark Lauer, from Wayne county, Pa., April 26, 1886, and now residing in Clarendon. The tenth, Lillie O., born May 16, 1860, married Samuel Mc- Nett, of Clarendon borough, January 7, 1881.
G RAY, ROBERT MILES, of Sugar Grove, was born on the site of Union J City, Pa., on the 8th day of January, 1813. He derived his patronymic from a family in the north of Ireland, whence his father's father, William Gray, emigrated to Northumberland county, in this State, previous to 1785. He was probably in this country early enough to witness the ratification of the constitution of the United States. In 1795 he removed with his family to Huntington county, Pa., and in 1803 settled on the site of Union City. He was twice married, the second time about 1824 or 1825, and reared a family of eight children by his first wife, and three by his second. His eldest son and the son of his first wife, James Gray, was the father of Robert M. Gray, and was born in White Deer Valley, Northumberland county, Pa., on the 18th of November, 1785. He removed with his father to Huntington county, and in 1803 went to take possession of his father's newly purchased farm in Erie county.
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ROBERT MILES GRAY.
It must be remembered that in those times the present modes of rapid transit by land had not even entered the dreams of the prophet. It required the hardiest muscles, the steadiest nerves, and the most adventurous spirits of the settled portions of eastern North America, to push forward through the dark and seemingly impervious forests that frowned upon the outposts of civiliza- tion, and extend its frontiers in spite of wolves, bears, panthers, and inhospitable wilds. James Gray was well-fitted for this kind of work. After looking over the ground which was to become his home, he returned, in December of 1803, to Huntington county. The incidents of this journey disclose a glimpse of the difficulties of the traveler in Western Pennsylvania at that day. He reached the Allegheny River four miles above the site of Kittanning, where he found the stream impassable by means of high water and running ice. He finally succeeded, at great risk of life and limb, in crossing the river with his horse on ice which had formed in a single night. Then he led his horse (for he could ride very little through the thick underbrush) along a " blind path " over hills until he reached Freeport. The rest of the journey was comparatively easy. In April, 1804, he returned to Erie county, with his sister Sarah to do the housework while he cleared the farm. His first work was to build a large hewn-log house on the place. He remained at Union, as it was then called, nearly twenty years. In 1809-10 he built flat boats and took them to Water- ford for the purpose of carrying salt to Pittsburgh. In the fall of 1810 he went to Pittsburgh, where he saw the first steamboat ever floated in the city.
In September, 1812, he was drafted on a requisition on the State to furnish a quota of 100,000 militia to prosecute the war with Great Britain, and rendez- voused at Pittsburgh on the 2d of October. Aften an honorable service for six months he was discharged at Fort Meigs on the 2d of April, 1813. In March, 1823, he removed to Sugar Grove, in this county, where he remained the rest of his life. He died on the 30th of June, 1858. He was one of the most useful citizens that ever lived in this township or county. He took an active and patriotic interest in public affairs, both as they related to his town and the country. He was a member of the great Whig party, and was hon- ored with various offices that could be filled only with such ability as he pos- sessed. In 1825 he was elected assessor of Sugar Grove, and was soon after made foreman of the county grand jury. In 1826, and again in 1843, he was chosen county commissioner, the last time on the workingmen's ticket. He was what has aptly been denominated "an every day member of the church," while in Erie county, and in sympathies was a Presbyterian. He was not a religious automaton, however, but was a thinker, in obedience to the direction of St. Paul to "think on these things," and in later life he became a Congrega- tionalist. At a still later period he practically adopted the faith of the Unita- rians.
In December, 1811, James Gray married Polly, daughter of Robert Miles,
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HISTORY OF WARREN COUNTY.
with whom he passed the best years of his life, in the contentment of domestic love and co-operation. She survived him, dying a day or two before Christ- mas in 1864. They left two children - Harriet, now the wife of Dexter C. Hodges, of Sparta, Tenn., and the subject of this notice.
Robert M. Gray received a common school education in Sugar Grove, and passed some time in attendance upon the academies at Jamestown and Warren. He remained on his father's farm until he reached the age of thirty-two or thirty-three years, when he became owner by purchase of the farm and began on his own account. He began chopping on the place in March, 1836. He lived on that farm until 1883, when his wife died, and he placed the property in the possession of his son, Hugh F. Gray, and bought the place on which he now resides. He has not been a public man in the general acceptation of the term, but he has taken a live interest in all public matters, has done without hesitation what he deemed to be his duty, and in the infirmity of declining years retires from active cares with a mind made serene by the consciousness of life- long rectitude. His townsmen have urged upon him a number of township offices, all of which came to him without the asking. Mr. Gray votes with the Republican party, the successor of the Whig party, which he supported in earlier life. His first presidential vote was cast for William Wirt.
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