USA > Pennsylvania > Juniata County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 53
USA > Pennsylvania > Mifflin County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 53
USA > Pennsylvania > Snyder County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 53
USA > Pennsylvania > Union County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 53
USA > Pennsylvania > Perry County > History of that part of the Susquehanna and Juniata valleys, embraced in the counties of Mifflin, Juniata, Perry, Union and Snyder, in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania. V. 2, Pt. 1 > Part 53
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JAMES F. LINN .- The great-grandfather of James F. Linn, of Scotch-Irish stock, emigrat-
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ed from the north of Ireland about the year 1722, of pleurisy, 18th of March, 1809. He had and settled originally in New Jersey, opposite a family of ten children, seven of whom survived him, of whom James Fleming Lin was the ninth, born December 6, 1802. Ile worked on the farm, at his mother's, until 1818. Then he took up the idea of being a Bristol, Pa. He was a man of giant frame and of immense muscular strength. It is said that he could lift a barrel full of eider with his hands and drink out of the bung hole. His name was William, and he had an only son William. There i silversmith, and to learn it, put himself under the instruction of Win. Honsel, of Milton. At the end of a week he retired, to his utter dis- gust, covered with iron filings, brass filings and grease, and never returned. His mother, one of those grand old dames of the Scotch-Irish style, had quietly instructed Mr. Honsel. The same spring be went to visit his uncle and name- sake, James Fleming, on Sherman's Creek, Cumberland County, to go to school to him, and especially to be taught surveying, book-keeping and mathematics generally. His uncle had quit keeping school, and he returned to his mother's, going to school at Milton to Kirk- patrick until 1822, when he lifted sixty dollars of his money of William Hayes, his guardian, and went west to seek a mode of living, de- termined, if nothing would turn np, he would go down the Ohio and Mississippi to New Orleans, board a vessel and lead a naval life. He went on foot.
is a tradition in the family that this son William was in Philadelphia with his team, was impress- ed by the great quartermaster, Benjamin Franklin, into the baggage-train service of the British army, and compelled to wagon it ont to Pittsburgh. Both going over and in returning, he stopped to water his horses at a spring at the base of North Mountain, six or eight miles north of Shippensburg, a place that delighted him. On his return and discharge he purchased the place. At any rate, William Linn, Sr., and William Lim, Jr., are both in the assessment lists of Lurgan township, Cumberland County. William Linn Jr., lived and died on that farm. Hle had two wives-Susanna McCormick and Jane Trimble-by the first of whom he had three children and by the latter seven. He became a very wealthy land-owner, owning some large tracts in Genesee County, N. Y. He pur- chased the soldiers' tract of Francis Turbett -five hundred aeres-now owned by Kaufman, Stalls and Reedy-and gave the tract to his sons-Charles, John and David.
The middle tract was John's, who was a son by the first wife, born April 2, 1754, at Roxbury, his mother dying while he was very young. He was the second son, his elder brother, William, being a classmate of Aaron Burr at Princeton, contested the honors of the class with him, be- came a celebrated divine, and left behind him a race of able ministers and lawyers, well-known about Ithaca and Schenectady, highly celebrated for their ability. John came to Buffalo Valley in 1773 or 1774, remaining here until 1779. Hle lay many a night with a bag of grain against the door for a pillow, and his rifle by his side, and during that time served a " tour," as they used to call it, against the Indians; while absent his house was sacked by them. He left in 1779, went to Cumberland County, married Ann Fleming, 7th of November, 1780, returned to Buffalo Valley, and died from an attack of
At Cincinnati he got homesick. Near Me- chanicsburg, Ohio, he bought a horse, traversed the greater part of Ohio and came home through Virginia. Going to school, but rest- less, he bespoke a passage with General Abbot Green on one of his arks down the river, think- ing to go to Lancaster County, where some of his mother's family were in the mercantile business. While the high waters were getting ready for General Green's ark, or the ark wait- ing for the waters, his brother William, a genial, high-souled fellow as ever lived, was a juror at New Berlin, and got into conversation with James Merrill, who strongly urged that he James F. should take up the study of law. He became a student at his office May 27, 1823. He was then a well-educated young man as far as his advantages could make him, a fine mathe- matieian and Latin scholar. He stood six feet two in his stocking feet, and could place one hand on a five-barred fence and spring over . without touching, and was an elegant horse-
James J. Sim
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inan and very fond of dancing. His uncle, James Fleming, meanwhile had not forgotten lim. Sick, he sent for him, in October, to come and take care of his property ; he was tired of it. He found him on the way to recovery, gave him his watch and some other articles, and told him to go home and bring a wagon for his movables and he would go with him. He sent his brother John; but his uncle declined to come at that time, and he heard nothing of him further, until one day in 1824, at the door of Mr. Merrill's office ap- peared an old man, in an old long overcoat, jaded and footsore and travel-stained. He took him home to his mother's and he died within the month. He was his sole legatee and exec- utor; but, out of a large estate, about three thousand dollars was realized, owing to bad investments and expense of collection, IIe was admitted to the bar, March 13, 1826, and on the 11th of April, 1826, he went to Lewisburgh, and taking his boarding at Ran- dall Wilcox's tavern, commenced the practice of law. In his diary he says: "I came to Lewisburgh, where I have taken up my resi- dence, for better or worse! "-where he fin- ished his life on the 8th day of October, A.D. 1869, after a residence of forty-three years and six months, at the age of sixty-seven. He was appointed justice of the peace January 2, 1829.
Beside his profession of the law, he was a practical surveyor, and very fond of it. Ile made copies of all surveys, and preserved a copy of every one he made. The copies were in a book, and the others were filed away separately into townships and counties with a number, and all were indexed in a pass-book, so that a stranger would turn to them and understand. There are over six Indred, and they are a complete history of the early transfers, and many titles would be inexplicable without them. He also preserved a memorandum of every business transaction in which he was en- gaged. The little slips of paper on which the calculations and memorandums of the trans actions happened to be made were all gathered up and put away with the ease. He kept ; Comnon Pleas docket, copied precisely from the prothonotary's docket, in which there was no
entry except what was to be found there, a collection docket, a brief-book, issue-lists-in fine, from 1826 to the day he did his last, there is in his office a history of his business. IIc was an accurate and careful lawyer. Ilis pro- fession of a surveyor went well with his legal profession in matters of settlement of estates and in the land law trials. He was learned in his profession, and withal, in the carly part of his life carried with it his reading of poetry and history ; in later life was much devoted to the- ology. While he never permitted business to obtrude itself on Sunday, he nevertheless gave to his profession the week-days pretty solidly. He was a Democrat, along with the old Demo- crats of Jefferson, Jackson and Martin Van Buren ; became an Abolitionist, voted for Birney, and lived to see the day when his fav- orite themes, Temperance and Abolition of Slavery, were triumphant, IIe was a Scotch- Irish Presbyterian, with all his dignity and ap- parent austerity, very friendly to all the amuse- ments of life. But from his Scotch-Irish Presbyterianism he believed that national sins as well as personal sins were expiated in blood, and when he took his son's hand to bid him good- by when he left for the War of the Rebellion, and some one hopefully remarking that it would soon be over, he said, " No it will not be over until the sin is wiped out in blood."
While a student in Mr. Merrill's office, Judge Huston, one of the judges of the Supreme Court, came to see Mr. Merrill. Making kindly inquiries of the student, he said to him " Look after your pleadings," an advice he followed, for his care in his pleadings was a marked feature of his professional work. Noth- ing irritated him quicker than to hear any one say they heard the lawyers " plead," which was the common expression for the argument of the case. " Lawyers don't plead to a court or jury ; they argue their cases," he would say with an indignant fire.
Mrs. Margaret Irvin Linn died June, 1867. They left to survive them six children-Mary Louisa, married to the Rev. Dr. Harbaugh ; Wilson Irvin Linn, married to Elizabeth Brown, danghter of Abram Brown ; John B. Linn, J. Merrill Lim; Annie C., married to Dr. John C. Angle ; Laura, who died in October, 1871.
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ABNER C. HARDING was born February 10, 1807, at East Hampton, Middlesex County, Conn .; educated at Hamilton Academy, Oneida, N. Y .; studied law at Lewisburgh, in the office of James F. Linn ; admitted to the bar on December 16, 1830. He is mentioned as one of the seven who formed the first tem- perance society in Lewisburgh, in 1831, and in 1832 he is again mentioned as having address- ed a temperanee meeting, and sixty-eight mem- bers were added to the society. He was married to the widow of Daniel Buyers, of Lewisburgh, and removed to Illinois, where he continued the practice of law and managed farms. In 1848 he was a member of the convention that framed the Constitution under which Illinois remained until 1870. He was in the Legislature in 1848, 1819, and 1850. During the ten years preceding the Rebellion he was engaged in railway enter- prises. In 1862 he enlisted as a private in the Eighty-third Illinois Infantry, and rose to the rank of Colonel. For distinguished bravery at Fort Donelson he was raised to the rank of brig- adier-general from March 13, 1863, and had a command at Murfreesborough, Tenn. In 1864 he was elected to Congress and was on committee of war and militia ; re-elected in 1866, and was on committee on the Union prisoners' claims and militia. He entered zealously into the con- struction of railways in Central Illinois, and was one of the master-spirits in projecting and building the Peoria and Canawka Railroad, now a part of the Chicago and Burlington and Quincy combination. He is supposed to have left a fortune of $2,000,000, no small part of which he amassed in railroad enterprises. Some years before his death he endowed a Harding Professorship in Monmouth College. (Apple- ton's Encyclopedia HI. 646.) He died July 19, 187 1, at the age of sixty-seven.
HON. GEORGE F. MILLER -On December 22, 1885, at the assembling of the Union County Court, after the motions, J. Merrill Linn, after some prefatory remarks spoke as follows eon- cerning George F. Miller :
" The long and successful life of the flon. George F. Miller ended on the 21st day of October, 1585. Born on the 9th day of May, 1809, in Chillisquaque township, Northumberland County, Pa., he had not yet passed the first half of his seventy sixth year-not a very great age
in years, yet very well up; nevertheless years well filled with the industry of hfe. Hle traveled that hard road-that very common road to eminence like the tent maker of old, supporting himself with the labor of luis own hands on the way to the gate of his professional life. Ifis father and mother were John and Mary Miller, and they could give him little beyond the roof of his birth and the sustenance of childhood, until he was pushed, as the eagles do their young, from the nest in the erag, and made to bear their weight on unaided wing. le labored on a farm, taught school and gathered means to attend the academy of Mr. Kirkpatrick at Milton. After teaching school for several years he entered the office of my father to prepare for admission to the bar, and was admitted at May term 1833, at the age of 24 years. While a student, he was one of the kindest, most attentive and obliging of men. 1 !. always got up when a client came in, gave him a chair, had him comfortably seated, and went through all the preliminary sinall talk of the weather, the crops and the current events of the day, which seemed necessary to pre pare the way for the graver business, and when the ground was ready, took his book and went into the back-oflice su as not to interfere with the proper confidential relation of attorney and client, And indeed, in after-life there la nothing more touching than the profound respect with which he regarded his preceptor-his punctilious atten- ton, his unswerving politeness ; and though they practiced at the bar together for more than thirty years-gener. ally opposed and in strenuous convention-there was never a harsh word, or other than friendliest intercourse. In those early days he often opened out his anticipations, laid bare his hopes, to his preceptor. One dream was that if he could ever reach a fortune of ten thousand dol lars by his profession, he would retire and enjoy it. The mirage was in the retiracy, not in the fortune.
" The Hon. Ellis Lewis was appointed president judge of the Eighth Judicial District, which was composed of the counties of Lycoming, Columbia and Union, as created by the act of 1831. Mr. Miller was very much discouraged in his carly attempts in practice, but Judge Lewis noticed him, watched his struggle, put him on his feet when he blundered, befriended, and encouraged him. One time, when his failure was signal he poured out his whole soul in the ear of the kindly-disposed judge, and his cry was a de. spairing one that he never could succeed. The judge said to him, that he should go on, and at the end of ten years he should come back, and he would give ten thousand dollars for what he had made in the mean time. Little over ten years had gone around, and Mr. Miller was practicing before the Supreme Court, where Elhs Lewis himself was sitting, in the high tide of professional success -neither of them now caring about the offer. But Mr, Miller sprang to his work with an energy that never relax . ed. He lived in our town of Lewisburgh, nine miles from the county- seat. It was no unusual thing for him in his early practice to close his office after people went to bed, walk to New Berlin for a memorandum or a copy of a record and be back before others were stirring. He was found in his office at four o'clock in the morning and often after midnight.
" His practice was very large ; his labor was immense.
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He kept three green bags, which were always stuffed-one for Union, one for Northumberland and one for Lycoming. A client never put any business in his hands but that he night walk away and feel that it would be certainly and carefully attended to. He never neglected anything ; he never forgot anything; his memory was that of the pro- verbial lawyer's. The same indefatigable work followed mi the preparation of his cases. He gathered a large library, and there was no case in his range that he did not seek and find in aid of the case in hand. He was distin guished for his unswerving loyalty to his clients-his clients were just as loyal to him-for however great the distance they may have come, if the shutters were shut, they turned away not to another attorney, but to return again. This bar was educated under his influence, and down to the latest day of its existence it will feel the im- pulse that he gave it. To us he is an exemplar of a care- ful man, a diligent man, one who attended to the business intrusted to him with care and zeal, and one who under many disadvantages, became renowned in Ins profession. He seized hold of his own work in the world, infused the spirit of industry among his fellows, stimulated the energies of all about him, and when his hands dropped, he left his profession among the members of the bar much farther on. The integrity of his word given to a mem- ber of the bar was perfect; and in this bar under his influence I have never known a written agreement among attorneys. By this legacy he has left us-his perfect integrity of word, his diligence in the preparation of his cases, the gathering of facts and collecting of the law bearing on his case, his sacred, inviolable loyalty to his client, his tenacity of purpose and grit, his marveleous memory, his courtesy to the fellow-members of the bar, his kindness to the younger members-his influence in the creation of the bar will widen out further than tradition will carry his name."
He was offered the nomination for president judge of the Twentieth Distriet in 1861; was elected to Congress to represent the Fifteenth Congressional District, composed of Dauphin, Juniata, Northumberland and Union Counties, in October, 1864, and re-elected in October, 1866, and served those two terms, a hard- working, industrious member of committees. In the Thirty-ninth Congress he was a member of the cominittee on railways and canals and public expenditures. In the Fortieth Congress he was a member of the committee on railways and canals, the pension committee and Revo- lutionary claims and pensions. After return- ing from Congress he practiced more leisurely at the bar, and for several years had with- drawn from his profession.
He left to survive him a widow and two sons-D. Bright Miller and G. Barron Mil-
ler, both of them lawyers and practicing at the bar of Union County.
He took an active part in the establishment of the university at Lewisburgh ; was elected secretary of the board of trustees, and served sixteen years. Ile became president of the Lewisburgh, Centre and Spruce Creek Railroad, and devoted himself with all his energy, prac- tical judgment and shrewd foresight to its interests, and he lived to see it in successful operation as far as Spring Mills.
He was always carnest in the advancement of everything connected with the business interests or the improvement of the town ; gave to every such enterprise his time and money ; always by a judicious subscription encouraged engagement in matters that promote the ma- terial welfare of the community. He was a stockholder and long a director in the Northumberland Bank, and after it was re- moved to Sunbury, and changed to the First National Bank of Sunbury, he became a director. He became a director in the Lewis- burgh National Bank, and remained until his death.
HON. GEORGE R. BARRETT was born in Clearfield County, March 31, 1815. In 1831 he engaged for a short time in the printing business at Bellefonte; in 1834, he began the study of the law in Jefferson County and in the meantime published the Jeffersonia: in 1838 he came to Lewisburgh and completed his legal studies under the direction of James F. Linn, Esq. ; was admitted to the bar the following year, and returned to his native county ; in 1839 he was appointed deputy attorney-general of Clearfield County, and in 1842 of Jefferson. In 1842-4 was a member of the S ate Legis- Jature; in 1852 was Presidential Elector; in 1853 was appointed president judge of Twenty-third Judicial District, composed of Carbon, Monroe, Pike and Wayne Counties, to fill a vacancy ; in 1854 he was appointed as a commissioner to codify the revenue laws of the United States, after which time he resumed his profession at Clearfield ; in 1855 he was elected president judge of the Twenty-second Judicial District of Pennsylvania, and in 1865 was unanimously re-elected, but resigned in 1869, and resumed
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practice. In 1881 he retired and is living a private life at the age of seventy-one.
ABSALOM SWINEFORD was admitted to the bar of Union County November 10, 1839. Ile was married to Mary A., a daughter of John Lashells, Esq., May 15, 1838, and had two children, both of whom studied law, and were submitted to the bar of Union County. The one, Howard, lives in Richmond, Va., Edward, in St. Louis. Mr. Swineford edited The Good Samaritan, a paper in the interest of temperance, of which he was a hearty advocate. The first number appeared October 23, 1846, and in 1851, he added to its title The Family Presbyterian, the publication of which ceased in 1852. He then proposed to publish the Anti-liquor Advocate, but there was not sufficient encouragement to continue it. He left Union County with his family in 1866, and resided in Franklin County, Mo. He died in Richmond, September 6, 1881.
JOHN KINCAID, son of Joseph and Mary Kincaid, was educated at the academy at Lewis- burgh, read law with James F. Linn, and was admitted to the bar December, 1842. He never practiced at the profession. He lived on his farm across the river, without further ambition. When he commenced to read, Mrs. Kincaid, who was an intimate friend of Mrs. Lina's, and talking of John-it seemed there had been some family argument about the mat- ter-said she did not want John to become a lawyer, and, forgetting in her heat where she was, said " they are all liars." Mrs. Linn's neat little figure was raised to a dignity as she said quietly, " My husband is a lawyer." A few confused commonplaces terminated the call, and years afterward they both laughed over it. He has settled into a queer, old re- cluse.
ISAAC G. GORDON was born December 22, 1819, at Lewisburgh. When young he worked as a moulder in the foundry of Geddes Marsh. Ile studied law in the office of James F. Linn, and was adinitted to the bar of Union County in April, 18.13, and the same year entered into partnership in practice with Hon. George R. Barrett. In January, 18:16, he removed to Brookville, Jefferson County, where
he has since resided. In 1859 he was elected member of the Legislature, and re-elected in 1860. In 1866 he was appointed president judge of the district composed of Venango and Mercer Counties. In 1873 he was elected to the bench of the Supreme Court of Pennsyl- vania.
CHARLES MERRILL,, son of James Merrill, Esq., was born at New Berlin, was graduated from Lafayette College, and was admitted to the bar December 16, 1845. He then entered into partnership with Hon. Joseph Casey. In 1855, at the division of the county, he removed to Middleburgh, the county-seat of Snyder, and entered mto partnership with John P. Cronimiller which continued until 1861. (See Bench and Bar of Snyder County).
Hc enlisted as a private soldier in Company II., Fifty First Pennsylvania Volunteers, Cap- tain J. Merrill Linn, and continued in the service. His health was entirely broken at the end of the war, and after remaining awhile at Lewisburgh with his brother George, he went to Nashville where his brother, General Louis Merrill of the U. S. Army, was stationed, and therc dicd.
His body was sent on and buried at New Berlin. He was highly cultivated ; he had an immense range of information on every subject and was an elegant lawyer. An incident which occurred at the battle of Roanoke Island will illustrate. The five companies of the Fifty- first were ordered to rush across the swamp in front of the earth-work that commanded the road, to get on their left flank. The swamp was deep-to the arm-pits in some places -and it was necessary to jump from one clump of roots and moss to another, or wade. After getting across the front, in making for the flank, his captain and himseif landed on one clump, and, resting a moment, the captain remarked that this was something like " Fog Reel," a noted place in Brush Valley Mountains. "Well, as far as the swamp is concerned, it may be," he said; "but the vegetation is entirely different," and went on to speak of the difference of the trees and shrubbery, showing a most wonderful knowl- edge of botany and woods. While talking, he
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had his hand upon a sapling, with the fore- finger extended. A bullet struck just above the end of his forefinger and protruded. With- uut moving or stopping his talk, he rubbed the end of his forefinger over the ball, as if it had always been there. Just as cool and uncon- cerned as at the council-table, he stood by the flag, corporal of. the color-guard, when balls were raining about it and shells were bursting.
With abundant knowledge, a genial manner, a wonderful command of language and power of expression, had not his health been broken, he might have attained great eminence, and the remembrance of him among his acquaint- ances is like a sense of music when the in- spired voice and lute are gone.
HON. JOSEPH CASEY came to the county in 18.14. A sketch of his life will be found on page 1200.
JOHN R. FOLLMER, EsQ. Frederick Foll- mer, one of the old stock that lived by Lime- stone Run, came over into Union County, and built what is now called Sypher's Mill, on White Deer Hole Creek 1788 when Daniel Foll- mer, the father of John R. was but nine years old. Daniel was born March 13, 1786. He was married to Margaret Reed, in June, 1808, a daughter of James Reed, of Scotch-Irish descent, who, with his family came from Lan- caster County and settled in what is now Gregg township about 1788. Daniel Follmer left a family of five daughters and two sons-Maria B., married to John Foresman ; James W .; Cynthia; Elizabeth, married to Robert Caldwell; John R .; Daniel G .; and Margaret R. John Reed Follmer was born Dec. 21, 1821, at the place where he now resides -- his father's place, attended school at Hammond's school-house, and the log one by the mill, Milton Academy, one session in 1838, and then the Lewisburgh Academy. In 1843 he commenced to read law in the office of James L. Linn; was admitted at May term, 1845. He began to practice at Williamsport in September, 1815, two years ; settled at Selin's Grove, Snyder County, in 1818. For a time he suffered from ill health, and after recovering adopted the profession of a
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