USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Lives of the eminent dead and biographical notices of prominent living citizens of Montgomery County, Pa. > Part 33
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70
It only remains to record the services of Mr. Jarrett while County Treasurer, to which office he was elected in October,. 1872, by the close vote of 8461 against 8449, a majority of but twelve over his Democratic opponent. This result was won against a considerable opposition majority, but the still more curious fact was that at first he felt inclined to resist the solici-
35 K
SAMUEL F. JARRETT.
tations of his friends to "run," as another prominent gentle- man residing in Norristown did with subsequent regret, and further was the last named on the list of informal nominations, and only placed on the ticket on the second ballot. His op- ponent in the Democratic party was George C. Reiff.
Having been found so popular with the electors, and having rendered such full satisfaction in the office, he was nominated the next year by acclamation, beating his new Democratic op- ponent, Henry Herman, by a vote of 7026 against 6868, leav- ing his majority 158. Serving out his second term under the old Constitution, he was brought forward in 1874 as the most available man for the period of three years, the term according to the new law. This time he had several spirited competitors in the convention, and was only chosen on the sixth ballot by five majority. But true to his record as a "lucky horse," he went over the track again, this time against Zachariah Prutz- man, of Limerick, having a vote of 7628 to 7616 for the latter, a majority of twelve. As there was a Prohibition ticket in the field, he was only chosen by a plurality, drawing the votes that elected him partly from George Wright, who was the candi- date of the third party. He closed his official term on the Ist of January, 1878.
He was characterized while in office by uniform courtesy and fidelity, keeping the funds so well in hand that perhaps no one ever filled it with more perfect acceptance to officials and the people. On the conclusion of his third official term he re- turned to his farm and former vocation, on the Egypt road, near Jeffersonville, where he resides.
352
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
He reads much ; He is a great observer, and he looks Quite through the deeds of men .- Shakespeare.
Hiram Corson* was born in Plymouth township, Montgomery county, on the 8th of October, 1804, and has lived to his seventy- fifth year within a mile of his birth-place. He is the fifth son of Joseph and Hannah Corson, whose marriage and offspring are re- corded in the life of Alan W. Corson elsewhere in this work. His mother dying at the age of forty, of consumption, left him a small boy, as also his brother William but a child of four years, to the care of a father immersed in business, but mainly to two elder sisters, Mary and Sarah, the former of whom afterwards married Thomas Adamson and the latter Thomas Read. These two sisters were then cultivated and refined young women for their opportunities, and the brothers in their closing years look back with a sense of deep gratitude toward these two, who assisted a father and stepmother in guiding their childish feet in right ways. They refer to this recol- lection as one of the brightest of their early life.
Having a much older brother (Alan) soon after engaged in teach- ing, these younger ones had the best opportunity short of a colle- giate course of receiving a good academic education. But Hiram Corson is one whom phrenologists characterize as a natural scholar -a person measurably independent of schools. Such men do not so much reason, after the manner of mathematicians, as grasp by perceptive analysis or intuition whatever comes within the purview of their minds. This is perhaps the happiest of all faculties for a physician to possess, inasmuch as he must often act on the spur of the moment, with hardly time for reflection at all.
With the quick, critical gifts we have described, it was natural that our subject's attention should be drawn to medicine as a pro- fession. Accordingly, when twenty-two years old, he entered the office of Dr. Richard D. Corson, of New Hope, Bucks county, in 1826, and in March, 1828, just fifty-one years ago, graduated at the
*Till within a recent period the subject of this notice supposed that his own christian name was a fancy gift of his father's, and that he was the first of the family who bore it. But he learns through Rev. Thomas S. Yocom that while the latter officiated on Staten Island, he was called upon to bury the wife of a Hiram Corson of that place. So the name appears an original family one, possibly dating back to near 1680, when Cornelius Corsen is recorded as the purchaser of land on that island. Of the origin of the surname and family, Weiss, in his sketches of Staten Island, says: "This (the Corsons) is one of the oldest and at one time among the most influential families on the island. The first mentioned of the name was Cornelius Corsen, who there obtained a patent for one hun- dred and eighty acres of land on the 30th of December, 1680."
353
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
University of Pennsylvania. Shortly after he built himself a house on a handsome elevation midway between the Ridge and German- town turnpike roads, now called Maple Hill, and within half a mile of Plymouth Friends' Meeting. Here for nearly half a century he has resided, enjoying a very large practice extending over a terri- tory many miles in area.
The life of Dr. Hiram Corson has been so busy, and his contri- butions to medical science and social progress so varied, that it is difficult to characterize his career. Soon after commencing prac- tice he was married to Ann Jones, daughter of Edward and Tacy Foulke, from which union a large family of children have sprung, who are particularized below. It is proper to add here that Dr. Corson and his wife early felt the responsibility of properly and thoroughly educating their children. They therefore had erected on their property at Maple Hill a small school building, and em- ployed a teacher for a select school for the education of their own children, which was also open to their neighbors.
No sooner had he commenced professional routine than he per- ceived the terrible devastation produced by alcoholic liquors, so universally used as a beverage, and so greatly aggravated by the then common prescription of them by physicians in their practice. With the bold decision of a quick mind and cool intrepidity of a hero, he threw himself against the whole system. He soon discov- ered also, in his own experience, that in most cases patients recov- ered more rapidly without their use, and he thenceforth almost ban- ished them from his materia medica. Not only did he boldly take this ground in the face of the pecuniary gains to the fraternity by their use, but threw himself into the moral discussion which arose a few years later, and on all proper occasions made vehement speeches against the practice of drinking those liquors. He was among the very first to detect and denounce the insidious nature and danger- ous use of root beer and other weak fermented drinks to reformed inebriates, during the Washingtonian movement. He not only was the champion of temperance at home, but frequently brought the topic before the assembled profession in meetings of the National and State medical societies. It is proper to add here, however, that without changing his views as to those liquors, or his personal opposition to their use, he has not co-operated so actively in any of the late efforts in the temperance movement. He has given the work into younger hands.
Dr. Corson not only ranks as an early reformer on the alcoholic
354
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
question, but observation soon convinced him that the custom then widely prevalent of employing hot drinks alone in eruptive diseases, and denying patients the cooling draught of water so much craved, was not justified by experience. Accordingly he conformed his practice to these views, and without pretending to found a new school, has nevertheless effected a widely extended reform in such cases, his brethren generally yielding to the correctness of his ob- servations and theory. In the meantime there have been few if any additions to medical science or discussions growing out of its theory or practice in which he has not participated. There are no medi- cal men in the country better known by their occasional writings than Dr. Hiram Corson, and all his papers have been characterized by keen, intuitive perception of truth rather than loading the pro- fession by far-fetched theories, which flourish for a brief season and then disappear forever. Close observation and common sense, en- lightened by professional experience added to science, have been Dr. C.'s striking characteristics in all his labors. He was active in the organization of the Montgomery County Medical Society, and has read before it a number of valuable papers. He and his brother William were also active in forming the State society, and the for- mer was its President in 1852.
But zeal in the pursuit of his profession, together with a large practice and the care of a numerous family of children, did not so far absorb his mind as to prevent his also having great interest in State and National affairs. Without being an active politician, he has been all his life a Whig and Republican, taking an especial in- terest in the cause of the down-trodden slave. As in the case of temperance, he was outspoken from the first against the iniquity and unwise policy of maintaining the slave-holding system. In matters of humanity, public charities, or social abuses, his keen, critical and trenchant pen is frequently employed, nearly always enlightening the public mind upon some matter unobserved by others.
Dr. Corson, notwithstanding his radical views upon almost all re- form subjects, has been frequently honored by medical societies and the profession at large. He was among the very first physicians in the country in favor of opening the profession to the female sex, putting forward his niece, Miss Adamson, and giving her the bene- fit of his name and reputation to secure an education.
He has been a member of the American Medical Association for a long time. A few years since, for his various contributions to medical literature, the Meigs and Mason Academy of Medicine,
355
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
Ohio, made him an associate member. In 1874 the Obstetrical Society of Philadelphia also elected him to that position, and one year later the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, the oldest medical organization in the United States, elected him " Associate Fellow" of that honored society, now one hundred and forty years old. The value of this last compliment is best understood when it is stated that by the laws of the college it is restricted to a member- ship of thirty associates in the United States and but twenty in for- eign countries.
Dr. Corson is the author of many valuable papers on scarlet fever and diphtheria, and is the originator of the ice treatment which has proved so efficient in those diseases, and which has come to be much used in nearly all the States of the Union. His writings in the medical journals of the country have been numerous and even volu- minous, though he has written no large medical books, so called, having had no time for such labors. What he has written, indeed, has often been done in the time snatched from hours of rest, in or- der that his brethren might have the benefit of his experience and observation.
Some years ago, Governor Hartranft, knowing Dr. Corson's fa- miliarity with the advanced knowledge of the profession in the treat- ment of lunatics, appointed him a trustee of the State Hospital for the Insane, at Harrisburg. The State Board of Public Charities also appointed him one of the visitors to the Montgomery county prison and alms-house. Without any official connection with the eastern asylum for the insane now building, he has nevertheless been influential by his writings and oral advice in securing the wise ar- rangements for the humane safe-keeping of the unfortunates who are to inhabit it. Dr. Corson has kept abreast of the most enlightened views prevailing in England and on the Continent, and for a long time has been deprecating the prison feature in treating the insane. Some years ago he uncovered to the public eye the gross neglect of the demented poor in our alms-house, securing a reform of the same. But we must close this review by giving a sketch of the personnel of the Doctor's family.
Their eldest son, Edward Foulke, born October 14th, 1834, after receiving a good education, studied medicine with his father, gradu- ated at the University, and opened an office at Conshohocken, con- tinuing there for a time, till, feeling a desire to see the world, he obtained the post of Assistant Surgeon on board the United States ship Hartford, and spent three years on a cruise in Asiatic waters.
356
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
Returning home the first year of the rebellion, he was made full Surgeon and stationed at the Marine Hospital, Philadelphia. After a short stay there, however, he applied for some more active duty or participation in the war. He was assigned to the ship Mohican, which for eighteen months scoured the seas for the rebel vessel Ala- bama, and came back without having lost a single man by sickness. But in caring for the ship's crew he had forgotten himself, being quite worn down in health. His ailment soon developed into fever, and he died, after an illness of a few weeks, on the 22d of June, 1864, in his 30th year. He was a young man of great promise, and his death was a sore affliction to his parents.
The second son is Joseph K. Corson, who was born on the 22d of November, 1836. At the age of seventeen he was entered as an apprentice to the drug business with the firm of John & William Sav- age, of Philadelphia. After graduating in the College of Phar- macy, and completing his term of apprenticeship, he returned home. Shortly after, on the breaking out of the war, he enlisted as a pri- vate in Captain Walter H. Cooke's company, Colonel Hartranft's Fourth Regiment, and served till the company was ordered to the rear to be mustered out on the eve of the first battle of Bull Run. He was one of a few of the company who offered to remain in ser- vice and go into that disastrous battle as volunteers, notwithstand- ing their term of service had expired. On his return home, having a knowledge of pharmacy, he commenced the study of medicine with his father, and in company with his cousin, Elwood M. Corson, attended lectures at the medical school, at the same time entering the military hospital at Broad and Cherry streets, Philadelphia, as assistants to the surgeons. They thus heard lectures during the day and attended sick soldiers at night, stealing hours from sleep for study. This round of duty was pursued till the next year, when they graduated, and were both sent to the seat of war, Joseph as surgeon's assistant in one of the regiments of the Pennsylvania Reserves. He was at the battle of Gettysburg, and from there through most of the battles of the Wilderness, ending at Cold Harbor, where he was re- lieved, and returned home just in time to see his elder brother die. About the date Joseph returned, Elwood, who so long had been his companion, was transferred to New York, and thence on board of one of the Monitors ordered to Charleston harbor. Here he re- mained, exposed to a terrible cannonading, until the rebels aban- doned the city and it fell into our hands. For a short time Joseph remained at home assisting his father in his practice, but tiring of
357
HIRAM CORSON, M. D.
the monotony of home work while such stirring events were trans- piring in the field, he again applied for a position in the army. He passed an examination, and was assigned to duty on the lines be- tween Omaha and Fort Bridger, Wyoming Territory, and other posts in the far West. While on the plains in Wyoming he made long journeys from the post, as he had leisure, in search of fossils, and was fortunate in discovering the remains of many extinct ani- mals, which he sent to Professor Leidy, and which are now in the Cabinet of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. He is still pursuing these scientific explorations. He has been married at his Western home to Ada, daughter of Judge William Carter, of that Territory.
The third child was Caroline, born April 2d, 1839, and who died of consumption after having received a superior education.
The fourth is Tacie Foulke, intermarried with William L. Cres- son, of Norristown. They have four children, Carrie, James, Nancy Corson, and Mary Leedom.
Charles Follen, the fifth child, was entered and graduated at the University of Pennsylvania, after which he studied law under Wil- liam Henry Rawle, of Philadelphia, and since that time has been actively engaged in his profession in that city. For some years he has been a member of the law firm of Goforth & Corson. He was married in 1876 to Mary, daughter of Lewis A. Lukens, of Consho- hocken.
The sixth child is Susan F., married to Jawood Lukens, of the firm of Alan Wood & Co., iron manufacturers, Conshohocken.
The seventh is Bertha, married to James Yocom, of Philadelphia. They have four children, Fannie, Thomas, Bertha, and Georgianna.
The eighth is Frances Stockton, married to Richard Day, of the firm of Day Brothers, Philadelphia. They have one child, Bertha Corson.
The youngest child is Mary, who resides with her parents at Maple Hill.
Dr. Hiram Corson's long life and prosperous career teach this lesson above all others that a bold and fearless advocacy of truth, and an adherence to it in the face of opposition and dissent, will al- ways pay, morally and pecuniarily.
358
WILLIAM W. TAYLOR.
WILLIAM W. TAYLOR.
The man is thought a knave or fool, Or zealot plotting crimes, Who for the welfare of his race Is bluntly 'gainst his times.
For him the hemlock shall distill, For him the axe be bared .- Anonymous.
And if the person who assumes the role of reformer happens to be himself somewhat impulsive, self-willed, and bluntly outspoken, just because he cannot help it, he is sure to encounter the dissent, if not the maledictions of quiet, serene-minded people, who "attend to their own affairs" and let the world wag as it pleases, even if a fourth of mankind should turn cannibals and commence eating the rest of us-providing always that they are not in the class to be devoured.
Such is life, and such ordinary human nature. "But wisdom," says the great Book, "is justified of her children." Hot-blooded, earnest, outspoken people, are always misunderstood by the oppo- site class. Hence the former, who see the world upside down, and often perceive reputable christian people sustaining by their voice and example such hoary abuses as slavery and intemperance, or wasting health and money upon hurtful practices like using tobacco or buying chances, thus falling into dangerous ways that more reso- lute people contemn, resist and overcome; if such contemners are bold, outspoken, and perhaps a little hasty and intemperate in speech, there is always a disturbance following somewhere, and the caviler and fault-finder must look well to his glass house, if he live in one. Milton said, "Let truth and falsehood grapple. Who ever knew the right put to the worse in a fair and open encounter ?"
A world without these two needful classes would not be in a health- ful condition, for the God-man who dispensed the new law says: "I came not to bring peace, but a sword." The headstrong, positive man, who assumes the role of reformer, must expect to be dead at least a decade before his neighbors will understand him or do him justice. His efforts must be weighed at their true value, his own imperfections and over-zeal forgotten, and then he has his reward. Then it is seen, as the phrenologist and philosopher always per- ceive, that being so constituted he could not well have been other than he was.
William Windle Taylor, of Freeland, the son of Levi and Sarah Taylor, was born in East Marlborough township, Chester county,
359
WILLIAM W. TAYLOR.
on the 10th of May, 1811. The Taylor family is doubtless of Eng- lish origin, and Quakers, who came over with Penn or shortly after he commenced the settlement of our State, as early records inform us that John Taylor was a surveyor and very influential man, and one or two of that name were members of the colonial Assembly. The usual christian names of the family are John, Stephen, Moses, and Caleb. Our subject's paternal grandparents were John and Di- nah Taylor, of Chester county. Probably Moses Taylor, the great shipping merchant of New York, and the Southern family from whom General Zachary Taylor sprang, are descended from the same family head.
His mother was a daughter of William Windle, a family distin- guished for great energy and positiveness. This Windle was a grandson of Isaac Jackson, who came from Wales and settled in West Grove, Chester county, on the 25th of August, 1725, from whom are sprung the numerous and respectable family of that name in Chester county, and from whom also possibly came the Southern family who are the ancestors of "Stonewall" Jackson of rebel fame. In 1875 Mr. Taylor and family received an invitation to attend a picnic in commemoration of the sesqui-centennial settlement of Isaac Jackson at the old homestead, at Harmony Grove, now owned by Everard and Mary Jackson Conard, who are descendants.
In 1816 the parents of Mr. Taylor moved to Hokesson, Delaware, where he obtained about three months' schooling in a year, till 1828, when he was apprenticed to William Moore, of New Garden, to learn the trade of a carpenter, with whom he served three and a half years, receiving annually a month's additional schooling. In the fall of 1831 he went to West Chester to work at his trade, and while there, in 1832, met, with the writer, a number of others in the court house, and formed one of the earliest temperance societies of that locality. From that time to the present he has been an earnest and active advocate of temperance and prohibition. In the autumn of 1832 he went to Philadelphia to work, and in the spring of 1833 to Doylestown, helping to build the bank and other im- provements there. In the fall of 1834 he left there to teach a school at Goshen Meeting, in Goshen township, Chester county. In the spring of 1835 he removed to Lumberville, now called Port Provi- dence, to work at his trade again, and on the 24th of December following was married to Sarah, daughter of the elder Benjamin and Mary Cox, of Upper Providence. In the spring of 1836 he set up the business of a master carpenter, and commenced housekeeping
360
WILLIAM W. TAYLOR.
in Phoenixville. There he built the old railroad depot, and coal- houses for the first smelting furnace, as also an addition to Kimber- ton boarding school.
While yet working in Phoenixville he made the acquaintance of Isaac Price, Elijah F. Pennypacker, and others of like spirit, and at Friends' meeting house formed the Schuylkill Anti-Slavery So- ciety. Ever since, till slavery was abolished. by proclamation, he- has been an unsleeping Abolitionist, loving and advocating the cause of the slave when it could only bring him reproach and con- tumely. Being in the line of the famous " underground railroad," he helped many a fleeing fugitive to Canada. This was subsequent to 1840, when he had moved to a farm originally owned by his father-in-law, a mile east of Providence Friends' meeting house, on which place he continued to farm and attend Philadelphia markets. till 1870, when he rented the place and quit business. Finally, owing to ill health of himself and wife, he sold the farm and removed. to Freeland, where he now resides.
He gives the following among many incidents connected with his. obedience to the higher instead of the lower law while he was a con- ductor on the "underground " : Once a young slave and his wife, who had fled the "patriarchal institution" down South, were sent to his care. Seeing at a glance that it was a case that required prompt action, he conveyed them without delay to the next station, and they to a third, when the woman declared her inability to go further. Here she was provided with a bed and other comforts in the loft of a spring-house, where a male child was born, and which the parents insisted on naming for their benefactor. After a short stay they passed on to Canada. "Another party I parted with at break of day," said he, "after a long drive, when the poor slave- grasped me with his horny hand, and while tears ran down his fur- rowed cheeks, exclaimed, 'God bless you, massa !' At a moment like this," he adds, "gold and silver seem but dross compared with. such gratitude."
William W. and Sarah Taylor have had three children, Mary, Harriet, and Clarkson. The first and last died in childhood. Har- riet is intermarried with Marcellus Rambo, and lives in Schuylkill, Chester county.
Mr. Taylor was bred among Friends, but recently joined the Mennonite or Trinity Christian Church of Freeland, of which Mr. Hendricks is pastor. He has been a life-long abstainer from to- bacco, and also regarded as a man of public spirit and good business-
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.