USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Lives of the eminent dead and biographical notices of prominent living citizens of Montgomery County, Pa. > Part 42
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James Grier Ralston was born in West Nantmeal township, Chester county, Pennsylvania, on the 28th of December, 1815 From his earliest childhood he was trained to habits of indus- try and economy, and carefully instructed in the doctrines of christianity, as taught in the Confession of Faith and Catechism of the Presbyterian Church. His father, Samuel Ralston, a farmer of moderate means, was a man of strong common sense, and of decided views on any question upon which he formed an opinion. He was an elder in the Presbyterian Church, as were his two brothers, James and Robert. His only other brother, John, was educated for the ministry, but died soon after he was licensed to preach. Samuel, the father of our subject, inherited an intense patriotism from a long line of ancestors and directly from his father, John Ralston, who also took an active part in our Revolutionary struggle, and who was a delegate to the convention that met in 1774, to consult for the common welfare of the colonies. He was also for several years a member of the Provincial Council of Penn- -sylvania. His family came from Scotland.
The great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, by his mother's side, was from the north of Ireland. Two of the sons of the latter, Rev. Nathan and Rev. James Grier, were promi- ment Presbyterian ministers. Another son, Joseph Grier, did service as Colonel in the war of 1812. His maternal grand- father, John Grier, was a farmer of large means, and much re- spected as a man of sterling integrity and spotless life. He had a large family. One of his sons, Rev. John H. Grier, was a Presbyterian minister also, and another, Dr. Joseph F. Grier, a physician, while one of his daughters, Nancy H. Grier, be- came the wife of Samuel Ralston, April 30th, 1811. They had a family of five sons and five daughters; of these ten chil- dren, James Grier Ralston was the third. No events of un- usual interest characterized his childhood, except such as are
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JAMES GRIER RALSTON, D. D., LL.D.
included in a somewhat extended list of hair-breadth escapes from imminent danger, to which he seems to have been fre- quently exposed. He was early sent to school and received his primary education in a log school house, on the site of which the West Nantmeal Seminary now stands. At the age of sixteen he entered New London Academy, Chester county, Pennsylvania, where he remained for about one year, when the school was permanently closed. He was then sent to Hope- well Academy, in the same county, where he continued his studies until he was admitted to Washington College in the autumn of 1833. After some interruption from failing health, he completed the regular college course, and was graduated September 26th, 1838. In November, of the same year, he entered upon the duties of a teacher in Grove Academy, at Steubenville, Ohio, of which Rev. John W. Scott, D. D., was prin- cipal and proprietor. Here he remained eighteen months. During the last year of this period he spent half of each day in the class-room, and the remaining half in the study of the- ology, under the direction of Rev. Dr. Scott. At this time he was under the care of the Presbytery of Washington, Penn- sylvania.
On the 16th of June, 1840, he entered the Theological Sem- inary, at Princeton, New Jersey, and completed his studies for the ministry. On leaving Steubenville, he was transferred to the care of the Presbytery of New Castle, Delaware, by which he was licensed to preach the gospel at a meeting held April 14th, 1841, at the Grove Church, Lancaster county, Pennsylvania. Soon after this he accepted a mission to the Winnebago Indians, then on their reservation in Iowa, and left home for that post June 7th, 1841. On the way thither he was seized with a violent hemorrhage of the lungs, and ad- vised to abandon the appointed work to which he had looked forward with great interest.
After so far recovering as to be able to preach, he was in- vited to supply the church, at Florence, in the bounds of the Washington Presbytery. This invitation he accepted, on con- dition that he should not be required to preach oftener than once a week. This arrangement proved to be of great advan-
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JAMES GRIER RALSTON, D. D., LL.D.
tage to his general health, which, by moderate exercise and the kindness of the people, was greatly improved. He retains many pleasant memories of his brief connection with that con- gregation.
Before his engagement with them ended, another door of usefulness was unexpectedly opened, which he felt constrained to enter. He was urged to take charge of the Female Semi- nary at Oxford, Chester county, Pennsylvania, and as soon as his term of service at Florence expired, he repaired to the former place, and in October, 1841, the school was re-opened with encouraging prospects.
He was married at Steubenville, Ohio, April 11th, 1842, to Miss Mary A. Larimore, to whom, under God, he ascribes much of his success in his subsequent educational work. Her thorough knowledge of household duties, patient industry, and judicious economy in the administration of domestic af- fairs, her clear convictions of right and conscientious adherence to them, together with her wisdom in counsel and promptness in action, constitute her pre-eminently a "help-meet" for her husband in his responsible work.
He spent four years at Oxford as Principal of the Seminary, and then removed to Norristown, Pennsylvania, where he es- tablished Oakland Female Institute.
With the strong conviction that his life-work lay in the school-room, he embarked all his resources of every kind in this enterprise, and entered upon his calling with all the ener- gy that is begotten of earnestness and deep moral responsibil- ity. On the 29th of October, 1845, the Institution was opened with four pupils. It soon began to grow, and continued to enlarge until it became necessary, before the close of the sec- ond term, to provide more room. To meet the increasing de- mand for room, temporary accommodations were furnished until the buildings, after many years of providential favor, as- sumed their present stately proportions. The house is now two hundred and twenty-five feet long, forty-two feet wide, and four stories high, surmounted by an observatory, elevated one hundred feet from the first floor of the main building. This elegant structure contains about one hundred and fifty apart_
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JAMES GRIER RALSTON, D. D., LL.D.
ments, and affords accommodations for a school family of two hundred persons. Over twenty-five hundred young ladies have been educated in whole, or in part, at "Oakland." Its pupils have been drawn from every State in the Union, as well as from Canada, South America, Cuba, Great Britain, Germany, and Greece.
After twenty-nine years of assiduous labor, the failing health of Dr. and Mrs. Ralston made a respite from the cares and onerous duties of the school indispensable. Accordingly the doors of Oakland were closed June 16th, 1874, and so contin- ued until September 11th, 1877, when they were re-opened under the same management, and upon the same principles that had previously made the school a success.
Dr. Ralston was ordained as an evangelist, at a special meet- ing of the Presbytery of New Castle, held at the Forks of Brandywine Church on the 17th of December, 1845. Al- though he has never been settled over a church, he has done a large amount of ministerial work, and has generally been found in the pulpit of some church (often of other denomina- tions) on the Sabbath. He has always been a diligent student, and kept himself abreast with the progress of science and the questions of the age.
He received the degree of Master of Arts in regular course from Washington College. In 1865 that of Doctor of Laws was conferred upon him by Lafayette College, and in 1867 Doctor of Divinity was added to his academic honors by Washington and Jefferson College. He has long been active in church work.
For three years he was a member of the Board of Foreign Missions of the Presbyterian Church, and has been for sixteen years in the Board of Publication of the same, and during most of that period a member of its business committee. He occu- pies a prominent place in many of the benevolent societies, as: well as in the industrial enterprises of his town, county, and elsewhere, and yet has found time to make himself known in some departments of Natural Science. He is a member of several antiquarian and scientific associations, and learned so- cieties. He has given great attention to mineralogy, the na-
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JAMES GRIER RALSTON, D. D., LL.D.
ture of gems and precious stones, having extensive cabinets of minerals, gems, shells, coins and relics of the prehistoric ages, both of Europe and America. Oakland contains a very ex- tensive library as also valuable philosophical and scientific ap- paratus, and is therefore, perhaps, the best furnished female seminary in the State.
The seminary is provided with gas, hydrant water, bathing rooms, and also a building forty-one feet by thirty-two feet, three stories high, provided with all needful appliances and fix- tures for gymnastics and calisthenics, thus giving ladies the great desideratum during school terms of exercise in all weath- ers. The site of Oakland, elevated upon a plateau of table land, one hundred and fifty feet above the river, town and rail- road, with a magnificent view of all, including the bend of the river, which sweeps to the south just opposite, affording also charming vistas of valley landscapes beyond, all of which, with trees and shrubbery around, render it one of the most charm- ing spots for a school in Pennsylvania.
As a preacher, Dr. Ralston is distinguished by great direct- ness, point, and logical force, usually exhausting a text, and his style is lucid, terse, and free from marked peculiarities. As a recreation from grave studies and labor, he has a work-room, and having an aptness in the use of tools, is accustomed to exercise himself in mechanical labor, thus keeping the min- utiæ of a large establishment in order and repair, by what may be regarded as the eye and hand of a mechanic.
Dr. Ralston and wife have had four children, Anna L., Ella M., Lillie G., and Cara G., the third dying in infancy. The second, Ella M., is married to Hon. W. W. Flemming, and resides at Charlotte, North Carolina. The other two live with the parents, at Oakland.
453
WILLIAM M'DERMOTT.
WILLIAM McDERMOTT.
Life is real, life is earnest, And the grave is not its goal; Dust thou art, to dust returnest, Was not spoken of the soul .- Longfellow.
William McDermott, the Cashier of the First National Bank of Conshohocken, is the son of William and Mary McDermott, and was born in Upper Merion township, Montgomery county, on the Ist of September, 1825. He is the second son and youngest child of the family. An older brother, James, lives. in the West, and a sister, Mary, was intermarried with Samuel Griffith, of Norristown. She had two sons, Washington and James R. Griffith, both promising young men, who died in early manhood. The mother has also been dead many years.
Shortly before his father's death, which took place in 1838, under the inspiration of an address by Rev. Thomas P. Hunt, he brought forward his son William, then but a small boy, to sign the temperance pledge, which the latter did. He has ever since been active for temperance, and some years ago very use- ful, often writing on the subject in the weekly papers.
In 1839, when a boy of fourteen, he entered the employment of James Hagan as store assistant, where he continued until IS41, when Hagan quit business. In September, 1842, he be- came apprentice to the printing business in the office of the Norristown Herald, with Robert Iredell. Here he learned the whole routine of the art, from roller-boy up to working at the case, the latter of which he did beside the now Hon. Judge Butler, of the United States District Court, then joint editor with Mr. Iredell. From that time up to the present an unin- terrupted friendship has existed between the then boy and mas- ter (Robert Iredell).
The parents of William McDermott were of the Scotch Covenanter sect, who early taught him the rigid creed of the old Calvinists of Scotland. Consequently under the impulse of a revival in 1843, conducted by Rev. S. M. Gould, when eighteen years old he joined the First Presbyterian Church under the pastorate of that minister. He at once took an act-
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WILLIAM M'DERMOTT.
ive part in Sunday school and other church work, and after the division of the congregation into First and Central churches, adhering to the latter body, he was in 1855 elected Superin- tendent of its Sunday school, which position he held nearly twenty years. Shortly after he took charge of the school he was elected and ordained a ruling elder, which office he holds at the present time.
On Thanksgiving day, 1854, he was married to Elizabeth Campbell. The children of this union were Ida, who died at the age of three years, and Bertha, who lives with her father. William McDermott had the misfortune to lose his wife by a shocking accident, her dress taking fire on the 14th of Octo- ber, 1874, and from the effects of which she died a few hours after. His mother had died in 1852.
We go back and give the business incidents of his life in their order. In 1849, in connection with Daniel H. Neiman, he entered the office of the Montgomery Watchman, just estab- lished by Daniel Fry, Esq., and remained there till May, 1850, when he obtained the situation of book-keeper in the Bank of Montgomery County. He was soon promoted to the post of Teller, and held it uninterruptedly till 1873, when he accepted the office of Cashier of the First National Bank of Consho- hocken, which institution he helped to organize, and which place he still fills.
Mr. McDermott has been an intensely busy man all his life. While learning his trade, he was often writing for temperance papers or hunting news items for the Herald, and was proba- bly the first person in Norristown to furnish a weekly column of news gleanings, which he wrote over the signature of "Town Chips," and afterwards "Vidi." Between 1857 and 1862 he wrote weekly gatherings of town items for the Norristown Republican over the signature of "Excelsior." For many years also, and during the same period, he was writing once a week to the Pottstown Ledger over the signature of "Ink Drops." During the rebellion, in the absence of Mr. Schall in the army, he was mainly the resident editor of the National Defender, and later was for a period assistant editor of the Nor- ristown Independent. In addition to bank duties, he acted for
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DANIEL LONGAKER.
some time as Secretary of the Norristown Insurance and Water Company and of the Norristown Library Company, besides serving as Treasurer of the Mechanics' and another building association. He has also for several years discharged the duties of clerk of the church session, and occasionally attended Pres- bytery and Synod as a representative of the Central church. Since his removal to Conshohocken he was elected a school director, and has also filled the post of Superintendent of the Presbyterian Sunday school of that borough.
DANIEL LONGAKER.
Happiness does not eonsist in exemption from pain, labor, care, or business; for which reason it seldom answers the expectations of those who retire from their shops or counting-houses to enjoy the remainder of their days in leisure and tranquillity .- Paley.
Observant writers on business statistics affirm that of the whole number of men who engage in commercial pursuits- all expecting to get rich-not more than ten in a hundred suc- ceed; and that ninety per centum, more or less, fail of their main hope and purpose. This fact would indicate or teach that great wealth is not the normal condition of the human family; or, that if it be, the great mass of mankind have not the requisite qualifications to accomplish the main purpose of life-to secure it. Be these conjectures as they may, the nun- ber who press forward and reach distinction in this walk of life are not numerous. The subject of this notice, however, is one of those eminent few who have been the artificers of their own fortunes and reached the universally coveted goal. He is the son of Isaac and Catharine Longaker, of Lower Providence township, Montgomery county, and was born August 6th, 1813.
In 1840 Jacob T. Moore and John Boileau started a grocery in the old "Golden Ball" store-room, at the southeast corner of Main and DeKalb streets, Norristown. On the Ist of No- vember of that year, Daniel Longaker, then living in Plymouth township, purchased Mr. Boileau's interest in the same, and the business continued under the name and style of Moore &
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DANIEL LONGAKER.
Longaker. At this time, and till 1842, Mr. Longaker con- tinued to reside in Plymouth, some two miles from town. At that time he and his partner built two brick dwellings at the corner of DeKalb and Penn streets, the lots being the first pur- chase of the Samuel Sherwood property, so long covering the square lying between Penn and Airy and between DeKalb and Green streets. At this time Mr. L. removed his family to Nor- ristown.
The capital added and energy infused into the new firm by Mr. Longaker was soon exhibited in increased business, and a short time previous to 1847 the firm improved the Penn street front of the late Sherwood lot by building thereon six three- story brick dwellings, which at first were jointly owned by them. Mr. L. continues to hold his three, with two others since erected.
About this time Mr. Moore concluded to retire from the firm, and sold his interest to Jacob Childs. The business, with increased stock and facilities, was continued under the firm name of Longaker & Childs. In 1849 Mr. Longaker bought the corner store-house, which the firm had long occupied, em- bracing one hundred feet on Main street and the same on De- Kalb. On this partly vacant space he proceeded in 1852 to erect on Main street five three-story buildings, to be rented as stores. He also added a story to the corner grocery, which had previously been but two, thus finishing the whole row in uniform appearance. This was the first successful attempt to attract business on Main street below DeKalb. These stores were known for years as the "Union Buildings."
Shortly after this Mr. Childs withdrew to go into the iron business, and Mr. Longaker associated with him Richard Mark- ley and George W. Longaker, the latter his son. Having en- larged and refitted the store-house, and added oils, paints, var- nish, cement, hair, and other gross merchandise to the stock, he now pushed business with greater energy than ever before, under the new firm of Daniel Longaker & Co. This arrange- ment continued several years, Mr. L. doing the purchasing of goods. Having competent assistants in the store, he also de-
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DANIEL LONGAKER.
voted some attention to improving the lots he had purchased in different places.
In 1865 Mr. Markley concluded to retire from mercantile pursuits and go to farming, and so left the concern in the hands of Mr. Longaker and his son.
Very soon after coming to Norristown, Mr. L. began invest- ing his spare profits in our local corporations, such as the Nor- ristown Insurance and Water Company, Montgomery National Bank, and the gas company. He was also a stockholder in the DeKalb street bridge, Odd Fellows' Hall, and other pub- lic institutions. For years, he has accordingly been a director of the bank and of most of the corporation boards of the town.
On the 17th of March, 1873, Mr. Longaker and his son re- tired from the grocery business, after having himself followed it successfully and continuously for thirty-three years. At the same time he sold the corner grocery building, twenty-eight feet front on Main street, to Daniel M. Yost, who then occu- pied an adjoining store-room. It was used as a grocery until 1878, but has since been fitted up as a dry goods house by the new proprietor.
In closing this sketch we may remark that Mr. Longaker is a remarkable example of what industry, energy, frugality and shrewdness in dealing will accomplish in a life-time when em- ployed in a single direction. He inherited no capital with which to start, had a limited education, and not even the ad- vantages of a mercantile training, being bred a mechanic. But now, at little past middle life, he retires from business with more than a competence. We will not absurdly remark, as some do, that what Daniel Longaker has accomplished any man may, for all are not endowed or qualified for such increase.
In gathering material for these lives and sketches we have learned of a very eminent individual who inherited a fine farm, obtained by marriage fifty thousand dollars, was an industrious and moral man all his life, and yet through his own generosity and the faults of others died at old age penniless. Let the poor remember then that wealth does not in itself confer hap- piness, and the fortunate ones that their possessions are fleet- ing and uncertain.
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458
WILMER H. JOHNSON, ESQ.
WILMER H. JOHNSON, EsQ.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious* tongues. Be just and fear not .- Shakspeare.
Perhaps the highest achievement of life is a vantage posi- tion, whence a young man starts out on a future career of use- fulness. Such starting point may be gained by dint of inherent force of character, or reached by concurrent circumstances in- dependent of himself. A few men only have "greatness" or distinction "thrust upon them"; the vast majority win it for themselves. The subject of this notice is a young man of en- terprise and capacity, who has not accomplished very much in the past, to point to, but his present gives high promise of a future. He has his face set toward life to come, and not like many of the aged, looking back to withered hopes and blasted expectations, ready to write " Mara" on the door-post. To show that our subject has won a position, and that he worthily oc- cupies it, shall be the aim of this brief sketch. That he has had sufficient foresight, enterprise and patriotism to become a patron of the undertaking to place before the people, in book form, the "Lives of the Eminent Dead of Montgomery County," is of itself a proof that he has a mind that takes in the necessi- ties of the present and the future.
Wilmer H. Johnson, editor of the North Wales Record, is the son of Richard A. and Elizabeth H. Johnson, of Bucking- ham township, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where he was born March 16th, 1849. He traces his genealogy to Holland, the land of patient industry and sterling virtues; a people who have conquered the seas, and turned their angry waves into placid highways on which to float the commerce of Europe.
After enjoying common school education, he was placed in the Excelsior Normal Institute, at Carversville, then conducted by Rev. R. H. Hunsicker, of that county, where he attained a fair academic education, after which he entered an industrial college, usually called a printing office, this being the famous one in which the Bucks County Intelligencer is printed at Doylestown. As a matter of course, when graduated there, he was qualified for the battle of life. Having completed his
*In Shakspeare's day "envious" had almost the exact signification that malicious has now.
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WILMER H. JOHNSON, ESQ.
trade, like the first great printer of America, Franklin, he started for New York in the winter of 1868, and soon found himself sticking types on a New York daily. Shortly after, he ·turned his knowledge to account by procuring a situation as reporter for the New York Herald and Sun, and finally on the Brooklyn Times and Argus, for which he was working during the Beecher-Tilton trial, and Orange-Catholic riots of New York.
Having "seen the elephant," and marked the devious ways . of Gotham, the "exalted" standard of her journalism, and tar- ried until the Argus was laid to sleep in 1876, he turned his steps homeward and accepted a position to furnish Centennial notes for the Saturday Evening Post. He thus acquired con- siderable experience in journalism, and in 1877 went into part- nership with Harry C. Smith as joint editor and publisher of the. North Wales Record, a paper started about 1872 by Mil- ton Wood. After continuing a year, he purchased. Smith's in- terest, and continues to edit and publish a handsome, spirited, and well conducted sheet. Without being precisely neutral in politics, nor yet independent, it possesses enough of the latter quality to express either approval or reproof on political sub- jects without regard to party behests. Notwithstanding this high ground of journalism, the Republican sympathies of the editor are manifest on many occasions.
The distinguishing characteristics of the Record under its present management is its tendency to reform in matters of morals and social ethics, and its sleepless enterprise in catering for the instruction and domestic information of its readers. The editor's commentaries and strictures upon the fraternity are characterized by spice, vivacity, and freedom, showing that he understands the responsibilities as well as the amenities of the profession.
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