USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Lives of the eminent dead and biographical notices of prominent living citizens of Montgomery County, Pa. > Part 50
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On the accession of Abraham Lincoln to the Presidency, Mr. Iredell was in 1861 appointed postmaster at Norristown, which post he held during Lincoln's term. He was reappointed by Andrew Johnson, but subsequently superceded by him in 1866, when the latter began to "swing around the circle." On the election of U. S. Grant, in 1868, Mr. I. was reappointed in the May following, and on the President's re-election still once more nominated and confirmed, which was done for the fifth time in 1877. He has thus held the Norristown post office at the hands of four Presidents, and during a period of eighteen years, with a short interregnum in 1866-69 under Johnson. He still fills it with great public acceptance. Being an affable, obliging man, with much suavity of demeanor, and having in Mr. William Acker a most efficient deputy, the people have never been better served than during his protracted term.
In 1832, in his twenty-third year, Robert Iredell married Teressa, daughter of Charles Jones, then of Norristown. They had four children who arrived at maturity. The eldest, Charles Jones Iredell, learned printing in his father's office, and on the breaking out of the rebellion entered the Fourth Regiment. Upon the expiration of its three months' service he was one of the four members who took part in the first battle of Bull Run. Subsequently he entered the Fifty-first Regiment under Colo- nel Hartranft, receiving the appointment of Sergeant Major. On the 13th of August, 1862, while going from Fortress Monroe to rejoin his regiment, he was lost on the ill fated steamer West Point, which was run down by the George Peabody, on the Potomac. Of this melancholy occurrence, Major Schall, in a letter from the army at the time, pays the following merited tribute to his memory :
"Among the number lost was our Sergeant Major, C. Jones Ire- dell. When the news of his death was made known we could hardly believe it. And as we walked through the camp we could hear his name on the lips of every soldier. Every one knew him, and every
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ROBERT IREDELL, ESQ.
one loved him. We can well remember him on the morning we left Newport News. Reluctantly, very reluctantly, did he remain behind. It was the first time the regiment marched off without him, but he yielded to the will and bid of the Surgeon. As we bade him good-bye, we little thought it was the last time we would hear his voice and gaze on him alive. But so it proved. Death appears when least expected. The steamer was almost within a stone's throw of its destination, and when danger was least apprehended she was struck, and in a moment sank to the bottom. Our friend was asleep at the time, it is said, and thus unconscious of danger he sank into that sleep from which there is no waking. We can hardly realize his death. Had he fallen on the field of battle we would be more reconciled, for there he seemed rather to court than shun death. He was most earnestly devoted to the cause for which he has given his life. From the very moment of the outbreak of the rebellion he gave his services to his country, and on the fields of Bull Run, Roa- noke, Newbern and Camden, bravely did a soldier's duty. He pos- sessed talents of a high order. His beautiful letters to the Herald and Free Press were perused with intense interest."
Their fourth son, James W. Iredell, Jr., was also a soldier in the Fifty-first Regiment until transferred to a clerkship in the commissary department at Newbern and Beaufort, North Carolina. He subsequently rejoined his regiment in the Army of the Potomac, and soon thereafter was appointed chief clerk in the Commissary department of the Ninth Army Corps, under General Burnside, where he remained till the close of the war. He is now in business in Cincinnati.
Their fifth son is Robert Iredell, Jr., who also learned print- ing, and for a time, as has been stated, was associated with M. R. Wills, Esq., in the publication of the Herald and Free Press In 1869 he purchased the Lehigh Register of Allentown, and soon after founded the Daily Chronicle, subsequently purchas- ing and joining to it the News, both of which papers he con- tinues to issue at the present time with gratifying success. In 1877 he was appointed postmaster of the city of Allentown, which position he still holds.
Their youngest child is Phebe J. Iredell, who resides with her father.
The mother of these children died on the 12th of June, 1868.
535
HON. BENJAMIN MARKLEY BOYER.
HON. BENJAMIN MARKLEY BOYER.
Willing to support the just measures of government, but determined to observe the conduet of the minister with suspicion .- Junius' Letters.
The Boyer family, scattered over Montgomery, Berks, and adjoining counties, is doubtless of German origin. Its remote branches no longer recognize a blood relationship, though all are assuredly sprung from a common ancestry.
B. Markley Boyer is the only son and child of General Philip Boyer, and was born in New Hanover township, Montgomery county, on the 22d of January, 1823. His father was an of- ficer during the war of 1812-14, and was Sheriff from 1822 to 1828. He lived at Pottstown, where his son obtained his rudi- mentary schooling, and where the old gentleman died in 1840. The maternal grandfather, Hon. Benjamin Markley, was elected to the lower house of Assembly for the years 1789-90, and appointed Associate Judge of the courts of our county in 1791. The subject of our notice is named for him.
When of proper age he was sent to Lafayette College, Eas- ton, but finished his studies and graduated at the University of . Pennsylvania. After that time he pursued legal studies at Carlisle under the late Judge Reed, and was there admitted to the bar. He returned to his native county, opened an office, and soon attained a respectable practice. Not long after he married Eleanor L., daughter of Dr. Mathew Pryor, of New Jersey. But two children of this union, a son and a daughter, reached maturity. Helen, the daughter, an amiable and gifted young lady, rapidly declined into an incurable consumption, and died, greatly lamented, in the autumn of 1877, in the twenty- fifth year of her age. The son, Henry C., has lately graduated as a lawyer from his father's office, and been admitted to prac- tice in our courts.
We return to the early career of the subject of this notice. In 1848, when but recently admitted, he was appointed Deputy Attorney General for Montgomery county, which office he filled with great ability for two years. This brought him prominently into notice, and he was soon extensively engaged in causes in
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HON. BENJAMIN MARKLEY BOYER.
the Common Pleas. Possessing an acute and critical cast of mind, he was not long in reaching the front rank of attorneys, a position he holds to the present day. His father had been a Whig up to the time of his death, and Mr. Boyer, for several years after his settlement in Norristown, acted with that party. When, by the drift of events, however, the Whig party dis- solved, and the Republican took its place, Mr. B. did not fully coincide with its aims, and just before the election of James Buchanan, in 1856, he fell into the Democratic ranks, voting for that distinguished man, although subsequently not approv- ing of all the acts of his administration. From that time till 1864, when he was nominated for Congress by the Democracy, he acted uniformly with that party, as he has ever since. He was elected without difficulty in the strong district in which our county then was, and re-elected in 1866. He was con- sidered an industrious member at Washington, and, as we hap- pen to know, very efficient in assisting his constituents or fur- thering their business with the departments in that city. He made several strong speeches against the reconstructive policy of the Republicans as applied to the late revolted States.
Notwithstanding, however, his identification with moderate Democrats before and since the war, he took the Northern side of the split of that party in 1860, strongly espousing the can- didacy of Judge Douglas. With a view to this he assisted in establishing the National Democrat, an anti-Breckinridge organ, which was started in Norristown for the campaign, and of which he was the actual though not the nominal editor.
While the war progressed, and when Lee invaded Pennsyl- vania in 1862 and 1863, Mr. Boyer joined the "emergency men" who marched to the border to repel them. On both occasions he raised a company and was chosen Captain, the last of which served nearly two months, till the danger had passed. Mr. B. has been an active politician for a number of years, generally on the lead, but of late has taken little active part in local politics.
As a writer Mr. Boyer is clear, refined, forcible, and incisive, rarely wasting ammunition in a fight. We have adverted to his power in this respect in the life of Rev. Samuel Aaron, with
537
PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
whom he held a tournament some years ago in the Norristown Herald. As an orator in court or on the stump he is distin- guished by great fluency and elegance of diction, a quick, energetic and pointed speaker, always addressing himself to the matter in hand. While occupying the floor of Congress he was without doubt the most ready and efficient debater that for many years past has been sent to that body from our district. His mental characteristics may be expressed in three words, directness, quickness, and energy.
In 1876 Mr. Boyer was appointed by Governor Hartranft one of the eleven gentlemen composing the municipal com- mission authorized to devise and report to the Legislature a plan for the better government of cities, who made their report to that body in December, 1877, and which is an exhaustive printed document, covering two hundred and sixteen pages.
Mr. Boyer made a number of elaborate speeches in Con- gress, among which may be mentioned that on the admission of Alabama, the impeachment of the President, public expendi- tures, the New Orleans riots, and many other passes at arms, but the above attracted the most marked attention.
PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
We spent them not in toys, in lusts or wine, But search of deep philosophy .- Cowley.
Thaddeus S. C. Lowe, of Norristown, the distinguished aero- naut and scientific inventor, was born August 20th, 1832, at Jefferson, New Hampshire, and is the son of Clovis and Alpha Greene Lowe, of that town. His mother was a daughter of Thomas Greene, and on both sides the ancestry claims to be of the early Pilgrims who came from England in the sixteenth century. Mr. Lowe enjoyed only common school instruction in early life, but soon found himself drawn as by an irresistible force to chemistry, natural philosophy, and kindred studies. At a very carly age, therefore, he turned his attention to aero- statics and ballooning as a specialty. When a young man he
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PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
studied medicine, but did not graduate or go into practice, ex- perimenting instead in chemical and scientific matters for sev- eral years, till 1855. In that year, while residing in New York, he was married to Miss Leontine Gachon, who had been born and educated in Paris, France. Very soon after, in 1857, he went into ballooning, and made numerous ascensions in differ- ent parts of the country. In 1860 he came to Philadelphia, and after making several successful ascents there with a mon- ster balloon that would lift ten tons, became satisfied from fre- quent observations that there is a nearly uniform upper air cur- rent constantly passing to the east, and he conceived the pro- ject of constructing a balloon or air-ship of sufficient capacity to test the theory.
He communicated his views to numerous scientific gentle- men of Philadelphia, who fully enlisted in the possible enter- prise of crossing the ocean to Europe in a few days or hours. These gentlemen, including Messrs. Morris, Fisher, Steward- son, Morton McMichael, G. W. Childs, and others, gave him a letter of recommendation to Professor Henry, of the Smith- sonian Institute. This was in December, 1860. Without re- commending an outlay by the institute for the purpose of test- ing the theory, Professor Henry endorsed it by saying that "it has been fully established by continuous observations collected at this institute for ten years from every part of the United States, that as a general rule all of the meteorological phe- nomena advance from west to east, and that the higher clouds always move eastwardly."
After holding several consultations with Professor H. thereon, Professor Lowe was advised to first try an inland voyage from a Western city. Accordingly he took his small balloon, which was but of moderate dimensions, to Cincinnati, Ohio, and on the 20th of April, 1861, about the time of the breaking out of the rebellion, made his experimental trip. This ascent was one of the most successful on record, his ascension occurring at four o'clock in the morning, some time before daylight. He passed over that city, observing the stars above and the lights beneath, which gave the idea of floating between opposite starry spheres. He was soon eight thousand feet high, with the ther-
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539
PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
mometer at 13º. As he passed over Virginia, feeling a curi- osity to know his whereabouts, he descended near enough to ask some men in a field, who, not seeing him or knowing from where the voice had proceeded, answered in extreme terror, "Virginia!" Soon after he rose to the prodigious height of twenty-two thousand feet, and into a temperature of 10° below zero. Descending a short time after, he saw the ocean in the distance, and proceeded to land, which he did in Spartansburg, South Carolina, where the negroes and ignorant poor whites were much terrified by the sudden appearance of what they .called the "hellish contrivance." He landed at one o'clock in the afternoon, thus floating twelve hundred miles in about nine hours. The Professor, in his narrative of the landing, says: "I soon noticed some heads peeping around a log hut near by, in which there seemed to be people in great distress. I in- quired what the matter was in the house, and was told that several old persons were praying, as they thought the day of judgment had come. I then asked if there were any white men about, and was informed that they had gone for their guns." In summing up the result of his trip, Professor Lowe expressed the opinion that only the want of a balloon of sufficient size to rise out of the influence of mountain currents prevented his moving due east, as he designed.
Soon after this experimental trip, the chivalry, after a full examination, having permitted the Professor to come North, he proceeded to offer his services to the government at Wash- ington, in which he was assisted and encouraged by Professor Henry, Captain Whipple, and other officers.
On the 21st of June, 1861, Professor Henry recommended him to Secretary Cameron, and on the 26th Captain Whipple, of the topographical engineers, informed him that the bureau had concluded to employ the balloon for military purposes. The Professor made numerous experimental trips from the grounds of the Smithsonian Institute, and during one of them forwarded a telegram to President Lincoln through a wire ex- tending to the balloon. Owing to the government treating also with Professor Wise, a contract was not reached until about the time of the first battle of Bull Run. On the 24th of
.
540
PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
July Professor' L. made an ascension at Washington, and put- at rest a report that the enemy were advancing on that city. At last, on the 2d of August, he was authorized by Captain Whipple to construct a balloon at the expense of government, and during that month and the following autumn frequent as- censions were made, revealing much valuable information of" the movements of the enemy.
His practice at first was to inflate the balloon at the gas works in Washington, bear it across the river, and ascend while still attached to guy-ropes. Later he invented apparatus whereby he extracted the necessary hydrogen gas from any pool of water nearest at hand. During his operations near that city,. Generals McDowell, Heintzelman, and others, ascended with him, and safely returned. Professor Lowe continued with the army through 1862 and 1863, rendering valuable services, as acknowledged by Generals Stoneman, Sedgwick, and McClel- lan. General Heintzelman, in Lowe's balloon, was the first to. discover the evacuation of Yorktown by the rebels in 1862,. and during the whole time of the battle of Fair Oaks, Profes- sor Lowe, in his balloon at a height of two thousand feet, over- looked the fight and reported by telegraph. In addition to Professor L.'s operations with the Army of the Potomac, he made ascensions near Island No. 10 on the Mississippi and near Fort Wagner in South Carolina.
On the 26th of May, 1863, Professor Lowe made a full re -- port of his operations in connection with the army, covering a large amount of correspondence with army officials and scien- tific men, proving conclusively that he had rendered the gov- ernment important aid.
Finding that ballooning was uncertain in its returns and un- satisfactory on other accounts, Professor Lowe left Philadel- phia in 1863, where he had been residing, and moved to Ches- ter county, near Phoenixville. About this time he announced his celebrated ice-making process, now largely in use in warm climates, and also organized a refrigerating steamship company for the preservation and transportation of meats, fruits, and the like. From the experiments then made has since grown an ex -. tensive business both on land and water.
541
PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
After experimenting for a time in the manufacture of gases from petroleum, he brought out his invention of illuminating gas. When the process was patented he introduced it in Phœ- nixville, Conshohocken, Baltimore, Lancaster, Harrisburg, In- dianapolis, and many towns in New York and Canada. Up to this time over thirty cities and towns, aggregating at least a population of one million, are lighted by his process, which ap- pears destined to supercede all the former methods of artificial lighting. It has even been put in operation in France, Sweden, England, and elsewhere. Professor Lowe has also discovered a process of decomposing water in the manufacture of non- illuminating or heating gas, which is perfectly under control, and yet as to the caloric produced, exhibits an immense gain in cost over the use of coal alone.
During the Brazilian war with Paraguay, the Emperor of Brazil, through his minister, purchased his system of aero- nautics, with a complete outfit, which was greatly instrumental in bringing that war to an early close, owing to the accurate information given of the location of the enemy. Later the same system was adopted by the English and French governments, and is now a part of their army equipments.
In 1871 Professor Lowe purchased a dwelling on Main street, in the upper part of Norristown, which he has fitted up in munificent style and taste, and where he resides. It is lighted by gas of his own manufacture on the ground, and by the use ·of his own invented works. In 1875 he organized in the bor- ough of Norristown the People's Fuel and Gas-Light Company. Works were erected at DeKalb and Washington streets for the manufacture of heating and illuminating gas, and in the pro- cess to also burn lime as a means of utilizing the waste heat. Owing to the hard times, however, the enterprise, after obtain- ing a charter, and laying a number of pipes, was disbanded. In 1878 Professor L. took the extensive coal and ice establish- ment erected by George Zinnel, in the lower part of Norris- town, which he has fitted up, and has now therein large experi- mental gas works in operation, where he exhibits his various patent processes to visitors from abroad, and where he has con- siderable facilities for the manufacture of the machinery and fix-
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PROF. T. S. C. LOWE.
tures needful to produce his heating and illuminating gases ..
Like Fitch, Morse, and other theoretical inventors, Profes -- sor Lowe has had to encounter the usual amount of derision and opposition to the progress of his discoveries, and, also like- them, expended his own money in experimenting before ask- ing assistance from friends. He is a man of thought and in -- genuity, pushing his investigations in nearly every direction connected with chemistry and hydrostatics. The audience room formerly called Zinnel's Hall he has furnished as a lec- ture room and laboratory, where, with the aid of his scientific' apparatus, he explains his inventions to scientists from abroad: Like most other inventors, he is perhaps undervalued and mis- apprehended by unthinking people. Had he invented a pro- cess of turning water into wine-or whiskey-as he has of con- verting the first substance into hydrogen, and was living idly, enjoying a large fortune acquired thereby, he would be very popular and voted an unbounded success, the prevailing idea being that the genuine is only that which secures "a pile." Pro- fessor Lowe's pecuniary success, however, is quite flattering, he receiving a royalty for the use of his gas works established at many places. He has little more than reached middle life, and it is warrantable to suppose that his speculative and fertile mind will grasp and produce other valuable inventions. He has al- ready made a number of ingenious cooking and heating, con -- trivances for using his heating gas, the right of which he holds; for the protection of his business.
Professor Lowe is eminently a domestic man, having a large· family of children, whose names are as follows: Louisa F., Ida: Alpha, Leon Percival, Ava Eugenie, Augustine, Blanche, .. Thaddeus, Edna, Zoe, and Sobieski. The three eldest werc: born in New York.
543
THE WILLS FAMILY.
THE WILLS FAMILY.
MICHAEL WILLS.
Every man is the architect of his own fortune.
Authentic information of the Wills family is in possession of some of its elder branches, dating back before the middle of the- last century, now over a hundred and fifty years ago. The tra- dition is-correspondent with the orthography of the name -. that it is of English origin, though the earliest known progeni- tor, whose name stands above, came from Rathdrum, county Wicklow, Ireland, in 1728, whither they probably went, as did: also many others, during the Revolution of 1688, in or after the English army. This Michael Wills, as we learn by letters that have descended in the family, came over with the Mathers, and on the voyage, or shortly after, his son, then nineteen, formed' the acquaintance of Jane Mather, who was ten years his junior, whom he afterwards married. These letters further show that. Michael Wills left very respectable parentage and other rela- tives in Ireland, some of whom lived to very great age .*
These and other facts were collected and written in 1870 by Allen Wills, of Downingtown, Chester county, a great-grand- son of Michael. Of this correspondence it may be stated that a letter, written in Ireland by William Peters, addressed to Michael Wills, the emigrant's son, and probably in behalf of his grandfather when too old to write it himself, bore date of August 22d, 1743, at which time the recipient was thirty-four years of age. The grandfather must have been of extreme old. age at that time.
Michael Wills, the elder, evidently settled in Lower Merion township, Montgomery county, as appears by a will dated 1748, devising personal property to heirs in that locality.
Michael Wills, the second, had three sons and three daugh- ters. The names of the former were Jeremiah, Michael, and John. The first of the sisters married Michael Mather, the:
*It is highly probable that they were English colonists there, as it is a well known act that the English government in Cromwell's time, and earlier, sequestered immense traets of land in the island, and sold them to English settlers, who have held them ever since.
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THE WILLS FAMILY.
second Jacob Whiteman, and the last John Mather. Michael Wills, the elder, was an easy, kindly sort of man, but his wife was a woman of great thrift and energy. He died in 1794 at the age of eighty-six, and his widow survived him ten years. They are both buried at Radnor.
Michael Wills, Jr., born in 1755, grandson of Michael the emi- grant, married Ann, daughter of Andrew and Elizabeth Key- ser Wood, who were both of German descent. The acquaint- ance of Michael Wills and his wife resulted from the former breaking down on his way to market, and calling on Mr. Wood for assistance. Of these parents were born fourteen children, nine of whom grew to maturity, as follows: Elizabeth, Andrew, Jane, William and Mary (twins), Ann, Allen, Rebecca, and Sa- rah. Five others died in infancy. Michael Wills died Janu- ary 15th, 1829, and his widow April 29th, 1832.
The maternal grandparents, Wood, above recorded, owned a valuable estate in Roxborough, Philadelphia. The house where they resided is still standing by the turnpike road, be- tween the six and seven-mile stones.
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