USA > Pennsylvania > Montgomery County > Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, a history, Volume II > Part 10
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
David Evans, son of Owen and Mary (Davis) Evans, was born Jan- uary 22, 1730, and inherited from his father the homestead upon which he lived until the time of his death, October 23, 1800. He married Anna, the great-granddaughter of John and Frances Brooke, and left issue : Sarah, who married James Garrett, and moved to Maryland; Mary, who married Amos Evans, of Limerick; Matthew and William, who died young ; and Owen, born October 27. 1767, who on March 20, 1792, mar- ried Rachel, great-great-granddaughter of John and Frances Brooke. and they had a son, Thomas Brooke, of further mention.
Thomas Brooke Evans, son of Owen and Rachel Evans, was born in Limerick, April 21, 1809. After receiving his education he became a teacher, subsequently learning the trade of tanning and afterwards establishing himself in that particular business. He was prominent in business affairs, was a justice of the peace from 1841 to 1861, and clerk of the county commissioners and for the board of poor directors for many years, being active and influential in the community until his death. He married, on November 9, 1834, Mary Ann, daughter of Daniel and Mary (Kendall) Schwenk, and to them were born eight children: Rob- ert Brooke, for many years justice of the peace in Limerick; Benjamin F .; Montgomery ; Zella, who died in infancy; Mary Elizabeth, wife of B. Frank Saylor, a resident of St. Louis; Charlotte, deceased ; Emma, wife of Garrett E. Brownback, of Linfield; and Montgomery, of further mention.
Montgomery Evans, son of Thomas Brooke and. Mary Ann (Schwenk) Evans, was born in Limerick, November 18, 1853. He was educated in the public schools of his native place and in select schools of Phoenixville, Spring City, and Norristown, subsequently graduating from Lafayette College in 1875 as valedictorian of his class and holding membership in Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and Phi Beta Kappa Society.
73
BIOGRAPHICAL
For two years afterwards he was principal of the public schools of Montrose, in Susquehanna county, but desirous of entering the legal fraternity he gave up teaching and studied law with Benjamin E. Chain, being admitted to the bar on November 30, 1878. For a number of years following Mr. Evans was a partner of Louis M. Childs, the firm name being Childs and Evans. Subsequently this partnership was dis- solved and he associated himself with Messrs. Holland and Dettra, the firm being Evans, Holland and Dettra, until Mr. Holland accepted an appointment as judge when the firm continued for a short time under the name of Evans and Dettra, or until another change was made and the present firm of Evans, High, Dettra and Swartz was organized, the members of which are recognized among the leading attorneys of Penn- sylvania and hold a foremost place in the ranks of corporation lawyers.
The career of Mr. Evans has been marked by continued success. He has a broad and comprehensive grasp of all questions that come before him and is particularly fitted for affairs requiring executive and admin- istrative ability. He is learned in the law and skilled in its application to the case at hand, making every client's cause his own and bringing to the discharge of his duties the results of careful study and observation. A Democrat in politics, but in no sense of the word an office seeker, he gives to the party of his choice the interest which is demanded of every good citizen. Mr. Evans is president of the Norristown Trust Company, the Norristown Insurance and Water Company, the Bridgeport Water Company, the West Norriton Water Company, and Providence Water Supply Company ; vice-president of the Citizens' Water Company, of Philadelphia; counsel for the Reading railroad, and numerous other corporations ; director of the Merion Lime and Stone Company, and many other organizations; has held the office of president of the Penn- sylvania Bankers' Association, and Pennsylvania Water Works Asso- ciation ; and professionally is affiliated with the Pennsylvania Bar Asso- ciation, the Montgomery County Bar Association, the American Bar Association, and the Lawyers' Club, of Philadelphia. He is a member of the Norristown, Ersine, and Plymouth Country clubs, of the Penn- sylvania Society of Sons of the Revolution, and Trans-Atlantic Society of America. Mr. Evans has been actively identified with the affairs of the local bar, being a member of the Board of Censors of Montgomery County Bar Association from its beginning and treasurer of Montgom- ery County Law Library Committee since 1885. For many years he has served on the Committee of Court Records, to supervise the filing, indexing and preserving of records in the various offices of the court house. He was chairman of a committee to formulate rules of court, governing the practice in the courts of the county. In religion Mr. Evans is a Presbyterian, and for many years has taken an active part in the activities of the Central Church of this denomination, having been superintendent of its Sunday school, clerk of sessions, a member of its board of trustees, and president of the trustees of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, North.
On November 31, 1886, Montgomery Evans was united in marriage
74
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
with Cara G. Ralston, daughter of Rev. James Grier and Mary A. Ral- ston, the former owner of Oakland Female Seminary. To Mr. and Mrs. Evans have been born three children: Dorothy ; Roger, deceased; and Montgomery (2).
GEORGE W. MILLER, M. D .- One of the well known men of the medical profession in Montgomery county is Dr. George W. Miller, of Norristown, whose office is located at No. 618 De Kalb street. Dr. Miller specializes in surgery and is well to the front in that branch of the profession. He has won the confidence of a very large clientele as well as of his professional associates, and as a member of the Montgom- ery County Hospital staff has rendered valuable service.
The Miller family is of Swedish ancestry, but the branch of the fam- ily to which Dr. Miller belongs has been in this country for several gen- erations. John W. Miller, grandfather of Dr. Miller, served under Admiral Farragut on the Mississippi river during the Civil War, and William Schrieber, his maternal grandfather, served in the Union army during that conflict.
George W. Miller was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, June 19, 1882, son of George W. and Emma (Schrieber) Miller. He received his early education in the public schools of that city and upon the comple- tion of his course in the Central High School there he entered Jefferson Medical College, in the same city, from which he was graduated in 1906 with the degree of Medical Doctor. After graduation he became an interne in the Charity Hospital, in Norristown, remaining there for a period of one year, at the end of which time he engaged in general prac- tice. In connection with his practice he became an instructor of anatomy in Jefferson Medical College, which position he has continued to fill for twelve years, also working in the surgical department of that college, and in the nose and throat department of the Pennsylvania Hos- pital. In 1922 he was appointed associate in applied anatomy at Temple University, Philadelphia.
On May 29, 1917, Dr. Miller enlisted for service in the World War and was assigned to the Medical Officers' Training Camp Benjamin Harrison, in Indiana, where he was commissioned a lieutenant. After six weeks of intensive training he was detailed to muster Company F, of the Pennsylvania National Guard, of Norristown, into Federal service. Upon the completion of that task he was detailed to instruct hospital corps men at Fort Ethan Allen, in Vermont, and from there was sent to Boston, after having been commissioned a captain, for special post- graduate work in the treatment of war-time fractures. When that course of study and practice was completed he was assigned to the surgical staff on duty at Camp Beauregard, Louisiana, and soon after taking up his duties there was made receiving officer and registrar at the base hospital. While on leave of absence granted for preparation for going overseas, he was called to Macon, Georgia, where he joined the outfit of Base Hospital No. 51, with which he went to France. Arriving in France in 1917, he remained with the same contingent through the period of
NicheHeckscher
75
BIOGRAPHICAL
his overseas service, as a member of surgical staffs and for a short time as chief of the medical department. He received his honorable dis- charge from service May 10, 1919, at Camp Dix, New Jersey, at which time he held the rank of major. Upon his return to this country he at once resumed his interrupted practice which he has continued to the present time (1922). Early in his professional career, in 1908, he had been appointed a member of the dispensary staff of Montgomery Hos- pital, in which capacity he has served for twelve years. About 1913 he was made chief of a three months' medical service in Montgomery County Hospital, and in 1920 he was made chief of a three months' sur- gical service in the same institution. He specializes in surgery and is recognized as one who stands high in that branch of the profession. He is a member of the American Medical Association, the Pennsylvania State Medical Society, and the Montgomery County Medical Society, of which he was president in 1921. Along with his large practice and his various professional connections Dr. Miller finds time for fraternal and club affiliations which are not connected with his profession. He is a member of Norristown Lodge, No. 620, Free and Accepted Masons; the Penn Club, of Philadelphia ; the Ersine Club, the Plymouth Country Club, the Norristown Club, and Aescalapian Club. In his religious affiliation Dr. Miller is a member of Old Swede's Christ Church, of Upper Merion, which he serves as a vestryman. He is also a member of the Young Men's Christian Association.
Dr. George W. Miller married, on September 10, 1910, Mary Emma Platt, daughter of Robert and Mary (Hall) Platt, of English ancestry. Dr. and Mrs. Miller are the parents of two children: Mary Jane, born July 10, 1911 ; and George W. (3), born June 28, 1914.
LEDYARD HECKSCHER-Among the eminently successful busi- ness men of Montgomery county is Ledyard Heckscher, vice-president of the Alan Wood Iron and Steel Company, and president of the Rainey- Wood Coke Company, who with Stevens Heckscher and Gustave Heck- scher, represents the Heckscher interests in the directorate of the Alan Wood Iron and Steel Company.
The Heckscher family has been identified with the development and transportation of anthracite coal mining enterprises in Pennsylvania since the middle of the nineteenth century when Richard Heckscher, father of Ledyard Heckscher, came to this county. He was born in Hamburg, Germany, in 1822, of distinguished parentage, and after serv- ing in banking houses in Hamburg and Germany, came to America in 1842, a young man twenty years of age. While yet a young man, he became an important factor in the development of the anthracite mines and the building of the roads of the State of Pennsylvania. In associa- tion with Charles A. Heckscher, of New York City, he became promi- nently identified with several important enterprises in this field, and was made president of the New York & Schuylkill Coal Company, and manager of the Forest Improvement Company, and as such he developed and operated numerous collieries at Heckscherville, Thomaston, Forest-
76
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
ville, Minersville, and other points. He operated a number of mines in Schuylkill county, and in company with August Heckscher and Jacob Glover was active in the opening of the important Kohinoor Collieries, at Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Possessed of great energy and technical skill, he was able to introduce many improvements into anthracite coal mining methods, and to a great extent revolutionized the method of conducting these operations by the originality and perfection of his system and organization. After a time he was made president of the Lehigh Zinc Company, at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, and of the Richard Heckscher & Sons Company, operating blast furnaces at Swedeland, on the Schuylkill river, two miles below Norristown. This industry had been founded seven years after the arrival of Richard Heckscher in America (in 1849) by the firm of Potts & Jones, but had been purchased by Repplier & Lanigan, about the end of the Civil War period, at which time the capacity of the works was about six hundred tons of iron monthly. The plant was purchased in 1879 by the Reading Coal and Iron Company, and in 1886 was leased to the Heckschers, who, in 1891, bought it and greatly increased its output. Upon the occasion of the lighting of the fires in their new furnace No. 2, in January, 1892, Heckscher & Sons entertained a large company of distinguished guests. About two hundred men were carried upon the pay roll. The plant and the business con- tinued to grow, and in 1909, when the need of hot metal began to be keenly felt by the Alan Wood Iron and Steel Company, which was located on the other side of the river and had been incorporated Novem- ber 21, 1901, agreement was made for the consolidation of the two companies, which was legally consummated, December 1, 1911. In the meantime a railroad bridge was constructed across the Schuylkill river, thus connecting the two plants. A hot metal mixer was built on the north end of the open hearth building, and by 1910 the firm had increased its steel making capacity about thirty per cent. Since the consolidation of the two companies, Messrs. Ledyard Heckscher, Stevens Heckscher, and Gustave Heckscher have represented the Heckscher interest in the steel company. The blast furnace has been enlarged, a third blast fur- nace, now known as No. 2, was built in 1912, and since that time a series of expansions and additions, as already related in the history of the Alan Wood Iron and Steel Company have been made. Mr. Heckscher was a man of great force of character and of a wide grasp of affairs, and was noted throughout his life for his unswerving probity and kindliness of heart.
When because of the need of an assured supply of coke, and the urgent request of the Government that all steel manufacturers build by-product coke ovens to supply much needed toluyl and ammonium sul- phate for ammunition purposes, the firm, after due negotiation with the Rainey Estate, formed, July II, 1918, the Rainey-Wood Coke Company, to be located just north of the blast furnaces at Swedeland. Ledyard Heckscher was made president of that concern, William W. Lukens, director, and Howard Wood, Jr., assistant treasurer, representing the Wood interest in the Rainey-Wood Coke Company, while Roy Rainey.
77
BIOGRAPHCIAL
as director, and Scott Stewart, as vice-president and treasurer, represent the Rainey interests.
Richard Heckscher died at his residence, 260 South Eighteenth street, Philadelphia, on July 10, 1901, the father of seven sons and two daughters.
ELWOOD SMITH MOSER-Few men have the opportunity to use their powers for good or evil in the State, in the community, and in the lives of others, as have the editors and proprietors of our country news- papers, and few have used them so well and continuously for good as has Elwood Smith Moser. Forty-seven years ago (1875) he founded a local newspaper, and prophetically named it "The Independent," and down through the changing years he has been its owner, editor and publisher. In the full meaning of the term he is a self-educated man, and his educa- tion has been a continuous process. He knows words intimately because he has never ceased to study and be friends with them. He understands men, their thoughts, motives and impulses, because he not only has lived close with them, but has given years to the acquisition of a knowledge of man's beginnings, his history and his psychology. For more than thirty-five years he has devoted much study and thought to anthropology, biology, psychology, and other departments of science, and he is the author of a volume of essays treating of scientific and philosophical sub- jects (1918).
Elwood S. Moser was born in Norriton township, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, October 4, 1857, son of Henry Clemens and Sus- anna (Smith) Moser, the third of their ten children. His father, who was a farmer is now deceased. He began working at the home farm at the earliest possible age and attended as he could the short sessions of the schools of that day at Norriton, Skippack and Worcester townships. At fifteen years of age he started to learn the printing trade at Norristown, where he remained two years, 1872-1874. After nearly a year spent in other offices he went to Trappe, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, and established "The Independent" which, after about eight years, he moved to Collegeville, contiguous to what is now the borough of Trappe. The paper has grown and undergone many changes, but not in its ownership, editorship or independence. Its influence has become even more than town or county-wide, and Mr. Moser has made his name known through- out the State, especially as an editorial writer. As a citizen of College- ville, he was a member of the first Town Council of that borough, was a charter member of the Collegeville Fire Company and one of the organ- izers of the Collegeville National Bank. He is a member of the County Weekly Newspapers' Association, and was one of the founders of the Press League of Montgomery and Bucks counties. In politics, in which he has always been active, he is like his newspaper, independent.
Elwood Smith Moser married, in 1875, Margaret A. Gayner, daughter of John and Frances (Aitken) Gayner, her father now in his ninety-first year, and engaged in glass manufacturing at Salem, New Jersey, a busi-
78
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
ness he has long followed. He was born and reared in Nailsea, England, and in 1866 came to the United States with his family. Mr. and Mrs. Moser were the parents of six children: I. Frances, the wife of Edward M. Hocker, manager and editor of "The Independent Gazette," German- town, Pennsylvania. 2. Bertha, who married Charles Grove Haines, Ph. D., a member of the faculty of the Texas State University, of Austin, Texas. 3. Linwood, who died in 1893, aged thirteen. 4. Susan, who married J. Le Roy Roth, M. D., of Conshohocken, Pennsylvania. 5. Frederick Le Roy, who founded (1913) and was editor of the "Inter- Borough Press" of Spring City and Royersford, Pennsylvania. During the World War he was commissioned second lieutenant in the United States army, having had previous military training at Fort Oglethorpe, Georgia ; he was ordered to Washington, D. C., and later to Woodbury, New Jersey, where he was one of the overseers of an extensive powder- bagging plant. It was at Woodbury while on active duty that he con- tracted influenza and pneumonia and was invalided to his home in Spring City, where he died shortly after. 6. Margaret, who married Walter H. Doulhett, principal of Darby High School, Darby, Pennsyl- vania.
BOYD EDWARDS, D. D .- In accepting the head mastership of The Hill School, Dr. Edwards became affiliated in chief executive capacity with an institution with a history stretching back over three-quarters of a century of notable educational service, that has placed it in the front rank of American preparatory schools. He came to The Hill School with a broad experience in educational, social, and religious work among young people, and in the comparatively short term of his relationship has taken up in full vigor the work of his predecessor, Dwight R. Meigs, and has merged himself and his ideals in the plan and aim of The Hill School.
Dr. Edwards is a descendant of the family founded by Richard Edwards, whose line dates in America to 1640, this branch tracing through his son, William Edwards, a graduate of Harvard, and his son, the famous Jonathan Edwards, a graduate of Yale and later president of Princeton. Dr. Edwards' father, Mortimer Burr Edwards, was a busi- ness man of the type who, within his necessarily restricted field, serves as guide, philosopher, and friend to many, and one who shirks neither public responsibility nor the demands of private and personal service. He was a man prominent and earnest in the work of his church; served the cause of education as president of the local Board of Education ; was a county officer and a member of the New York State Legislature. He married Harriet Louise Boyd, who prior to her marriage was a teacher of Greek and Latin at the Deposit High School and Lisle Academy, Lisle, New York. Her Boyd ancestry traced to Lord Robert Boyd, of Kil- marnock Castle, Kilmarnock, Scotland, of the Elizabethan period, one of Lord Robert Boyd's sons marrying Anne, daughter of James I, of Scot- land. Several members of Mrs. Edwards' ancestral line dated to the pre- Revolutionary period in America, John Halbert, a relative, and one of
79
BIOGRAPHICAL
her Brown kinsmen (founder of Brown University), participating in the battles of Lexington and Bennington. She was a daughter of Jacob Bacon Boyd, of Cincinnatus, New York, and granddaughter of General John H. Boyd, of Cortland county, New York, who after graduation from school in Williamstown, Massachusetts, married and brought his bride, Electra (Bacon) Boyd, on horseback to Cortland county, where he became a man of prominence and the first representative from the county in the State Legislature.
Boyd Edwards was born in Lisle, New York, May 5, 1876. Here his early studies were pursued, and as a youth of eighteen years he entered Phillips-Andover Academy, being graduated in the class of 1896. While at Andover he was president of the Society of Inquiry, as the school Young Men's Christian Association is called; was president of the Philo Debating Society; was on the school baseball nine, and was captain of the second team; and he was also vice-president of his class-up to that time the largest ever graduated from any private secondary school, num- bering one hundred and fifty-five.
In the fall of 1896 Dr. Edwards matriculated at Williams College, where his qualities of leadership were early recognized by his being elected president of the freshman class. Throughout his course he was prominent in varied fields of college activities. For four years he was a member of the Honor System Committee, and was chairman in his senior year ; he was president of the Young Men's Christian Association; was the first of the managing secretaries of the Student building ; and he was a member of Zeta Psi fraternity. Equally prominent in athletics, he was a member of the 'varsity baseball and football teams. He was graduated with the A. B. degree in 1900, to which in 1920 his alma mater added an honorary D. D. degree as a mark of the esteem with which Williams College regarded one of her most faithful and useful sons. In 1923 he was elected trustee of the college by the alumni for a term of five years.
During his life at Williams College he had more than once been called upon, as president of the Young Men's Christian Association, to speak at various schools and colleges. It was but natural, after leaving college, that his interest in this work should continue. Gifted with singular felicity and force in public speaking, he was an ideal man to further the interest in Christian work among preparatory school boys. First to recognize this fact was the International organization of the Young Men's Christian Association, which at once, upon his graduation, made him preparatory school secretary. In the holding of this office he spoke at many schools and colleges, and was on the faculty of the summer con- ferences at Northfield, Silver Bay, and Asheville. Dr. Edwards continued his association with the Young Men's Christian Association for one year, resigning to take up his theological study; but that his interest in the work never abated, even during the strenuous days of his Christian min- istry, was evidenced by the fact that he was elected first president of the preparatory school Young Men's Christian Association conference when that organization was separated from the general conference at North-
80
HISTORY OF MONTGOMERY COUNTY
field and moved to Blairstown, New Jersey. In 1901 Dr. Edwards entered Union Theological Seminary, from which institution he was graduated in 1904. During his course at Union he continued his contact with boys by teaching the Bible at the Holbrook School at Ossining, New York, and in settlement work in New York.
Such was Dr. Edward's reputation as a successful worker with young people, that before his graduation from Union he was associated with the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church in Brooklyn, the largest church in the denomination. The pastor of this church was Dr. N. McGee Waters, who will be remembered by many of The Hill School boys as a former preacher at the school. There were associated with the Tompkins Avenue Congregational Church more than one thousand young people, and with them and their multifarious interests Dr. Edwards was asso- ciated for two years.
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.