USA > Pennsylvania > Lancaster County > Portrait and biographical record of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 16
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no small ability, being conversant with the Latin, Greek, French and German languages. During recent revisions of Webster's and Murray's Eng- lish Dictionaries, he was called upon to contribute material; and he has also assisted in the prepara- tion of the History of Pennsylvania by William Il. Egle.
In early life, he married Anna Maria Lazarus, who was born in Lehigh County, where her father, Jacob Lazarus, was a farmer. The home of Super- intendent Buehrle and his estimable wife, at No. 408 Manor Street, is a double house, and was erected by the owner. He also owns four rest- dences elsewhere in the city. Since 1858 our sub- ject has been identified with Sunday-school work and has been Superintendent of Christ Lutheran Sunday-school of this city for thirteen years. He is a charter member of the Pennsylvania German So- ciety, and is a Mason, Pastmaster of Barger Lodge, of Allentown, and a member of Chapter No. 43, R. A. M., of Lancaster. Politically a Republican, Superintendent Buehrle believes in civil service reform.
OIIN PIERSOL MeCASKEY, A. M., P. D., is a man widely known in Pennsylvania as publisher for many years of the Pennsyl- vania School Journal, which goes monthly into each of the nearly twenty-five hundred school dis- triets in this great state. He is also favorably known throughout the United States wherever the Franklin Square Song Collection is found and en- joyed. This very popular series of books of fa- miliar and favorite songs, which combines upon a unique plan much reading matter with the music of the songs, and of which a quarter of a million copies have been sold, at present comprises eight numbers, with the ninth in preparation. It is is- sued by Harper & Bros .. of New York, who find a large sale for it in Canada as well as in the I'nited States. He finds delight in the best literature, and is an enthusiast in his enjoyment of music
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and the drama. Lancaster is not far from Phila- delphia (the night is as good for quick transit as the day) and for thirty years he has kept close watch upon the Philadelphia newspapers for art, music and the drama, as advertised in that great city. During that time he has seen and heard nearly all the great singers and actors in their leading roles, some of them dozens of times, the great orchestras and soloists on instruments, concert and opera, and the best dramatic represen- tations the age affords. This he esteems a large part of his "university training." and upon it he has spent thousands of dollars, as he says, "with a big return on the investment."
Mr. MeCaskey was born on a farm near Gordon- ville, Lancaster County. October 9, 1837, and con- gratulates himself that he had a mother who sang as the birds do, because she couldn't help it, and that she taught him to read at a very early age. His parents were fortunately ignorant of all modern theories of delay in this regard. He at- tended the country schools until ten years of age, read in the Testament class, kept a "setting-down book," learned Comly's speller under pressure so as to be "up" in the spelling classes and matches. ciphered in Pike's arithmetic, with all the rest carried his goose quill to the master to be mended. and looks back to that happy time in the old Zook schoolhouse by the cross roads, in the shade of the woods, as a blessed experience of childhood life in the country, for loss of which at the impressionable age no lite in a city could make amends.
At eleven years of age he left home for Oak Ilill Academy, "saturated with the Bible," as he gratefully expressed it. He had access up to this to but four or five books, which were Pilgrim's Progress, Fox's Book of Martyrs, Lives of the Re- formers, a Descriptive Geography of the World, and the Bible. The first named were for occasional reading, but the Bible was for well nigh every day in the week and a large part of Sunday, so that he could not fail to become very familiar with the doings of the men and women, good and bad, with its biography, its history, its poetry; to be deeply impressed with the thought of God and the angels, and the life to come; and above all to be attracted by a story of a just man, "real, above all things
and shadowy above all things," who lived and died at Palestine. This childhood experience of the Bible, under a good mother's constant care and guidance, he regards the best education he has ever had, and he "would not exchange it for the best university course in the world," excellent as that may be, for out of this has come what he re- gards the best good in life. What far-reaching work he has done in music, affording pleasure and profit to tens of thousands, he says, must all be credited to the hymns and ballads of his mother, whose voice yet rings sweet and clear through the sunny air of a happy childhood.
Three main lines of work which he has carried on for many years, and regards important, are the following:
First-That in the Boys' High School, which is local to Lancaster and perhaps of least importance. After nearly six years in the schools of the city, four of which were spent in the high school, he became, in 1855, an assistant teacher under Prof. William Van Lear Davis. In 1857 he left school for a year, during which, in the office of the Lan- caster Evening Express, he acquired such knowledge of the printer's craft as was afterward of great value. when, in 1866, he undertook in addition to his ordinary work the business management of the School Journal, then published by Dr. Thomas II. Burrowes. In 1858 he returned to the school, be- coming Principal in 1865. and retaining that posi- tion to the present time (1894). He has never been a machine teacher, and his "morning talks" are recalled by hundreds of boys, now grown to manhood, as among the most valuable experiences of their school life. Believing in Arbor Day, he has had the school, for each of the twenty or more Arbor Days, plant more trees than there have been boys enrolled. Believing in musie, he has had it introduced by the school authorities, and for many vears the high school has given concert programs that it is a privilege to hear. The high school or- chestra is also a unique feature of the educational work of the school and the city, nearly half the pu- pils enrolled being under instruction on orchestral instruments. He has continued to teach year after year, though tempting offers in other fields have come to him, feeling himself called to this great
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work. and not at liberty to turn aside while strength remains for it.
Second-The general editorial and business man- agement of the Pennsylvania School Journal. The monthly edition of this influential periodical, which is the ollicial oigan of the State Department of Public Instruction in Pennsylvania, averages from six to seven thousand copies. Its circulation is largely confined to the state, its School Superin- tendents, Teachers, and School Directors, though it is sent to all State Superintendents of Publie In- struction in the United States, and to many other centers of educational influence abroad. This free list, that its influence may be extended as widely as possible, has for a long time been several hun- dred copies. "A man lives but once." and Dr. McCaskey holds it a wise policy, as he moves through hfe to seatter seed generously, sowing be- side all waters. He was associated upon The Jour- nal with Dr. Burrowes, its founder, in 1866, though the place had been offered to him the year before upon condition that he should leave the school to accept it. He was unwilling to abandon what by that time he had come to regard his life work, and a year later, as has been said. Dr. Burrowes sent for him, saying that he "would take him on his own terms." In 1870 The Journal was bought from Dr. Burrowes, who had taken the Presidency of the Pennsylvania Agricultural College, by Dr. J. P. Wickersham, then State Superintendent of Public Instruction, and Dr. J. P. McCaskey, and was published by them as equal partners until 1881, when Dr. McCaskey purchased the inter- est of Dr. Wiekersham, and Dr. E. E. Iligbee, the newly appointed Superintendent of Public In- struction, became editor. He died in 1889, and was succeeded by Dr. D. J. Waller; and he in turn, in 1893, by Dr. N. C. Schaffer, the present State Superintendent and editor-in-chief of The Journal. Of educational periodicals this is one of the two oldest of the country, the other being the Ohio Edu- cational Monthly, the initial number of each bear- ing date .January, 1852. Of state educational jour- nals, it has been, beyond question, for forty years the most influential in the United States. Within that time the school system of Pennsylvania has had its practical development. The Journal being
all the while the able and earnest advocate of popular education, has pioneered many of the measures which now give character and perma- nent value to that system, conceded to be one of the best in the world. There have been many newspapers in the state that have filled a larger space in the eye of the public, but we know of none to equal this modest journal in its broad lield, in its quiet, constant, intelligent work at the foundations and upon the superstructure of a grand and ever-growing system of education, which in part under its moulding influence has taken and is taking shape and character that must endure for hundreds of years.
Third-The publication of the Franklin Square Song Collection and numerous other compilations of music. This work was begun a quarter of a century ago with the Pennsylvania Song Collec- tion, and the annual issues of compilations of music for use of schools and institutes. As has been said, eight numbers of the Franklin Square Collection, each comprising two hundred favorite songs and hymns, with much appropriate literary inatter. have been published, and the ninth is now nearly ready for the press. These books are very favorably known wherever the publications of this great house of llarper & Bros. are found, and they have given lasting pleasure to untold thou- sands. Two or three years ago he issued, through Messrs. Harper & Bros., a beautiful book of three hundred and twenty pages entitled "Christmas in Song and Story," which the Episcopal Re- corder, a very good authority, pronounces "a per- fect encyclopedia of Christmas Songs." Dr. J. Max Hark, writing of it in Christian Culture, says: "A precious collection, indeed, of old and new. Where can another such garner be found, so rare, so choice, and so full? There are twenty- two full-page illustrations, which range all the way from Raphael and Murillo to Nast and Gib- son. All are on Christmas subjects; nearly all are reproduced from works of art that are immortal. When we examine the 'Sketch and Story' in the hook we come to what, I think, is to us all a new revelation of Dr. MeCaskey's versatility; we are almost surprised at the faultlessness of literary taste and judgment displayed. We knew him to
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be a musical critic. We were familiar with his artistic sense. But we were scareely prepared to find him possessed of an equally consummate laste and discriminating judgment in the very difficult field of literary selection. It is not too much to say of the seven long selections from the great mass of extant Christmas literature, which he gives in this volume, that no seven better selections coull have been made. They are the very cream of the cream of our literature on that subject. taking contents, purpose and form into consider- ation. To have these seven crown jewels brought together into one diadem is alone worth more than is asked for the entire work, to say nothing of the rich setting. musical and pictorial, to which we have before referred." To few men is the privilege granted of doing such work for their kind, and, in the thought of its happy influence, Dr. MeCaskey, who finds rare gladness in almost everything in his busy life, enjoys this music work most and best of all.
Dr. MeCaskey has been Secretary of the Penn- sylvania State Teachers' Association since 1865. Ile has been Treasurer of the Teachers' Institute of Lancaster County for nearly thirty years, and has, we think, been present at every meeting of this large body of teachers since its organization in 1853. Ile has frequently been urged to permit the use of his name for City and County Superm- tendent, and for other more promment and luera- tive positions than the Principalship of the Lan- caster High School. But he has never been a can- didate for any higher position or for any that will take him out of Lancaster, having no ambition for higher place, though for more than twenty-five years his salary in no single year amounted to 81,000. It is now $1,200. Ile was working on other lines and was content with low wages in this, since it gave him the life he desired in the school room, of six hours per day. That life has been the great thing to him, not the salary paid for service rendered.
Our subject is a member of St. James' Episcopal Church and has been a member of its vestry since 1869. He was one of the original stockholders of the Inquirer Printing Company and was for ten or twelve years Secretary of the company. He was
for some ten years the Secretary of the Lan- caster Watch Company, and met with heavy loss in the failure of that great enterprise, being the third largest stockholder. He was for some years a member of the Board of Directors of the Young Men's Christian Association in Lancaster until the pressure of duty in other directions compelled his withdrawal, though the work will always have his hearty sympathy and generous support. While connected with the association he organized and conducted a large evening class for the study of astronomy, known as the "Star Club," before wluch he had lectures delivered in Fulton Opera House by Prof. Richard A. Proctor. the noted English astronomer, and Bishop Henry W. Warren, author of "Recreations in Astronomy." The proceedings of this club from week to week were so widely published in the local press and through the Pennsylvania School Journal as to awaken an un- usual popular interest in this grandest of all sciences and to cause its introduction into many schools of the state.
Dr. MeCaskey was honored with the degree of Master of Arts by Franklin and Marshall College, and some years afterward with that of Doctor of Philosophy by the same institution of liberal learning. Each came to him as a quick surprise. Ile had never thought of either, and says that winle he has done little to merit these degrees he appreciates the courtesy which awarded them, and is grateful for the personal kindness which prompted the authorities by whom they were be- stowed. On the death of Dr. E. E. Higbee, State Su- perintendent of Public Instruction, in 1889, he was appointed by the President of the State Teachers' Association to be Chairman of the Memorial Com- mittee. With County Superintendent M. J. Brecht, also of Lancaster, he entered into the work with an energy and enthusiasm that knew no pause un- til such a memorial had been planned and com- pleted as has no parallel in the history of the common school work in America. Ten thousand copies of a very remarkable memorial volume were distributed to teachers and superintendents throughout the state; twelve thousand copies of a life-size and life-like portrait were distributed to the normal schools and common schools and to the
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offices of the superintendents; a bust in bronze of heroic size and a noble crayon head were placed in the Department of Public Instruction; and a massive block of granite of appropriate de- sign at his grave will tell its story to the ages. This work he did in memoriam because he loved Dr. Ilighee.
lle comes of a strong ancestry. llis father, William McCaskey, was a man of iron will, of Scotch-Irish descent, and of the Presbyterian faith, which was a family heritage. His grandfather. John MeCaskey. was a freeholder near Blaney Castle. County Monaghan, in the North of Ire- land, where the family name is still perpetuated through Presbyterian clergymen and others. Ilis great-grandfather, William MeCaskey, served in the British army in America during the Revolu- tion, and his son lohn was accustomed to tell as one of the pleasantest recollections of his childhood, how with the delight of a child he had climbed up and sat on his father's knee on his return from the war in America. John emigrated to Pennsylvania about the year 1793, having been married to Mar- garet Gorman some two or three years before leaving Ireland. With him came three brothers, llugh, William and James, all of whom some years later went farther west, and three brothers-in-law, who settled in Lancaster County. He was a farmer, and for many years did a large business in droving. lle died at the age of seventy-six and is buried in the Leacock Church-yard, a mile west of Inter- course, one of the oldest Presbyteriam Churches in Pennsylvania.
Dr. MeCaskey's name has in full that of both his grandfathers. His mother, Margaret ( Piersol) McCaskey, is the second daughter and third child of John Piersol and Catharine (Wilson) Piersol, comes of sturdy pioneer stock, the Davises and Piersols of Wales, Wilsons of England or of Scotch-Irish descent, the Eckerts of German-Swit- zerland, and others, and is descended on two lines, her father and mother having been second cousins, from Archibald Douglas, one of three sons of Lord Douglas, the lineal heir of that noted fam- ily, which fills so large a space for hundreds of years in the stirring history of Scotland. Her Great-grandfather Davis was a Captain in the
French and Indian War, and a member of the Committee of Safety in the War of Independence. Her father was Captain of a company of cavalry in the War of 1812. At the age of eighty-four, after a long life of unselfish devotion to homely duties and the care of others. always blessing and blessed, with hearing unimpaired, eye undimmed, and heart still young, her devoted son says of her that she deserves to be own sister to that "Douglas tender and true," of whom the old Seotch poet tells. and of whom also Dinah Maria Muloch has sung so lovingly as to catch the ear and win the heart of the world. She belonged, when a girl, to St. John's Episcopal Church at Compassville, one of the oldest Episcopal Churches in America. Here are buried Douglases, Davises, Piersols, Wilsons, scores of her ancestors and more immediate rela- tives and friends.
William and Margaret MeCaskey had seven chil- dren: John Piersol, the subject of our sketch; Joseph Barr, Catharine Wilson, William Spencer, Cyrus Davis, Margaret Salome, and James Newton, six of whom are still living. William S. is Cap- tain in the Twentieth United States Infantry. He enlisted at the age of seventeen, within two or three days after the fall of Ft. Sumter, and served throughout the war, first as private in the First Pennsylvania Volunteers, then as Orderly-Ser- geant, Lieutenant and Captain in the Seventy- ninth Pennsylvania, taking part in some twenty- eight battles, from Chaplin Hills, Ky., in 1862, to Bentonville, N. C., in 1865. At the close of the war he was named by Hon. Thaddeus Stevens for appointment to a Lieuteneney in the regular army. Hle succeeded General Custer in command at Ft. Abraham Lincoln, when that dashing cavalry offi- eer started on his fatal campaign against the In- dians in the Big Horn Mountains. In all Ins varied army life his record is that of a most capable and efficient officer. He is now stationed at Ft. Leaven- worth.
In 1860 Dr. MeCaskey was married in Bath, N. Y., to Miss Ellen Margaret Chase, who was born in that place, and who is a lineal descendant of Rev. Everard and Anneke Jans Bogardus, both of lol- land, the former of whom was the first teacher and first preacher in the Dutch settlement of New
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Amsterdam, now New York. Their children are ' including music and gymnasties, and is the "born Edward William, Richard Douglas, John Sidney, , quarter back" of their famous college foot-ball Walter Bogardus, Helen Wilson, Donald Gilbert, team. Donald Gilbert graduated from the high school in the Class of '94. and Elsa Piersol, two of whom, John and Ilelen, are deceased. Edward W. is a First Lieutenant in In polities Dr. MeCaskey has always been a Re- publican, casting his first vote for Andrew G. Curtin for Governor, and Abraham Lincoln for President, in 1860. the Twenty-first United States Infantry, and is now on duty at the Pennsylvania State College, as Professor of Military Tacties, where there is one of the finest armories in Pennsylvania, and where he has a battalion of two hundred and fifty cadets, uniformed and equipped, and one of the best drilled military organizations in the state. The authorities of the college have requested a renewal of his detail by the War Department at Washing- ton, on the ground of "special fitness and atten- tion to duty." Ile is a young man of marked J MARTIN ECKMAN, an enterprising busi- ness man of Lancaster, has for the past four years been engaged in the manufacture of lime, and in disposing of this product, in which his sales are constantly increasing and are bringing in an ample income. In civic societies he is very prominent, and in 1894 had the high honor conferred upon him of Grand Treasurer of the Grand Commandery of Pennsylvania, in the Order of Knights of Malta. In other societies he has fre- quently served in an official capacity, and is also a leading Republican, being a member of the Citi- zens' Club and Chairman of the Executive Com- mittee. ability, as well as a very fine officer, interested in science, literature, art, musie, no less than in the profession of arms. Graduating from the Laneas- ter High School in 1880, he entered West Point in 1882, from the Junior Class in Franklin and Mar- shall College. after competitive examination, and graduated there in 1886. He took the post-grad- uate course of two years at Ft. Leavenworth, after service at Ft. Du Chesne in Utah. Since that time he has been on duty at Ft. Mckinney, in Wyoming Territory, Fts. Du Chesne and Douglas in Utah, and in the late Sioux Campaign. Ile was ordered to huis present post in 1892. He was married within a week after his graduation from West Point, to The Eekman family is a very old one in Lancas- ter County, and the grandfather of our subject was a well-to-do farmer of Drumore Township, and in local politics was quite prominent, serving as Justice of the Peace for several years. He was very philanthropic and liberal in his support of benevolences and church work. By his marriage with a Miss Lafferty he had eight children, John W., James. Martha, Joseph, Washington, Sarah, Mary and Katie. Washington, the father of our subject, was born in Drumore Township, where he attended the district school. Ile became a distiller and later resorted to farming, having his home in Strasburg Township. Ile was a Whig and after- wards a Republican, and at one time was Captain of a militia company. In religion like his father he was a member of the Reformed Church, and was a man who was much esteemed by all who Catharine Kennedy, of Lancaster, and they now have five children: Mary Ellen, John Piersol, Ilugh Kennedy, Edward William and Catharine. Richard Douglas, the second son of Dr. MeCaskey, a graduate of the high school, is also a graduate of the Pennsylvania College of Dental Surgery in Philadelphia, and is successfully engaged in the practice of his profession in this city. Walter 1 Bogardus graduated from the Lancaster Iligh School, afterward took a course of two years in the Pennsylvania School-ship "Saratoga," from which he graduated at the head of his class, taking the first prize for "general efficiency." Ile is now (1894) at the head of the Junior Class in Penn- sylvania State College. At the close of his Sopho- more year he took the Inghest prize in mathema- ties (calculus). Ile excels in all college work,
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knew him. His wife was formerly Magdalena llelm, and they had only one child. our subject. The father died when in his sixty third year, and his wife departed this life after attaining her seventy-sixth birthday.
The birth of J. Martin Eckman took place March 10, 1850, in Eden Township, of this coun- ty. U'ntil about twenty years of age he attended the common schools and assisted his father in carrying on the homestead. For four years sub- sequently he worked for neighboring farmers. and afterwards was employed by the Philadelphia Stock Company for a period of six months. At this time he was married and located in Strasburg Township, making a business of market gardening and sending his farm products to the Lancaster markets. Next removing to Manheim Township, he worked for four years in the lime kilns, and was then employed by the Lancaster Piscatorial Company in building a pond. which, when it was completed, was placed in his charge. For a period of four years succeeding this he was engaged in the ice business for himself, and finally in 1890 commenced burning lime. and furnishes material for macademizing the streets. lle regularly em- ploys fifteen men and as many teams, and at times has found it necessary to have one hundred in his service. Thus it will be seen that he has succeeded admirably in his latest business venture, and though he has been so recently connected with the same, his trade has expanded remarkably.
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