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 8
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BENJAMIN HARRISON.
B ENJAMIN HARRISON, the twenty-third President, is the descendant of one of the historical families of this country. The first known head of the family was Maj .- Gen. Harrison, one of Oliver Cromwell's trusted followers and fighters. In the zenith of Cromwell's power it be- came the duty of this Harrison to participate in the trial of Charles I., and afterward to sign the leath warrant of the king. He subsequently paid for this with his life, being hung October 13, ! 1660. His descendants came to America, and the next of the family that appears in history is Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, great-grandfa- thier of the subject of this sketch, and after whom he was named. Benjamin Harrison was a mem- ber of the Continental Congress during the years 1774, 1775 and 1776, and was one of the original signers of the Declaration of Independence. He was three times elected Governor of Virginia.
Gen. William Henry Harrison, the son of the distinguished patriot of the Revolution, after a successful career as a soldier during the War of 1812, and with a clean record as Governor of the Northwestern Territory, was elected President of the United States in 1840. His career was cut short by death within one month after his in- auguration.
President Harrison was born at North Bend,
Hamilton County, Ohio, August 20, 1833. His life up to the time of his graduation from Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, was the uneventful one of a country lad of a family of small means. His father was able to give him a good education, and nothing more. He became engaged while at college to the daughter of Dr. Scott, Principal of a female school at Oxford. After graduating, he determined to enter upon the study of law. He went to Cincinnati and there read law for two years. At the expiration of that time young Har- rison received the only inheritance of his life-his aunt, dying, left him a lot valued at $800. He regarded this legacy as a fortune, and decided to get married at once, take this money and go to some Eastern town and begin the practice of law. He sold his lot, and, with the money in his pocket, he started out with his young wife to fight for a place in the world. He decided to go to Indian- apolis, which was even at that time a town of promise. He met with slight encouragement at first, making scarcely anything the first year. He worked diligently, applying himself closely to his calling, built up an extensive practice and took a leading rank in the legal profession.
In 1860, Mr. Harrison was nominated for the position of Supreme Court Reporter, and then be- gan his experience as a stump speaker. He can-
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BENJAMIN HARRISON.
vassed the State thoroughly, and was elected by a handsome majority. In 1862 he raised the Seventeenth Indiana Infantry, and was chosen its Colonel. His regiment was composed of the raw- est material, but Col. Harrison employed all his time at first in mastering military tactics and drill- ing his men, and when he came to move toward the East with Sherman, his regiment was one of the best drilled and organized in the army. At Resaca he especially distinguished himself, and for his bravery at Peachtree Creek he was made a Brigadier-General, Gen. Hooker speaking of him in the most complimentary terms.
During the absence of Gen. Harrison in the field, the Supreme Court declared the office of Supreme Court Reporter vacant, and another person was elected to the position. From the time of leaving Indiana with his regiment until the fall of 1864 he had taken no leave of absence, but having been nominated that year for the same office, lie got a thirty-day leave of absence, and during that time made a brilliant canvass of the State, and was elected for another term. He then started to rejoin Sherman, but on the way was stricken down with searlet fever, and after a most. trying attack made his way to the front in time to participate in the closing incidents of the war.
In 1868 Gen. Harrison declined a re-election as Reporter, and resumed the practice of law. In 1876 he was a candidate for Governor. Although defeated, the brilliant campaign he made won for him a national reputation, and he was much sought after, especially in the East, to make speeches. In 1880, as usual, he took an active part in the campaign, and was elected to the United States Senate. Here he served for six years, and was known as one of the ablest men, best lawyers and strongest debaters in that body. With the ex- piration of his senatorial term he returned to the practice of his profession, becoming the head of one of the strongest firms in the State.
The political campaign of 1888 was one of the most memorable in the history of our country. The convention which assembled in Chicago in June and named Mr. Harrison as the chief st.ind- ard-bearer of the Republican party was great in every particular, and on this account, and the at-
titude it assumed upon the vital questions of the day, chief among which was the tariff, awoke a deep interest in the campaign throughout the nation. Shortly after the nomination, delegations began to visit Mr. Harrison at Indianapolis, his home. This movement became popular, and from all sections of the country societies, clubs and delegations journeyed thither to pay their re- speets to the distinguished statesman.
Mr. Harrison spoke daily all through the sum- mer and autumn to these visiting delegations, and so varied, masterly, and eloquent were his speeches that they at onee placed him in the fore- most rank of American orators and statesmen. Elected by a handsome majority, he served his country faithfully and well, and in 1892 was nom- inated for re-election: but the people demanded a change and he was defeated by his predecessor in office, Grover Cleveland.
On account of his eloquence as a speaker and his power as a debater, Gen. Harrison was called upon at an early age to take part in the dis- cussion of the great questions that then began to agitate the country. He was an uncompromising anti-slavery man, and was matched against some of the most eminent Democratic speakers of his State. No man who felt the touch of his blade desired to be pitted with him again. With all his eloquence as an orator he never spoke for ora- torieal effect, but his words always went like bul- lets to the mark. He is purely American in his ideas, and is a splendid type of the American statesman. Gifted with quick perception, a logi- eal mind and a ready tongue, he is one of the most distinguished impromptu speakers in the nation. Many of these speeches sparkled with the rarest eloquence and contained arguments of great weight, and many of his terse statements have already become aphorisins. Original in thought, precise in logie, terse in statement, yet withal faultless in eloquence, he is recognized as the sound statesman and brilliant orator of the day. During the last days of his administration Presi- dent Harrison suffered an irreparable loss in the death of his devoted wife, Caroline (Scott ) Har- rison, a lady of many womanly charms and vir- tues. They were the parents of two children.
LANCASTER COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA.
INTRODUCTORY.
HE time has arrived when it becomes the duty of the people of this county to per- petnate the names of their pioneers, to furnish a record of their early settlement, and relate the story of their progress. The civilization of our day, the enlightenment of the age and the duty that men of the pres- ent time owe to their ancestors, to themselves and to their posterity, demand that a record of their lives and deeds should be made. In bio- graphical history is found a power to instruct man by precedent, to enliven the mental faculties, and to waft down the river of time a safe vessel in which the names and actions of the people who contributed to raise this country from its primitive state may be preserved. Surely and rapidly the great and aged men, who in their prime entered the wilderness and claimed the virgin soil as their heritage, are passing to their graves. The number re- maining who can relate the incidents of the first days of settlement is becoming small indeed, so that an actual necessity exists for the collection and preser- vation of events without delay, before all the early settlers are cut down by the scythe of Time
To be forgotten has been the great dread of mankind from remotest ages. All will be forgotten soon enough, in spite of their best works and the most earnest efforts of their friends to perserve the memory of their lives. The means employed to prevent oblivion and to perpetuate their inemory has been in propor- tion to the amount of intelligence they possessed. The pyramids of Egypt were built to perpetuate the names and deeds of their great rulers. The exhu- mations made by the archeologists of Egypt from buried Memphis indicate a desire of those people
to perpetuate the memory of their achievements The erection of the great obelisks were for the same purpose. Coming down to a later period, we find the Greeks and Romans erecting mausoleums and monu- ments, and carving out statues to chronicle their great achievements and carry them down the ages. It is also evident that the Mound-builders, in piling up their great mounds of earth, had but this idea- to leave something to show that they had lived. All these works, though many of them costly in the ex- treme, give but a faint idea of the lives and charac- ters of those whose memory they were intended to perpetuate, and scarcely anything of the masses of the people that then lived. The great pyramids and some of the obelisks remain objects only of curiosity ; the mausoleums, monuments and statues are crum- bling into dust.
It was left to modern ages to establish an intelli- gent, undecaying, immutable method of perpetuating a full history-immutable in that it is almost un- limited in extent and perpetual in its action ; and this is through the art of printing.
To the present generation, however, we are in- debted for the introduction of the admirable system of local biography. By this system every man, though he has not achieved what the world calls greatness, has the means to perpetuate his life, his history, through the coming ages.
The scythe of Time cuts down all ; nothing of the physical man is left. The monument which his chil- dren or friends may erect to his memory in the ceme. tery will crumble into dust and pass away; but his life, his achievements, the work he has accomplished, which otherwise would be forgotten, is perpetuated by a record of this kind.
To preserve the lineaments of our companions we engrave their portraits, for the same reason we col- lect the attainable facts of their history. Nor do we think it necessary, as we speak only truth of them, to wait until they are dead, or until those who know them are gone: to do this we are ashamed only to publish to the world the history of those whose lives are unworthy of public record.
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JACOB BAUSMAN
BIOGRAPHICAL.
J ACOB BAUSMAN was a representative of a large family which has taken deep root in the old Manor, and the founders of which belong to the famous Palatinate emigration, which has given to the social life of Lancaster County so many features, and so vastly added to its pre-eminence and prosperity. More than sixty years ago he attended Jolin Beck's famous Lititz School. The Bausmans of Kreuznach, Germany, were farmers and vine-dressers, and the first of them to come hither was Andreas, the brother of Henry. Ilis nephew, Andreas, who remained in the Fatherland, died as recently as 1868, aged ninety years. The elder Andreas paid the equiv- olent of $680 for three hundred and seventeen acres of land on the Millersville turnpike, from which a single acre has since been sold for nearly as much.
John Bausman, another son of Henry, and a nephew of the elder Andreas, fled from a French draft, which would have compelled him to fight against his own countrymen, and was welcomed here by his uncle in 1802. Ile became executor and chief heir of the local estates, and founder of the famous family of his name, which, though hav- ing distinguished members in professional and mercantile life, has been foremost in the agricul- tural concerns of the county, and now holds under cultivation over seven hundred acres of land in Manor and Lancaster Townships, nearly adjoining the city, and the richest and most populous section of this state.
To the traveler going out the Millersville turn- pike on one hand appears a beautiful private res- idence, and to the left a commodious and comfort-
able one-story and a-half farm house with a sub- stantial stone spring house near by. These build- ings illustrate fitly the progress of the best type of the Lancaster County farmer. The spring house was built by Andreas Bausman in 1775, and there he made whiskey, shipping it to Pittsburg in casks, two of which were strapped on the back of a horse. Upon this site he established the home- stead, which bids fair to remain in the family for generations. Here resided John, after he had reared his family and retired from farming, and here his son Philip built the mansion, one of the most elegant country seats in the county. The sister of the late Abraham Peters became the wife of John Bausman and the mother of his nine chil- dren, of whom the eldest two. Andrew and John, are deceased, and those surviving are Abraham, Samuel, llenry and Philip, farmers of the Manor; Elizabeth, wife of Henry Haverstick, of Manheim Township; Rev. Dr. Benjamin, the famous reformed preacher, author, editor and oriental traveler, and Jacob, the fourth son of the family, born October 18. 1812, who was one of the most conspicuous, in- duential and busy citizens of Lancaster.
The farmers' boys of this county sixty years ago left school and went to work when quite young. When our subject was about nineteen years of age lie commenced learning the milling business at Wabank, then one of the most exten- sive local industries, and for a year and a-half he worked for $4 per month, the following two years receiving $11 per month. He soon developed a marked aptitude for business, and by sagacity in business ventures managed to lay the foundation of his future success. In 1835, when conducting
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the mill for the owner, Jacob Huber, on shares, there was a failure in the wheat erop. and he early saw the demand that would follow for grain, and began buying up large quantities. Wheat com- manded ×1.10 and $1.20 at times, and during the entire winter he continued making large invest- ments. On ene occasion when an ark load of five hundred barrels of flour was detained on a canal for a short time to remove the heads of barrels, as they had become wet, flour advanced in price and Mr. Bausman made $500 by the accident. In that year wheat was brought to this country from Eu- rope, but only a low grade of flour could be made from it, and the entire product of Mr. Bausman's operations was needed for the local demand, it readily bringing $11 per barrel in this city.
After seven years' experience in the mill, our subject, accompanied by John Lintner, concluded to try his fortune in the west and proceeded to Ohio. At a point between Springfield and Dayton they engaged in distilling and farming, but in the fall their fathers came out to view the situation, and not being satisfied with the prospect, induced the young men to return to Pennsylvania. The Wabank mill being then for sale, it was bought by Mr. Bausman and Col. William B. Fordney. On engaging in business for himself, our subjeet rap- idly extended his operations in grain, which for fifteen years were of a very extensive character, and he became known all through eastern Penn- sylvania as a large dealer in grain, lumber, flour and cattle. During the Irish famine in 1847, he dealt largely in corn, making frequent purchases and often engaging to deliver as much as ten thou- sand bushels at one transaction in the Philadelphia Corn Exchange.
Mr. Bausman finally sold his mill property to a hotel company, which made a failure of the enter- prise. For years he was an almost daily visitor to Lancaster, and was constantly associated with its active business men and commercial concerns. He was one of the original members of the Lancaster Gas Company, and was early interested in the cot- ton mills, being one of the joint owners of Mill No. 3 at one time. During the existence of the Lancaster Fire Insurance Company he was one of its managers, and was extensively interested in the
Enterprise Coal Company. A great portion of his time was devoted to the management of the Far- mers' National Bank, of which he was made Pres- ident in 1868, and which has a history of over eighty-four years, having been established in 1810, with a capital of $300,000. This has since then increased to $ 150,000 and is the only hank remain- ing out of forty chartered by the Legislature in 1810. Mr. Bausman was one of the first stock- holders and directors in the Millersville turnpike, was for many years identified with the Millersville State Normal School, and a Trustee of Franklin and Marshall College, being Treasurer of its Board for twenty-eight years. To this position he was suc- ceeded by his son, J. W. B. Bausman, in June, 1893.
Until he was over forty years of age Jacob Baus- man made his home with his father. In January, 1854, he married Mrs. Mary Baer, who died in February, 1862, leaving one son, JJ. W. B., who is now President of the Farmers' National Bank of this city. For years his home was on the Colum- bia Turnpike, about three miles west of the city, but some years ago he removed to Lancaster, mak- ing Ins home with his son on West Chestnut Street, and there his death occurred February 11, 1894. Ile was widely known as a business man of rare sagacity and unquestioned integrity. Ile justly took pride in his native country, and in the wealth and high cultivation of the lands of the Manor, on which his ancestors settled so many decades ago, and where their descendants remain among the first citizens of the community. Times have changed since those early days, and the miller of this generation has to watch more closely the fluc- tuations of the grain market, the farmer no longer has a distillery on his premises, but in the main, the agricultural methods are not radically different from those of half a century ago in Lancaster County, and in its history no name is more hon- ored than that of Bausman.
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J OIIN W. B. BAUSMAN is the only child of Jacob and Mary (Baer) Bausman, and is a leading lawyer and banker, who has been prominently connected with all public enter- prises and improvements in this locality. He is
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the capable and well known President of the Farmers' National Bank and seems to have a spe- cial fitness for financiering. His apprenticeship was served in the same institution, and from his youth he has been familiar with all the details of the large business transacted by this bank.
The birth of Mr. Bausman ocenrred in East Hempfield Township, of this county, March 12. 1855, and his earty school days were passed at the common schools in the vicinity. Afterward he attended the Mittersville State Normal School, then entering the Freshman Class at Lafayette College at Easton in September. 1870, from which he was graduated four years later with the degree of Bach- elor of Arts. Immediately afterward he began the study of law in the office of S. H. Reybolds. now deceased. Subsequently he accepted a elerkship in the Farmers' National Bank, which position he held a year and a-half, becoming familiar with the practical banking business. Resuming his studies, he was admitted to the Bar in December, 1877, and is still engaged in practice.
In 1878, and again in 1880, Mr. Bausman spent some months in traveling in Europe, and on his return gave for the benefit of charitable objects a number of lectures on his European observations, which were of a high character. Ile is one of the few attorneys in the city who are members of the American Bar Association, which holds its annual meeting at Saratoga. He holds an enviable place among the brethren of the legal profession in this city. Sinee 1880 he has heen a Director of the Farmers' National Bank and Secretary of the Board for most of this period. He is Treasurer of Frank- lin and Marshall College, Secretary and Treasurer of the Manor Turnpike Road Company, Secretary and Treasurer of the Lancaster, Oxford & Southern Railroad Company; a Director of the Pennsyl- vania Investment Company of Reading, and a Di- rector of the Electric Street Railway Company of Lancaster. In a number of other organizations in this city he is Treasurer, and his manifold duties fully occupy his time. In addition to all this he has exeeuted a number of large trusts as executor, administrator and assignee.
In April, 1880, Mr. Bausman married Miss An- nette, daughter of Hon. Thomas E. Franklin,
formerly Attorney-General of Pennsylvania. Mrs. Bausman died in June. 1882, leaving one son, named for her father, Thomas Franklin. Mr. Bans- man was again married, in May, 1892, being united with Miss Blanche Franklin, to whom has been born one son, JJ. W. B., Jr.
January 18, 1892, our subject succeeded his fa- ther as President of the Farmers' National Bank, which position he has since held. Ile was one of the originators of the Pennsylvania German So- ciety. In politics he is a stanch Republican and has several times been a delegate to state conven- tions. In benevolent work he has ever taken a leading and interested part, being one of the Trus- tees and manager of Bethany Orphans' Ilome, of which his uncle, Rev. Dr. Benjaman Bausman, of Reading, is President. Religiously, he holds mem- bership with St. Paul's Reformed Church, of which he is a Trustee, and is a man whom to know is to respeet most highly.
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OBERT FULTON. Wherever the English language is spoken or steam navigation used, the name of Fulton is a familiar household word. Robert Fulton, whose inventive ability rendered possible the successful introduc- tion of steam navigation, was born of Irish par- ents, at Little Britain (now Fulton Township), Lancaster County, Pa., in 1765. At the age of three years he was orphaned by his father's death, and being therefore thrown upon his own resources at an early age he developed the traits of self-re- liance that distinguished his career in later life.
At the age of seventeen Mr. Fulton went to Philadelphia, where he was engaged as a miniature painter, and also followed mechanical pursuits. Before attaining his majority, with money saved from his earnings he purchashed a farm in Wash- ington County, to which he brought his mother. Acting upon the advice of gentlemen who had been attracted by his talent, he went to England and placed himself under the tuition of Benjamin
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PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.
West, in whose home he was an inmate for several years. Later, while traveling through the coun- try. he met the Duke of Bridgewater, founder of the canal system in Great Britain, upon whose ad- vice he abandoned the profession of an artist for the trade of a civil engineer. For eighteen months he was employed at Birmingham, and during that time met Watt, who had just succeeded in his great improvement of the steam engine.
In 1797 Mr. Fulton took up his residence in France, and remained with JJoel Bartow for seven years. In September. 1793, he had addressed a let- ter to Earl Stanhope, proposing to communicate to him the principle of an invention respecting the navigation of ships by steam. At Paris he met Chancellor Livingston, then United States minister to France. who, entering into his views, proposed to furnish the necessary funds for an ex- periment and contract for the introduction of the new method. if successful, into the United States.
Late in 1803 Mr. Fulton constructed a working model of his intended boat. and at the same time commenced building a vessel 66x8. When finished it did not move with the speed expected. In the same year he sent an order to Watt & Boulton for a steam engine to propel a boat of large size, which was completed and reached New York in 1806. In 1807 the "Clermont" was finished, and its pro- gress through the waters of the Hudson was five miles an hour. So completely was the utility of the invention established that the legislature con- tracted to extend the exclusive privilege of Mr. Livingston and Mr. Fulton five years for every additional boat, provided the time did not exceed thirty years.
In 1809 Mr. Fulton obtained his first patent from the United States. Some litigation arose from what was termed the steamboat monopoly, but the exclusive right to navigate the waters of the state remained in the possession of Mr. Fulton and his partner during the lifetime of the former. Attend- ing as a witness before the New Jersey Legislature in January, 1815, on an attempt by Livingston to obtain a repeal of the Retaliatory Aet of that state, leveled at the steamboat monopoly, Mr. Fulton on his return was exposed for several hours to the in- clemency of the weather while crossing the water
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