Portrait and biographical record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties, Pennsylvania. : Containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the counties, together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States, Part 8

Author:
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1006

USA > Pennsylvania > Carbon County > Portrait and biographical record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties, Pennsylvania. : Containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the counties, together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 8
USA > Pennsylvania > Lehigh County > Portrait and biographical record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties, Pennsylvania. : Containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the counties, together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 8
USA > Pennsylvania > Northampton County > Portrait and biographical record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties, Pennsylvania. : Containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the counties, together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States > Part 8

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The silver question precipitated a controversy between those who were in favor of the continu- ance of silver coinage and those who were op- posed, Mr. Cleveland answering for the latter, eve11 before his inauguration.

On June 2, 1886, President Cleveland married Frances, daughter of his deceased friend and part- ner, Oscar Folsom, of the Buffalo Bar. Their union has been blessed by the birth of two daugh- ters. In the campaign of 1888, President Cleve- land was renominated by his party, but the Republican candidate, Gen. Benjamin Harrison, was victorious. In the nominations of 1892 these two candidates for the highest position in the gift of the people were again pitted against each other, and in the ensuing election President Cleveland was victorious by an overwhelming majority.

Bem. Harrison

BENJAMIN HARRISON.

2 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 death warrant of the king. He subsequently paid for this with his life, being hung October 13, 1660. His descendants canie to America, and the next of the family that appears in history is Benjamin Harrison, of Virginia, great-grandfa- ther 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, he 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 scarlet 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 inemorable in the history of our country. The convention which assembled in Chicago in June and named Mr. Harrison as the chief stund- 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- spects to the distinguished statesman.

Mr. Harrison spoke daily all through the sun- mer and autumn to these visiting delegations, and so varied, masterly, and eloquent were his speeches that they at once 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- torical 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- cal 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 aphorisms. Original in thought, precise in logic, 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.

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Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon Counties, PENNSYLVANIA.

INTRODUCTORY.

HE time has arrived when it becomes the duty of the people of this county to per- petuate 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 memory 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.

HON. ROBERT KLOTZ.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

M AJ. ROBERT KLOTZ, formerly a Mem- ber of Congress, is a well known resi- dent of Mauch Chunk. His great-grand- father, Jacob Klotz, eame to Ameriea from Wurt- emberg, Germany, in 1749, and settled in Lowhill Township, Northampton County (now in Lehigh County), where in 1767 he located land. A few years later, his son, John Klotz, married Fronia Krous, and also located land in the same town- ship, where he resided throughout his remaining days. Christian Klotz, the father of our subject, was born in 1789, and about 1814 left his native township, settling soon afterward in Mahoning Township, Carbon County. There in 1816 he mar- ried Elizabeth, the daughter of Robert MacDaniel, whose wife was Elizabeth Kicks, a Quakeress.

Robert Klotz, their second son, is the gentleman whose name heads this sketch. He was born in that part of Northampton now Carbon County, October 27, 1819, and acquired only such education as the winter school afforded, with the exception of six months at a private school in Easton after his twenty-third year. At the age of twenty-four, in 1843, he was eleeted the first Register and Re- corder of Carbon County. In 1846 he was chosen Lieutenant of Company K, Second Pennsylvania Infantry, for service in the Mexican War, and aft- erward became Adjutant of the same regiment under command of John W. Geary. He was with General Scott on his triumphant mareh toward the eity of Mexico, and took part in the battles of Vera Cruz and Cerro Gordo. At the latter he had charge of the men who delivered at General Scott's headquarters twenty thousand silver dollars in

bags, which were in a wagon captured from the Mexieans. From the eity of Jalapa, he came home on a short furlough on important business, and on returning took part in the memorable fight at Puente Nacional, and a second affray at Cerro Gordo, Huamantla (where Walker fell), Pueblo, etc., finally reaching the city of Mexico under Gen. Joseph Lane, on the 9th of December, 1847.

Major Klotz then joined his old command, with which he served until the close of the war. For his courage and bravery at the second battle of Cerro Gordo he received honorable mention in the reports of his superior offieer to the War Depart- ment, and to his gallantry was largely due the suc- cess of the engagement at Puente Nacional in Au- gust, 1847. Here he was temporarily placed un- der arrest for refusing to obey orders to spike a eannon and retreat, the cannon being manned by himself and another offieer. The curt and em- phatic reply of Lieutenant Klotz was that he did not come to Mexico to spike eannon. The next morning he was relieved from arrest, as he was the only man under Major Lally's command that had ever been on the hills of Cerro Gordo, and in com- mand of Company C, of the Regular Army, under Henderson's command, he successfully dislodged the enemy.

After his return to his home at Mauch Chunk, Major Klotz served two terms as a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature, and in 1854 removed to Kansas in response to an invitation from Gov- ernor Reeder of that territory. He was a promni- nent and active participant in the stirring scenes and events during the period immediately preced-

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PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

ing the admission of Kansas as a state. He located in the town of Pawnee, and therc built the first hotel in western Kansas. This house became a noted stopping place for persons representing both partics engaged in the free-state and anti-free- state discussions. The first session of the Legisla- ture was moved from Shawnee Mission to Pawnee. Major Klotz was a member of the historic Topeka Constitutional Convention, was the first to sign the constitution, and after its adoption became the first Secretary of State under Governor Rob- inson's administration. In 1856 he was a mein- ber of the celebrated Committee of Safety to pro- tect the state from invasion, and was appointed Brigadier-General of the state troops at Lawrence, where he was associated with Dietzler, Gaines, Jenkins, Robinson and others. He exerted a strong influence in securing Topeka as the capital of Kansas.

Again returning to his native state, Major Klotz served as Treasurer of Carbon County for one term, and at the opening of the Civil War entered the Federal army for three months' service under General Patterson. In 1862 he was chosen Col- onel of the Nineteenth Pennsylvania Regiment of Emergency Troops at the time of Lee's first inva- sion of Pennsylvania. Since the war he lias been successful in conducting a number of business en- terprises, and is one of the Board of Managers of the Laflin & Rand Powder Company of New York. For a number of years he was a Trustee and is now an honorary Trustce of the Lehigh Univer- sity. In 1878 he was elected to Congress on the Democratic ticket from the Eleventh Pennsylvania District, receiving eighty-two hundred and eleven votes against eighty-one hundred and sixteen for the Republican, fifty-one hundred and seventy- three for the Greenback, and forty-one hundred and forty-five for the independent Democratic candidate. Two years later, when re-elected, his majority was eighty-three hundred and forty- seven votes. He served on the Committee of Mines and Mining, and on the District of Colum- bia. In Congress he obtained influence among the members on account of his practical views and his business-like force. During the extra session of that Congress, he prepared and introduced a bill

for pensioning soldiers and the families of de- ceased soldiers of the Mexican War. The provi- sions of this bill eventually passed both houses and became a law. Gencral Klotz is one of the Vice-Presidents of the National Association of Mexican Veterans, and takes a deep interest in looking after the comforts and welfare of his sur- viving comrades of the war with Mexico.

In 1849 Major Kiotz was married to Sallie, daughter of Col. John Lentz; and to them was born one son, Lentz Edmund, who was married in April, 1879, to Emma E. Laubach, daughter of Joseph Laubach, of Bethlehem, Pa. The General's wife and son are both now deceased, and he was left with his four grandchildren, Sallic L., Robert L., Mabel E. and Lentz Edinund, and their mother to cheer him in his declining years at his beautiful home in the picturesque town of Mauch Chunk.

DWIN SENSINGER is one of the School Directors of Franklin Township, Carbon County, and is the owner of a good farm within the limits of the same township. He has also acted in the capacities of Road Supervisor and Township Overseer of the Poor. Politically he votes for Democratic nominees, and is a man who lends his influence to all improvements which will benefit the community in which he dwells.

A native of Lehigh County, Mr. Sensinger was born December 6, 1830, his parents being Daniel and Salome (Kraus) Sensinger, who were likewise born in that county. The former, it is supposed, was a soldier in the War of 1812, though the in- formation on that subject is not entirely satisfac- tory. He came from a family who were early set- tlers of the Lehigh Valley and who were prominent in its development. The early years of our subject were passed on his father's farm, and his time was devoted to assisting in its cultivation.

When seventeen years of age Mr. Sensinger be- gan learning the carpenter's trade, which he fol- lowed for the next seven years of his life. After-

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PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

ward he was for a short time employed in running a saw and grist mill. Since that time he has been engaged in farming, and in the spring of 1857 re- moved to this county, settling on the farm which he still cultivates and owns. This place comprises seventy-six acres of fertile and valuable land which is adapted to the raising of all kinds of grain and contains a good orchard, with many va- rieties of fruit. The owner has succeeded well as an agriculturist and has made a good living for himself and family, besides laying away a suffi- cient sum with which to pass in comfort his de- clining years.

In 1855 Mr. Sensinger was married in Lehigh County to Caroline, daughter of Henry Guyer, who is now deceased. To our subject and his wife has been born a daughter, Laura A. Two years after their marriage they removed to this town- ship, where they have made their home and where they number hosts of friends, who hold them in high estcem.

The early education of Mr. Sensinger was lim ited to that obtainable in the district schools of that early period. Not content with the knowl- edge there gained, however, by reading and obser- vation and by years of study he has become well informed on general topics. Besides serving in the public capacities to which we have already re- ferred, he was for three years one of the Commis- sioners of Carbon County and has been very influ- ential in local affairs. Religiously he is a member of the Lutheran Church, to which denomination his wife also belongs.

F REDERICK LEUCKEL, a retired butcher of Lehighton, and one of the wealthy and respected citizens, claims Germany as the land of his birth, which occurred in Hessen, on the 15th of November, 1807. His parents were John and Eliza Leuckel. In accordance with the laws of his native land, he attended the public schools until fourteen years of age. At the age of

sixteen he began learning the trade of a butcher in Amsterdam, Holland, where he remained for a period of seven years. In his twenty-third year, he boarded a sailing-vessel bound for America, and after a voyage of one hundred and thirty days landed at New York City.

For a short time Mr. Leuckel was employed in a sugar factory in New York, after which he re- moved to Easton, Northampton County, where he opened a meat market, and engaged in business for himself. He was there married to Miss Lucetta Lenzler, who was born in Germany, but who came to the United States during her early girlhood. In 1834 they removed to Lehighton, where Mr. Leuckel again established a meat market. His business increased, and he sold to the retail trade from eighteen to twenty beeves per week. In that line of business he continued until April, 1875, when he retired to private life. He began busi- ness with a cash capital of only $40. and from a humble position, steadily worked his way upward to one of affluence. As his financial resources in- creased, he not only enlarged his market, but also made judicious investments in other enterprises, becoming connected with various interests. He owns considerable property and is a stockholder in the Lehighton Bank, the First National Bank, the Second National Bank of Mauch Chunk, and the First National Bank of Catasauqua.

Mr. and Mrs. Leuckel became the parents of six children, three sons and three daughters: John, who is engaged in the sanitary business in Tren- ton, N. J .; Emma, wife of Samuel Morris, a resi- dent of Aspen, Colo .; Fred, who makes his home in the same place; Tillie C., a widow living at home; Alfred K., who is also located in Trenton, N. J., and Louisa, now Mrs. Bowman, of Trenton, N. J. The mother of this family was called to her final rest in March, 1884. She was an active and consistent member of the Evangelical Society, and was a most estimable lady, whose loss is deeply mourned throughout the community.

Mr. Leuckel has been a member of the same church for half a century. In his political views he is a Democrat, and supports the men and meas- ures of that party, but has never sought or de- sired political preferment for himself. His life has

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PORTRAIT AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

been an honorable and upright one. He is straight- forward in all business dealings, and through well directed efforts, industry and good manage- ment he has won a handsome property, becoming one of the wealthy citizens of Lehighton. It was a fortunate day for him when he decided to emi- grate to America, for he has found a pleasant home, gained many friends and secured a hand- some competency, which now enables him to live retired, resting in the enjoyment of the fruits of his former toil.

J OHN SEABOLDT is a worthy representative of the business interests of Lchighton, and carries on operations as a real-estate and in- surance agent. He has the honor of being a native of the Keystone State, for his birth occurred in Chester County, on the 23d of October, 1845. His father, John Seaboldt, was also born in Penn- sylvania, and the grandfather, Henry Seaboldt, was one of the pioneers of Chester County. The fam- ily is of Scotch and English descent. The father was a farmer during his early life, but afterward engaged in business as a merchant tailor, his ener- gies being devoted to that work for many years. His last days were spent in Lehighton, where his death occurred in 1891. His wife, who bore the maiden name of Mary A. Sherren, died in Lehigh- ton in the year 1889. This worthy couple were the parents of nine children, four of whom are yet living.

John Seaboldt was the eighth in order of birth in this family. No event of special importance occurred during his early boyhood days, which were passed amidst play and work and in attend- ance at the public schools of his native county. He afterward pursucd his studies in the schools of Philadelphia, and then entered upon his business carcer in the mercantile establishment of D. J. Lincoln & Co., in Birdsboro, Berks County, Pa. He served as salesman and superintendent of that

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Portrait and biographical record of Lehigh, Northampton and Carbon counties, Pennsylvania. : Containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens of the counties, together with biographies and portraits of all the presidents of the United States, Part 8

Author: Publication date: 1894 Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 1006

Author:
Publication date: 1894
Publisher: Chicago : Chapman Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 1006