USA > Pennsylvania > Portraits of the heads of state departments and portraits and sketches of members of the legislature of Pennsylvania, 1893-1894 > Part 2
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
Republican party council into factions. when the Democratie party managers made overtures to the bolters to nominate any person they could mutually agree upon regardless of politics who had not been voted for. The situation having become critical, Mr Grady succeeded in ob- taining a written declination from Galusha A. Grow, the bolter's candidate, which had the effect of destroying the balance of power held by the bolters, thus saving to his party and the state a United States Senator.
Then Messrs. Cameron and Quay, the Republican leaders, entrusted him with a mission to General Garfield, the President-elect, to present the claims of Penn- sylvania to representation in the Cabinet, which was performed to the satisfaction of those who delegated him with the mission and left a favorable impression on the President-elect. Mr. Grady was asked in a letter written to him by President Garfield to accept the appointment of surveyor for the port of Philadelphia, but he declined the offer, preferring to continue in the Senate. He was one of the delegates selected by the Legislature to represent Pennsylvania at the Yorktown Centennial Celebration, and has served on many of its most important special com- mittees, notably as a member of the committee appointed to receive General Grant on his return from his trip around the world. For eight years he was chairman of the General Judiciary Committee, and eight years chairman of Finance Com- mittee. Among his most important services was the championing of a bill which was passed preventing the seizing of citizens and taking them to another state without process of law or accountability to the laws of the state, and the promi- nent part taken by him in the passage of the new city charter for Philadelphia as well as in the new procedure act, which revolutionized the practice of law. He was re-elected to a third term, and later on was chosen President pro tempore of the Senate in 1887, and re-elected President in 1889. In 1892 he was re-nominated for Senator without opposition, and elected by an increased majority. At the ex- piration of his present term he will have served twenty consecutive years in that office, and this experience has equipped him as a most thorough parliamentarian.
11
The Senate.
JACOB CROUSE, of the Eighth Sen- atorial district, was born in Phila- delphia February 14, 1840. His father, whose birthplace was Baltimore, Mary- land, was a boilermaker and his mother was a native of Ireland. He attended the public schools in Philadelphia until eleven years old, when he went to work as an errand boy and at the age of thir- teen obtained a position in a carpet store. He bas continued in that busi- ness ever since and is now the head of a large carpet store on Market street, Philadelphia. In 1874 he was elected to the State Senate and served during 1875 and 1876. During 1880 and 1881 he served a term in city councils of Philadelphia and in 1889 was again elected to the Senate to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Henry S. Taylor. In 1892 he was re-elected for a full term by a majority of 6,864. He was chairman of the Elections Connnittee and also served on the Committee on Public Buildings. Corporations, Legislative Apportion- ment, Finance, Insurance, Education and Centennial Affairs. Mr. Crouse has taken an active part in legislative work, being the sponsor of some of the most im- portant bills introduced during the session of 1893. Among these were the bills fixing the amount of the bond which is required of inspectors of buildings in the city of Philadelphia and providing for its cancellation ; providing for the better government of cities of the first class ; regulating the construction, maintenance and inspection of buildings ; fixing the charges for rental of telephones ; pro- viding for the Jicensing aud regulation of houses for the boarding of infants ; em- powering the courts of quarter sessions to grant transfers from one place to another of licenses for the sale of vinous, spiritnous, malt or brewed liquors or any admix- ture thereof Senator Crouse has been assiduous in the performance of his legisla- tive duties, and has been particularly attentive to committee work and is one of the most popular members of the Senate.
12
The Senate.
ESSE MATLACK BAKER, Senator from Delaware county, is of Quaker ancestry, and was born March 1, 1854, at Parkesburg, Chester county. His father is a farmer. His early educa- cation was had in the public schools, from which he entered the Pennsylvania Military Academy. He became a cadet at the West Point Military Academy in June, 1871, from which institution he was honorably discharged in June, 1873. The next year he began to teach school and followed that avocation until 1879. Beginning the study of law, he was ad- mitted to the bar of Delaware county in 1881, and to practice in the supreme court in 1884. He served as district attorney for Delaware county from 1882 to 1888, and won his spurs by his able LEVYTYPE LO. FHILA conduct of the prosecution in the cele- brated Sharpless murder trial. Elected to the House of Representatives in 1888, and re-elected in 1890, he soon took rank as a legislator, and in the last session impressed his name upon the election laws of the state by introducing and advocating to final passage the Baker ballot law. No more important measure to the voters of the state has been passed in late years, and Mr. Baker has been accorded a deserved popularity for liis labors in its enact- ment, as well as for the amendments aimed to perfect it which he has introduced this session. In 1892 he was elected to the Senate, where his active disposition found a congenial field, and many of the most important measures presented were framed and introduced by him. He is chairman of the Military Committee, and a member of those on Elections, Corporations, Judiciary General and Special, In- surance, Mines and Mining and Legislative Apportionment. Senator Baker's early military training left its impress upon his character, and on February 5, 1877, he enlisted as a private in company G, Eleventh regiment N. G. P .- now com- pany h\ Sixth regiment-and was rapidly promoted to a second and first lieuten- ancy, becoming captain of the company on October 22, 1878. His commission ex- piring October 22, 1883, he again enlisted as a private one month later, and was made quartermaster of the Sixth regiment May 24, 1886. His commission expired September 14, 1889. On June 17, 1892, he became captain of company H, Sixth regiment, and now holds that position. Mr. Baker takes place among the most influential of the new Senators, and has already shown himself a valuable acquisi- tion to the higher branch of the Legislature. He is a forcible and ready de- bator, a good parliamentarian, and a Senator whose close watch upon all matters of legislation keeps him always prepared to intelligently discuss any measures that come up for action in the Senate.
13
The Senate.
G EORGE ROSS, Senator from Bucks county, and the acknowledged' leader of his party in the Senate, in which body he has from his entrance therein taken a most active and influ- ential part in legislative matters, is a Pennsylvanian by birth and lineage, having been born at Doylestown, August 24, 1841. He comes of a distinguished and honored line of ancestors. Al- though his earlier ancestors were of the clan Ross of the Highlands of Scotland, his great-grandfather, Thomas Ross, was born in the county Tyrone, Ireland, in 1708. Emigrating to America in early life he joined the Society of Friends and became a distinguished Quaker preacher, dying at the house of Lindley Murray, the great grammarian, in York, England, in 1786. His son, John Ross, grandfather of Senator Ross was born in 1770, and died in 1834. Serving in the Eleventh, Fourteenth and Fifteenth Congresses, he was appointed Justice of the Supreme Court in 1830 and died in the judicial ermine, a jurist distinguished by his learning and probity. Thomas Ross, his son, and father of the present Senator from Bucks, was also a prominent lawyer and member of Con- gress, representing the Lehigh-Bucks district in the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Congresses. Nor is Senator Ross' ancestry on the maternal side less distinguished, his mother having been a daughter of Levi Pawling, of Montgomery county, a member of the Fifteenth Congress. Senator George Ross was preparatorily edu- cated at Hartsville Tennant School, Pennsylvania, and Burlington and Lawrence- ville, New Jersey, and graduated from Princeton College in the class of '61. Choos- ing the profession of his forefathers he became a lawyer, and has attained a leading position at the bar. Taking an active interest in politics he speedily became prominent in his party, and in 1872 was elected a member of the Constitutional Convention that framed the present organic law. In 1886 he was elected to the State Senate, and was re-elected in 1890. In 1889 he was the Democratic caucus nominee for President pro tempore. In 1884 and 1888 he was the Democratic candi- date for Congress in the Bucks-Montgomery district, and in 1893 was the caucus nominee of his party for United States Senator against M. S. Quay. In 1876, 1884 and 1888 he was a district delegate to the National Democratic Convention, and as a delegate-at-large in 1892 assisted for the third time in nominating Grover Cleve- land for the presidency. In this last convention he served on the committee on resolutions. Mr. Ross has been delegate to several state conventions, and was permanent chairman of that of 1892. He is a trustee of the Norristown State Hospital and president of the Bucks County Trust Company. In the present Senate he is a member of the most important committees. He married, on Decem- ber 28, 1870, at the Washington Arsenal, Ellen Lyman Phipps, daughter of G. W. Phipps, of Boston, Mass., and has six children living. Senator Ross is a lawyer of ability and a most careful and conscientious legislator. His speeches are models of conciseness and perspicuity, always receiving the interested attention of the Senate, and the heat of debate never betrays him into harshness of expression or a forgetfulness of the courtesy due to his opponents. It is no overstatement to say that Mr. Ross enjoys the friendship and esteen of his fellow Senators without regard to party affiliation.
.
1
14
The Senate.
TTENRY D. GREEN represents Berks county, or the Eleventh Senatorial district. He is serving his second term of four years in the Senate, and had previously served in the lower house from 1883 to 1887 as the representative of Reading. In 1892 he was re-elected by 8,454 majority for a term of four years. He was born on May 3, 1857, in Reading, and has continued to reside in that place ever since. He attended the public schools in his native city, and graduated from its high school in 1872 and after a year spent in prepa- ratory study entered the academic de- partment of Yale College in the fall of 1873, where he graduated with the class of 1877, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. After graduation he studied law in the office of his father, an old practitioner, and one of the leading lawyers of that county, and was admitted to practice on November 10, 1879. Sub- sequently, on February 27, he was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Since that time he has continued in active practice, interrupted only by his public duties. He has been actively interested in the success and prosperity of Reading and is president of the Reading Real Estate Exchange, which company holds large real estate interests in that vicinity. In social life he occupies a high position, and is president of the Nautilus Boat Club, the most ex- , clusive social club of Reading, and is a member of the University Club of Phila- delphia. Senator Green comes from one of the oldest and most respected families of Berks county, his great-great-grandfather, William Green, having settled in Maxatawney township that county, in 1760, and carried on a mercantile business there. He was burgess of Reading in 1788 and assessor in 1792. His great- grandfather, William Green, was born in Maiden-Creek township that county in 1777, and in 1811 was elected sheriff of Schuylkill county, which was then cut off of Berks. John Green, his grandfather, was born in Or- wigsburg, then in Berks county, in 1800, and was recorder of deeds and also regis- ter of the county of Berks. His father, Albert G. Green, was born in Reading, where he still resides, and continues to practice law. Senator Green has been on the committees of Judiciary General, Special and Local, Municipal Affairs, Appropriations and Game and Fish. In 1891 he was the Democratic caucus nominee for President pro tempore of the Senate, and at Governor Pattison's last inauguration was the chairman of the committee of arrangements. Through his efforts enough money was secured from the state to complete the Reading Hospital and to add a new dormitory to the normal school at Kutztown. He also secured the passage of the act to secure a separate orphans' court in Berks county, which has been in successful operation since the law went into effect, and engi- neered through both houses the new registration act. He was also on the con- ference committee which put the finishing touches to what is known as the Baker ballot reform law.
1
The Senale.
15
A RTHUR DONALDSON MARKLEY, of the Twelfth district, who is serv- ing the last half of his four-year term in the Senate from Montgomery county, was born in Columbia, Lancaster county, Pa., April 28, 1832. He was educated in the public schools and at Partridge's Military Academy at Harrisburg, Pa. In 1857 he graduated in the medical department in the University of Penn- sylvania and practiced medicine at Mont- gomery Square, Pa., until 1861, when he entered his country's service as a sur- geon of the United States navy. On his return to his home he resumed the prac- tice of his profession until his election as member of the House in 1865, 1866 and 1867. Dr. Markley was very pop- ular with his fellow-Democrats in the House, and in 1867 was made the Dem-
ocratic nominee for Speaker. In the Legislature of that session he served on the Committee on Historical Painting of the Battle of Gettysburg among other committees. He was collector of internal revenue in the Sixth district under President Jolinson. During the first adminis- tration of President Cleveland he was postmaster at Hatboro', and has served as burgess of Hatboro' and in the councils of Norristown. He was elected to the Senate in 1890 by the unusually large majority of 1,184. He was nominated for Congress in 1886 in the Seventh district, but was unable to accept the honor. He was the first president and is now president of the Perkiomen railroad, a member of the American Academy of Political Science, of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, of the Historical Society of Montgomery county, of the Loyal Legion of the United States. a charter member of Lieutenant J. H. Fisher Post G. A. R., pastmaster of W. K. Broy lodge F. and A. M, Hutchinson commandery No. 52 A. A. S. R., Orient of Philadelphia, past officer of Hatboro' lodge A. O. U. W., and represents the same organization in the Masonic Home Societies at Philadelphia. At the session of 1893 Dr. Markley served on the Com- mittees of Finance, Appropriations, Canals and Inland Navigation, Library, Mil- itary, Mines and Mining, Pensions and Gratuities, Vice and Immorality and Public Health and Sanitation. He introduced and pushed to the front the bill to place state lunatic hospitals in the control of the boards of trustees, which change he supported in an exhaustive speech on the floor of the Senate. He also intro- duced legislation to ensure the sale of pure milk, which was negatived by the Committee on Agriculture because of the opposition raised against it by the milk dealers in the vicinity of Philadelphia.
16
The Senate.
JOHN HERR LANDIS, Senator from the Thirteenth district, composed of part of Lancaster, has just turned his fortieth year, having been born in Manor township, Lancaster county, on January 31, 1853. His father was a farmer and miller, and after having received his education in the common schools and at the Millersville State Normal School, Mr. Landis took up the same occupa- tions, and, with the exception of the time spent in public and political work, has since pursued them.
Trained from boyhood in Republican principles, he began to take part in his party's campaigns before his years had given him the right to vote, and he soon became active in its councils. His first appearance in state politics was in 1877, when he was a delegate to the Republi- can State Convention. In 1878 he was elected to the House of Representatives and his course was so satisfactory to his constituents that he was returned in 1880 and 1882. His participation in legisla- tive affairs was active and influential and made its impress upon the laws of the state. The very important and necessary law regulating primary elections was introduced and passed to final passage by Mr. Landis. Between his retirement from the House in 1883, and his election to the Senate in 1892, Mr. Landis fol- lowed his avocation as farmer and miller, taking, however, an active part in local and state politics. In every presidential and gubernatorial campaign since he became a voter in 1874, he has been a prominent figure, and has addressed large numbers of meetings in advocacy of Republican principles and standard-bearers. Always a steadfast adherent of that matchless statesman, James G. Blaine, he edited, in 1884, a campaign paper called The Plumed Knight, which did much to swell the phenomenal majority given that leader in Pennsylvania. And, as a fol- lower of Mr. Blaine, he was no less earnest in his advocacy of the system of polit- ical economy whose ablest defender was the man from Maine, and from 1890 until 1893 Mr. Landis was secretary of the Farmers' Protective Tariff League of Penn- sylvania. He was president of the Agricultural Society of Lancaster from 1885 until 1893, and in the taking of the census of 1890 served as United States super- visor for the Second district, composed of the counties of Lancaster, Chester, Del- aware and York.
Senator Landis is chairman of the Committee on Retrenchment and Reform, and secretary of Agriculture and Education. He is also a member of the Committees on Banks, Public Buildings and Compare bills. During the present session he has introduced several important measures, among them those fixing the mini- mum school term at seven months, and defining and punishing bribery at elec- tions. He is a forcible debator and pleasing speaker and has rapidly taken rank among those Senators who more especially mould and influence legislation.
4
The Senate.
17
LEVYTYPE CO. PHILA.
W TINFIELD SCOTT SMITH repre- sents the Fourteenth Senatorial district. He was born (and still resides) at Bainbridge, Lancaster county, No- vember 22, 1847. His father was the foreman of the Pennsylvania railroad in the vicinity of that town for years, and afterwards was elected sheriff of Lancas- ter county on the Republican ticket, fill- ing the office for three years, from 1863 to 1866, after which he retired to private life. He was prominently identified with polities in his county for many years. His son, Winfield, in his early youth, was educated in the common schools, with which he severed his connection when but twelve years old. In 1860 he entered a store and has followed the mercantile business ever since in con- junction with serving as ticket and freight agent of the Pennsylvania rail~ He has often been a delegate to the state
road at Bainbridge for twenty-six years. conventions of his party and in 1884 was an alternate to the national convention which nominated James G. Blaine for President. He served two terms in the House, having been elected in 1886 and 1888. He has invariably been compelled to fight hard for the nomination, but when placed in the field polled a big vote. In 1886 he ran five hundred votes ahead of the late Senator Stehman, who at the the time ran for the higher branch of the Legislature. When nominated for the Senate in 1890 he had for his competitors ex-Representatives Kauffman and Stober, and the race was one of the closest in the history of Lancaster county polities, Mr. Smith passing under the wire a neck in front. He never had the support of the men who have controlled the Republican politics of the state and has always confined his campaign expenses within the requirements of the law. He has been on the Lancaster County Republican Committee for twelve years, and the member from the committee from his district has never been taken outside the family of which he was a member since the organization of the Repulican party, in 1856. Mr. Smith, at the session of 1893, was the secretary of the Committee on Appropriations, chairman of the Committee on Counties and County Seats, and a member of the Committee on Vice and Immorality and other committees. Among the bills he introduced was one for the establishment of experimental tobacco stations (afterward amended by him to make it general), and a bill to take from pipe line companies the right of eminent domain because of the abuse of the power in the counties through which their lines pass.
2
18
The Senate.
SAMUEL J. M. McCARRELL, who represents the Fifteenth district, is a native of Washington county, having been born in Buffalo township, that county. He is the eldest son of the Rev. Alexander McCarrell, D. D., a prominent Presbyterian clergyman, late of Claysville, Washington county. When Mr. McCarrell was a lad he attended the common schools of his native home during the winter sessions and during the summer seasons he worked on a farm. He was energetic and a great lover of books, and after he had laid the foundation of his early education he entered the store of his uncle at Clays- ville as a clerk, and while so engaged prepared himself, under the instruct- ions of his father, for college. In 1860 he entered Washington College and four years later he was graduated, taking at the time the first honor of his class. From September, 1864, to June, 1865, Mr. McCarrell was assistant principal of the Linsley Institute at Wheeling, West Virginia, and during this time began the study of law with Mr. McKennan, of the firm of Richardson & McKennan, Wheeling, West Virginia, but before he had finished his law course he removed to Harrisburg, Pa., in 1865, where he entered the law office of the Hon. David Fleming, completed his studies and was admitted to practice before the Dauphin county courts in 1866. He then became the assistant and law partner of Mr. Fleming, and remained as such up to the time of Mr. Fleming's death in 1890. Mr. McCarrell was twice elected to the office of district attorney for Dauphin county, from 1881 to 1887. He has, since his residence in Harrisburg, been very closely identified with the many charitable institutions of the state capital city, and in church work has always taken a great interest. He is a Republican and in all the campaigns of his party, local, state or national, he has been in demand, because he has been recognized as a forcible and eloquent speaker. He was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1888, which nominated General Harrison for the Presidency of the United States. In the fall election of 1892 Mr. McCarrell was elected State Senator to represent the Fifteenth Senatorial district, Dauphin county, by a large majority. In the nominations and elections for the several political offices which Mr. McCar- rell has held, it is a fact worthy of mention that at all of them he was tendered the nominations by acclamation and elected by more than the normal party majority. Senator MeCarrell has displayed great interest in important legislation, is a good debater and very popular with his fellow Senators. He is chairman of Constitu- tional Reform Committee and a member of the Committee on Insurance, Judiciary, General, Judiciary Special, Legislative Apportionment, Library and Railroads. Mr. McCarrell follows his profession in Harrisburg, and has a large clientage and a lucrative practice.
-
19
The Senate.
M ILTON CHRISTIAN HENNING- ER, who is serving his third term as a member of the Senate from Lehigh county, was born April 21, 1851, in Upper Milford township, Lehigh county, about a mile from Emaus postoffice. His father was a hard-working black- smith. The younger Henninger was given the best education attainable and attended the common schools of his native township and the private schools at Emaus from 1857 to 1866, the Free- land Seminary (now Ursinus College) at Collegeville, Montgomery county, in 1867, and the Keystone State Normal School at Kutztown, Berks county, from 1868 to 1869. He graduated from the latter institution in 1869, and in 1872 entered Muhlenberg College, junior LEVYTYPERPHILA class, and graduated in 1874. He taught school in 1868, 1869 and 1870 during the winter months and was tutor at Muhlenberg College after his graduation for one year. He was admitted to the bar of Lehigh county in 1876 and has practiced the profession of his choice in that county ever since he became a lawyer. He was elected district attorney at the fall election in 1877 and served one term of three years. He was first elected to the Senate from Lehigh county in 1882 and has twice been honored with re-election, a political distinction enjoyed by few people in the rural districts of the state. In 1890 he was chosen Senator for a term of four years by a majority of 2,730, showing that Senator Henninger's popularity has an npward tendency among his constituents. In the Democratic State Con- vention-of 1882, which nominated Robert E. Pattison for Governor of Pennsyl- vania, Mr. Henninger cast his first vote for Eckley B. Coxe, and then supported the successful candidate. He is on the Appropriation, Legislative Apportionment and Judiciary Local Committees and has introduced bills to enforce section four, article seventeen of the constitution, forbidding the consolidation of competing lines of railroads and canals; to enforce the fifth section of the same article, prohibiting common carriers from'engaging in mining or manufacturing enterprises, and to divert the money derived from wholesale liquor licenses from the state into the local treasuries where licensed places are located. Mr. Henninger is one of the most cogent reasoners in the Senate and commands close attention when he dis- ensses any subject of importance.
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.