USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume I > Part 13
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WILLIAM L. CONNELL.
A LTHOUGH a comparatively young man, William L. Connell, the subject of this biography, has won many laurels within the thirty-five years of his life. With the equipment of a high school education and a model of the progressive business man, he enjoys the warmest esteem of all with whom he is associated either in private or in business life. He served a term which expired in 1896 as the Mayor of his native city, and this was marked by a prudent and careful administration of municipal affairs which might have been remarkable even in a man much further advanced in years. Mr. Connell is chiefly interested in the management of various collieries, and he is one of the most enterprising and extensive operators in central Pennsylvania.
WILLIAM L. CONNELL was born in Minooka, near Scranton, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 1862. His father was James Connell, one of the well known residents of that section of the State. Mr. Connell's early education was received chiefly in the public schools, after which he had the benefit of a higher training which practi- cally fitted him for an active career in any professional or business occupation. His initial venture into the business world was in 1881, when, after having passed through the various educational courses, he connected himself with the furniture firm of Hill & Keiser. The young man gave close attention to business and rapidly advanced in this establishment from one post to another, until he had attained the highest position in its gift, when he succeeded to a membership in the concern. About ten years ago Mr. Keiser withdrew from the house and Mr. Connell became one of the partners and still remains as such, the firm now being 156
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known as Hill & Connell. Mr. Connell was possessed of a remark- ble aptitude for business even in his earliest years, and rapidly advanced until he became recognized as a decided factor among those interested in the industrial development of central Pennsylvania. His energetic nature was one which would not allow him to devote his entire time to any one enterprise when there were equal opportunities offered in other fields, and so the scene of his opera- tions was gradually extended until he had control of some of the largest and most important operations and projects in that section of Pennsylvania.
The city of Scranton is generally recognized as one of the most progressive in the entire State, and in this municipality Mr. Connell's name stands for much. He increased the facilities for the development of commerce in many directions within a wonderfully short period of time. He is Treasurer and General Manager of the Enterprise Coal Company, with works at Excelsior, near Shamokin. This is one of the largest companies of its kind in that part of the State, and no small degree of its success is due to Mr. Connell's participation in the management of the affairs. He is also President of the Holmes Metallic Packing Company and President of the Scranton Paint Company. The Scranton Axle Works, an important manufacturing concern in that city, has been benefited through his interest in the company. Mr. Connell is also President of the Hawley Electric Light and Power Company, and he is identified with many other business organiza- tions. His chief interests to-day are centred in the development of the coal business, and a number of collieries receive his personal attention in a managerial capacity. The financial affairs of these concerns come under his direct administration. Through his con- nection with the leading business interests of Scranton, Mr. Connell came prominently into public notice several years ago, and as his abilities were highly regarded by the citizens of Scranton, he was elected by them, in 1888, to serve in City Councils. He remained in that office until 1891, being re-elected for a second term. He retired when President of the Common Branch, owing to unfortunately impaired health.
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However, Mr. Connell's good deeds were not forgotten by his constituents, and recognizing in him an able business man and one who was eminently fitted for a high municipal office, he was nominated in December, 1892, for the Mayoralty of Scranton. There was a warm fight at the polls, but in February, 1893, fol- lowing, Mr. Connell was triumphantly elected by 2500 majority. His term as Mayor expired April 6, 1896.
Mr. Connell was married in January, 1886, to Miss Harrington, of Philadelphia, and they have four children. His home life is delightful, and, while he gives most of his time to the development of his business affairs, yet he takes not a little interest in the social and political life of his city. Through all his business career and during his entire term of service in public office, he has been characterized by qualities of the most commendable kind, and he is known through central Pennsylvania as one of the most worthy sons of the Keystone Commonwealth.
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Russell H. Conwell
RUSSELL H. CONWELL.
HERE is probably no man in Pennsylvania who has done more to deserve the title of a promi- nent and progressive son of the State than Rev. Russell H. Conwell, Pastor at the Baptist Temple, President of the Temple College, one of the city's most noted institutions of learning, and founder of the Samaritan Hospital. Not only as a preacher, an orator of won- derful power and a teacher and thinker who is fitted in every respect to lead in intellectual matters, is Mr. Conwell distinguished, but as a man of rare gifts and sterling qualities of mind and heart. In a condensed biography it would scarcely be possible to enumerate all those points in his character which have tended towards making him a leader among men, or to tell more than a small part of his life work; but he is known, not alone in Penn- sylvania, but through the entire country, as a thoroughly repre- sentative and useful citizen, and one who, as a minister of the gospel and a teacher in many fields, deserves a place in the history of the Nineteenth Century.
RUSSELL, H. CONWELL was born in the town of Worthington, Hampshire County, Massachusetts, February 15, 1843, and spent his early days upon a small farm situated in a sterile portion of that region known as "The Eagle's Nest." From his early boy- hood days he was compelled to earn his own livelihood, and step by step, unassisted, he rose to his present position. But he came of sturdy stock. Martin Conwell, his father, was a rugged Massa- chusetts farmer, who fought against the unrelenting penury of Nature in that barren apology for a farm whereon he lived, and yet managed to make a homestead of it. There were three chil-
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dren, Charles, now deceased, Russell, and a sister, Harriet, who is now Mrs. Lyman T. Ring, of Westfield, Massachusetts. In his youth Mr. Conwell gave every evidence of the possession of those qualities which have since brought him success and splendid results in his chosen field. It is said that even his oratorical powers appeared at quite an early age. He studied hard, and kept along with his classes in the district school by applying himself evenings, working at manual labor during school hours. He earned, by daily labor, his sustenance while at the academy in Wilbraham, Massachusetts. In 1860 he took a law and academic course together at Yale College, and went into the field of battle as a Captain of infantry, in 1863, later serving in the artillery branch of the service as a staff officer. At the close of the war he graduated at the Law Department of the Albany University and went to Minnesota, where he began to practice. He repre- sented that State in 1867 as its Emigration Agent to Germany, and he became a foreign correspondent of several newspapers, being engaged, in 1868, as correspondent of the New York Tribune, and in the following year as the traveling correspondent of The Boston Traveler. In 1870 he made, for these two papers, the entire circuit of the globe, filling at the same time many important lecture engagements. He afterwards visited England, exclusively on a lecture tour.
In 1870 Mr. Conwell published his first book, "Why and How the Chinese Emigrate," which has been followed by many others of a historical and biographical character. He was a friend and traveling companion of Bayard Taylor, and his biography of that poet and traveler was an important work. His biography of Spurgeon reached a sale of 125,000 copies in four months. For eight years Mr. Conwell practiced law in Boston, and gained great popularity as a lecturer and writer; but he felt called to other and greater fields, and, in 1879, was ordained to the ministry. In 1881 he accepted a call from Grace Baptist Church, in Philadel- phia, and removed there, the church at once entering upon a career of extraordinary prosperity. By wonderful strides it has become the largest Baptist church in America, in 1891 a Temple
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on Broad Street having been erected with a seating capacity of 4,000 people and accommodations for 5,000.
Rev. Russell H. Conwell teaches not alone by word of mouth, from the pulpit and platform, but through the medium of the types, to thousands who thirst for knowledge and instruction. The Temple College, of which he was the inceptor in 1882, and which adjoins the Baptist Temple, with 6,700 students, was, in 1894, inaugurated into a splendid field of usefulness, with full college powers from the State. It is still led by the untiring Dr. Conwell, who has, among his other honors, the degrees of LL.B., D.D. and LL.D.
In 1865 Russell Conwell and Miss Jennie P. Hayden were married at Chicopee Falls, Massachusetts, removing to a new home in the Northwest. The bride had been one of the pupils of Mr. Conwell's school in West Granville, Massachusetts. She was his faithful companion through many travels and in both success and disappointment. Two children were the result of this union, Leon, now a resident of Philadelphia, a young man who possesses many of his father's admirable traits, and a daughter, Mrs. Nima H. Tuttle, who is the wife of Edgar G. Tuttle, of Newark, New Jersey. Several years after the death of his first wife he met Miss Sarah F. Sanborn, of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, who came of an old and influential Boston family. They were married April 23, 1874, and ever since Mrs. Conwell has been a most helpful aid to her ever active husband in the carrying out of his chosen life work. They have had one child, Agnes, who is also of material assistance to her father in his great church work.
JUSTICE COX, JR.
OMMERCIAL and financial circles have long known Justice Cox, Jr. Though the scion of one of the wealthiest families in the Quaker City, he has not been content to spend his days in idleness, prefer- ring rather to enter the business life of his native city, and to put the talents with which he has been endowed and the education he has acquired to a good use. His life has been one of energy and accomplishment, and in the years during which he has been actively engaged in fostering the industries of his city, he has earned a reputation as one of its most enterprising and successful business men. Indeed it is, in no small measure, to his penetration and commercial wisdom that the iron trade owes its prominence among the industries of the Keystone State. With that clear-sightedness that is characteristic of his entire commer- cial career, he is rapidly forging to the front in every corporation with which he is connected, and by his acumen has won the reputation of being one of the most progressive men connected with the mining and manufacturing interests of the State.
JUSTICE, Cox was born in the city of Philadelphia on the 31st day of October, 1846. He is the son of Justice and Mary A. Cox. His father was a descendant of Ernest Otto Cox, who came to this country with Colonel Prince in 1642, and formed the original Swedes' settlement on the Delaware. His mother was formerly Miss Maloney, the daughter of James Maloney, who, next to Dr. Bird's estate, was the largest land owner in the county of Phila- delphia. Descended thus from one of the earliest settlers in the section, it is little to be wondered at that Mr. Cox takes an intense pride in his ancestry, and in his relation on both sides to
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families whose settlement in this country preceded even the famous Penn expedition, and who have ever since been prominent as land owners, and in the social circles of the Quaker City.
He was educated at Williston Seminary, of Easthampton, Mas- sachusetts, and having devoted himself to his studies here, and graduating with honorable distinction, he returned to his native city, well equipped for the commercial career upon which he was soon to enter. His first experience in business was in the employ of an importing dry-goods firm, which he entered in 1868. In 1873, perceiving the possibilities of the iron business, he accepted a position as agent for the Catasaqua, Chickies and Montgomery
Iron companies. In 1890 he built the furnaces at Bristol, Ten- nessee, for the Bristol Iron and Steel Company, of which he was Secretary and Treasurer. Among the other corporations engaged in the iron business with which he has been connected are the Catasaqua and Mahoning Rolling Mills Company, of which he was an active member, serving with his usual zeal and fidelity in its Directorate. The Doe Mountain Mining and Improvement Com- pany, and the Doe Valley Mining Company owed much of their prosperity to the indomitable energy which Mr. Cox displayed as their Secretary and Treasurer. He was also one of the pioneers in the development of the resources of the mountains of Tennessee, having served as Secretary and Treasurer of the Tennessee Invest- ment Company, which has done much in attracting attention to the mineral wealth of that State. As Secretary and Treasurer of the Bristol Title and Trust Company, of Bristol, Tennessee, he has also made his reputation as a successful and sagacious finan- cier. Among the more prominent financial corporations of his native city which received the benefit of his sagacity and sound business sense, are the Solicitors' Loan and Trust Company and the West Philadelphia Title and Trust Company, two well known corporations, in the Directorate of which he was long an influen- tial and prominent figure.
At present, however, Mr. Cox is not connected as an officer with any of these corporations, for, while he still takes an intense interest in the prosperity of the companies with the administra-
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tion of whose affairs he was so long identified, he has found it necessary to devote his entire time and attention to his rapidly growing iron business, and to the Balston Electric Railroad, of Balston, New York. While taking an active part in the welfare and commercial progress of Philadelphia, Mr. Cox has never entered the political field as a candidate for any public office, although, as a good citizen, he has always taken an intense interest in seeing the affairs of the municipality, State and nation properly administered.
In 1873 he was married to Miss Anna W. Oakford, the daughter of Colonel Richard Oakford, a well known man of affairs of Scranton, Pennsylvania. They have had but three children, none of whom are now living. Mr. Cox is an earnest and con- scientious Christian, and a Vestryman in St. James' Episcopal Church. He is well known as one of the most philanthropic sup- porters of Philadelphia's charitable institutions, in the welfare of which he has long been intensely interested, and in the manage- ment of whose affairs he has always taken a prominent part. Altogether, during the years in which he has been in commercial pursuits, he has made a distinct impress upon the history of the times by his unerring sagacity, and the soundness of his financial judgment. In the inception of projects for the development of his own and neighboring States, he has earned a reputation of being progressive in every sense of the word, while his eminent success as a financier has made him a prominent figure in the business circles of the Quaker City.
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SAMUEL S. CRAIG.
P HILADELPHIA'S Junior Bar has served as a vehicle for the promotion of some of the brightest men of the Commonwealth -to positions of promi- nence in their community, and it has time and again marked their progress in no uncertain man- ner. Samuel S. Craig, the subject of this biography, although a comparatively young man, is numbered among the most progres- sive and representative members of the Pennsylvania Bar. Coming of a notable family, and educated at some of the most renowned institutions of learning in the country, he entered the legal field well equipped to fight his way to success, and he has done this in a manner which speaks well for his ability and for splendid qualities of determination and ambition which underline it.
SAMUEL S. CRAIG was born at Duncannon, Pennsylvania, June 3, 1868. His father was Rev. William B. Craig, one of the most respected members of his community and a leading divine of that section of Pennsylvania, and his mother was Katharine H. Singer, who came of a family able to trace its genealogical con- nections back for many years to the earliest American settlers. Mr. Craig's youth was distinguished by a most particular care exercised by his father over his instruction, and when he entered school he was already fitted for a splendid course of education. He attended the Cumberland Valley State Normal School, and also the Croton Military Academy, Croton Landing, New York. In both of these institutions his course of study was marked by a determination to succeed, and the victories which he has since achieved in the legal field have been largely due to the rigid discipline which he exer- cised over himself in his days of early study. Leaving the Mili-
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tary Academy he went to the University of Pennsylvania Law School and, after a thorough course in that splendid seat of learning, he graduated in 1891. Mr. Craig, from his earliest youth, had been earnestly desirous of becoming a member of the Bar, and he had looked forward to his admission into the legal fraternity with considerable hope of success. After his graduation he continued to read law and, even after he had been admitted to the Bar, pursued his studies. He read with the late John Scollay, and at once met with recognition in his chosen profession, being admitted into partnership with Elias P. Smithers, Register of Wills and a renowned lawyer. This firm, under the name of Smithers & Craig, became known as one of the most successful practicing at the Bar. The two brilliant attorneys have had a number of notable cases and have won some remarkably favorable verdicts during the period of their practice.
Not alone as a lawyer has Mr. Craig won recognition, but in social life, and especially among the clubs, he is a leader as well. Mr. Craig is a member of the Gibson Chapter, Phi Delta Phi, a Greek fraternity, and one of the most progressive of its kind in the country, and as such he continues to take a great interest in collegiate affairs. In fact, he is one of the most representative younger members of the Bar, at the same time being a thorough product of American college life. He is endowed with a splendid physique, and his combination of brain and brawn is destined to achieve a success which must place him eventually well in the front rank of the leading men of his profession. He has already won his spurs and is considered a thoroughly representative and progressive Pennsylvanian.
The practice of the law comprises Mr. Craig's entire interests, but, at the same time, social life and the affairs of the municipal- ity, viewed from the legal standpoint, occupy not a little of his attention. Most of the representative lawyers have a specialty, and Mr. Craig's specialty is municipal and road law, in which branches he is particularly well versed, being generally considered an expert therein. In the affairs of the Art Club he is an active participant, having been a member for a long time. He is a member
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of the Lawyers' Club, and his interest in legal affairs is still further evidenced by his active membership in the Pennsylvania Bar Asso- ciation. Mr. Craig is a Republican by faith, although he has never sought office, nor does he actively enter into the political affairs of the city. He is unmarried, and devotes all his time to the prac- tice of his profession, in which it is his ambition to make still further strides in the way of advancements. Mr. Craig has many friends in the ranks of the Masonic fraternity, for he is one of the most highly esteemed members of Philo Lodge, No. 444, Free and Accepted Masons.
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WILLIAM CRAMP.
OT alone in Pennsylvania, not alone in the United States, but throughout the entire world there is no establishment devoted to the construction of vessels of all descriptions which can compare with the magnificent and wonderful plant of William Cramp & Sons. Cramp's Shipyard, Philadelphia, is known where- ever the seas are traversed, and the William Cramp & Sons Ship and Engine Building Company has supplied the greatest nations of the earth with their greatest war vessels, and the largest mer- chant marines have been built in their great yards. In a word, this immense industry is one of the most famous and the most thor- oughly American in the country, and it is little wonder that the Keystone State should be proud of it. Founded in the year 1830 with a ship building industry established by William Cramp when he was twenty-three years of age, this organization has become the most extensive of its kind in the world, and to-day it is car- ried on by the sons of William Cramp in a manner which has made it famous with all nations.
WILLIAM CRAMP was born in Kensington, now a part of Phila- delphia, in September, 1807, of parents who were both native Americans, the mother of English descent, the father of German, and as both had excellent characters and good social standing, young William Cramp, further assisted by his natural abilities, entered the business world under circumstances most favorable. He had the advantages of the common school system, but to these he added achievements of his own in the educational line. He had originally intended to study for the ministry, but ill-health com- pelled him to abandon this plan. As ship building offered him
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the opportunities for a needed open-air vocation, he became an apprentice to a thorough master of the craft, Samuel Grice, a noted ship builder. In 1830, when but twenty-three years of age, William Cramp started in business for himself with a small plant on the Delaware River, at the foot of Palmer Street, which, although it was ample for the requirements of the time, was far different from the one which he had built up at the time of his decease, and which his sons have made to-day a vast industrial colony of five thousand men. At first, William Cramp built barks and brigs, but when patrons began to come to him from other cities than his own he established himself upon Petty's Island, carrying on two distinct yards, and building larger vessels. In 1857, when several of his sons had received a thorough training in the business, he took into partnership Charles H. and William M. Cramp, and, in 1862, his other sons, Samuel H., Jacob C. and Theodore Cramp, all of whom are now members of the company, excepting the latter, who, twelve years ago, withdrew. Under the name of William Cramp & Sons the firm enlarged its operations extensively, and it became known throughout the country as one of the most progressive concerns in the world. The breaking out of the war gave the Cramps an opportunity further to demonstrate their capabilities, and to their fame as builders of fine wooden vessels they added the splendid achievements which made them heralded in all lands as chiefs of their craft, in the building of such war ships as the "New Ironsides." Within seven months after receiving the order for the building of this famous vessel the Cramps had the timber cut, the plans drawn, several hundred men at work, and the "Ironsides " finished and ready for action.
While all the members of the firm took an active part in the management of its affairs, the head of the concern, both in the way of management and in the execution of plans, was William Cramp, the founder. The company built a number of war vessels which did noble service for the Union, and the Navy Department found the Cramps both able and willing in its time of need. It was then that the Delaware became known as the "Clyde of America." It would be impossible in a work of this nature to
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enumerate the vessels of all classes designed and constructed by this vast establishment, for they run well up into the hundreds. In 1870, four first-class iron steamships were built by the Cramps for the American Steamship Company to ply between Philadelphia and Liverpool ; and as this contract called for more room than was then afforded by the ship yard, a large tract of land was bought in Kensington, and upon this the necessary buildings and docks were constructed. Valuable contracts rapidly followed, and before long the construction of marine engines for the steam craft, built at the company's yards, was added to the industry. The Russian Government shortly after this gave out contracts to the firm for the building of several ships, and other nations called upon them to build their war vessels, and the United States Navy received from the Cramps its finest marine warriors.
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