USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume I > Part 2
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Personally, Governor Hastings is a man of powerful physique, and his administrative ability will be questioned by no one who knows him. He is patient and tolerant to a surprising degree. His social and private life is beyond criticism. He is devoted to his family, and his home life is of the most enviable character. He was married October 4, 1877, to Jane Armstrong Rankin, daughter of James H. Rankin, a prominent member of the Centre County Bar, and has two children, Helen and Sarah.
HENRY C MCCORMICK.
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ENRY C. McCORMICK is of Scotch-Irish stock. Early in the last century his ancestors left their home in the north of Ireland and settled in Cumberland County, Pennsylvania. The mem- bers of his family took an active and honorable part in the Revolution. His great-grandfather settled in White Deer Valley, about the year 1770, in what is now Lycoming County. Mr. McCormick was born June 30, 1844, and is of the third generation born in this county. At that time his father was a farmer, and the boyhood days of the subject of this sketch were employed on the farm during the summer and in the public schools during the winter. At the age of sixteen he entered Dickinson Seminary, at Williamsport, and afterwards attended and graduated from the Eastman Business College, at Pough- keepsie, New York. He also taught several terms in the public schools, meanwhile, and when not otherwise employed, reading law. At the age of twenty-two he was admitted to the Lycoming Bar. His first inclination was to locate in the West, but he began practice at Williamsport and has since resided there. His father had also been admitted to the Bar, and the two formed a partnership which continued until the father's death in 1878. In 1882 he and his brother became associated under the name of H. C. & S. T. McCormick, and this firm still continues. Mr. McCormick has been highly successful. Profound research and exhaustive preparation are his methods. He tries a law suit with almost mathematical exactness. Such well directed industry, coupled with an eminent natural capacity for the comprehension and analysis of legal principles, has earned for him a place among
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the very foremost lawyers of Pennsylvania. He practices exten- sively in many counties outside that of his immediate location and also in the Federal courts.
He early began to participate in the management of party politics. He served a number of years as County Chairman and was frequently a delegate to the State conventions or member of the State Committee. His father had been an old-time Whig, but at the outbreak of the War joined the Democratic Party and ever afterwards held to its tenets. But when the son attained his majority he espoused the cause of Republicanism, and has always remained unshaken in its faith. All his brothers are Democrats. He has done much to perfect the party organization in his own county, and has been a chief instrument in converting it to Re- publican majorities. He is a favorite political orator and has done much service on the stump. Political and public honors have come readily to one of his activity and mould. At twenty-five he was City Solicitor for Williamsport. From time to time he was urged for various important places, and, in 1886, was nominated and elected by a record-breaking majority to the Fiftieth Congress from the Sixteenth Pennsylvania District. He was re-elected to the memorable Fifty-first Congress, again leading his ticket. His Congressional career was highly satisfactory. Few members in so brief a time created so lasting an impression. His speech in the Fiftieth Congress against the free-lumber schedule of the Mills Bill was regarded as the' ablest presentation of the Protection cause on that article, and it was largely circulated as an effective campaign document in the Presidential election of 1888. In the Fifty-first Congress he was a member of the Judiciary Committee, Committee on Education, and Chairman of the Committee on Railroads and Canals. He was appointed on the sub-committee of three from the Judiciary Committee to investigate the Federal courts in the South, a committee that did much to correct the abuses that had long existed. It was a matter of general regret that, owing to the press of expanding professional and business demands, he declined to be a candidate for re-election.
In 1891 Mr. McCormick was elected a member-at-large to
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the proposed Constitutional Convention, the calling of which was voted down at the same election. In the Republican National Convention at Minneapolis, in 1892, he was a Delegate-at-Large and voted for the nomination of Major Mckinley. It is, however, as Attorney-General under Governor Hastings that Mr. McCormick has achieved his widest reputation and popularity. His adminis- tration of this important office is universally conceded to be clear, able and progressive. He has here signally displayed his strong individuality and qualities of leadership. He has had the welfare of the Commonwealth steadily in view. When the Legislature voted him extra compensation, in 1895, he refused to receive it, believing it unwarranted in law, and when it was again voted him, in 1897, the Governor vetoed the item at his own request. The roll of employés in his department was not increased during his term, although the burden of its duties steadily grows. He has held fast to a high standard of economy and efficiency. His name has been canvassed in connection with the Governorship and Federal Cabinet and always without dissent as to his fitness or ability.
In his business relations Mr. McCormick has been no less successful than in his professional and political career. He as- sisted in founding the Lycoming National Bank of Williamsport, and was one of its directors until the organization of the banking house of Cochran, Payne & McCormick, of which strong financial institution he is a member. He became President of the Williams- port and North Branch Railroad Company in 1892, and continued until he became Attorney-General. By birth and early training Mr. McCormick was Presbyterian, and he has clung to the faith of his Scotch-Irish forefathers. He and his family are members of the First Presbyterian Church, of Williamsport. His wife is a daughter of the late John W. Hays, of Erie. They have two children. In the community where Mr. McCormick has resided so many years, he is known for his charity and interest in every worthy enterprise. He has the gift of making warm, devoted and lasting friendships. He is the owner of a superb private library and is a man of liberal literary culture.
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BENJAMIN J. HAYWOOD.
T HERE are few higher offices within the gift of the people of a State than that of Treasurer of the Commonwealth. It is a post which combines a number of most responsible duties, and when it has been tendered a man it is a compliment to his ability, his honesty and his high standing. The Treasurer of a State must not only be a man who is known to the community at large as one of high political purpose, but one who has an exhaustive knowledge of finance, a keen business judgment and a thorough appreciation of the demands which such an office will make upon his capacity. Pennsylvania has a State Treasurer worthy of the honor in every way, and one fully competent to manage its business, in Benjamin J. Haywood, who was elected by a handsome majority in 1895. Mr. Haywood has had a long experience in financial management; and his education in youth has been such, both in school and in mercantile pursuits, as to render him a very desirable occupant of such an office as that of State Treasurer. Aside from this, Mr. Haywood has always been an active participant in local and State politics, and this has given him a wide acquaintance with the people and their requirements.
1 His frank and genial disposition has made a friend of his every acquaintance.
BENJAMIN J. HAYWOOD was born in Mercer County, Penn- sylvania, April 12, 1849, his parents being well known in that section of the State, where many of his ancestors had resided. When old enough to embrace the opportunities offered by the system of free education then prevailing in Pennsylvania, he was sent by his parents to the common schools, where he received the
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foundation for his later business knowledge. After leaving the public schools he was sent to the Iron City Business College, Pittsburg, where his mind was trained by a thorough course of studies. He had always given evidence of a leaning towards a financial life and so embarked in this pursuit in 1873, when he became teller of Morrison's Bank, West Middlesex, Pennsylvania. He served in that capacity until 1878, giving every evidence of his fitness for such a position. All this time he was active in local politics, and in recognition of several well-rendered services he was appointed Postmaster of West Middlesex, in which office he served honorably for a number of years. The next step in his political career was when he was made Message Clerk of the State Senate at the sessions of 1885 and 1887; and while serving in that capacity he added much more to his store of Legislative experience. In the latter part of 1887 he was elected Prothonotary of Mercer County for a term of three years. In 1891, after the calamitous failure of The First National Bank of Clearfield, Mr. Haywood was appointed by the Comptroller of the Currency Receiver of the unfortunate bank; and it afterwards developed that this appointment was about the best that could have been made. Mr. Haywood's management of the affairs of the ruined institution was such as to win him the highest commendation, not only of those immediately interested, but of the Comptroller of the Cur- rency and other United States Treasury officials with whom his duties brought him in contact. As a result of the Receiver's able grasp of affairs the creditors were paid in full, the stockholders received a dividend of 75 per cent., and they may yet receive more.
In May, 1894, Mr. Haywood was appointed Cashier of the State Treasury, and the responsible offices of that position he filled with such faithfulness and acceptability that he was greatly raised in the esteem of all who had any official dealings with him. Mr. Haywood's life had always been an active and thoroughly useful one. His early training was as good as that of any young man in the State, and his business career was full of instances of his ability and steadfastness. His knowledge of the banking business fitted him admirably for the duties which he afterward encoun-
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tered in his public positions. In the local affairs of Mercer County he became a very prominent figure; and from his youth- ful days until the present time he has, upon more than one occa- sion, demonstrated his willingness and ability to be of benefit to his party and the people in general. He represented the Repub- lican party in County, Congressional and State Conventions; and for four years he was Chairman of the Mercer County Republican Committee, where he showed himself an able organizer and tireless worker. In 1893 Mr. Haywood was a candidate for the Republi- can nomination for State Treasurer, and had a large and very influential following. He withdrew, however, before the convention, leaving a clear field to Col. S. M. Jackson, who was elected, Mr. Haywood working hard to bring this result about. His services were finally recognized most substantially in 1895, when he was again a candidate for the nomination for State Treasurer. When the State Convention met, Mr. Haywood was unanimously nomi- nated, and the triumph thus won was but of the first of a series of such victories, for when the people of the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania went to the polls to ballot for their choice of financial manager, Benjamin J. Haywood was elected by the splendid majority of 174,264. The choice of the people for this important office proved a wise one, for since his incumbency Mr. Haywood has demonstrated his entire worthiness for the trust imposed upon him, and the affairs of the State Treasury Depart- ment have been managed in a most thorough and business-like manner. Mr. Haywood is to-day one of the staunchest Republi- cans of his great State, and is a most active participant in its political affairs. Socially he is highly popular, and he is an honored member of many important societies.
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AMOS H. MYLIN.
A PICTURESQUE personality in Pennsylvania poli- tics is the Auditor-General of the State, AMOS H. MYLIN, whose agricultural connections have not only contributed to his own political successes, but also made him frequently an influential agent in guiding plans of the leaders through difficulties. In his striking personal presence Mr. Mylin, who is also a lawyer, combines not a few bucolic suggestions with an air of professional keenness. Descended from one of those Mennonite families who, nearly three hundred years ago, emigrated from Canton Schaffhausen, in Swit- zerland, to the New World, seeking religious liberty denied them in the Old, Mr. Mylin was born in West Lampeter Township, Lancaster County, September 29, 1837. He has the physical vigor and freshness of one many years younger and probably cannot recall when he was sick since he began following the plow, though illness prior to that time interfered considerably with his otherwise unconquerable determination to acquire an education and means of comfortable livelihood through his own unaided efforts. He obtained his early education in the public schools of Lancaster County and Charlotteville, New York, completing his elementary studies at Phillips Academy, in Andover, Massachusetts. He left that institution well booked in the classics, and with a mastery of the German language which he knew would be specially valuable among his future Lancasterian constituents. Compelled by failing health to return to Lancaster County, young Mylin there busied himself in farm work until 1861, when he began to study law in the office of A. Herr Smith, at Lancaster City, who was afterward elected to Congress from the district for several terms. He inter-
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rupted his law studies in 1862 to enlist as a private in the Fif- tieth Regiment of Pennsylvania Emergency Men. On his return from this experience in the outskirts of war, he resumed the law in the University of Pennsylvania, graduating in 1864 with the degree of Bachelor of Laws. He was then admitted to the Bar of Philadelphia, but practiced his profession in Lancaster for four years thereafter. He had not yet become robust physically. As his health, under the office work, again broke down, he abandoned his aspirations to become a legal luminary, and returned to the old homestead, where he has since lived and tilled the farm. He had been active in Republican politics since his first vote, and, in 1872, he yielded to a big delegation of his neighbors who insisted that he should run for the State Legislature. He considered it an auspicious beginning of a legislative career destined to last twenty years that he was nominated and elected to the House of Representatives without leaving his farm for one day's canvassing.
Vigilant of the farmers' interests during three successive terms in the House, at the end of that period he was nominated for the State Senate, wherein he continuously represented Lancaster County from 1876 to 1892. He served on many of the most important committees, was twice Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Com- mittee, and for several sessions wielded the gavel over the com- mittees on Education and Insurance. He was President, pro tem., of the Senate during the long special session called by Governor Pattison in 1883, and also in the regular session of 1885.
Mr. Mylin, as a candidate for Auditor-General in 1891, had over sixty votes in the State Convention. But General David McM. Gregg was put on the ticket, and the Lancaster war horse turned in valiantly as a factor in effecting the big Republican victory. This explains why the nomination for Auditor-General was given him by acclamation in 1894, his election with Governor Hastings following in the unprecedented Republican tidal wave. His term will expire in May, 1898. The present long list of candi- dates for Governor includes Mr. Mylin's name. His Gubernatorial boom received a strong push forward last winter from information brought out by the Legislative Committee on Investigation of the
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Auditor-General's office in connection with the State Treasury. The testimony showed that during his term so far he had added to the income of the State over a million dollars which under the previous system would not have been forthcoming. This fortunate windfall at a time of exceptional straits in the State finances was the result of improvements in the machinery set to work by Mr. Mylin upon the collection of corporation tax delinquent for many years and of personal property tax. Mr. Mylin, however, has not actively entered the Gubernatorial race, being content, apparently, to let developments shape themselves, and perhaps inferring from political occurrences later than the Treasury probers' report, that the organization managers might deem it inexpedient to place any of the present Capitol Hill officers on the State ticket that year. Should the nomination go to another candidate, it is said by Lan- caster Republicans that Mr. Mylin is likely to be held by them in reserve for a more propitious Gubernatorial year.
WILBUR F. REEDER.
ELLEFONTE is justly proud of her Bar, from B. which has been drawn so many of the men who have attained high place in the governmental affairs of the State. Of those who have been called from the private practice of their profession to take upon themselves the cares of official life, few have been more worthy than Colonel Wilbur F. Reeder, Deputy Attorney- General of the State of Pennsylvania.
WILBUR FISK REEDER was born on the 7th day of January, 1855, near Catawissa, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Hiram J. Reeder, a well known farmer of Columbia County, and Eliza- beth Yocum. The boyhood of the subject of this biography was passed upon the farm, where he assisted his father, meanwhile acquiring the elements of an education in the public schools at and near Catawissa. Here he remained until he was seventeen years of age. While a student at the primary institutions he had acquired such an excellent elementary education that it was deemed advisable to enter him in one of the foremost institutions of learning in the State. Accordingly, Dickinson Seminary, at Williamsport, Pennsylvania, was selected, and there he pursued his studies with the same assiduity which had characterized his course in the public schools. In due time, in 1875, he was grad- uated at the head of his class. Upon leaving this far-famed and popular institution, which is claimed as an Alma Mater by so many of the most prominent citizens of the Commonwealth, he decided to enter the profession of law, a calling for which his tastes and talents eminently fitted him. For the purpose of pre- paring himself for the profession of his choice, he went to Belle-
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Mhran & Enel
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fonte, Centre County, and entered the law office of Bush, Yocum & Hastings. In his study of the law he applied himself closely, and, in due course of time, was admitted to the Centre County Bar. This was in May, 1877, and he at once entered into the practice of law, shortly thereafter entering into partnership with one of his tutors, General Daniel H. Hastings, now Governor of Pennsylvania. The firm took the title of Hastings & Reeder and soon acquired a large and lucrative practice. Early in his career Mr. Reeder was recognized as a safe counsellor and a reliable attorney, traits which had much to do with the success of the firm of which he was a member. During General Hastings' four years' term as Adjutant-General of the State Mr. Reeder very successfully managed the large practice, but upon the General's election to the Governorship of the State the firm was dissolved.
Always deeply interested in whatever would conduce to the good of the Commonwealth, it is natural that Mr. Reeder should take an active interest in political affairs and win a high place in the councils of the Republican party, with the principles of which organization he is in thorough accord. His ability was early recognized by his party associates, and, in 1887, he was made Chairman of the Republican County Committee. So active and aggressive were his efforts in this post that the full board of Republican county officers were elected-a thing which had not occurred before in a quarter of a century. Mr. Reeder was again made Chairman in 1894, the Republicans in the county being once more successful and electing their entire ticket. The esteem in which he is held by his fellow townsmen was evidenced by his election to the post of Chief Burgess of Bellefonte in 1892, and in this office, as in his private practice, he distinguished himself by his energy and ability. In 1895 Mr. Reeder was appointed Assist- ant Adjutant-General by Governor Hastings and filled the position with renewed credit. Mr. Reeder was, in 1896, the candidate of Centre County for the Congress of the United States. On the Ioth day of September, 1897, the position of Deputy Attorney- General of the State of Pennsylvania came to him as a fitting recognition of his many eminent qualities.
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As a lawyer Colonel Reeder has been as true as the needle to the pole to his clients-indefatigable in his efforts for their interests, dignified, courteous and affable to his colleagues, but unyielding in the right. As a politician he is true to his friends and to the interests of the public. He is a member of the Union League of Philadelphia and of the Society of the Sons of the Revolution. On the 19th day of December, 1878, Wilbur F. Reeder was married to Lillie S. Gotwalt, daughter of Rev. Thomas and Mary J. Gotwalt. They have one son, John Wallace Reeder.
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LEVI WELLS.
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T HE Wells family can trace its ancestry back to the earliest days of the Colonies, and all through the history of America, from then until the present time, the names of members of this family figure prominently.
LEVI WELLS was born October 20, 1832, his father being Chester Wells and his mother Rebecca Hines Wells. The father was a native of Eastern Bradford, born at Merryall, and was one of the pioneer settlers of the Spring Hill section of Tuscarora Township, going there about 1815. He was a man of energy and ambition, and whatever opportunities the undeveloped districts offered he was quick to see. In company with a few others he improved a large portion of the land and made it suitable for farming. These settlers were mostly poor, so far as worldly wealth was concerned, but, being temperate, industrious and hardy, they won their way against many disadvantages. Mr. Wells, after locating his farm, built a log house and commenced to clear the land. The forest, year after year, disappeared, until rolling fields, well cultivated, marked the progress of the settlers. He also followed lumbering. He took numbers of logs, first to Ingham's Mill, above Camptown, and then rafted the manufactured article down the river to the valley markets. His family con- sisted of five children : Clara H., married to John Bradford, of Gould's Ferry, Connecticut; W. W., of Webster City, Iowa ; Eleanor J., married to Hiram Taylor, of Cawker City, Kansas ; E. C., of Newark, New Jersey, and Levi.
The family record is traced back to about 1590, when Hugh Wells, the general progenitor, was born at Colchester, England.
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Thomas Wells was one of his sons, born in England in 1620. The family emigrated to America in 1635. To this Thomas Wells (who married Mary Beardsley, of Hartford, Connecticut, in 1651,) a number of children were born, one of them, Noah, in July, 1666, in Massachusetts. He was married to Mary, daughter of Daniel White, and they had seven children, one of them Jona- than Wells, born at Colchester, Connecticut, in 1698. This was the great-great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, and he was married to a Miss Newton in 1725. They had several chil- dren, one of them, James, who was also born at Colchester in 1732. James Wells, the great-grandfather of Major Wells, when he reached manhood, was noted as one of the sturdiest of Connect- icut patriots. He was married at Colchester in March, 1754, to Hannah Loomis. He settled at Wyalusing in the spring of 1774, but, on account of the unsettled state of the country, returned to Wilkes-Barre in 1776. He held a lieutenant's commission in the Revolutionary Army, and served in many battles, particularly the one of the 3d of July, 1778, where he gave valuable assistance to Colonel Butler in forming the line of battle. Here he gave up his life for his country. His wife, Hannah, died at Merryall, 1795. One of their children was Guy Wells, who was the grand- father of Levi Wells. In May, 1790, he married Elizabeth, daughter of Perrin Ross, of Wilkes-Barre. They had a number of children, one of whom, Chester Wells, was the father of Major Levi Wells.
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