USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume I > Part 33
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 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40
429
430
WILLIAM M. SINGERLY.
WILLIAM MISKEY SINGERLY was born in Philadelphia, Decem- ber 27, 1832. He was the son of Joseph Singerly, who was a pioneer in giving to that city its admirable street railway systems. After graduating from the Central High School in 1850, young Singerly spent ten years in a commission house. Afterwards, for a time, he assisted his father in the direction of his street car lines, and then went to Chicago, where he was in business as a commission merchant. He was recalled, however, to Philadel- phia, and was given the management of the Germantown Passenger Railway Company. His success here was marked; he profitably extended its system, and eventually disposed of it upon highly advantageous terms. From youth, Mr. Singerly has been a Demo- crat ; he was in early manhood active in the councils of his party, and was ever seeking to promote its interests. His influence for the party's good became more powerful, when, in 1877, he purchased The Philadelphia Record, then a weakling newspaper with a circu- lation of scarcely 6,000. He strengthened every department, added many new ones, introduced aggressive methods, trebled its news facilities, and reduced the price to one cent per copy-thus making it the pioneer daily morning newspaper of America. From its mere 6,000 of 1877, its circulation has reached the tremendous output of about 175,000 copies daily, and of about 130,000 on Sundays. This really remarkable success in journalism was achieved in the face of the fact that it has been an uncom- promisingly Democratic newspaper in a Republican stronghold, and that Mr. Singerly, as a tariff reformer, has unceasingly antag- onized the protection theories of a State in which high tariff duties are the most strenuously upheld. He has always championed a sweeping reduction in the tariff duties, especially on the raw materials of industry, believing that only in this way can Ameri- can manufacturers best prosper and have the foreign markets opened to them. The Record has valiantly led the battle in many reform movements, and has been rigorous in its enmity to shams and official frauds.
While the Record may be considered the enterprise in which Mr. Singerly takes the greatest pride, yet it is but one of many
AEFRANCIS
431
WILLIAM M. SINGERLY.
diversified interests which have claimed his time, attention and capital. No man has done more towards making Philadelphia the "City of Homes" that it is, for through his extensive real estate operations over a thousand dwellings have been erected; while he also built a magnificent home for his newspaper, and to him is also due the superb triple building on Chestnut Street above Seventh. In 1887 he took an active part in the establishing of the Chestnut Street National Bank, of which Ex-Governor Pattison was the first President. Four years later he was himself called to its Presidency, and was also elected to the same position in the Chestnut Street Trust and Savings Fund Company. In Cecil . County, Maryland, his name is identified with two of the largest paper and pulp mills in the country, which for years supplied not only the paper needed for his own journal, but for other large concerns as well. He has taken a keen interest in farming and stock raising, and his herd of fine Holstein cattle was noted, and made his farm at Gwynedd, Montgomery County, a centre of attraction, as was likewise his stock farm in Elkton, Maryland.
Mr. Singerly has always taken an active interest in politics, and no man is better known throughout the Democratic circles of the State than he. In the Presidential campaigns in which Grover Cleveland was a candidate, he was particularly aggressive, and supported him with vigor and force. In 1894 he was unanimously made the Democratic candidate for Governor, and he entered with great energy into the campaign that followed. He spoke in nearly every county of the State, and in all made over seventy speeches. The natural Republican majority of Pennsylvania, however, was too great to be overcome, and General Hastings was elected. In 1896, although a Presidential Elector upon the Democratic ticket, Mr. Singerly repudiated the free silver nominees of the Chicago Convention, and gave his support to Palmer and Buckner, the candidates of the Sound Money Democrats. For over ten years Mr. Singerly has been one of the Commissioners of Fairmount Park, and he devotes considerable time to making that famous pleasure ground attractive to the masses.
ROBERT W. SMITH.
AILROAD enterprise is in a great degree responsi- R ble for the extraordinary degree of prosperity which has come to the Keystone State within the past few decades. Of the great corporations whose efforts in extending their lines to the centres of the natural resources of timber, coal and iron, have conduced so mnuch to the bringing about of this most favorable industrial con- dition, none have been more largely instrumental than the Penn- sylvania Railroad, whose vast system penetrates to the most remote recesses of the Commonwealth and bears the wealth of mine and forest to the markets of the world. The Pennsylvania Railroad Company's present progress, however, is the result of many years of patient effort and thought by the bright and energetic men whom it has enlisted in its service.
The Treasurer of the company, ROBERT WILLIAM SMITH, was born in New York City on the IIth day of April, 1836. His father was William Alexander Smith, a native of Philadelphia, in which city he was born on the 23d day of March, 1795. The mother of the subject of this review was Sarah Emlen Griffitts, the daughter of one of the oldest and most highly esteemed families of Philadelphia, where she was born on the 20th day of April, 1798. She was the daughter of Samuel Powel Griffitts, M. D., who was an eminent physician of the old school, and, a century ago, one of the best known medical practitioners of Philadelphia. His wife, and the grandmother of Robert W. Smith, was Mary Fishbourne, a member of a distinguished Pennsylvania family. His paternal grandfather was Robert Smith, an officer in the army of the Revolution, whose wife was Rebecca Hobart. Robert W.
432
F.E.Francis & Co
Rob. W. Smith
433
ROBERT W. SMITH.
Smith's early education was obtained in New York, the city of his birth, where he was a student at the Washington Institute, of which Dr. H. K. Porter was then the distinguished principal. His father dying in 1845, however, the family removed to Phila- delphia, where the son's scholastic training was continued at the well known Faires' Classical Institute, following which a course was taken at the Protestant Episcopal Academy of Philadelphia, an institution then presided over by Rev. G. Emlen Hare.
In January, 1851, Robert W. Smith entered the railway world as an office boy with Leech & Company's Rail and Canal Trans- portation Company, at their Philadelphia office. Here he remained until the year 1865, all the while steadily gaining knowledge and experience and advancing himself in the esteem of his employers. In the latter year, and on the establishment of the Empire Trans- portation Company, he was appointed as its Eastern Superintendent, with his residence at Williamsport, Pennsylvania. With this cor- poration he remained for a term of seven years, in 1871 resigning to accept, at the request of Colonel Thomas A. Scott, the Treas- urership of the Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, making his residence at Atlanta, Georgia. In the same year, however, he was elected Secretary and Treasurer of the American Steamship Company, a position for which his previous experience in similar positions had abundantly qualified him. He, thereupon, returned to Philadelphia and accepted these positions, which he still holds, although since the cessation of the company's active operations, his duties therein have been merely nominal. In April, 1885, Mr. Smith entered the service of the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, as its Treasurer. His success in this position led to his being tendered a similar post with the Pennsylvania Railroad Company on the 2d day of January, 1887, his connection with the Norfolk and Western Railroad Company, of course, ceasing on his accepting the Pennsylvania Railroad Company's offer. Besides his connection with the latter corporation, Mr. Smith is also Treas- urer of the Philadelphia, Wilmington and Baltimore Railroad Com- pany, the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad Company, the Junction Railroad Company, the West Jersey and Scashore Railroad Com-
434
ROBERT W. SMITH.
pany and of the thirteen subsidiary companies operated by these roads.
Mr. Smith is a member of the Pennsylvania Historical Society, the Genealogical Society of Pennsylvania, the Art Club of Phila- delphia, and Director and Trustee in various corporations and associations.
His patriotic ancestry also makes him eligible to the Society of the Sons of the Revolution, of which he is a member; and it is a matter of special pride that his grandfather served in the War of the Revolution, his father in the War of 1812, and his two brothers in the Rebellion.
Mr. Smith was married on the 12th day of October, 1865, to Miss Mary Grace Austin, who died on the 4th day of October, 1872. On the 3d day of June, 1878, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary Moore Penington, the daughter of Edward and Elizabeth Lewis Penington. Grace Austin Smith, his only child, is a daughter of his first wife.
AEF:4
Elcaso Smithers
ELIAS P. SMITHERS.
HE Diamond State was the birthplace of one who is T now enrolled among the brightest and best of Pennsylvania's prominent men, and although it was in Delaware that Elias P. Smithers first saw the light of day, the Keystone State it was which furnished him with his education in the law, and afforded him the opportunities to rise to his present successes.
ELIAS PRIMROSE SMITHERS was born in 1843, in Milford, Sussex County, Delaware. His father, Elias Smithers, was a sea captain and a leading citizen of Milford, having twice been elected to the Legislature from that district. The son received from his father and mother the sterling qualities of two sturdy races, Eng- lish and Scotch. From 1700 or thereabout his forefathers had lived in the neighborhood of Milford, and had given to the State some of its best citizens. The boy received his schooling in the Milford Academy, leaving his studies at fifteen, when his parents moved to Philadelphia. He here continued his education for a year or two, preparatory to taking the law as his profession, and then entered the Law School of the University of Pennsylvania. From early youth it had been understood that he was to adopt a pro- fessional career; his own inclinations and his father's wishes alike directing him towards that course. While at the University he read law in the office of William E. Littleton, who was Presi- dent of Select Council, Clerk of the Court of Quarter Sessions for several terms, and a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1873. In 1869 Mr. Smithers graduated from the University with honors, and in the same year was admitted to the bar. For two years he remained with Mr. Littleton, and it was while in
435
436
ELIAS P. SMITHERS.
the office of that eminent lawyer that the practice of the younger man received the bent that gave it its present tone. Mr. Little- ton's practice was largely in real estate and other Orphans' Court cases, and Mr. Smithers, who followed in his preceptor's steps, has to-day just such a practice as that from which he received his younger training. In 1871 he opened an office of his own at 124 South Sixth Street, in which he remained for ten or twelve years, when he removed to 219 South Sixth Street, his practice, meanwhile, assuming slowly but steadily its present proportions. For the last year or so he has had his quarters in the Franklin Building, at Twelfth and Walnut streets.
Mr. Smithers' first active interest in public affairs and in the politics of the city and nation was aroused when he lacked several years of being of age. From the first he was a steadfast Repub- lican and, soon after reaching his majority, launched into political life as an active party worker. His first public position was achieved in 1873, when he was appointed Assistant City Solicitor, General Charles H. T. Collis being then the chief counsel for the city's inter- ests, and Robert N. Willson-Judge Willson to-day-his first assist- ant. The character of his work in this office gradually increased in importance, but, in 1881, impelled by the demands of an increasing private practice, he resigned his position as Assistant Solicitor and devoted himself to his own legal business. He was elected to Common Council from the Twenty-ninth Ward in 1883, and was returned regularly to that office at the end of each term until his resignation. His first committee work was as a member of the Survey Committee, an appointment in which he put his legal experience to excellent use, so well, indeed, that he was rapidly promoted in those grades of committee work in which his knowl- edge of real estate law could be used with advantage, and, in 1886, he was appointed to his first chairmanship, that of the Highways Committee. After several years service here, he was made Chair- man of the Finance Committee, and continued in this important office until his resignation. In 1894 he was nominated for Register of Wills. It was then that Mr. Smithers demonstrated the posi- tion he occupied in the political field in Philadelphia more thor-
437
ELIAS P. SMITHERS.
oughly than at any previous time in his career. Not alone the members of his own party, but many independent voters realized that his rare business capacities, his excellent judgment, and his foresight as an executive official, eminently fitted him for the post for which he was proposed. Accordingly he was elected in the fall of 1894 by a handsome majority to that important post, and he continued to be Register of Wills until 1898. In this office Mr. Smithers gave evidence of the same marked ability for the transac- tion of municipal affairs on strict business lines as characterized his other official terms prior to his election as Register.
Mr. Smithers has never been actively associated with any busi- ness interests save those of his own practice, lack of time making such a diversion impossible. However, he is a Director in the City Trust Company. In 1886 he became a member of the Masonic Order. He is a member of the Union Republican Club, of the Con- tinental Club and the Columbia Club. In these organizations Mr. Smithers is honored and respected as a member of the most desir- able character, and in their welfare he displays considerable inter- est. While he finds but little time for social diversion, yet among his many associates he is highly popular, having won a reputation for kindliness and geniality second only to that he has acquired as a man of exceptional business and official capacity.
In 1870 he married Miss Anna L. Mason, daughter of Mr. Thomas L. Mason, a well-known Philadelphian, and his home-life is truly happy and delightful.
JOHN B. STETSON.
T HE story of John B. Stetson's life is one that, like Franklin's, must always be an inspiration and encouragement to every young American who enters the world's struggle the architect of his own fortune. Like Franklin, he had only a sound training for his foundation and invincible determination and strength of char- acter for his arms and tools. The whole world was his building material. To-day his finished work-if the word finished may be applied to a structure that is still growing steadily larger and broader-is the great, happy village of factories, benevolent insti- tutions and contented workmen's homes that clusters round the neighborhood of Fourth Street and Montgomery Avenue, the world-wide fame that has crowned his business enterprise and the fortune that has made possible the thorough system of charities and improvement clubs which it is his one pleasure to provide for his employés. The sale of his product in every mart of the world, civilized or savage, has spread the fame of American enter- prise and of Philadelphia's manufacturing industries.
JOHN B. STETSON was born in Orange, Essex County, New Jersey, May 5, 1830, and was the son of Stephen Stetson, a hatter. Little hatters' shops in those days were as common as blacksmiths' forges, and the hatter's trade was of a corresponding dignity. The boy learned his father's trade, learned everything that his father could teach him-not very much as formal education goes, but solid and earnest, honest and confident, for those were the traits of his father's sturdy English character. In January, 1865, when he was already well in the precious years of his younger manhood, he was still a simple hatter, and his fortune was still
438
John B. Stetson
1º,
439
JOHN B. STETSON.
before him. It was high time for a move, so breaking the ties that had held him in filial service in his father's shop, he came to Philadelphia, with no capital save his skill and enterprise. He did not have money enough to be a hat maker; he could only open a single small room at Seventh and Callowhill streets. The profits were hoarded carefully, for the business had no capital. The start, particularly under such circumstances, is always the hardest part of a business career. Soon he was a manufacturer, the business grew beyond its quarters, and in less than a year, larger ones were taken on Fourth Street, above Chestnut. Before long Stetson hats were in nearly every retail store in Philadelphia. He was simply a tenant in the Fourth Street building, but he added another story at his own expense to meet the enlargement of his business. Two years after the start the firm name became John B. Stetson & Company, and in two years more the young manufacturer proudly recorded in his book a business of $80,000 for the year. Seven years after the start another move was necessary. The Fourth Street building was too small, and Mr. Stetson moved to Fourth and Montgomery Avenue, where he laid the first stones of the manufacturing community that bears his name. Its happiness is one of the results of his business sagacity. The Stetson hats, pushed by his enterprise, are sold nearly everywhere on the globe. His workmen are never unem- ployed, for come what troubles there will, there is always a market somewhere for their product. The pay-rolls of the factory are half a million dollars yearly, and the value of the annual product is $2,500,000. There are more than a thousand operatives, and none of them, by the way, is a member of a trade union. Mr. Stetson has little faith in the good effects of such organizations, but by the various societies of which he is the father he has brought real benefits to his employes. There is no "nursing" in the clubs and associations. "Help him to help himself" is his attitude towards his employe. The foundation of the family interest in the Stetson factory is the apprentice system. The cluster of organized aids to the workingmen and their families includes a building and loan association which has been of great I .- 29.
440
JOHN B. STETSON.
aid to the employes, a social union modeled after the Young Men's Christian Association, a beneficial association, a library and read- ing room, a Sunday-school of 2000 scholars, a kindergarten, in which the children of the employes are taught every afternoon, a militia battalion of four companies under the National Guard regu- lations, a gymnasium, and a dispensary public hospital. Of all these Mr. Stetson is the nominal head, but each is in charge of an efficient lieutenant. Such institutions as can be made are self-sup- porting, but he has made arrangements for the perpetuation of all after his death. The institution widest in its benevolent effect is the Union Mission Hospital, which was started as a dispensary, but which has been broadened in its scope until its dispensary opera- ting rooms and wards are free to all sufferers from disease and accidents. More than 20,000 patients are treated there every year, the staff including thirty-four physicians. Eminent surgeons have pronounced its equipment perfect. When Mr. Stetson became inter- ested in certain property in De Land, Florida, in 1886, he learned of the difficulties of a school which had been founded some time before, but which, for lack of support, bade fair to prove a failure. The needed help was not withheld; Mr. Stetson supplied both the money and the sound business judgment that were lacking, and the school prospered. He became a Trustee and Chairman of the Executive Committee, and in spite of his protest, saw the board give his name to the institution. It is now the John B. Stetson University and possesses buildings that cost more than $100,000, a faculty of twenty-two, and an enrollment of 260 pupils. He is as well known in De Land, where he spends several months of each year, as he is in Philadelphia, or in Ashbourne, Penn- sylvania, where he has his country home. His philanthropy takes in the smaller charities as well as the larger, and he is on the board of several modest societies for doing good, among them the Norris Street Woman's Hospital, in Kensington. He is also a prominent member of the Fifth Baptist Church, Philadelphia.
>
KEFrancis & La
JACOB C. STINEMAN.
AST coal fields and great forests are among Penn- sylvania's greatest natural treasures. To the development of these the State, in a large degree, owes its wonderful prosperity, and of the indomit- able and sagacious men whose enterprise has made this result possible, few are more prominent than the sub- ject of this biography.
JACOB C. STINEMAN, of South Fork, was born April 9, 1842, in Richland, now Adams Township, Cambria County, Pennsyl- vania. He was the son of Jacob Stineman and Mary Croyle. His ancestry consists almost entirely of that sturdy German stock which has contributed so much brain and brawn to the develop- ment of interior Pennsylvania's vast resources. His great-grand- parents came to this country about the close of the last or the early part of the present century and settled in Cambria County, where the family has ever since resided. His father having been a hard-working but solid and substantial farmer, Mr. Stineman spent his vacations at work at such labor as usually falls to the lot of a boy upon a farm when not attending the schools in his neighborhood. Of a studious temperament and devoted to his books, he made such remarkable progress in the acquisition of knowledge that when he was but sixteen years old he was placed in charge of one of the nearby public schools. Here, for four winters, he taught the children of the neighborhood, working dur- ing the summer upon his father's farm. At the outbreak of the Civil War Mr. Stineman, just coming into sturdy manhood, and being possessed of an ardent and intense patriotism, shouldered a musket and marched to the defense of the unity of the nation,
441
442
JACOB C. STINEMAN.
enlisting in Company F, One Hundred and Ninety-eighth Regiment, Pennsylvania Volunteers, First Brigade, First Division, Fifth Corps, Army of the Potomac. He served with an honorable record throughout the whole of the internecine struggle and was with the Federal Army on the celebrated field of Appomattox, where the overthrow of the South was practically completed when Lee surrendered his army to the victorious Unionists. The war over, he returned to the quieter but more fruitful avocations of farming, lumbering and working as a common laborer in the coal mines. And here is the great secret of his success. No task was too arduous for him to undertake. With a fidelity and a zeal that precluded the possibility of failure, he worked his way steadily up the industrial ladder. Each advancement was fully earned, and from laborer to foreman, from foreman to superintendent and from superintendent to owner were steps that were not taken in a day. Unremitting toil and close attention to details brought their reward, and, in 1873, Mr. Stineman began operating coal mines on his own account. His early training stood him in good stead, and by its aid, coupled with a keen understanding and a goodly stock of business tact and judgment, he has become one of the most prominent operators in the bituminous field and the owner of large tracts of very valuable coal lands. He is President of the Stineman Coal and Coke Company, a Director in the Citizens' National Bank, one of Johnstown's foremost financial institutions, a Director in the South Fork Water Company, besides being con- nected to a greater or lesser extent with almost every progressive movement and industrial enterprise in Cambria County.
Always a stalwart and enthusiastic Republican and thoroughly in accord with his party on all great national questions and, being a firm believer in the principles of protection and sound money, he has taken great interest in political affairs, and, being so promi- nent in the business and social life of his section, many public honors have naturally come to him. He has served as School Director for eighteen years and was on the Republican State Cen- tral Committee in 1884. In 1885 he was the candidate of his party for the office of Sheriff of Cambria County, but as the
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.