USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume II > Part 29
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the affairs of such companies, and, as a natural result, he has served in several of the largest companies in the State as a chief official. He was President of the Lackawanna Valley Traction Company, whose tracks extend from Winton to Dunmore, and he held a like position in the Scranton Suburban Company, which was merged in the Scranton Traction lines under the name of the Scranton Traction Company. Besides this he assisted in building the Scranton and Pittston Traction Road. Through these operations and as President of the Lackawanna Valley Traction Company and Scranton Suburban Railroad Company, Mr. Page is recognized in the bustling city of Scranton to-day as one of its most wide-awake and progressive men.
In 1867 Mr. Page married, in Scranton, Miss Louise A. Whit- aker, formerly of Waverly, New York. They have two sons, William A. and James W., both residents of Scranton. Mrs. Page is the daughter of James and Lucinda Whitaker, who were natives of New York State. Mr. Page is a member of the Scranton Board of Trade and has his business office in the Mears Building. His practical proposition for the improvement of city railways, which met with such success, won him high encomiums of praise not alone in his city, but throughout that section of the State. Prior to his participation in the affairs of railroad management, the surface traction methods in Scranton were far behind those of other communities, but his interests and his wide knowledge of railroad work placed Scranton in the lead in that branch of muni- cipal improvement. Mr. Page is a member of the Benevolent Order of Elks and of several social organizations of prominence in Scranton. He is a Republican in politics and displays a deep interest in the welfare of his party. In a business way he is now interested in several electric roads, electric light plants, water com- panies, steam railways and real estate operations, being one of the most thoroughly representative business men in his community. In a word, Mr. Page as a public spirited citizen has made his mark, and while he has been the architect of his own fortunes, he has also found time to lend a helping hand to many of his fellow men.
GILBERT E. PALEN.
ANY of the prominent men of Pennsylvania have attained their leadership in its affairs through var- ious connections with both the professional and business interests of the State. Included among these is Dr. Gilbert E. Palen, who, not only as a medical man, but as a promoter of business interests, has gained a notable place among the representative men of the time. Doctor Palen, ever since his youth, has been of an active temperament, and he has been connected, from time to time, with some of the most important interests of his community.
GILBERT E. PALEN was born in Palenville, New York, May 3, 1832. His father was Rufus Palen, who came of Quaker stock and was well known as a tanner and leather dealer, being a partner of the firms of Knapp & Palen, Palen & Flagler, and others. After his early education Doctor Palen prepared himself for college, but first obtained a thorough knowledge of the leather business at the Fallsburgh, New York tannery, in which his father's estate had a large interest. He entered Brown University and then went to Yale, where he graduated with the Degree of Bachelor of Philosophy in the famous class of 1853. He then pursued a medical course at the New York University which he completed at the Albany Medical College, from which he graduated in 1855. It had been his father's wish, however, that the eldest son should follow his business, and, therefore, in 1856, Doctor Palen entered into partnership with his uncle by marriage, George W. Northrop, and built an oak tannery at Canadensis, Pennsylvania. He afterwards, in company with his two brothers, built another tannery at Tunkhannock, Pennsylvania, carrying it on for some 388
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years, when he determined to retire from the tanning business. The building of tanneries in the woods and the methods pursued by Doctor Palen were examples of genuine pioneer work, for which the Doctor was peculiarly fitted by his active temperament. In the development of Tunkhannock, Doctor Palen was a large factor. He removed there after he was married in 1860 and became actively engaged in the promotion of temperance. He had, prior to this, become a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church at Cana- densis, where his career as a prohibitionist and temperance worker began.
In 1876 Doctor Palen returned in a thoroughly practical manner to medicine. After a careful examination of the compound oxygen process, he entered into partnership with Doctor Starkey, under the firm name of Starkey & Palen, the former bringing into the joint concern his perfected system, and Doctor Palen the business experience and requisite capital. A revolution to a cer- tain extent was wrought in medicine by this method, and the firm has ever since been prominent and active in Philadelphia and other cities. Not alone, however, in the medical field, but through his early business life as a promoter and manufacturer, is Doctor Palen known to the progressive element of Pennsylvania. He is essentially a man of business qualities, and the combination of professional talents allied with these make him continuously active. He is Treasurer of the Ocean City (New Jersey) Association, with the promotion of the interests of which thriving seashore resort he has been identified since 1880. At that time Ocean City was merely a little hamlet by the sea, but Doctor Palen fore- saw a great future for it, and in pursuance of his judgment he bought large tracts of land there, and has continued to reside in Ocean City every summer since 1881. His wisdom and forethought have proved themselves in this, for Ocean City has succeeded beyond all expectation. He has invested largely in lots there and has built a number of cottages. Doctor Palen is also President of the Niagara Mining and Smelting Company of Utah, and is President of the Fowden Printing Telegraph Company, Treasurer of an Electric Railroad Company, a Water Company, an Electric Light
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Company and a Sewer Company. These interests, combined with his medical affairs, occupy him constantly.
In September, 1860, Doctor Palen was married to Elizabeth Gould, of Roxbury, New York. As a result of this union there were four children born, of whom two are living. Doctor Palen has acquired great popularity in the social life of the community, and he is particularly prominent as a promoter of business. Few men can lay claim to a more useful career than that which has distinguished Doctor Palen's entire life, and he is eminently worthy of the success which has visited him both in a business and pro- fessional way.
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WILLIAM K. PARK.
PHILADELPHIAN through and through, the sub- A ject of this biography is not only a credit to his native city, but to his State, for he is known through Pennsylvania, both for his business abil- ity and his sterling worth in executive office, and for his earnest support of the principles of the Republican party. WILLIAM KENNEDY PARK was born in 1827, near Front and Arch streets, where his father, William Park, was a hatter, a successful business man and a well known and respected citizen. The boy received his early education in the public schools of the city, and his first business training in his father's store. From an early age he evinced an ambition that made it plain that the quiet pursuit of the hatter's trade would not satisfy him. He entered business before he reached his majority, but his energy and ambition were greater than his patience. He felt that his bent inclined him too strongly in other directions, and was thoroughly conscious of the fact that to remain as he was would mean but a waste of his time. So in the vigor of youth he determined to take a bold stand and make a good start. Had it been otherwise, he would probably have been a prosaic tradesman after his father's style instead of a public man and a citizen of influence and repute to-day.
In short, Mr. Park, even in his youth, gave every evidence of that earnestness and push which have helped him on so well in his later years. In the first few years of his business life he passed rapidly from one employment to another, resolved upon settling only in one that would give him an opportunity for his effort. He was in youth, as he is in later life, quick to take the
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measure of a situation, quick to decide upon his course and quick in action. Eventually his good qualities attracted the attention of Chief Thomas Brown, then at the head of the city's Gas Works, and at twenty-four Mr. Park was appointed to a position in that Bureau. The previous evidences of his adaptability and thorough- ness, the Chief thought, had been sufficient evidence of his ability and trustworthiness, and Mr. Park, therefore, without any prepa- ration or test in a subordinate position, was placed at once in the responsible position of Superintendent of the Point Breeze Works. For years he managed the affairs of that plant with a systematic exactness that won him the commendation of his superiors. Upon the resignation of Dr. Cresson, who had succeeded Chief Brown, the faithfulness of Mr. Park's service was recognized by his appointment as Chief of the Bureau of Gas. He held the office from that time, guiding the work of the Bureau with a judgment and care that made it impossible to question his re-appointment. Many Mayors succeeded one another after he became Chief, but he remained in office. When the United Gas Improvement Com- pany leased the gas plant, Mr. Park was retained in charge, which in itself was a strong testimonial to his ability.
Some years after his appointment as Chief of the Bureau, Mr. Park was elected to Select Council from the First Ward, and served two terms in that body, discharging at the same time the duties of his official position. One of the important works com- pleted during the early years of his incumbency was the erection of the city's gas plant at Port Richmond, an undertaking which was superintended by Chief Park from its start. For many years, before and after his appointment as Chief, he was active in the politics of his ward and of the city in general, and from his first vote was always a staunch Republican. For twenty years or more, however, though he is still as ardent as ever in his political con- victions, he has refrained from active participation in political work. This by no means implies that the interest of his party and the welfare of his city, State and country are not as dear to Mr. Park as they were formerly. While he has not figured in any recent campaign as a candidate for political honors, and while he
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has modestly screened himself from active participation in the triumphs of his party behind the duties incumbent upon him, yet his counsels have been heard, and his knowledge and experiences often heeded. The results have always been beneficial. Socially and fraternally, among his societies, Mr. Park is well liked and esteemed, and, as a man of business, holds the respect of the community.
In his youth Mr. Park was an active volunteer fireman, being one of the leading members of Good Intent Hose, which had its headquarters at first, east side of Fourth Street below Chestnut, and later on Prune Street (now Locust), above Fourth. The ener- getic work of its members, Mr. Park among others, made it one of the most prominent hose companies in the city. He is a member of the Masonic Order, an Odd Fellow and an American Mechanic, and is in every respect a representative and model citizen and one who is a credit to the Keystone State.
JOHN B. PARSONS.
N nothing have the results of modern invention more benefited mankind than in the improvement of the street railway facilities of large cities. The slow and noisy horse cars first gave way to the cable, and then to the electric system which has made transportation, even through crowded city streets, almost as rapid as steam roads in the unobstructed country. These changes have come so rapidly that it is only the man of special aptitude who has been able to keep pace with the march of advancement and only the exceptional individual who could become the leader. No street railway man of to-day has achieved greater prominence than John B. Parsons, whose name is known the country over as a most successful manager.
JOHN B. PARSONS was born, May 17, 1850, on his father's farm, in Sussex County, Delaware. His father was James A. Parsons, a well-to-do farmer, who in later years engaged in business. Susan A. Mills, his mother, was, like the father, from an old American family which settled in that section during the colonial times. His father having moved to Maryland when the son was but six, his educa- tion was acquired at the academy at Salisbury, Maryland. He prepared to enter Princeton, but disliking college life, he left school at the age of sixteen to enter the mercantile establishment of his father. The elder Parsons had been a man of wealth during his earlier days, and like many of those typically whole-souled Mary- landers, his sympathy was unstinted. Led into endorsing papers for friends, the close of the Civil War found him a financial wreck, and his affairs were turned over to a receiver. John B. Parsons was at that time about nineteen years of age, and feeling keenly
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the weight thrown upon his shoulders by his father's failure, in 1870 he came to Philadelphia in search of work. He was unknown, and entered the city, not only a stranger, but almost penniless as well. With a spirit of energy he set to work to find a position. He was willing to do anything legitimate and honest to secure a foot- hold. There is always an opportunity for a young man of activity, and Mr. Parsons soon secured employment as a clerk in the office of William W. Colket, at that time Secretary and Treasurer of the Chestnut and Walnut Streets Railroad. He served in this capacity until his fidelity and close application to business brought him in succession the various promotions through which he has advanced to success.
So apt was he in mastering the details of the management of the road that in two years, by sheer force of determination and ability, he had arisen to the post of Division Superintendent. In 1881 occurred what might well be called the red-letter day of his railroad career-for it was really the stepping stone to higher positions. In that year he was made President and General Manager of the Lombard and South Streets Passenger Railway Company, and his executive work in bringing that road to success as a money earner attracted the attention of the leading railroad men of the country. In 1887 he was called to Chicago as Vice- President and General Manager of the West Chicago Street Rail- road Company, also filling the exacting positions of President of the Chicago West Division Railway Company and of the Chicago Passenger Railway Company, and Director in the Lake Street Elevated and the Ogden Street railroads, besides being active in the management of quite a number of railway construction companies.
Yet, immersed as he was in the whirl of business, Mr. Parsons found time to indulge his religious and philanthropic instincts by connecting himself with and taking an active interest in the affairs of a number of charitable organizations, having been a Trustee for several years of the Presbyterian Hospital of Chicago. In 1897 he returned to Philadelphia to assume the position of Vice-President and General Manager of the Union Traction Company. This
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arduous office he filled with such fidelity that in the following September he was also elected to the Directorate of the company.
On the 17th day of November, 1886, he was married to Miss Katie F. Flickinger, daughter of a wholesale dry-goods merchant of prominence and wealth. They have no children.
Although a young man, Mr. Parsons is one of the most suc- cessful managers of street railways in the United States, and during his eventful years spent in Chicago, he won alike the admiration of his associates for his skillful management, and the gratitude of the people for the superior service he secured for them. His whole career evidences the fact that he is a remark- ably thrifty, live and successful man. In social and other circles Mr. Parsons occupies a conspicuous position, and his home life is charming. Mrs. Parsons is deeply interested in church work, and devotes much of her time in that direction, while Mr. Parsons finds time to lay aside his responsible and arduous duties as Director, Vice-President and General Manager of the Union Trac- tion Company, to take a helpful interest in the hospitals and institutions of charity in the city of Philadelphia. His standing among leading railway men of the country may be gathered from the fact of his steady advancement in positions that can be filled only by men of far more than ordinary business sagacity and foresight. That he is to-day in charge of the largest system of street railways in the United States, if not in the world, sums up the climax of his career.
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ROBERT EMORY PATTISON.
PON the roll of honor which heads the history of the Commonwealth stands in bold letters the name of Robert E. Pattison, loyal citizen and twice Governor.
ROBERT EMORY PATTISON, ex-Governor of Pennsylvania, was born at Quantico, Maryland, December 8, 1850. His father, Robert Henry Pattison, D.D., was one of the ablest and most prominent ministers of the Methodist Episcopal Church and a graduate of Dickinson College. He filled a number of important positions, was for a time Presiding Elder, and was for several years Chaplain of the Pennsylvania Grand Lodge of Masons. His wife, Catherine P. Woolford, Robert E. Pattison's mother, was a grand-daughter of Col. Thomas Woolford, of the Maryland line in the Revolution. When Robert was six years old his father was appointed to Asbury Church, Philadelphia. Young Robert obtained his educa- tion in the public schools, and graduated from the Central High School, delivering the valedictory address.
In 1869, on the recommendation of Professor Riche, of the High School, he entered the law office of Lewis C. Cassidy, and was admitted to the Bar in 1872. He had every prospect of suc- cess, but his career was destined to be political rather than legal. Hardly had he crossed the threshold of manhood, and entered upon his chosen profession than the call to public service came. Politi- cal power in Philadelphia at this time was so divided that responsi- bility was gone. The most important municipal position was the Controller of Finances, the balance wheel of the Treasury. To this position the people called Mr. Pattison as candidate when he was barely twenty-seven years of age. He was elected and at once
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became the enemy of every ringster and public plunderer. Nomi- nated. a second time in 1880, in the heat of a Presidential canvass, as the champion of the people, he was re-elected by over 13,000 majority. But a more momentous contest awaited him-that for the Governorship of the State in 1882. Instinctively the people of the State turned to Mr. Pattison, then only thirty-two years of age, and the Democracy nominated him for Governor. The party believed in its youthful leader. He conducted a campaign of edu- cation almost without a parallel in Pennsylvania's political history. In two weeks he had traveled 1,400 miles, spoken in forty counties and rung the death-knell of the opposition by his impassioned appeals for honest government. When the polls had closed the people had spoken, and by a plurality of over 40,000, Pennsyl- vania had chosen him as its Governor. Of his administration it is the highest eulogy to say that it was thoroughly Democratic.
Believing with Jefferson that the induction of a public servant should not be accompanied by pomp and ceremonial, he was by his own wish inaugurated without an ostentatious display. His administration of four years is among the distinguishing chapters of the Commonwealth's history. He reduced extravagant expendi- tures, abolished needless offices, resisted corporate encroachments, with a firm but bloodless hand preserved the public peace, reformed abuses, vetoed unwise and vicious legislation, equalized taxation and reduced its burdens, and gave an administration so free from stain or blemish that it silenced even the voice of partisan enmity. Constitutional provision made him ineligible for the next succes- sive term, and he returned to the people with their almost uni- versal approbation. In 1887 President Cleveland appointed Mr. Pattison one of three commissioners to investigate the Pacific rail- ways. He was made Chairman, and his investigation was searching and courageous. His conclusions were embodied in a minority report, in which he championed, as always, the cause of the people, and won universal respect for courageously recommending that "there ought to be an end to the partnership between the Govern- ment and the Pacific railroads-a speedy and absolute divorce." In this stand he was publicly sustained by President Cleveland.
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In the Gubernatorial election of 1890 the people once more turned to their old leader and he was again nominated to lead the forces of the Democracy. Again he was invincible, and the victor by over 16,000 plurality. His second administration was a repetition of the first and was most fruitful of results. The attempt of cer- tain corporations to strangle competition was met by him decisively. Governor Pattison invoked, through his Attorney-General, the strong arm of the law and gained over corporate greed a victory of benefit to the people. He returned, after four more years of inestimable public service, to private life, with the respect, approval and esteem of every fair-minded man, whatever his party. Although deter- mined not again to enter political life, he yielded to the unanimous desire of his party in Philadelphia, in February, 1895, to stand for the nomination of Mayor. Against his inclination and judg- ment, he acceded to the invitation lest he be accused of ingrati- tude toward an organization which had so often loyally supported him. He was, as a matter of course, defeated by the regulation Republican majority of the Quaker City.
Mr. Pattison takes deep interest in church work. He was a Lay Delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church in 1884 and 1888; in 1890 Fraternal Delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and, in 1891, a Delegate to the Methodist Ecumenical Council, held in Washington, D. C. He was the unanimous choice of the Pennsylvania delegation to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago, in 1896, for President, receiving ninety-seven votes on the first ballot; one hundred upon the second; ninety-seven upon the third ; ninety-seven upon the fourth, and ninety-five upon the fifth ballot. Mr. Pattison is now President of the Security Trust and Life Insurance Company, of Philadelphia, in which his chief labors are at present centered.
WILLIAM PEPPER.
OT an educational institution in America has shown greater progress or risen more rapidly in public esteem than has the University of Pennsylvania, now in the front rank of the universities of the world. The past twenty years, especially, have witnessed a broadening of scope and widening of facilities and purpose unparalleled in the history of education in the world. New departments have been created until to-day the State possesses an institution to which its citizens look with laudable pride. That a great share of the praise for this progress is justly accorded the University's late Provost, William Pepper, is shown by an extract from the resolutions unanimously adopted by the Board of Trustees when the Doctor tendered his resignation, after a term of service from 1881 to 1894. In referring to Doctor Pepper's wonderful work they said that he had "raised this Institution to its present condition of prosperous activity, created new depart- ments, vitalized those long existent, and made the University of Pennsylvania an ever-flowing source of good influences to the city of Philadelphia and the State whose name it bears." At the same time the University accepted and assigned a suitable position to a bronze statue of Dr. Pepper, the gift of a number of his asso- ciates and fellow-workers.
WILLIAM PEPPER was born in Philadelphia, August 21, 1843. He was the son of Dr. William Pepper, a distinguished physician of the city, who held the chair of Theory and Practice of Medi- cine in the University of Pennsylvania from 1860 to 1864. The son was graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in 1862, at the age of nineteen, and from the Medical Department of the
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