USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume II > Part 6
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Mr. Boyle has been twice married. In 1868 he was united in marriage to Anna T. Bingham, who died in March, 1872. One child survives from this union. Four years after, in 1876, he wedded Mary Egan. There were two children by this marriage, both of whom survive. Mr. Boyle takes an active interest in all movements relating to the advancement and progress of journalism.
WALTER T. BRADLEY.
N the details of Pennsylvania's history are found many instances of what pluck and perseverance will accom- plish when applied in the right direction, and the stories of the men who have attained the standard of success form interesting chapters of life. The subject of this biography, Walter T. Bradley, is a man who has made himself felt in the business world. He is largely identified with the coal industry, both as a wholesaler and retailer; is con- nected with a number of mercantile and financial organizations, and in Philadelphia's club life is a prominent figure. Mr. Bradley comes of an old family, members of which held distinguished posi- tions in the public and professional life of Ireland. Mr. Bradley was one of the incorporators of the Master Builders' Exchange and is prominent in several of the representative organizations which have an active interest in the advancement of Philadel- phia's prosperity.
WALTER T. BRADLEY is self-made, if that word can be applied to a man who has received an alert, enterprising character from several generations of progressive people. His grandfathers on both paternal and maternal sides were Irishmen of old and excel- lent position, and both left the unhappy atmosphere of their own country to try the more propitious circumstances of the young nation. Both his grandfathers played a very important part in the struggle of the United States for Independence. Francis Bradley, one of them, was little more than eighteen years of age and was studying in Derry College, Ireland, for the church, when England's trouble with the colonies culminated in an open clash. He heard the cry of freedom, and, heedless of his parents' advice and the 64
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warning of his ecclesiastical instructors, brought his zeal and strength to the American cause. He was a color-bearer when he first enlisted, and handed down to his children the bullet-riddled rags and tassels that had once been a banner. He died in 1820, in Cecil County, Maryland. The other patriotic ancestor, Dr. Sloan, came to America from Ireland, enlisted in the martial ranks when the war broke out, and, eventually, located in Sussex County, Delaware, as a practicing physician. The great-grand- father, Dr. Sloan, married into the early English Quaker family of Alfords, of Chester County; his only son, Thomas Sloan, mar- ried a Quaker, Hannah Trego, and by these two alliances the Bradley family hold connection with the old families of Trego and others of equal prominence. From the Trego family Mr. Bradley takes his middle name. Benjamin West, the great artist, was a cousin of Mr. Bradley's great-grandmother. Mr. Bradley's father, Thomas Bradley, and his mother, whose maiden name was Hannah Sloan, lived near Smyrna, Delaware, where Walter T. Bradley was born, on July 7, 1855. They moved to the family farm near Newark, Delaware, where the father died five years later. The boy came to Philadelphia in 1871, and was employed by J. B. Lippincott & Company as an apprentice in the book-binding depart- ment. In four years he had learned his trade. Meanwhile, he had decided that if he was to try his strength in the struggle for suc- cess he would need a better education than he had acquired in the schools of Newark. When his four years were completed, he went to Bennington, Vermont, and entered the Seminary there to improve himself in the branches which in his term of employment he had decided upon as necessary to his success. Returning to Philadel- phia he entered the business world as a dealer in coal, lime and builders' supplies at Tenth and Diamond streets. The firm was Green & Bradley, and the rapid growth of their trade soon obliged them to move to Ninth Street, below Thompson. In the latter part of 1880, the junior member purchased Mr. Green's interest in the firm and began alone to increase his business with much suc- cess. Early in 1885 he purchased the business of the late Joseph B. Hancock, nearly doubling his business facilities, and more II .- 5
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recently he bought the adjoining property, still further increasing the capacity of his yard. The present firm (Walter T. Bradley Com- pany) is amongst the largest firms of importers of cement in Phila- delphia, and after their business assumed proportions that com- manded general recognition, they were given the Philadelphia agency of the H. C. Frick Coke Company.
When the necessity of such an organization as the Builders' Exchange was canvassed among the business men of the city, Mr. Bradley was among the first to recognize the worth of the project and he gave his name and support to it, becoming one of the incorporators. He has been a member of the Trades League and Philadelphia Bourse since their inception. Mr. Bradley is a Mem- ber of the Union League, has served on the Membership Commit- tees of the Manufacturers' and Columbia Clubs, and was among the first members of the latter organization. He lives at Fifteenth and Oxford streets, having resided in the Seventh and Ninth Divisions of the Twenty-ninth Ward for more than twenty-five years, and takes an active part in all Philadelphia movements in that section, being a Member of the Fuel Society and a Life Member and Director of the Charitable Society of the Twenty-ninth Ward. Mr. Bradley has established a Free Library, which is maintained at his own personal expense. From every point of view Mr. Bradley is a man of whom his city and State may well be proud, for he repre- sents the spirit of energy and progress which means in every walk of life, success.
2.7. Brightly
FRANK F. BRIGHTLY.
EW members of the Bar can point to a more active and successful career than the subject of this biog- raphy, FRANK FREDERICK BRIGHTLY, who was born February 26, 1845, in the old district of Northern Liberties. His father was Frederick C. Brightly, for fifty years a member of the Philadelphia Bar, and the author of many legal works which bear his name. Frank Frederick Brightly might be called a "born lawyer;" he has known little but law since his youth; is descended from lawyers, and his name will long be remembered as a legal authority. He comes from lawyers on both his father's and mother's side, his mother having been Sarah Corfield, eldest daughter of Edward D. Corfield, who was admitted to the Philadelphia Bar on June 8, 1803, and was a prominent Whig politician, and at one time Mayor of the old dis- trict of Northern Liberties. Mr. Brightly is the nephew of Wil- liam Corfield, the oldest living member of the Philadelphia Bar, to which he was admitted July 2, 1831. So, for a period of ninety-four years, Mr. Brightly and his ancestors, for three gen- erations, have been actively identified with the Philadelphia Bar.
Frank Frederick Brightly was educated in Philadelphia's public schools and is an alumnus of its High School; he entered the law office of his father, as a student, in 1861, and, at the same time, took the law course in the University of Pennsylvania. On February 1I, 1865, he was admitted to the Bar (being then between nineteen and twenty years old) upon a special rule. Subsequently, in the class of 1866, he took his degree as Bachelor of Laws from the University of Pennsylvania. Mr. Brightly has always been actively and prominently engaged in the practice of
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+ his profession, but, for the last ten years, his life may be said to be a history of his labors as a legal author. In 1887 he first brought out his Philadelphia Digest-" A Digest of the Laws and Ordinances of the City of Philadelphia from 1701 to 1887,"-a large royal octavo of 1071 pages. This was published soon after the enactment of the Bullitt Bill, and was adopted as the official City Digest.
Since that time Mr. Brightly has published in quick succes- sion : In 1887, "A Supplement to Brightly's Purdon's Digest;" in 1890, Vol. 3 (in two parts) of "Brightly's Digest of Pennsyl- vania Decisions ;" in 1891, Vol. 4 of "Brightly's Digest of Penn- sylvania Decisions;" in 1891, "A Supplement to Brightly's Purdon's Digest ;" in 1893, Brightly's New York Digest, in four volumes, "A Digest of the Decisions of all the Courts of the State of New York, from the Earliest Period to 1892," now the leading digest in use in the State of New York. In 1894 came the Twelfth Edition of "Brightly's Purdon's Digest." This book, the leading and only Pennsylvania Digest of Statutes for nearly a century, did not suffer at Mr. Brightly's hands, as all the seven Judges of the Supreme Court of the State of Pennsylvania certi- fied that "It is a decided improvement on anything heretofore put in the hands of the profession;" and the Judges of the Superior Court and of the various county courts throughout the State joined in the complimentary endorsement.
In 1895 Mr. Brightly issued the Tenth Edition of Binns' Justice, "A Treatise on the Office and Duties of Magistrates and Justices of the Peace." In 1895 came "A Supplement to the Twelfth Edition of Brightly's Purdon's Digest," and then, in 1896, Vol. 4 (a new edition in two parts) of "Brightly's Digest of Penn- sylvania Decisions," which brought the Digest of Decisions down to November 1, 1895. Mr. Brightly is now engaged in the publi- cation of "Brightly's Quarterly Digest," five numbers of which have been issued, and which is designed to keep his Digest of Decisions up to date.
Occupied as he is with his labors as a legal author, Mr. Brightly still attends to his general practice at the Bar, but for
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the past ten years he has endeavored to confine himself to prac- tice on the subjects of divorce, marriage and kindred matters involving the marital relation, upon which he is recognized as an authority.
Mr. Brightly has never taken much interest in politics, except that, in 1884, he was nominated for Common Council on the Republican ticket, in the Twenty-ninth Ward, and returned elected by a large majority, to fill the unexpired term of John Hunter, who had removed from the city. Mr. Brightly had previously been active in the "mandamus investigation," and his election to Councils was violently opposed in certain quarters, the result of which opposition was, first, an attempt to induce the court to refuse him his certificate of election, and upon the failure of that effort, Mr. Hunter was finally induced to return to the city, and when Councils met, in April, 1884, Mr. Hunter was found to be in his seat, and there the matter ended.
This sketch cannot be closed without some mention of Mr. Brightly's law library, one of the largest and most select in the State. To accommodate it three sides of each office are shelved from floor to ceiling. It contains some ten thousand volumes on legal subjects, and is especially rich in early Pennsylvania imprints of Bradford and Franklin, in Pennsylvania periodicals, (duplicates of many of which cannot be found in the public libraries), in Pennsylvania and New York Reports, in statute law, in early English chronicles, and historical and philosophical works.
EDWARD BROOKS.
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HE educational interests of the country engage the attention of no more able and cultured man than Dr. Edward Brooks, who has been a leading fac- tor in the development of the school system for the past score of years.
EDWARD BROOKS was born at Stony Point, New York. His ancestry, on his father's side, is English, while on his mother's side he is descended from one of the leading Dutch families which settled New York State. By means of superior common-school advantages, in connection with private tuition and a natural fond- ness for study, at the age of fifteen Dr. Brooks had completed a thorough academic course. He then spent three years in his father's factory, but continued to study literature, mathematics, natural science and literary composition. When eighteen he
began his career as a teacher in the village school of Cudde- backville, New York. The following year he entered the Liberty Normal Institute, where, at the close of his course, he was unani- mously chosen valedictorian of his class. While attending the Normal School he was invited to enter the University of Northern Pennsylvania as an assistant teacher, with the opportunity of continuing his studies in higher mathematics and literature. He so distinguished himself in those branches that before the end of the year, the professor being taken sick, Dr. Brooks taught the classes in higher mathematics, and the following year he was elected professor. The year after he had charge, also, of the department of literature.
A change in the administration led him to take the Chair of Literature and Mathematics in the Monticello Academy, New
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York, and the following year he accepted an invitation to go to Millersville, Pennsylvania, on the establishment of the Normal School there, in 1855. He was Professor of Mathematics in this institution for eleven years, during which time he developed a system of mathematical instruction that gave the Millersville school a national reputation, and has been the ideal after which modern text-books on arithmetic have been shaped. In 1866 he was elected President of the Normal School, and under him the institution achieved a reputation second to none in the country. His course of instruction in pedagogy was based on scientific principles, and the teachers he trained were sought far and wide, and many of them now occupy leading educational positions. Out of his lectures on pedagogy grew his two works on educa- tion, "Normal Methods of Teaching" and "Mental Science and Culture," works that have been widely used.
His volume on "The Philosophy of Arithmetic" is a masterly production, and shows the author to be a philosophic thinker of rare powers of analysis and generalization. In 1858 the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him by Union College. In 1868 he was unanimously elected to the Presidency of the Penn- sylvania State Teachers' Association. In 1876 the honorary degree of Doctor of Philosophy was accorded him by three dif- ferent institutions. During this year he was President of the Normal Department of the National Educational Association. At the Centennial Exposition he had charge of the Normal Depart- ment of the Pennsylvania Exhibit, and his mathematical works were favorably noticed in the report of the French Commissioners of Education. In 1883 he resigned his position at Millersville, and settled in Philadelphia. The following year he was elected Presi- dent of the National School of Oratory, which he soon resigned to engage in literary and general educational work. His services as a lecturer were in constant demand. He gave courses of lectures in all parts of Pennsylvania, and was connected with numerous summer schools for the education of teachers. In the spring of 1891 he was elected Superintendent of the Public Schools in Phila- delphia.
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The most important work, so far, with which he has been prominently associated as Superintendent of Public Schools is outlined in the re-organization of the High School for Girls with its three distinct courses of instruction; the establishment of a separate Girls' Normal School, with a two years' course of pro- fessional training; the establishment of a school of pedagogy in connection with the Boys' High School; the revision of the course of instruction in arithmetic for the elementary schools; the re- organization of the course in drawing for the elementary schools ; the organization of the Educational Club; the establishment of an educational journal, The Teacher; the introduction of sight- singing into the public schools, and the introduction into the schools of the city of the observance of Flag Day and Penn Day.
In 1893 he was President of the Department of Superinten- dence of the National Educational Association, and, in 1894, was a member of the Committee of Fifteen, appointed by the National Educational Association to report on courses of study for the public schools of the country. His published works are numerous, among them being the following: "Normal Primary Arithmetic" (1860), "Normal Mental Arithmetic " (1859), "Normal Elementary Arithmetic " (1863), "Normal Written Arithmetic " (1861), " Union Arithmetic " (1877), "New Normal Written Arithmetic" (1877), "Higher Arithmetic" (1876), "Elementary Algebra " (1871), "Elementary Geometry and Trigonometry " (1865), "Philosophy of Arithmetic" (1876), "Normal Methods of Teaching" (1879), "Mental Science of Culture " (1882), " Plane and Solid Geometry' (1889), "The Story of the Iliad " (1890), "The Story of the Odyssey " (1891), "Plane and Spherical Trigonometry " (1891) "Normal Rudiments of Arithmetic " (1895), "Normal Standard Arithmetic " (1896) and the "Story of the Æneid."
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WILLIAM FINDLAY BROWN.
HILE a distinguished ancestry counts for much, W and notable family connections may have consider- able influence in advancing a man's career, yet it by no means follows that the sons of great men always become great themselves. In fact, the history of the country furnishes more than a few instances of the prominence of one generation and the obscurity of the next in line. But, when natural ability and inborn spirit of progress are added to the advantages of brilliant connections, success is almost certain to follow. This is exemplified in the career of William Findlay Brown, who, although he has scarcely yet reached his prime, has won the laurels of distinguished citizenship and the prominence of a leading man of affairs. Mr. Brown has among his immediate ancestors a member of Congress, a Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, two Governors, a United States Senator and a Director of the Philadelphia Mint. When but nineteen years of age he had passed through several schools and had graduated from Lafayette College, and from that time on his career has been a duplication of that of his family predecessors.
WILLIAM FINDLAY BROWN was born in Philadelphia, July 23, 1861. His father was Charles Brown and his mother Eliza- beth Shunk Brown. His great-grandfather was William Findlay, Governor of Pennsylvania, and his grandfather on the maternal side was Francis R. Shunk, also a Governor. Mr. Brown's father was a member of Congress from Philadelphia, Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, and had held a number of other high offices. Few young men begin life with more favorable family conditions and ancestral prominence than had William Findlay Brown.
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Every member of his family had attained distinction in some field or other, and when he began his manhood it was no sur- prise that he rapidly forged to the front in the affairs of the State. He received his early education in the school at Chester and Race streets, and was graduated from the Wilmington Con- ference Academy, Dover, Delaware, in 1876. He then went to Lafayette College, at Easton, from which institution he graduated in 1880. During his entire school-life he displayed the possession of studious qualities of mind and a thorough aptitude for self- improvement. Prepared by his thorough education, he decided to study law, and, after leaving Lafayette College, he began to fit himself for this profession, in the meantime entering into business occupation. This he discontinued, however, and took up the prac- tice of law in 1891, at which he has been active ever since. As a business man he won wide recognition for his thoroughness and progressive methods, but it has been in public life and as a law- yer that he has attained his chief distinction. Shortly after his active participation in the practice of the law he came into the notice of the leading men of the city, who saw in him a man admirably fitted to represent the Democratic party. Accordingly he was nominated and elected to Select Council from the Twenty- second Ward, and served from April, 1893, to April, 1896. In the autumn of the same year he was a candidate for Sheriff of Philadelphia County against Samuel M. Clement, but was defeated. As a member of the Upper Branch of Councils, however, he rendered invaluable service to the community at large and to his particular constituency. He was very active throughout his entire term in pressing to passage many bills of importance and a num- ber of measures which were designed to advance the interests which he represented. Mr. Brown's legal training and sound judgment, as well as his natural ability, made him a valuable member of committees, and in the drawing of ordinances he was of great assistance to his associates. Throughout his entire career he was always on the alert to further improvements in his ward, as well as in the city at large, and as a Selectman he was recog- nized as one of the brightest and brainiest in the entire Council-
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manic body. Among the measures which owe their passage, in a large degree, to his influence and support were the ordinances appropriating $130,000 for improvement of roads and giving employment during the depressed period of 1894, the removal of the Washington Monument from Independence Square, and the reduction of the evil of the mandamus to a minimum and the widening of Delaware Avenue. All efforts which tended to improve and facilitate the city's commerce and to advance Phila- delphia as a municipality invariably had the endorsement of Mr. . Brown. He was conscientious in the performance of his duties and popular with his colleagues in both chambers of Council. All through his service in Select Council Mr. Brown demonstrated that he was one of the best legislators this city ever had.
Since his retirement from Council Mr. Brown has given his entire attention to the practice of the law and his corporation connections. At the same time, all movements which tend to advance the city's good, and which are put forward in the nature of improvements, find in him a warm advocate and supporter. Aside from his services in an official capacity he has become identified with the best interests of Philadelphia as a public- spirited citizen, and he has established his reputation in every particular as a model representative of his city, and one who embodies the most desirable type of a progressive Pennsylvanian. Mr. Brown is counsel for several large corporations, and as such is associated with the financial and commercial affairs of the community to a considerable extent. He has a general practice in the civil courts, and it is a large and continually growing one, a fact due chiefly to his ability and integrity.
While active in public life and in the affairs of his profes- sion, Mr. Brown is essentially a man of domestic habits. He is married to Julia S. Willits, daughter of Rev. Dr. A. A. Willits, a prominent divine and noted lecturer. They have three children : William Findlay Brown, Jr., Paul Willits Brown and Robert Irwin Brown.
WILLIAM M. BROWN.
N nothing has the progressive spirit for which Penn- I sylvanians are widely known been more fully demonstrated than in the marvelous development which the past few years has brought in the domain of the street railway. Electrically propelled cars have now almost entirely superseded the slow service of those drawn by horses, and even the country districts are gridironed with the rails for these triumphs of modern transportation progress. Well known among the men whose enterprise has made a revolu- tion in the railway world is William M. Brown, who, with all the progressive tendencies of his generation, threw his whole energies into the introduction and development of what is now a generally used method of urban and suburban transportation. Appreciating the requirements of the hour, and having the foresight to per- ceive the demands of the future, he was one of the first to enter upon the construction and operation of electric street railways, and evidence of his energy and ability is given by the prominent position he holds in the management of such roads in his own as well as in neighboring States, and in the far South, to which section, even, his enterprise has reached, and in whose progressive development he has been a factor of no little importance.
WILLIAM M. BROWN was born in Greenville, Mercer County, Pennsylvania, in 1850. He is the son of V. S. and Lydia J. Brown, and is descended, on both sides, from old Pennsylvania families that have achieved much that is conspicuously recorded in the annals of the Keystone State. His early education was such as could be had in the common schools of Iowa, where his boyhood and youth were spent. At the age of nineteen he
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