USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume III > Part 18
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In addition to these important trusts, Mr. Linderman is the Chair- man of the South Bethlehem Supply Company, Limited, the largest retail store in Bethlehem; a Director in the Schuylkill and Lehigh Valley
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ROBERT P. LINDERMAN.
and the Georgetown and Western Railroad companies; the Earn Line Steamship Company ; the Juragua Iron Company, Limited; the Jeffer- son Coal Company ; the American Ordnance Company and various other organizations. Mr. Linderman has been for years a prominent member and Vestryman of the Protestant Episcopal Church of the Nativity, the pro-Cathedral of the Diocese of Central Pennsylvania. He is a Trustee and a member of the Executive Committee of Lehigh University and of Bishopthorpe School, and a Trustee of St. Luke's Hospital. He is a member of the Pennsylvania Society of the Sons of the Revolution, of the American Society of Mining Engineers, President of the Northampton Club, the leading social organization of the Bethlehems, and a member of the University, Lawyers', Engineers', Down-Town and Sigma Phi clubs of New York, and the Art Club and Manufacturers' Club of Philadelphia, and the Metropolitan Club of Washington. He is a member of the Sigma Phi Society and took an active part in the founding of its chapters at Lehigh and Cornell uni- versities. He is also a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society and has twice been President of the Lehigh University Alumni Association.
On October 15, 1884, Mr. Linderman married Ruth May, daughter of Robert H. Sayre, Second Vice-President of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company. They have five daughters, Ruth Evelyn, Mary Evelyn, Lucy Evelyn, Evelyn and Christine.
GEORGE B. LINDSAY.
N the formation and advancement of the Commonwealth, one of the most important requisites is the outlining of stable and satisfactory laws for the welfare of vari- ous communities. It is only natural, therefore, that men possessed of clear intellect-and endowed with thorough logical and analytical qualities are found in the front rank of the legal profession. In this respect the State of Pennsylvania has been particularly fortunate. Numbered among her sons are some of the brightest and most astute advocates in this glorious Union of States, and conspicuous on the list is the name of the subject of this sketch, George B. Lindsay, who occupies a very exalted place in the estimation of his associates, while enjoying a large and lucrative clientage in the city of Chester, where he also holds prominent connection with several influential corporations.
GEORGE BROOKE LINDSAY was born in the Township of Haverford, Delaware County, Pennsylvania, August 5, 1852. He is the son of John C. Lindsay, a highly respected citizen of the city of Chester, and a grandson of John Lindsay, a Representative of Delaware County in the State Legislature during the sessions of 1830 and 1831. His paternal grandmother was Sarah Brooke, a daughter of Gen. William Brooke, of Revolutionary service. His mother is Catharine A., daugh- ter of William V. Black, a widely-known resident of Media, and one of the original directors of the First National Bank at that place. He attended the public schools of Delaware County, afterward spending some time in a private school in Media, under the tutorship of the late Rev. James W. Dale, D.D., and later he completed his studies at the Chester Academy. He entered the law office of William Ward and William B. Broomall in 1872 as a student, and was admitted to the
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Bar in February, 1875. After his admission to the Bar he spent three years more with his preceptors and then opened an office on his own account. In the active practice of his profession he has devoted himself chiefly to civil cases and has been counsel for numerous cor- porations both here and in other Commonwealths. It has been in positions of a fiduciary nature that Mr. Lindsay has achieved the greatest distinction and won the absolute confidence of his fellow- citizens. He has acted as Trustee in many large and important estates. His family on both sides have been active members and supporters of the Presbyterian Church since the settlement of the Commonwealth, at "Old Middletown," and then at Marple, and later at the Third Pres- byterian Church of Chester, of which Mr. Lindsay is a member.
In politics Mr. Lindsay has always been a consistent and active Republican, and in Presidential campaigns he has proved a most effective and persuasive orator. In 1894 he was elected President of the Chester Traction Company, which operates all the street railways in that city, and he still retains that office. He is also President of the Union Railway Company of Chester, and a Director in the Chester National Bank, the Delaware River Iron Ship-Building and Engine Works, the Chester Free Library and other local corporations.
Fitted by experience and ability for executive positions, Mr. Lindsay is looked upon as one of the most progressive citizens of the community in which he has long resided. He has never married. He possesses great mental vigor and keen discernment and his profes- sional career has been marked by successful achievement and sub- stantial reward.
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R ESTLESS activity in early life not infrequently brings out the sterling qualities of men and fits them for positions of important trusts later. Such apparently was the case with Henry W. Lombaert, of Philadel- phia. The years of his early boyhood were spent on board merchant vessels plying between Philadelphia and European and Asiatic ports, during which time the force of character and strict adherence to duty which has characterized his active life advanced him from the lowest place in the service to the dignified and responsi- ble position of First Officer. The gold excitement of 1849 took him across the continent to California, where he delved for the yellow metal with the same assiduity that he had employed in his duties on" board the ship. Few prominent Pennsylvanians had enjoyed a wider or more adventurous experience than Mr. Lombaert, when he settled down and began his successful career as a railroad man.
HENRY W. LOMBAERT was born at Morrisville, Pennsylvania, November 7, 1825, his parents being Charles and Anna A. Lombaert. The former was of French and Dutch blood, and the latter of German descent. At the age of ten years his parents brought him to Phila- delphia and put him at the private school of Joseph Engle, on George Street (now Sansom), west of Eleventh. A close student and imbued with the ambition to advance, he had completed the course of that school before he reached the fourteenth anniversary of his birth. A desire to travel, and especially a longing for the sea, had possessed him for two or three years, but his parents discouraged him until the completion of his schooling, a feeling which could not be suppressed. The determination was so firmly fixed that his father and some influential friends secured for him a position in the employ of Thomas
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P. Cope & Company, proprietors of a line of packet ships trading between this port and Liverpool. In 1839, at the age of fourteen, he made his first trip to sea on the ship "Shenandoah," Captain James West. All the experiences of a youthful seaman of the days of sailing vessels, pleasant and otherwise, were his. That he did his duty well was proven by the fact that he remained in the employ of that firm and sailed on the same ship until 1846. He attained his majority in that year, simultaneously with the grade of First Officer of the ship. Seven years had made a thorough sailor and navigator of the Pennsylvania boy. In 1846, desiring a change, he entered the employ of N. L. & G. Griswold, of New York, and on board one of their vessels made two voyages to China. This was in the days of closed ports, and when much less was noted of the Flowery Kingdom than is now known. Of his personal experiences in strange lands much could be written, but so quick were the changes in his life at that time that it must necessarily be omitted. He reached Philadelphia in the winter of 1848, and found the country greatly excited over the discovery of gold in California, and determined to go there. With him, to decide was to act, and the spring of 1849 found him, in company with three others, starting across the plains. He probably never imagined in those days that great lines of steel rails would span the continent, and that powerful locomotives and palatial cars would fly over the three thousand miles of plains and mountains at the rate of many miles an hour, and that he would hold responsible positions with the companies engaged in this quick transportation business. It required months in those days to cross, and it was not until December, 1849, that his party arrived at San Diego. The following spring he went to the mines in Calaveras County, and, with varying success, remained a miner for six years. In the winter of 1856 Mr. Lombaert returned to Philadelphia, and a year later was employed as Passenger Agent of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company at Indianapolis, a position which he filled until 1863. His next venture was the management, for nine years, of a fruit farm in Southern Illinois, when he again returned to Philadelphia, and was employed as a clerk in the Pennsylvania Railroad office until 1877. In 1880 he was elected Secretary of the American Railway Supply Company, of New York, an office which he
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still retains. In 1883 Mr. Lombaert was placed in charge of the uniform business of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company, and that position he also still fills.
Mr. Lombaert was married to Helen M. Drake, at Salem, Illinois, in 1879. They are childless, but Mr. Lombaert finds much enjoyment in the quiet of his home life after his years of restless travel and adventures in other continents.
JOHN BATES LUKENS.
N whatever business or branch of life he was engaged, John B. Lukens, the subject of this biography, devoted his full powers to the proper discharge of his duty and to the accomplishment of the business object in view. His success as a contractor is due to the energy and continuity of his efforts and his eminence in the political field is attributable, in no small degree, to the same characteristics. Straightforward, honorable and manly in all his dealings, he had earned for himself a popularity which many other public men might well envy. Practical in all that he does and directs, alert and decisive in his manner, he is thoroughly well equipped for political conflict ; yet, withal, Mr. Lukens is less the politician than the business man.
JOHN BATES LUKENS was born in Philadelphia, December 5, 1848. His parents were John M. Lukens, of Philadelphia, and Jane (Bates) Lukens, who was born in France. His paternal ancestors for several generations lived and died in that section of Philadelphia known as the Northern Liberties. He attended the Harrison Public School until he was nine years of age, when he went to work with a butcher and learned that trade. At the age of fifteen years he secured employment in a brick-yard. There he remained until he had thor- oughly learned the trade and had risen to the position of foreman, in the meanwhile conducting a butchering business throughout the winter time. Mr. Lukens was not satisfied with these lines of employment, and, at the age of twenty-three years, he started as a contractor and builder in the building of bridges and the construction of sewers and in street paving. He built the well-known bridge in Greenmount Cemetery and was the constructor of several of the largest sewers in Philadelphia. Mr. Lukens, during a portion of the time that he was
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engaged as a contractor, also carried on an extensive feed business. Always a Republican, he early took much interest in politics and soon became an important factor in his ward. He served a term as School Director, and was, in 1879, elected to represent the Twenty-fifth Ward in Common Council. He was Chairman of the Committee on Bills and also served on other important committees. He remained in Councils but one year, at the beginning of 1881 accepting the office of Deputy Harbor Master. He resigned the position at the close of that year, in order to devote more of his time to his many business interests. Mr. Lukens declined other offices until 1888, when he was induced to take the position of Superintendent of Hunting Park, now one of the prettiest and most attractive places of recreation in the city. At the time Mr. Lukens took charge of the Park it had never been improved, and he succeeded in making it what it is to-day. He changed and beautified it in many ways, including the making of mac- adam roads, new paths and the erection of new pavilions, etc. The many thousands who visit Hunting Park owe much of the enjoyment they there obtain to Mr. Lukens' improvements. He continued as Superintendent of that Park until 1894, when he was made the choice of the Republicans of Philadelphia for the magistracy. Mr. Lukens is still one of the city magistrates. He has, ever since he reached his majority, taken an active interest in municipal affairs and particularly in the public schools. In the extension and improvement of the city's educational system he has taken a very prominent part. He was a School Director in the Thirty-third Ward for three years.
Mr. Lukens is a member of numerous societies and clubs, in all of which he is a leading figure, including the Corinthian Chapter and Richard Vaux Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons. He is also Past Grand Master of Evening Star Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Past Counsellor of Liberty Council, Order of American Mechanics, and a member of Young America Council, Junior Order of American Mechanics. Mr. Lukens is, of course, a member of sev- eral political organizations and is prominent in their management. These include the Union Republican Club, Anti-Cobden Club, Thirty- third Ward Republican Club and the Tom Reed Republican Club, of Philadelphia. The latter organization he assisted in forming in 1890,
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being elected President. He served in this office one year and, later on, during a term of three years, and has occupied the same post dur- ing the last two years.
Mr. Lukens and Maggie Paterson were married, September I, 1868. They have ten children, all of whom are living. John M. Lukens, Chief Engineer at the Queen Lane Pumping Station, is a son of Magistrate Lukens. Mr. Lukens is highly popular, both socially and politically, being noted for his fealty to party and friends. It has been said of him that he has never forgotten a friend and that the chief characteristic of his public career has been unwavering loyalty.
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WILLIAM A. MANDERSON.
AS has already been demonstrated in these pages, the members of the Bar hold a conspicuous position in the management of affairs in the State, and especially in the great city of Philadelphia. In fact, the City of Brotherly Love has every reason to feel proud, not only of its judiciary, but of that long roll of honor which the practicing profession has furnished as its contribution to the prominent and progressive citizenship of the Commonwealth. The Bar of Philadel- phia has, for many years, stood pre-eminent for its intelligence, learning, eloquence and high integrity of purpose, coupled always with an earnest desire to secure just equity rather than individual triumph of technical skill. The legal profession, too, has not been slow to appreciate the value of special training, equipment and knowledge when asserted in certain lines of established litigation. It is easily recognized that the informed skill and authority of the specialist must, in many cases, rise superior to that of the general practitioner. It is for this reason that the success of William A. Manderson has been so notable in the courts of Pennsylvania. Mr. Manderson's position at the Philadelphia Bar is a high one, and so conspicuous that it has placed him in line for possible judicial honors.
WILLIAM A. MANDERSON is a native of Philadelphia and was born September 21. 1842. He is a member of the well-known Manderson family, which has contributed, in years past, so many prominent men to national and State affairs. He is a cousin of the famous Senator Manderson, of Nebraska. He received his education in the private schools, and was always noted for his quickness in study. Quite early in life he evinced a decided taste for the law, and at every opportunity devoted his leisure to the reading of books treating on
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legal matters. After he left school he was admitted to the office of Thomas J. Clayton, the present prominent Judge of Delaware County, but who then was a distinguished barrister of Philadelphia. Young Manderson remained in Judge Clayton's well-equipped office for several years, applying himself most assiduously to the acquisition of legal learning, paying special attention to the intricate and knotty cases of record. Consequently, when he was admitted to the Bar, in the year 1866, he was remarkably well versed in the law. His success was immediate, his mark as a lawyer being made very shortly after he entered the profession. He made a special study of commercial law in all its branches and in all its intricacies, and he was quickly recog- nized as an authority upon the subjects relating thereto. He was particularly well informed upon the various difficult points that fibered the old bankrupt laws, and upon these he was constantly consulted as an established authority. Mr. Manderson is very earnest, sincere and thorough in all that he does, and there is no detail so small in any case which he may conduct that he does not grasp it completely. He is also very enthusiastic in the defense of what he considers right. Many years ago he had occasion to defend the interests of an insane client. So ably did he perform his duty in this case that the news- papers throughout the State took great interest in his argument for a reform of the lunacy laws, and his work was the subject of much edi- torial comment. In pointing out the flaws then existent, he was so persistent and earnest that he undoubtedly created the demand which eventually resulted in the establishment of the present Board of State Charities.
During his entire career as an attorney Mr. Manderson has maintained his reputation as an honorable, painstaking, conscientious and able counsellor, and he enjoys a very large and lucrative practice. He is prominent as a member of the Lawyers' Club of Philadelphia and of several social organizations. Being a man of rare conversa- tional powers and equipped with information on a variety of subjects, his society is naturally much sought.
Mr. Manderson's particular taste, outside of the law, has been centered in his devotion to art matters, and he is recognized as a con- noisseur. He has made a deep study of Japanese decorative art
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WILLIAM A. MANDERSON.
especially, and devotes considerable of his time to correspondence with leading officials, merchants and others in Japan upon this subject, which so greatly interests him. He has always considered it a duty of every citizen of the United States to take an interest in politics, and he himself has been an ardent Republican, and has figured as a clear- headed advisor in his connections with the party of his choice. While he has never sought judicial honors, his name has frequently been mentioned in association with a judgeship, and he has, upon many occasions, been asked to allow his name to be used as a candidate for a seat upon the Bench.
Mr. Manderson is married and has three children, his wife being a member of the Worrell family, of Revolutionary fame. He resides in West Philadelphia.
MARK W. MARSDEN.
H E who turns a hitherto waste product to a score of use- ful purposes-who thus produces from what is in itself worse than useless, that which is of value in many widely varied fields of industry-has done some- thing which, of itself, entitles him to high rank among the truly great investigators of his race. Although he has perfected many processes that would place him well among the leading inventors, Mark W. Marsden, the subject of this biography, is best known as the man who has successfully transformed formerly waste corn-stalks, of which America annually produces millions of tons, into a number of desirable articles of commerce. Under his inventive genius, these useless encumbrances have been made to furnish a nourishing food for cattle, a non-conducting packing for refrigerators and ice-houses, a raw material for the manufacture of sugar and molas- ses, and a material for the manufacture of paper. But, among many other profitable purposes to which they may be applied, perhaps the most important is their efficiency in mitigating the dangers of marine warfare, by providing a cellulose packing for the cofferdams of battle- ships and cruisers, self-closing the gaping wounds inflicted by the solid shot of the enemy.
MARK W. MARSDEN was born in Bradford, England, on the 7th day of July, 1852. He is the son of John W. Marsden and his wife, Sarah H. Marsden, both of whom are descended from families which have figured prominently in the history of Great Britain. At the age of twelve years the son came to the United States, landing in New York in January, 1865, just as the country of his adoption was emerg- ing from the throes of civil strife. Before he left his native land, young Marsden had acquired, in the educational institutions at Wetherby,
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England, a substantial scholastic groundwork. After his arrival in the New World, however, he resumed his studies in the public schools of West Virginia, in which rapidly developing State he then made his home. In these institutions he pursued his studies for but a few years, leaving school at the age of fifteen. His first occu- pation as a wage earner was in the manufacturing of charcoal and the manufacturing and smelting of iron. While the developing of improved processes in this line was thoroughly in keeping with his taste and talents, he soon perceived that his efficiency would be increased by a thorough knowledge of chemistry. Accordingly, noth- ing daunted by the difficulties in his way, at the age of twenty he commenced the study of the science and soon became an accom- plished chemist. His success in his late field of endeavor eventually led him into the manufacturing of paints and chemical colors, in which he was eminently successful.
Mr. Marsden's mechanical and inventive genius have contributed largely to the development of many new industries and to increasing the efficiency of quite a number of better known processes used in the arts. Since the days of his early manhood he has been indefatigable in mechanical as well as in chemical research, and has achieved inter- national fame as the inventor of cellulose and many other useful pro- ducts which he has succeeded in extracting from the hitherto useless corn-stalks. He is now General Manager of the Marsden Company, with works at Rockford, Illinois ; Owensboro, Kentucky, and Chester, Pennsylvania. The special objects of his invention are to turn into commercial use the millions of tons of corn-stalks that annually go to waste, first by separating the pith from the surrounding fibre and pro- ducing a perfect obturator-a cellulose packing impervious to water -specially manufactured for use in the cofferdams of the protected cruisers of the United States ; secondly, to manufacture from the fibre itself a stock food for feeding dairy cows and cattle. A third possible scope of the enterprise is to utilize the saccharine matter of the stalk in the manufacture of sugar. The first two features of the enterprise have already assumed large and successful proportions. The com- pany which bears Mr. Marsden's name is capitalized at fifty millions of dollars, and has the entire world for a market.
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In December, 1877, Mark W. Marsden was married to an estim- able lady of Connellsville, Pennsylvania, Harriet Cora Gilmore, deceased. His present wife was formerly Georgianna Reynolds, to whom he was married in Chicago on the 7th day of January, 1897. He has one son, eighteen years old, and a daughter, aged sixteen.
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SYLVESTER H. MARTIN.
P ROMINENT among the self-made men of Philadelphia who have won the approbation of their fellow-citizens for their devotion to the public duties entrusted to their care, stands Sylvester H. Martin. For years he has been in charge of one of the most important branches of the municipal government, and it is to his tireless energy and to the indefatigable attention with which he discharges his some- times onerous duties that Philadelphia is largely indebted for its generally excellent sanitary conditions, and for the cleanliness of the highways. Mr. Martin has been in charge of the Bureau of Street Cleaning, as Chief, continuously since 1873, with the exception of six years, during which time he was employed as Chief Inspector of Nuisances, and it was in this term that the present house-drainage laws were adopted, due in a great measure to information pre- sented by him to the Board of Health from time to time in his reports on said subject. He is entirely a self-made man. What- ever success has come to him is due to his personal qualities of mind and heart. Forced by circumstances and stern necessity to leave school at an early age, he acquired a good practical education by hard study at night, and by contact with the realities of the world. His is an education of a purely practical kind, rounded out and smoothed by reading. Thus has he gained a fund of knowledge that might well be the envy of many graduates of institutions of higher education. In all his walks of life Mr. Martin did his full duty, facing deprivations and dangers with a courage and fortitude, backed by determination, which is in every way admirable and worthy of emulation. Whether as a workman in a brickyard, as a textile operative, in the field as a soldier fighting for the preservation of his country, or as an employé
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