USA > Pennsylvania > Prominent and progressive Pennsylvanians of the nineteenth century. Volume III > Part 33
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On the Ist day of July, 1893, he resigned his position as Auditor for the purpose of forming a co-partnership with William H. Lambert, then General Agent for the Mutual Life for the State of Pennsylva- nia. This move was made with the approval of the Executive, and Mr. Waterhouse received the congratulations of his fellow-officers and was highly eulogized at the time in leading insurance publications. His election as a member of the Board of Trustees was a deserved recognition of the ability and judgment he has displayed in his new field as General Agent, as well as to his long and valuable connection with the company. The Mutual Life is a large owner of real estate in Philadelphia and has recently completed an extensive addition to its fine office building, which makes it one of the grandest structures of its kind in the city. The offices of this agency take up the whole of the first floor of the older structure facing Chestnut and Tenth
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streets. Among the host of clients that almost daily patronize the Mutual Life Insurance Company's office he is noted as well for his courtesy as for his intimate knowledge of every detail of the business. His advice is often sought and generally adopted. Mr. Waterhouse is well known in business and social circles. He is a member of the Union League, Country Club, Rittenhouse Club, Corinthian Yacht Club and the Society of the Sons of the Revolution. He is also a member of the Players' Club of New York and the Morristown Club.
As a member of the Board of Trustees of the Mutual Life Insur- ance Company, Mr. Waterhouse is associated with many men of prominence in various walks of life and some who have obtained national reputations. An election to such a body is a high compliment, and in this case it was undoubtedly one that was worthily bestowed.
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C. THEIS WEGER.
N these days of bustling and fervid competition, young men are showing a decided tendency to forge to the front and take the high places for which their talents fit them. There was a time when age was considered a desideratum to wisdom, while youth stood by in diffidence and respectfully waited for a chance opening, occasioned by the dropping out of older workers. But in this progressive age the fittest survive, irrespective of the years ticked off by Father Time. An excellent point in illustration is furnished in the career of C. Theis Weger, the subject of this sketch. Born in the city of Philadelphia, only a little over three decades ago, he has worked faithfully and earnestly along one line, until he is now recognized as one of the most prominent and progressive young business men in the leading city of Pennsylvania. With his younger brother, Frank Weger, he succeeded to the brewing interest, built up by their grandfather and father, and so successfully have they advanced in their business that their brewery enjoys the reputation of being one of the most solid, extensive and reliable in the country.
C. THEIS WEGER was born in Philadelphia, on the 5th day of March, 1865. His mother was Catherine Weger, and his father Frank Weger, who was born in Bavaria, on March 17, 1831, and came to America to accept a position as a foreman in the brewery of his father-in-law, Charles Theis. The latter was born in Ottweiler, Alsace, February 25, 1811, and died while sojourning at Sea Isle City, New Jersey, August 20, 1888. At the age of twenty-five years he immigrated to America as a full-fledged brewer and, ten years later, he began business for himself in Philadelphia. This was in 1846, and the immense brewery plant now run by his grandsons is a monument
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to his far-sightedness and indomitable energy. After serving a num- ber of years as foreman, Mr. Weger's father was made a partner in the business, the firm being known as Theis & Weger. When hardly in the prime of life, death took him on September 2, 1880. Of the present proprietors of the now famous Theis Brewery, the subject of this sketch is practical and, in every sense of the word, is thoroughly familiar with the details of the brewing business, having been under the preceptorship of his skilled grandfather for upwards of six years in the various departments of the Charles Theis Brewery. The plant is situated on Thirty-second Street, taking in the entire square from Thompson to Master streets, and is one of the largest in the city. The offices of the concern are situated at the Northeast corner of Third and Buttonwood streets, where the extensive bottling depart- ment of this establishment is also located. The Weger Brothers are very popular in the brewing business in Philadelphia. They have the reputation of producing a very superior article of beer, and the output of their plant is steadily on the increase.
Mr. Weger is an enthusiastic yachtsman and a lover of fine horses. He is a member of the Turf Club and is also a stockholder in the Belmont Driving Club. He is a good judge of horse flesh and has held the lines over some of the best thoroughbred trotters in Eastern Pennsylvania. On the wave as well as on shore Mr. Weger delights in swift locomotion. He and his brother are joint owners of the famous yacht "Karl," which, originally as a sloop, and afterwards rigged as a schooner, gained the enviable record of being one of the fastest and finest boats of its kind that ever sailed the Delaware River.
In social circles, as well as among the lovers of out-door sports, Mr. Weger is a prime favorite. He is a member of nearly every German society of Philadelphia, and is also a member of the Alexis and Columbia clubs. He is an active member of the Masonic Fraternity. He is a member of the Commercial Exchange and the Trades League ; and is a stockholder in the Northwestern National Bank ; Integrity Title Insurance, Trust and Safe Deposit Company ; West End Electric Light Company, and Fairmount Ice Works. In politics Mr. Weger is a staunch Republican, and has always stood ready to give the weight of his support to the party of his fealty.
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C. THEIS WEGER.
Mr. Weger was married on February 18, 1890, to Florie Stein Brown. They have one child, Karl Theis Weger. In his home life he takes much delight, and while, of course, his business affairs occupy his attention the greater part of his time, since he is essentially a man of business, yet he finds leisure to enjoy social amenities. Mr. Weger is generally recognized as a man of highly progressive ideas, and one who reflects credit upon any business undertaking or social organization with which he is connected.
FRANK LOUIS WEGER.
OUTH is no longer considered an objection or detri- ment among business men. In the first half of this fast waning Nineteenth Century, the gentlemen who conducted the manufacturing, commercial and mer- . cantile concerns of the country were not overburdened with confidence in the man under forty who forced his way to the front and entered into competition with them. It was considered that at least a score of years of work as a clerk, and as many more years as a junior partner, with much labor to perform and little to say, was necessary to the training of a man to be successful in business. Such is not the case to-day. The young, vigorous, energetic and ambitious man often outstrips the older and more conservative, when they come into direct competition. Of the young Philadelphians who have gained distinction in business, and have builded for themselves excellent reputations based on sound principles and constructed of lasting material, is Frank L. Weger, the subject of this biography. He will not have reached the thirtieth milestone in his life's highway until the century has entered upon its last year, and yet, in connection with his brother, C. Theis Weger, he is at the head of a great industry where many men are employed the whole year around, and in which many thousands of dollars are invested. To the conducting of this business these young men devote much of their time, taking entire charge of some departments of the work, and having a direct supervision over the whole.
FRANK LOUIS WEGER was born in Philadelphia, December 19, 1869. His parents were Frank Weger and Catherine Weger. His maternal grandfather was Charles Theis, an honorable and wealthy gentleman, and one of the best-known brewers of this country. He
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FRANK LOUIS WEGER.
was an Alsatian, the place of his nativity being Ottweiler, Alsace, and the date of his birth, February 25, 1811. At the age of twenty-five years he immigrated to this country and, ten years later, in 1846, began the brewing business in Philadelphia. He believed, as do his grandsons, that the making and distribution of a high grade of lager beer is an actual aid to the temperance movement. In countries where beer is the beverage of the people, and where spirituous liquors are not common, drunkenness is almost unknown. The beer-drink- ing nations are the nations where drunkenness is the very rare excep- tion. Mr. Theis was unalterably opposed to the manufacture and sale of adulterous substitutes for the real lager beer, and the reputation he established as a brewer of the highest grade of the beverage has been well maintained by the Weger Brothers with grand success. Charles Theis died while staying at Sea Isle City, New Jersey, August 20, 1888. Frank L. Weger's father, Frank Weger, was born in Bavaria, March 17, 1831, and, before becoming a partner with his father-in-law, Mr. Theis, was a foreman in the concern. His death occurred in 1880 and his interest in the business reverted to his two sons. Frank L. Weger was then but eleven years of age, and his brother four years his senior. Frank was educated at the primary schools and the Jeffer- son Grammar School of Philadelphia, and afterward took a course at the Peirce Business College, from which he was graduated. He entered the brewing business as a boy and learned every feature of it thoroughly. He early displayed a business sagacity and clearsighted- ness that were remarkable in a youth. Imbued with a determination to hold to the deservedly high reputation that his grandfather had estab- lished, the young man, though under nineteen years of age at the time of Charles Theis' death, devoted all his energies to the work and proved to be a very valuable assistant to his brother.
Mr. Weger is an admirer of good horse flesh and likes to hold the reins over a speedy team almost as well as he does to hold the wheel of a fast yacht. He and his brother had built for themselves the "Karl," one of the fastest and ablest yachts of its size in the country, about 1894. She was originally a sloop, but her owners finally cut down her rig and turned her into a schooner. Few men are as well or as favorably known in yachting circles in Philadelphia
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as is Mr. Weger. He is a member of the Philadelphia Yacht Club and takes a great interest in the affairs of that organization. He is also active in the management of the Philadelphia Turf Club, having been a charter member and a Director of that association. He is also a stockholder of the Belmont Driving Club; is a member of the Alexis Club, the Commercial Exchange, the Trades League, and of all the prominent German societies of Philadelphia. He is a mem- ber of the Union Republican Club. He is a stockholder of the Philadelphia Bourse, and has financial interest in the Northwestern National Bank ; the Integrity Title Insurance, Trust and Safe Deposit Company ; the West End Electric Light Company, and the Fairmount Ice Works. Mr. Weger is unmarried.
R. J. Whitmer
ROBERT F. WHITMER.
IN every walk of life youth is coming to the fore. The young man, schooled in theory and trained in practice, no longer stands diffidently by, but forces his way to the front by progressive methods and new-born ideas. Antique processes and time-honored customs are being supplanted by new and improved practices, while the men whose resistless energy dares any undertaking are changing the whole face of the industrial world. It is the advent of such men into commercial circles that has made possible the development of so many of what are now our most prominent enterprises. By their irrepressible desire for advancement, every custom, every process, which has lacked merit or proved insufficient for the purpose for which it was employed, has been swept aside to make way for modern methods and modern machinery. Among the younger generation of clear- sighted and energetic business men who have conquered success, Robert F. Whitmer holds a distinguished place. Devoting himself, heart and soul, to the projects and enterprises with which his father had been so long identified, and putting every energy of his nature into his work, he has brought them to a high stage of development.
ROBERT F. WHITMER was born on the 25th day of January, 1864, at Hartleton, Union County, Pennsylvania. His father, William Whitmer, was one of the most distinguished business men in the State, a man who had left the impress of his energy on every under- taking in which he engaged. Katharine A. Forster, his mother, was descended from those hardy Scotch-Irish emigrants who came to this country in 1700 and settled the now prosperous and thriving counties of Northumberland and Union. Her grandfather was a Colonel in the War for Independence, and his brother was with the English troops
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in the French and Indian wars. Coming thus from stock which had been the bone and sinew of the young Republic, and being endowed with more than an ordinary amount of the pluck and enterprise which had characterized his ancestors, Mr. Whitmer's business success has not been a matter of chance.
He attended the public schools of Union County, and, after the removal of his parents to Sunbury, attended school there. His progress as a student being particularly satisfactory, he was entered at the Pennsylvania State College. Leaving there at the expiration of two years, he matriculated at Lafayette College, from which institution he was graduated in 1885. The prominent position his father had long held in commercial circles made his entrance into business comparatively easy ; but, nevertheless, he attacked the details of the lumber trade, to which his father was devoting considerable of his attention, with the assiduity for which he had become remarkable during his college days. Here, under the guiding care of the elder Whitmer, he quickly mastered the rudiments of the business, and was soon able to greatly relieve his father of a large amount of the burdens incident upon his widely diversified interests. Mr. Whitmer, at the age of thirty-three, is now President of the Dry Fork Railroad, a line projected and built by him through one of the wildest of the mountain regions of West Virginia, a territory almost wholly inaccessible before the Whitmers entered it. This road, penetrating as it does one of the richest mining and lumber districts in the Mountain State, is doing a thriving business, and there is every probability that in the near future it will be extended southward to connect the West Virginia Central and the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad systems. Without a doubt, his position at the head of this corporation makes Mr. Whitmer the youngest railroad president in this country. Besides his railway interests, Mr. Whitmer is also the President of the Condon Lane Lumber Company, of West Virginia, which has done so much in clearing up and marketing the timber of that State. He is also President of the William Whitmer & Sons Lumber Company, Incorporated, of Philadelphia, and of the William Whitmer & Sons Company, of Sunbury, Pennsylvania, besides being Vice-President of the Buffalo Lumber Company, of West Virginia, to
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ROBERT F. WHITMER.
all of which offices he succeeded upon the death of his father, which occurred the 20th day of October, 1896. Upon his succession to the Presidency and control of the corporations founded by his father, Mr. Whitmer infused new life and even more progressive business methods into their management, with such success that even wider triumphs in the commercial and financial world seem to be before him.
A thoroughly patriotic citizen, Mr. Whitmer has always taken a deep interest in the political affairs of the Commonwealth, although he has never consented to accept candidacy for any public office, preferring rather to remain in the ranks of the workers for purity in politics and thoroughly business-like management of municipal affairs. He is a member of the Union League, a prominent social organization of Philadelphia, and among its membership, as in his commercial relations, has made many close and intimate friends.
He was married on the 23d day of April, 1891, to Mary Packer, the daughter of a well-known family of Sunbury, Penn- sylvania. They have two children. In the different mercantile establishments and corporations over which Mr. Whitmer presides, he has upwards of one thousand employés with whom his genial manner, generous treatment and unfailing sense of justice have made him deservedly popular.
WILLIAM WHITMER.
T HE prominent position that the Keystone State has long occupied as a manufacturing center is, in a large measure, due to her immense wealth in the great raw materials of industry-lumber, coal and iron. Indeed, she owes her great prosperity primarily, if not almost entirely, to the enterprise of those dauntless and resolute men who have brought every energy to bear in taking the black diamonds from the earth, and from the forests and mountains their wealth of timber. It has been their determination and perseverance that were largely responsible for the presence, within Pennsylvania's borders, of millions of hardy toilers, whose products seek the uttermost parts of the earth. Foremost among these was William Whitmer, the subject of this biography, a man whose name is known through every channel of the mercantile and lumber business as one of the pioneers in the field.
WILLIAM WHITMER was born on the 11th day of December, 1835, at McAllisterville, Union County, Pennsylvania. He was the son of Peter Whitmer, a well-known resident of that section, and could trace his genealogy through a long line of prominent ancestors (the name was formerly spelled "Witmer"), who had settled in this country in the early part of the Eighteenth Century, and been among the first of those who foresaw the coming greatness of the region and, appreciat- ing its natural wealth, had been active in bringing about that prosperity that has so long been hers. His education was acquired in the public schools of his native town, where he resided with his parents. After arriving at a stalwart manhood, for many years he conducted a mer- cantile business at Hartleton, Union County. Closing out this estab- lishment, however, in 1872, he removed to Sunbury, where he once
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WILLIAM WHITMER.
more entered the commercial world as the head of the firm of Whitmer & Company. After a lapse of some time the firm name was changed to Whitmer & Foster, and, a little later, upon the retire- ment of the junior member and the admission of another partner, to Whitmer & Trexler. Mr. Whitmer withdrew from the firm of which he was the founder, in 1893, which marks the date of his retirement from active mercantile pursuits. The next year he removed to Phila- delphia, where he resided up to the time of his death.
Being quick to perceive the almost boundless possibilities of the forests of the mountain regions of interior Pennsylvania, and despite his extensive commercial interests, Mr. Whitmer found time to identify himself with many of the progressive movements looking to the clear- ing away of the timber and marketing the lumber from the slopes of the hills about his home. With a number of other prominent capital- ists he formed the Linden Hill Lumber Company and several other similar corporations, in whose management he took an active part. He was also among the organizers of one of the strongest financial institu- tions of Northern Pennsylvania, the Sunbury Trust and Safe Deposit Company, and was, at a later date, the head of the well-known com- pany of William Whitmer & Sons, Incorporated, of Philadelphia. Besides his extensive interests in Pennsylvania, Mr. Whitmer was one of those keen-sighted men of business, who early entered upon the task of putting on the market the lumber and coal of the then almost impassable wilderness of the State of West Virginia. With his char- acteristic energy he entered into the formation and management of several companies which have done much in making the hills and valleys of that little mountain State veritable hives of workers. He was one of the projectors and builders of the Dry Forks Railroad, which penetrates the heart of a rich lumbering and mining region, an active and prominent member of the Condon Lane Lumber Company and the Bethel Coal Company.
Mr. Whitmer was married to Katharine A. Forster, of Union County, on July 19, 1859. They had four children, three daughters, two of whom are now living, and a son, Robert F. Whitmer, who is at present at the head of the various companies formerly presided over by his father, who died on the 20th day of October, 1896. Mr.
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Whitmer was a man of strong character and left the impress of his sound judgment and rare business sense upon every undertaking with which he identified himself. In mercantile pursuits he was eminently successful, and in the wider pursuits of corporate action took a prominent position, enjoying the confidence of his associates and the hearty respect and love of his subordinates. An earnest, con- scientious Christian, he was an active Presbyterian. While a resident of Philadelphia, he connected himself with the Tabernacle Presbyterian Church, of which Rev. Dr. McCord was the Pastor.
Senj wilson
BENJAMIN B. WILSON.
L OYAL and courageous in the time of the nation's late internal strife, energetic and progressive in the sub- sequent peaceful period, and ever laboring with a view to alleviating suffering and helping humankind, Dr. Benjamin B. Wilson, the subject of this biography, has achieved a most enviable reputation in the medical profession. From the beginning of his long career he has always held that a phy- sician should not confine himself exclusively to a particular line of work, claiming that more thorough efficiency can be attained in a specialty when founded upon the broadening influence of a general practice ; therefore, while he has served for extended periods on the surgical staffs of the Howard Hospital, the Woman's Hospital and the Jewish Hospital, to which last-named institution he still devotes his services, he has never ceased to be, in a measure, a general practi- tioner. Doctor Wilson taught surgery to women when it was con- sidered almost a crime to do so, having been for sixteen years (1867-83) Professor of Surgery in the Woman's Medical College. Very many of our distinguished women surgeons and gynecologists, who now adorn the medical profession, had their first lessons in his classes at the Woman's College and at his clinics in the Woman's Hospital. He was the first to do an ovariotomy in the latter place. The operation was a double one, presenting points of especial diffi- culty and risk, and the successful result added much to the prestige of the then young institution.
BENJAMIN BUCK WILSON was born near Germantown, October 22, 1828, and comes from a long line of Quaker ancestry, being the fifth in direct descent from Stephen Wilson, in whose house the Society of Friends held meetings before the arrival of William Penn in America.
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He is also fifth in descent from Thomas Canby, a Yorkshire boy, who emigrated in 1682, and became a prominent member of the Provincial Legislature in the early part of the last century. Samuel Wilson (the son of Stephen) and Rebecca Canby were the parents of thirteen chil- dren, all of whom married and became the parents mostly of large families noted for their longevity. Doctor Wilson's parents, Samuel R. and Susanna A. Wilson, were married sixty-five and a half years, the husband surviving until 1896, and reaching the patriarchal age of nearly ninety years. Maternally, he is descended from Benjamin Buck, an English Friend who amassed a considerable fortune in the Island of Barbadoes, through improvements in machinery for crushing cane and making sugar. He came to Philadelphia for the purpose of manumitting his slaves and is said to have provided for each one a substantial outfit and start in life.
Doctor Wilson received his early education in the local schools and at the old Germantown Academy. He entered the Philadelphia High School at an early period in its history, graduating in July, 1847, the honor man of his class. Three years later the school conferred upon him the degree of Master of Arts. After graduating he matric- ulated at the University of Pennsylvania and entered the office of Dr. Thomas F. Betton, a distinguished surgeon. He received his medical degree from the University in April, 1850, and at once entered upon an active career in what was then the Twenty-third Ward of Philadel- phia. The breaking out of the War of the Rebellion interrupted a practice which in ten years had become laborious and exacting. He was elected Captain of the company which was organized in the village of Bustleton after the fall of Fort Sumter, and, though an absolute novice in military matters, quickly brought his command into a state of efficiency and discipline. He soon resigned, however, to accept a commission as Surgeon of Volunteers. After serving at Washington he was ordered to New Orleans and organized the Alexander Hospital there. He next served in the field on the staff of Major-General Weitzel ; was at the surrender of Port Hudson, which opened the Mississippi River, and was finally in medical charge of the defences of New Orleans, on the staff of Gen. Joseph J. Rey- nolds, when it was especially important to prevent the entrance of
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