USA > Pennsylvania > The Biographical encyclopedia of Pennsylvania of the nineteenth century. Pt. 1 > Part 2
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1865, he received the rank of Brevet Brigadier General and Judge Advocate of the Middle Military Department, embrac- ing the States of Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, West Virginia, and Delaware, and finally was honorably discharged the service in July 1865. During his life as a soldier Gen. Bingham saw a full share of military encounters, was wounded at Gettysburg, Spottsylvania and Farmville, and was once taken prisoner, but succeeded in making his escape.
After the war Gen. Bingham was appointed Chief Clerk in the Philadelphia Post Office, Nov. 1866, and in the fol- lowing March was appointed Postmaster. To this office he was reappointed by President Grant in 1869 at the request of both Senators from this State and the United Congressional Delegation from Philadelphia. He was also Treasurer of the Republican State Central Committee in 1869-70-71-72, Delegate at large to the National Republican Convention from the State of Pennsylvania, in 1872, and Permanent Secretary of that body. He resigned the Postmastership of Philadelphia Dec. Ist, 1872, to take possession of the office of Clerk of the Courts of Oyer and Terminer, and Quarter Sessions of the County of Philadelphia, to which he had been elected October 1872.
In person, Gen. Bingham is of medium height, spare and nervous, with penetrating blue eyes, and quick motions.
A COSTA, JACOB M., Physician and Author, was born in the Island of St. Thomas, W. I., Feb. 7th, 1833. In early life he received a liberal education in Europe, acquiring the leading modern languages by residing in the countries where they are spoken. Returning to the United States he selected the profession of medicine, and entered the office of Prof. Mutter, M. D., of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia. He received his diploma at this institution in 1852, and returned to Europe to prosecute his studies in the great hospitals of Paris and Vienna. In 1854 he opened an office in Philadelphia, where his skill soon commanded attention. He was elected attending physician first at the Episcopal Hospital, and subsequently at the Philadelphia and Pennsylvania Hospitals. Devoting especial attention to Practical Medicine and particularly to diseases of the heart and lungs, he conducted for a number of years pri- vate courses of lectures to medical students on these branches, which were higlily appreciated and well attended. In 1864 he was appointed Lecturer on Clinical Medicine at the Jef- ferson Medical College, and in the spring of 1872 was chosen by the trustees of that institution to fill the chair of Professor of the Theory and Practice of Medicine, left vacant by the death of Prof. Dickson, M. D. This position he this staff position that he was rapidly promoted until in April, [ fills with the utmost benefit to the college and the profession. In 1860 he married Sarah, second daughter of the late George Brinton of Philadelphia."
As a lecturer, Dr. Da Costa is remarkable for the lucidity of his expositions of disease, the fluency and accuracy of his language, and the interest which he knows how to throw about the dry details of science. As a diagnostician be probably has no superior in the United States.
Ilis contributions to medical literature have been varied and important. The most extended of these is his Medical Diagnosis with special Reference to Practical. Medicine, first published in 1864, of which three editions have been sold. llis first contribution to medical science was a monograph, On Epithelial Tumors and Cancer of the Skin, 1852. To this, followed, An Inquiry into the Pathological Anatomy Fof Acute Pneumonia, IS55; On Cancer of the Pancreas, IS58; On Serous Apoplexy, 1359; Inhalation in the Treat- ment of Diseases of the Respiratory Passages, 1867; The Physicians of the last Century, IS57; numerous articles in the Pennsylvania Hospital Reports ; in the American Jour- nal of Medical Science ; and a long series of Clinical Lcc- tures on Medicine, which have appeared in the Medical and Surgical Reporter and Philadelphia Medical Times for a number of years.
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NIGHT, EDWARD C., President of the Ameri- can Steamship Company, Merchant and Impor- ter, was born in Gloucester, now Camden, county, New Jersey, December 8th, 1813. He came of a family intimately associated with the early history of Pennsylvania and New Jersey. His ancestor, Giles Knight, of Gloucestershire, England, came over in the ship " Welcome," with William Penn, sailing from England on September 30th, 1682. IIe settled in Byberry, and died in 1726; Mary, his wife, died in 1732. Their son, Thomas Knight, then lived in New Jersey, on a place belonging to Titian Leeds, the Ahnanac maker. The parents of E. C. Knight, Jonathan and Rebecca Knight, were members of the Society of Friends, to whose tenets he himself still adheres. His father was a farmer, and died in 1823. He worked on a farm until 1830, when he obtained a situation in a country store at Kaighn's Point, New Jersey. In that occupation he continued until September, 1832, when he engaged as clerk in the grocery store of Atkinson & Cuthbert, South Street Wharf, Phila- delphia, on the river Delaware. At this period, while quite young, an incident occurred which indicated the character of the future man. He was receiving but four dollars per week, when, engaged in his duties, he observed a man being carried down the Delaware upon the ice. Hle labored to persuade several men, who were standing near, to attempt his rescue. Their reply was, " He will be no loss to the community. Let him go." Offering out of his own little purse, a dollar apiece to two men, if they would rescue him, they succeeded in saving him from his perilous position, and placing him upon dry ground. The moral was not lost on the preserver. He reasoned that if a man's life were worth two dollars, it would be well to have that amount always in his pocket for emergencies. In May, 1836, he established himself in the grocery business on Second street, in the same city, giving his mother an interest in the concern. The firm was suf- ficiently prosperous to enable them, in 1844, to appropriate a sum large enough to pay the balance due by the estate of his father, which proved after his death to be deficient about twenty per cent. About this time he became in- terested in the importing business, acquiring a share in the ownership of the schooner " Baltimore," which was at once placed in the San Domingo trade, making regular trips between Cape Haytien and Philadelphia, freighted princi- pally with coffee. In September, 1846, he removed to the southeast corner of Water and Chestnut streets, and for twenty-seven years has been engaged, at first alone and then as the principal partner of the firm of E. C. Knight & Co., in the wholesale grocery, commission, importing, and
. sugar refining business. In 1849, this house became, and thereafter continued to be, interested to a considerable extent in the California trade; it sent out the first steamer that ever plied on the waters above Sacramento City. The business at present is principally that of sugar refining, for
which purpose the firm occupies two large houses at Bain- bridge Street Wharf on the Delaware, and that of import- ing molasses and sugar from Cuba, together with teas from China. As affording some idea of the close attention Mr. Knight has always paid to business, it may be men- tioned that during thirty-seven years no one but himself has ever signed a note for the firm, and for years he worked sixteen hours per day. During the last twenty- seven years he has embarked in many enterprizes, and discharged the duties of many positions outside of his ordinary business. Ile was President of the Luzerne Coal and Iron Company ; was a Director in the Lackawanna and Bloomsburg Railroad Company; Director of the Southwark Bank, in 1840, and for several years thereafter, also the Bank of Commerce and the Corn Exchange Bank, and a member of the Board of Trade; was ap- pointed by the City as one of the Trustees of City Ice Boats and served for twenty years; also a Director in the Girard Life Insurance and Annuity Trust Company ; and, in 1859, he made several inventions in sleeping cars, put them into operation, and subsequently sold his interests in the patents to incorporated companies. He also served as President of the Coastwise Steamship Company, that built in Philadelphia the vessels " John Gibson " and " E. C. Knight." lle is at present a Director in the Pennsylvania Railroad, the North Pennsylvania, the Trenton and West Jersey, and other roads. He is also a Director in the Guarantee, Fidelity, and Trust Company, Union League, Insurance Company of the State of Pennsylvania, Mer- chant's Fund. He was also Chairman, for seven years, of a Committee of the Pennsylvania Railroad Company to assist in establishing a line of American Steamships between Philadelphia and Europe. Of the company which has grown out of that movement he was first President. This company contracted with Cramp & Sons for four ships of, over three thousand tons each. All of them are now in service-the " Pennsylvania," the " Ohio," the " Indiana," and the " Illinois," and have proved first- class vessels. This enterprise promises to confer marked advantages upon Philadelphia, and E. C. Knight's efforts in bringing matters to their present satisfactory condition meet with high appreciation at the hands of the mercantile community, and of all who are concerned for the material prosperity of the city of Philadelphia. In politics also he has been prominent, acting latterly with the Republican party. In 1856, he was nominated by the American, Whig, and Reform parties for Congress in the First Dis- trict of Pennsylvania. He was an elector from the same district on the Presidential ticket, when Abraham Lincoln was first elected President. He is a member of the Con- vention (1873) assembled for the purpose of revising the Constitution of the State of Pennsylvania, in which his long and varied business experience has rendered his ad- vice much sought and his influence potent for good. His name is a synonym for integrity and honor.
COLONEL PAGE.
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AGE, COL. JAMES, Lawyer and Politician, son of Stephen and Mary Page, was born in Philadelphia, March 8th, 1795. Except a few years in early childhood, the entire life of Colonel Page has been passed in the city of his birth, with many of whose most prominent interests he has long been identi- fied. After receiving a plain English education he entered at the age of fourteen the office of Peter A. Browne, Esq., at that time a successful member of the Philadelphia bar. He was admitted to practice March 16th, 1816, and prosecuted his profession with activity. From early manhood he took an honorable and patriotic interest in political questions, and soon became a recognized leader of the Democratic party, and occupied many offices of trust and honor in both the municipal and general governments. He has been member and President of Common Council, member of Select Con- cil, County Treasurer, Solicitor of the Board of Health and County Commissioners, Democratic Nominee for Mayor, Pre- silent of the State Democratic Association, and one of the Commissioners for the erection of the new Public Buildings. During the administrations of Presidents Jackson and Van Buren he was Postmaster of Philadelphia, and under Post- master General Amos Kendall he had for a time the general control of the New York Post Office. Under President Polk he was appointed Collector of the Port of Philadelphia, and under President Jackson held the position of Commis- sioner of Bankruptcy.
His military career has been equally varied and honorable. Ile began as a private in the State Fencibles, an organization raised in 1813 during the war with Great Britain under the command of Captain (afterwards Colonel) C. C. Biddle. It was mustered into the U. S. Service in 1814, and the sub- ject of our sketch was in the field at Camp Bloomfield, Brandywine, Dupont, and other places, remaining with his command until it was mustered out of service Jan. 3, 1815. Shortly after the close of the war he was elected Captain, and retained the rank until April 26th, 1861, almost half a century, shortly after which date the corps was disbanded by the Act of Assembly of May 11th, 1864. In this period he led his men in all the services they rendered-in the Buck- shot war, and the riots of 1844 in Kensington and in South- wark, where several of his men were killed in repelling an assault. On this trying occasion Captain Page was publicly complimented by the commanding officer for his bravery and discretion. In 1823 he was elected Major, and soon afterwards Colonel of the Second Reg. Pa. Vol. Inf., the 128th of the line, and has also held the position of Colonel of the First Reg. Pa. Vol. Inf., the toSth of the line; and is now (1872) President of the civil organization of the State Fen- cibles, now re-established as a volunteer corps, and Com- mander of its Old Guard.
Col. Page is also widely known as a Mason. His career began in Rising Star Lodge No. 2, in 1822. In 1825 he was elected to the Supreme Degree of R. A. M. in Jerusa- lem II. R. A. C., and in 1848 was elected for the sixth time
W. M. of Lodge 126. He was chosen S. G. W. of the State of Pennsylvania in 1843, and in 1845 and 1847 R. W. G. M. He has long been Chairman of the Committee on Appeals, and has contributed much to define and establish Masonic jurisprudence in the State. IIe is Chairman of the Trustees of the Building Fund for the new Masonic Building on Broad street, and was Chairman of the Building Committee for the Hall on Chestnut street. Ilis social posi- tion has always been commensurate with the many respon- sible and important posts he has filled.
HOMPSON, HION. JAMES, Lawyer and Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, was born in Butler Co. 1806. He received an academic education at Butler, Pa., and first commenced business as a printer. He removed to Kittanning and entered the office of Thomas Blair, Esq., to study law, whence he was admitted to the bar in 1829. HIe settled in Franklin, Venango County. Being a terse and vigorous writer, and debater, he soon acquired a large practice, and, in 1832, 1833, 1834, and 1835, he was elected Democratic Member of Assembly, from the district com- posed of Venango and Warren counties. In the last men- tioned year he was chosen Speaker of the House, al- though one of the youngest members of that body, and his decisions on parliamentary questions were not overruled in a single instance. Resuming the practice of his pro- fession at the close of his legislative career, he was ap- pointed, in 1839, by Gov. Porter, District Judge in the Sixth Judicial District, which position he occupied with uniform credit till 1844, at which date he was elected to Congress by the Democrats of Erie, Warren, Potter, Elk, Jefferson, and Clarion, after a close contest. A re-election in 1846, and a second one in 1848, gave him six years on the floor of Con- gress. During this residence at the National Capitol he took an active share in the many important debates which occurred at this epoch of our history, especially those relat- ing to the admission of Texas and the Mexican war, and during his last term was chairman of the Judiciary Com- mittee. On March 4th, 1851, he retired, declining a re- nomination, and returned to his profession. At the general election in 1855 he was chosen, contrary to his wishes, as the Democratic candidate to represent Ins district in the House of Representatives of Pa. at Harrisburg. After the close of his tern he was renominated both for this position and for Congress, but declined both honors. He preferred to give his whole time in future to the calls of his profession, and soon attracted general attention by his able arguments especially in the " Erie Railroad Cases," in which the most eminent legal talent of the State was engaged. In 1857 he was elected to the Supreme Bench of the State, and served until 1866 as Justice, and after that date as Chief Justice.
In his speeches he is terse and pointed, and is impatient
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of tedious and irrelevant argument in others. Ilis social qualities have gained him a large share of personal popular- ity, and as a gentleman of high character and standing he is well known beyond the limits of his native State.
HILLDIN, ALEXANDER, Merchant, senior part- ner of one of the oldest and most respected mer- cantile houses in Philadelphia, was born in that city, Jan. 28, 1808. His father, Captain Daniel Whilldin, was a well-known shipmaster in the present century, and resided in early life at Cape May, N. J. In 1812, Captain Whilldin sailed from a French port and was lost, it is supposed, at sea, as the vessel was never heard from. His widow, after waiting vainly for tid- ings, returned to the old homestead at Cape May, taking with her her little boy, the subject of this sketch, and his two sisters. Here he remained until he was sixteen years of age, helping his mother to manage the farm and take care of her slender resources. At that age (1824) he obtained occupation in a store in Philadelphia as junior apprentice, part of whose humble duties in those days was to build the fire and sweep the floor each morning. His unswerving de- votion to business, his entire integrity and his willingness to work soon gained for him the confidence not merely of his employers but of all who knew him. In 1832 he com- meneed on his own account, and since that time he has not been out of business a day, and now conducts a large commission house in wool, cottons, and yarns in Front street, within a stone's throw of where he first set up his sign nigh forty years ago. But one other firm-that of David S. Brown -remains of those who, at that time, were his neighbors and competitors.
From early years Mr. Whilldin has been a devoted and prominent member of the Presbyterian Church, and has been a Presiding Elder in it for more than thirty years. Ile has also long been identified with numerous charitable and be- nevolent institutions. Of many such positions he has held, we may mention his directorship in the American Sunday School Union, the Philadelphia Tract Society, the Presbyte- rian Hospital, the Presbyterian Board of Publication, the Union Temporary Home for Children, etc., etc. For fifteen years he has been President of the American Life Insurance Co., from its feeble commencement to its present position of strength; and also, for many years, Vice-President of the Corn Exchange Bank. Within the last few years Mr. Whilldin's three sons have become associated with him in his business, and the leisure thus obtained he has devoted to the philanthropie interests which have always been so much in his thoughts, and also to a somewhat extended tour in Europe, Egypt and the Holy Land. As a model merchant of the old school, and an upright Christian gentleman, Mr. Whilldin may justly be pronounced one of the fist examples in our Commonwealth.
EMENT, WILLIAM BARNES, was born May roth, 1817, in Bradford, Merrimac county, N. II .; a town not remote from the capital. He was the son of Samuel Bement, who combined the calling; of smith and farmer, as was not unusual to the more enterprising men of that time. In accordance with the good New England course, by which so many able men have sprung from narrow means, he attended the dis- triet school in winter; and working on the foundation thus laid, educated himself by assiduous study and self-culture. He commenced life by assisting his father and brother, and while attending school during the day labored far into night, thus laying deep and strong the foundation on which he has since built. At the early age of seventeen he left home and was apprenticed to the machine business at Peterborough, New Hampshire, to serve three years. At the expiration of two, his progress had been such that he was taken into the firm; his brother purchasing an interest for him. The fim of Moore & Colby then became Moore & Bement. Ili; brother remained in it one year, when William took his in- terest. The business was exceedingly dull at this period, and in 1837 to 1839, he was interested in making cotton and woollen machinery. In 1840, he married Miss Emily Russell, of Royalton, Vermont, and the same fall removed to Manchester, and was connected with the Amoskeag Machine shops, whose reputation is now so widely extended, in manufacturing the same class of goods. In 1842, he re- moved with his family to Mishawaka, Indiana, to superin- tend some woollen machinery shops; but the works being destroyed by fire just before his arrival West, he was sud- denly thrown out of employment with but ten dollars in the world. Ilis energy and skill, however, soon brought him out of his troubles, and in a short time he built up quite a flourishing business as gunsmith. The enterprise he here displayed, led to his engagement as superintendent of the St. Joseph Iron Company's machine shop. It was there that he designed and manufactured an engine lathe, an extraordinary feat, considering that he had to make the necessary tools for the purpose. Fire again demolished his employer's works, but they were soon rebuilt, and he was again at work in his element. During the three years here engaged, he invented and constructed a variety of machines and tools, one of which, a gear cutting machine, was the first ever manufac- tured in the West. With an enviable reputation, he returned East in 1847, and at once undertook contracts to build cotton and woollen machinery for the Lowell Machine shops, and ultimately assumed management of the pattern and de- signing departments. Full scope was here afforded to his genius as inventor, designer, and draftsman. For six years he was connected with this concern, and the importance of that connection to his employers was attested by a rapid en- hancement in the reputation and popularity of the goods made. In 1851, accompanied by his nephew, G. A. Colby, he came to this city, and the two associated themselves with Mr. E. D. Marshall, who was then owner of the machine
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shop from which the present works sprung. For about three years the business continued in their hands, and in 1854, Mr. James Dougherty, a. practical and thorough iron founder, became a partner. In 1870, Mr. Dougherty retired, and Mr. Bement then gave his son Clarence S., an interest, the style of the firm now (1872) being William B. Bement & Son.
EA, HENRY CHARLES, Publisher and Author, was born in Philadelphia, September 19, 1825. Ilis ancestors were members of the Society of Friends, and were descendants of John Lea, a distinguished " preacher" who came to the Colony in 1700. . Mr. Isaac Lea, father of the subject of this sketch, married in 1821 Frances, daughter of Matthew Carey, at that time head of one of the oldest publishing houses in America, and entered the firm with his father-in- law. The membership of the firm underwent various changes until the business passed entirely into the hands of Mr. Henry C. Lea. In former years its publications were varied, embracing the writings of Scott, Irving, Cooper, Dickens, etc., but at present Mr. Lea engages exclusively in medical and scientific works, of which he publishes the largest variety of any American house.
Mr. Lea's education was conducted under private tutors, among others the eminent mathematician Eugenius Nulty. He commenced his business career in 1843, as a clerk in his father's store, and became junior partner in 1851. While he has long been regarded as one of Philadelphia's soundest and most successful business men, Mr. Lea enjoys also a merited reputation for profound and solid scholarship, and has contributed to the highest class of historical literature several works which have given him an enduring reputation among scholars both at home and abroad. The earliest of these was a volume published in 1866, entitled Superstition and Force, containing several articles which originally ap- peared in the North American Review upon " The Wager of Battle," " The Wager of Law," " The Ordeal," and " Torture." This work received the highest encomiums from both the English and American press, being described by the London Atheneum as "one of the most remarkable books we have met with." IIe followed it the next year with a volume entitled Sacerdotal Celibacy in the Christian Church, and still later, in 1870, with his Studies in Church History. Of these latter works Dean Milman, the historian of Latin Christianity remarked : " The United States may be proud of one who combines German industry with strong practical English good sense, justice and honesty." Such results are the more astonishing, as Mr. Lea's studies were in early manhood several times interrupted by protracted ill- ness, while during the civil war his attention was largely claimed by the distracted condition of the country. He became a member of the Union League from its organiza-
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