History of West Brownsville, (Washington County) Pennsylvania United States of America

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Biographies:

James Gillespie Blaine, statesman, was born at West Brownsville, Pa., Jan. 31, 1830; son of Ephraim Lyon and Maria (Gillespie) Blaine, grandson of James Blaine, and great-grandson of Ephraim Blaine, who served as a commissary-general under Washington, with whom he was on terms of personal friendship. Maria Gillespie was the daughter of Neal Gillespie, who came from Donegal, Ireland, an educated and cultivated man and a Roman Catholic. The son received his early education from his father and maternal grandfather, and had the advantage of preparing for college at a school kept by a cultivated Englishman, to whom he was sent when eleven year of age. In 1845 he entered Washington college, and was graduated in 1847, delivering an oration and the English salutatory. He was for a time a teacher at the Western military institute, Blue Lick Springs, Ky., and there he met Harriet Stanwood, to whom he was married within a few months. On his return to Pennsylvania he studied law for a short time, and in 1852-'54 taught the higher branches in the Pennsylvania institution for the blind at Philadelphia. In 1854 he removed to Augusta, Me., bought an interest in the Kennebec Journal and as its editor acquired reputation as a writer on political subjects and became prominent in the state. In 1856 Mr. Blaine was sent as a delegate to the first Republican national convention, which nominated John C. Fremont for the presidency, and on his return to Maine he delivered his maiden political speech. In 1857 he severed his connection with the Journal, and assumed editorial control of the Portland Advertiser. In 1858, on his election to the state legislature, he abandoned journalism as a pursuit, though he edited the Kennebec Journal during the campaign of 1860. Mr. Blaine sat in the state legislature from 1858 to 1862, acting as speaker of the house during his last two terms. In 1858 he was made chairman of the state Republican committee, a position which he held until 1878. In 1862 he was elected as a representative to the 38th and was re-elected to the 39th, 40th, 41st, 42d, 43d and 44th congresses, 1863-'76, and was speaker of the house, 1869-'75. His convictions, as expressed to his constituents on his first nomination for Congress, he maintained during the troublous times which followed; he said: "The great object with us all is to subdue the rebellion speedily, effectually and finally. In our march to that end we must crush all intervening obstacles. If slavery or any other institution stands in the way it must be removed. Perish all things else, the national life must be saved." He became eminent for his part in the debates on all considerable questions during the civil war, making few long speeches, but excelling in the frequent skirmishes common in the house, for which his nimble mind, his alert comprehension and his wide knowledge of the subjects discussed peculiarly fitted him. He was largely instrumental in formulating an equitable basis for the reconstruction of the Union, the 14th amendment to the constitution being the embodiment of ideas to which he had given utterance in the house. The "Blaine Amendment" providing for the rehabilitation to state rights of any of the seceding states, which should establish equal suffrage without regard to race and color, though defeated at first, finally passed both branches of Congress in 1867. Mr. Blaine strenuously opposed the proposition to pay the national debt in greenbacks. His authoritative maintenance of the position that naturalized citizens are entitled to the same measure of protection abroad as native-born Americans led to the Anglo-American treaty of 1870, which followed the American idea as opposed to the one held by the English government up to that time, "once a subject, always a subject."

From 1869 to 1876 Mr. Blaine, being speaker of the house, seldom took part in debate; one of the conspicuous exceptions to this rule was his vacating his chair to oppose the bill giving General Grant the right to pronounce "martial" law in the southern states and to suspend the habeas corpus act, as measures for the extinction of the famous Ku-klux Klan. Jan. 6, 1876, Mr. Blaine offered an amendment to the Amnesty bill presented to the house by Mr. Randall, Dec. 15, 1876, which amendment read as follows: "Be it enacted, etc. That all persons now under the disabilities imposed by the 14th amendment to the constitution of the United States, with the exception of Jefferson Davis, late president of the so-called Confederate states, shall be relieved of such disabilities on their appearing before any judge of a United States court and taking and subscribing in open court the following oath," etc. The ground he took in the debate which followed was that Mr. Davis was responsible for the cruelties charged against the keepers of the Federal prisoners at Andersonville. He said: "I only see before me, when his name is presented, a man who, by the wink of his eye, by a wave of his hand, by a nod of his head, could have stopped the atrocities at Andersonville. Some of us had kinsmen there, most of us had friends there, all of us had countrymen there; and in the name of those kinsmen, friends and countrymen, I here protest, and shall with my vote protest against calling back and crowning with the honors of full American citizenship the man who organized that murder." This speech made for Mr. Blaine many implacable enemies and had the effect of rousing much partisan feeling. Charges were made that he had received bribes, notably of Union Pacific and Kansas Pacific railroad bonds. Some letters which had fallen into the hands of a clerk named Mulligan written by Mr. Blaine to Warren Fisher of Boston, were the groundwork upon which these charges were framed, and against which Mr. Blaine defended himself ably, and with notable and dramatic effect. In 1876 he was the strongest Republican candidate for nomination as President and lacked only twenty-eight votes of a majority when the supporters of the several other candidates united and gave the favoring balance to Mr. Hayes. Mr. Blaine was elected to the senate in 1876 to fill the unexpired term of Lot M. Morrill, who became secretary of the treasury in President Hayes's cabinet. He at once took an active part in all the current questions before the senate; he opposed the appointment of an electoral commission to determine the validity of the presidential election, urging that Congress could not confer upon a commission powers which it did not itself possess. He was strong in his opposition to the Bland silver bill, being in favor of a bimetallic currency and the maintenance of full weight in coining silver. His tariff views were firmly defined and were not controlled by party limitations; he favored protection as a necessary measure for the encouragement of American industries. He did much to promote the shipping industries of the United States, and in 1878 proposed the subsidizing of a line of mail steamers to Brazil, justly contending that French and English commerce had been greatly augmented by the granting of subsidies to various ocean steamship lines. Nor was his voice uncertain in the strife that arose in the senate in 1879 in regard to the presence of United States troops at the polls, and the resistance of the Democrats to the passage of the appropriation bills, when he stigmatized the attempt to withhold appropriations, as a threat to the executive, as revolutionary. He regarded purity of the ballot as an important factor in the government of the people, by the people, and was active in the measures taken to maintain rightful government in Maine, when in 1879 an attempt was made to usurp the functions of the newly elected state officials. Mr. Blaine favored the bill for the exclusion of the Chinese in 1879 on the grounds that their admission menaced the well-being of the native laboring population and would cause the lowering of the standards of wages and of living, for those who obtained a support by unskilled labor, to the level of the Chinese coolie. "For one," he said, "I will never consent by my vote or by my voice to drive the intelligent working-men of America to that competition and that degradation."

Mr. Blaine was again an unsuccessful candidate for nomination for the presidency in 1880, and was chosen by President Garfield as his secretary of state. One of his first acts as secretary was to inspire the calling of a congress of delegates from the South American republics, to cooperate with the United States in establishing a system of arbitration looking to the peaceful settlement of all questions arising between the independent nations of the American continents. The primary issue was the cessation of hostilities between Chili and Peru, and the secondary, and by no means least important one, the furthering of the commercial interests and relations of the United States with the various countries. The shooting of President Garfield, and his lingering illness, necessarily caused the abeyance of all active measures; his death brought about Mr. Blaine's withdrawal from the cabinet, and this measure, with others formulated and partially operated by Secretary Blaine, was nullified by the change of policy of his successor. Of these measures, one was his deputing William H. Trescott to offer the friendly intervention of the United States in securing terms of peace between Chili and Peru, and the other his correspondence with Great Britain with a view to obtaining the abrogation of certain clauses in the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, because they were not in harmony with later agreements made by the United States with Columbia. The British government replied that the treaty should be respected and maintained, and Mr. Blaine's further contention that "it is the intention of the United States to consider the isthmus canal question as an American question to be dealt with and decided by the American governments" became a dead issue with his departure from office. For almost a quarter of a century Mr. Blaine had served his party and his country with unswerving fidelity, and for the first time found leisure in 1881 to transcribe a work which had long been in his mind, "Twenty Years of Congress," an historical resum� of the chief political events in the early history of the country, followed by an exhaustive and analytical account of the two decades, 1860 to 1880. In 1882 he was chosen to pronounce the eulogy on Garfield before the 47th Congress, Feb. 27, 1882. In 1884 he was nominated for President by the Republican national convention; the Democratic candidate being Mr. Cleveland. Mr. Blaine's popularity made him a very strong candidate, and the campaign was noted for its bitter and acrimonious character. Mr. Blaine spoke almost entirely upon industrial questions, chiefly those connected with protection, and delivered a number of remarkably strong addresses, and on his defeat reiterated his often uttered opinion in previous years?that in the "solid south" the Republican vote had been suppressed by the Democrats. He resumed work upon his "Twenty Years in Congress," the second volume of which appeared in 1886. He was actively prominent in the political canvass in Maine in 1886, and spent the years 1887 and '88 in Europe. His name was used at the national Republican convention which met at Chicago in 1888. He promptly sent a communication to that body refusing to accept a nomination and urging the protection policy as the basis of the Republican platform. President Harrison made him secretary of state and he returned to the United States. His foreign policy was much the same as that of his previous secretaryship. A conference of twenty-six nations was held at Washington to establish a uniform system of marine signals and to determine on various matters of maritime interest; representatives of all the independent governments on the two American continents also met at Washington, and took a forty days' trip through the more important manufacturing states to view the industries of the United States; reciprocal treaties, at Mr. Blaine's instigation, were made with Germany, France, Austro-Hungary, Saint Domingo, Costa Rica, Spain on behalf of Cuba, Brazil, British Guiana, and the British West Indies. His measures in regard to the seal fisheries disputes were attended with a measure of success and he prepared the demand of the United States, which was laid before the arbitration commission, which met by consent of the nations to effect a settlement of the questions at issue. On the fourth of June, 1892, Mr. Blaine resigned his portfolio, assigning as his reason a desire for rest. At the national Republican convention, which met three days after this resignation, his name was freely used as a candidate. Heavy domestic sorrows pressed upon him and doubtless accelerated the termination of a fatal malady from which he had long suffered. President Harrison called upon Congress to honor his obsequies; but the people whom he had so long served needed no such call. Several biographies of him have been written: notably, "Life of James G. Blaine," by H. J. Ramsdell; "Biography of James G. Blaine," by Wolcott Balestier; and a "Life of James G. Blaine," by Gail Hamilton. He died in Washington, D.C., Jan. 27, 1893.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

Eliza Maria Gillespie, educator, was born near West Brownville, Pa, Feb. 21, 1824. She removed with her parents to Lancaster, Ohio, while quite young, and was educated by the Sisters of St. Dominic at Somerset, Perry county, and at the Convent of the Visitation, Georgetown, D.C. Thomas Ewing, secretary of the treasury under Harrison, was her god-father, and James Gillespie Blaine, secretary of state under Garfield, was her cousin. While in Washington she was a leader of society, and with Ellen Ewing, afterward wife of Gen. W. T. Sherman, collected large sums of money for the aid of the sufferers from the famine in Ireland, adding to the fund by their tapestry handiwork and a magazine story which they wrote in collaboration. She was received into the congregation of the Sisters of the Holy Cross in 1853, under the religious name of Mother Mary of St. Angela, and made her novitiate in France, taking her religious vows from Father Moreau, founder of the order of the Holy Cross. She returned to America in 1855 and was made superior of the academy of St. Mary's, Bertrand, Mich., which in 1856 she removed to Terre Haute, Ind., where it was known as St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, and became the mother house of the sisters of the Holy Cross. She obtained for the institution a charter from the legislature and added to the ordinary curriculum of the academy the foundation for a prosperous conservatory of music. She multiplied academies of the order to the number of thirty and upwards in different parts of the United States including Utah and Texas. When the civil war called for nurses in the army, she left her home, organized at Cairo, Ill., a headquarters, enlisted a corps of sisters, established temporary and permanent hospitals, and used her influence at Washington to further the comfort of the sick and wounded soldiers, for whom, with the help of her corps, she cooked gruel and often fed the moving army as well as those detained in hospital. Her labors broke down her health and at the close of the war she was an invalid. The order in the United States was separated from the European order in 1870, and she was made mother superior, filling the office two terms, when she retired to become mistress of novices. She contributed to the Catholic periodicals, notably war sketches for the Ave Maria. She died at the Convent of the Holy Cross, Notre Dame, Ind., March 4, 1887.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor