History of Lycoming County, Pennsylvania, 1887



McCormick Family - HENRY CLAY McCORMICK Biography

The debt of gratitude which Pennsylvania owes to her early settlers can hardly be over-estimated. Especially is this true of those of her pioneers who were the founders of families the members of which, in the successive generations, have helped to rear and uphold the social and political fabric of the state and of the nation. Among the names of these old and distinguished families none is more justly honored than that of McCormick. Much of the lustre of the name is derived from the character and career of Henry Clay McCormick, for many years a leading citizen of Williamsport and one who faithfully served his native state in various offices of trust and responsibility. The history of the notable race from which Mr. McCormick sprang is traced through the, following generations:

James McCormick (1 ), of Londonderry, Ireland, was the father of two sons : Hugh, mentioned at length hereinafter; and Thomas. James McCormick, the father, appears to have been of that sturdy north of Ireland stock which was so potent a factor in the colonization of this country. It is not improbable that the McCormicks were one of the many Scottish families which, for political reasons, had been transplanted to Ireland.

Hugh McCormick (2), son of James McCormick (1 ), was born about 1695, in the province of Ulster, Ireland; and about 1735 emigrated to the American colonies in company with his brother Thomas. Hugh McCormick married and had four children: John, James, Samuel and Hugh, mentioned at length hereinafter. These, two brothers, Hugh and Thomas McCormick, were the founders of the Pennsylvania branch of the family. It was in that province that they settled, making homes for themselves in Lancaster (now Dauphin) county.

Hugh McCormick (3), youngest son of Hugh McCormick (2). was born in 1725, in Ireland, and was ten years of age when brought by his parents to their new home across the sea. About 1770 he purchased thirteen hundred acres of land in White Deer Valley. He married Sarah, daughter of James and Mary Alcorn, of Cumberland county, Pennsylvania, and among the nine children born to them were two sons Thomas; and Seth, mentioned at length hereinafter. Hugh McCormick, the father, was a man of substance and influence in his day and generation.

Seth McCormick (4), son of Hugh (3), and Sarah (Alcorn) McCormick, was born in 1756, in Paxtang township, in what was then Lancaster county. He and his brother Thomas settled on the land in White Deer Valley which had been purchased by their father. Seth McCormick married Margaret, daughter of Samuel and Margaret (Plunkett) Simmons, of Buffalo Valley, and niece of Dr. Plunkett whose name is prominent in the early history of Northumberland county. Mr. and Mrs. McCormick were the parents of the following children: 1. Robert, who was born in 1782, married Nancy Foresman, and died in 1874. 2. Hugh, who was born in 1784 and died in 1826. 3. Samuel, who was born in 1787, married Elizabeth Platt, and died in 1864. 4. Seth, mentioned at length hereinafter. 5. Thomas, who was born in 1791, married Maria Hammond, and died in 1818. 6. Sarah, who was born in 1793, became the wife of Robert J. Foresman, and died in 1874. 7. John, who was born in 1797, and was thrice married, his first wife being Hester Coryell, his second Sarah Bush, and his third Sarah Brown; he died in 1871. 8. Cynthia, who was born in 1800, married Samuel Eason, and died in 1880. 9. Susan, who was born in 1802, married Matthew B. Hammond, and died in 1883. 10. Joseph, who was born in 1805, married Margaret Schooley, and died in 1876.

Seth McCormick (5), fourth child of Seth (4) and Margaret (Simmons) McCormick, was born in 1789, and married Hannah Hammond. Among their children was a son, Seth Thomas, mentioned at length hereinafter. The death of Mr. McCormick occurred in 1821, when he had attained only to the comparatively early age of thirty-two.

Seth Thomas McCormick (6), second son of Seth (5) and Hannah (Hammond) McCormick, was born January 27, 1817, in Washington township, Lycoming county. He was trained to the work of a farmer and lumberman, and devoted himself to these pursuits until he was more than forty years old. In 1861 he moved his family to Williamsport and entered the office of W. W. Willard, Esq., for the purpose of studying law. In 1863 after a highly creditable examination he was admitted to the bar of Lycoming county. By dint of energy, ability and application he built up for himself a large and lucrative practice, and after a few years associated with himself his son, Henry Clay Mccormick, thus forming the firm of S. T. & H. C. McCormick, which occupied a place in the front rank of the legal profession. Mr. McCormick took a keen interest in every enterprise having a tendency to advance the best interests of the community in which he resided. He was many times elected a member of the common council, during which service his influence was always exerted in behalf of honest municipal government He was the compiler of the book of the charter, laws and ordinances of the city of Williamsport and nearly every ordinance of the city was drafted by his hand. In 1871 he was nominated by the Democrats for the office of city recorder, but the city being strongly Republican he was defeated by a small majority.

Mr. McCormick married, in 1837, Eleanor Miller, of White Deer Valley, the ceremony being performed by the Rev. Isaac Grier. The following children were born to Mr. and Mrs. McCormick : 1. Sarah Elizabeth, who was born in 1839, and married William D. Oakes. 2. Hannah Hammond, who was born in 1841 and died in 1847. 3. Henry Clay, mentioned at length hereinafter. 4. William Miller, who was born in 1846, and was twice married, his first wife being Sarah R. Rothrock, and his second Josephine Lawrence. 5. Horace Greeley, who was born in 1850, is a practicing physician of Williamsport, and married Margaretta Hill. 6. Hannah Hammond, who was born in 1853, and married Thomas L. Painter. 7. Frank Hammond, who was born in 1857, and married Marietta Culver. 8. Seth Thomas, who was born in 186o, and married Belle Herdic. Mr. McCormick died December 1, 1878. He was a man of most remarkable character, inasmuch as he showed himself able in middle life to fit himself for a new sphere of endeavor, and to enter successfully upon a hitherto untried field of action. His widow, who survived him many years, passed away May 27, 1897.

Henry Clay McCormick (7), eldest son of Seth Thomas (6) and Eleanor (Miller) McCormick, was born June 30, 1844, in Washington township, Lycoming county, Pennsylvania. As a boy he worked on his fat's farm, receiving his preparatory education in the district schools of his native township and at Dickinson Seminary, being seventeen years of age when the family moved to Williamsport. In 1863 he attended Eastman's Business College, in Poughkeepsie, New York, graduating with high honors from that institution. After his return home he engaged in keeping books for a local firm and subsequently took charge of a school. In October, 1864, he began the study of law, continuing at the same time his duties as a teacher, and on August 28, 1866, was admitted to the bar. He then went to Iowa, but after a few months' stay returned to Williamsport and entered into partnership with his father under the firm name of S. T. & H. C. McCormick. From February, 1867, until the death of his father, the firm was so continued, and on January 1, 1882, Mr. McCormick took as a partner his younger brother, Seth Thomas, the title of the firm. becoming H. C. & S. T. McCormick. This connection was continued without interruption until the death of Mr. McCormick. For nearly forty years the firm stood at the head of the legal profession of the county. Mr. McCormick's abilities as an attorney have for so long a period been fully and thoroughly recognized that more words on the subject seem superfluous if not impertinent. The industry, research, method and skill with which he prepared his cases for court has afforded an explanation of the uniform success which he enjoyed. As a speaker, both in court and on the platform, he showed himself well equipped, forcible, logical and effective.

As a business man Mr. McCormick possessed the same traits and qualifications which made him one of the leading lawyers of the state. For many years he was closely allied with the material advancement and prosperity of Williamsport. In 1873 he helped to organize the Lycoming National Bank, of which he was a director for fourteen years. In April, 1887, he severed his connection with that bank to assist in founding the banking house of Cochran, Payne & McCormick, an institution of great financial strength and popularity. He served for many years as a member and director of the Board of Trade, and was the chief mover in organizing the Edison Electric Illuminating Company. During the first two years of the existence of this organization, he filled the office of president and subsequently served on the board of directors. In February, 1892, he was elected president of the Williamsport and North Branch Railroad Company and took an active part in the promotion of many other enterprises. Mr. McCormick's marked talents for the conduct of public affairs were recognized at a very early period in his career. In 1869, when barely twenty-five years of age, he was elected solicitor of the city of Williamsport, and in 1879 was reelected. In the latter year he was strongly urged for the appointment of United States district attorney for the western district of Pennsylvania, and was endorsed generally by the bench and bar for the position. Although Mr. McCormick had never been a candidate for any public office, in the congressional contest of 1882 he was asked by nine of the eighteen conferences of the sixteenth district, then composed of the counties of Lycoming, Tioga, Sullivan, Potter, Cameron and McKean, to stand as a candidate. For three weeks he steadily received these votes, and finally his supporters, at his request, voted for W. W. Brown, of McKean county, and nominated him.

October 18, 1886, after a protracted deadlock of many weeks, Mr. McCormick was nominated for congress by the Republican conference, on the two hundred and fifty-third ballot, to represent the sixteenth district. It was only ten days prior to the election, but he received a majority of four thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, a larger one than had ever been accorded to any previous candidate. Mr. McCormick carried the Democratic county of Lycoming (which shortly before had given over two thousand five hundred majority for the Democratic district-attorney-elect) by a majority of eight hundred and forty-seven, the only time in the history of the county that it gave a majority for a Republican candidate for congress. Mr. McCormick took his seat in the fiftieth congress December 5, 1887, and was placed on the committees of railroads, canals and militia. May 5, 1888, he delivered his maiden speech, in opposition to the free importation of lumber. After the house had voted to put lumber on the free list by passing the Mills bill, he appeared before the sub-committee on finance in the senate, and it was largely through his instrumentality that the committee reported in favor of retaining the duty, thus protecting the lumbermen against Canadian competition. In the fiftieth congress the Republican party was in the minority, and much of the work done by Mr. McCormick did not appear on the surface, but he proved a decided acquisition to the Republicans of the Pennsylvania delegation, and gained prestige second to no other first-term member of the house. At the subsequent meeting of the Republican congressional conference of his district his course was strongly endorsed, and he received the thanks of those engaged in the lumber industry for his efforts in opposition to the Mills bill.

Mr. McCormick was always an earnest advocate of liberal pensions, believing that the government should care for its defenders and those dependent upon them. In a letter to the commander of Post No. 141, G. A. R., of Bradford, Pennsylvania, under date of October 23, 1886, in answer to a query as to his attitude on pensions, he wrote as follows

"Permit me to say that in my belief the time has arrived when every honorably discharged soldier and sailor should receive substantial recognition by the government, without being obliged to prove that he was physically or mentally disabled in the service. The granting of pensions to all soldiers of the late war is, in my judgment, only a question of time, and I think the time should not be delayed. These are my views and they have not been acquired simply since I have been a candidate for congress, but have been expressed publicly and privately many times." On the 5th of January, 1888, he introduced in congress a bill which he had prepared, by the provisions of which every soldier who had served four months or over was given a pension of eight dollars a month, but the bill was smothered in committee and never saw the light.

In 1888 Mr. McCormick was renominated as the Republican candidate and was reelected by the large majority of four thousand six hundred and sixty-four, leading the presidential ticket two hundred and fiftyfour votes, which was a substantial recognition of his worth and popularity, and a marked approval of his course during his first term. In the fifty-first congress he was made chairman of the committee on railways and canals, and a member of the judiciary committee on education. He was universally recognized as one of the ablest members from Pennsylvania. He was one of the delegates-at-large from Pennsylvania to the Republican National Convention in 1892, held in Minneapolis, and voted for the nomination of William McKinley.

Governor Hastings, immediately after the election in 1894, tendered Mr. McCormick the appointment of attorney-general, which was accepted, and he served in that important office throughout the entire Hastings administration. It was in this position that he achieved his most notable triumph, and gave to the country a stainless example of an able, fearless, honest public servant. He was much more than merely the first law officer of the state. He became the intimate and confidential adviser of Governor Hastings in all the perplexing problems that confronted his administration. Mr. McCormick, with his rugged sense of honor and official rectitude, threw the whole weight of his great ability and his wide influence against the methods of the then ruling political machine in Pennsylvania. With him, in spirit as well as in letter, he knew no master save the people he was called to serve, and no chart for his guidance save the constitution he was sworn to defend. The commonwealth will always cherish his memory for the consummate skill and unwavering fidelity to its best interest which he exerted as attorney-general. Upon his retirement from public life in 1899, Mr. McCormick returned to the practice of his profession, of which he was always devotedly fond, and to which, during the remainder of his life, he gave his principal attention. He was one of the originators of the Lycoming Law Association, and for many years served as its secretary. He and his wife were members of the First Presbyterian church of Williamsport.

Mr. McCormick married, October 21, 1875, at Erie, Pennsylvania, Ida, daughter of John W. and Sarah (Jackson) Hays, of that city. Mr. and Mrs. McCormick were the parents of three children : Nelle, who was born August 12, 1876, wife of Joseph W. Cochran, and has one child, Henry McCormick; John Hays, born July 12, 1879; and Henry C., born August 14, 1883, died in infancy. Mrs. McCormick was born August 1, 1855. Her paternal ancestry is traced to Scotland, and she is a descendant of John Forester, a native of county Antrim, Ireland, who emigrated to America early in the eighteenth century and settled in what is now Dauphin county, Pennsylvania.

The death of Mr. McCormick, which occurred May 26, 1902, was regarded as a public calamity, and the members of his family were conscious that in their affliction they received the sympathy of many who were personally unknown to them. All classes of the community experienced a sense of bereavement in the loss of one who had lived among them as a man admirable in all the relations of life, and one whose influence had ever been exerted in the cause of right and justice; a man who had united in his character the virtues of a devoted husband and father, and a kind neighbor, with the attributes of an upright, disinterested citizen, an able and conscientious lawyer, and a loyal and high minded statesman.


Source: Genealogical and Personal History of Lycoming County, John W. Jordan, Lewis Historical Publishing Co., 1906.








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