My Genealogy Hound

HON. JOHN A. WENTZ, who served a term as senator from Montgomery county, is a member of one of the oldest families in that section of Pennsylvania, its members having attained considerable prominence in colonial times.

He is a native of Whitemarsh township, where he was born November 1, 1858. He received a good public school education, his last term being under the tuition of Ellwood Roberts, at the Whitemarsh school, near Fort Washington. He was reared to farming, but decided to seek another avocation on reaching manhood. When Mr. Wentz was seventeen years of age he became an apprentice to the plumbing trade. After he had finished the apprenticeship of five years he accepted a position with the firm of Mulligan & Allen, of Philadelphia, as bookkeeper in the plumbing supply business. Three years later Mr. Wentz became a salesman for A. S. Hills & Co., in whose employ he continued about eight years. On leaving that firm he became a representative of the largest plumbing supply house in Philadelphia, that of Fleck Brothers, at Fifth and Market streets, which position he still retains. From his earliest years Mr. Wentz has been identified with the Democratic party. He was thrice elected auditor of Springfield township, Montgomery county. He also represented the Democrats of his township in the Democratic county committee, and during his service in that capacity published a book of rules for the government of the preparatory meetings and nominating conventions of the party. In 1891 he was nominated on the Democratic ticket for jury commissioner, and ran nearly six hundred votes ahead of the Republican candidate for that office. In 1892 he was appointed by Edward F. Kane, the Democratic county chairman, the chairman for the lower end of the county, and rendered very efficient service in explaining the new election law to the voters of the party, the workers and the election officers. In 1894 he was elected a member of the school board in Ambler, to which place he had removed. After three years’ service in the board he was re-elected, although his ward was four to one Republican. Although Mr. Wentz was the only Democrat in the school board, he was honored with a unanimous election as its president. He is a past master of Fort Washington Lodge, No. 308, Free and Accepted Masons; past high priest of Fort Washington Chapter, and a member of Fort Washington Lodge, No. 1123, I. O. O. F. He was for two years chairman of the legislative committee of the State School Directors’ Association of Pennsylvania.

In 1898 Mr. Wentz received the nomination for state senator over two strong Democratic opponents, and after a very vigorous and exciting canvass he was elected over the Republican nominee for the position, J. P. Hale Jenkins, a very popular member of his party, by a majority of 145 votes. He was an untiring worker during the legislative sessions of 1899 and 1901, serving on the following Senate committees: Appropriations, Education, Library, Public Printing, Public Supply of Light, Heat and Water. He introduced bills and championed them through the legislature making school boards in townships boards of health, and empowering courts to appoint juries to condemn and free turnpike roads forming a boundary line between counties. Both bills became laws. He took a very active interest in the passage of the seven months minimum school term bill, and other measures of interest to the friends of public education. Senator Wentz made a most excellent record in the legislature.

He is a valued correspondent of the Norristown Herald and other newspapers and magazines, his contributions being characterized by, practical good sense and sound judgment. Although a strong Democrat, Mr. Wentz is by no means a bitter partisan, and he does not allow his party affiliations to blind him to what is good in his opponents. He is a persistent advocate of improved educational methods, and has made many addresses before school boards and other educational bodies. He is an earnest advocate of reforms, and in the legislature was the vigorous and untiring opponent of every obnoxious measure, being solely guided by the interests of his constituents and the public. He took an earnest stand in favor of honest government, thereby incurring the enmity of many members of the legislature of his own party. It would be well for Pennsylvania if there were more Wentzs in her legislative halls, and fewer of the kind who take orders from party “bosses.” Ex-Senator Wentz deserves credit for being better than his party when so many are worse, and appear to imagine that they have no responsibility to the public. The time will come when men like Mr. Wentz, who are patriots rather than mere partisans, will be elevated to the important offices in the commonwealth rather than the mere tools of machine leaders who have no qualifications beyond the favor of the men who control politics.

Mr. Wentz is the son of George H. and Sarah A. (Wentz) Wentz. George H. Wentz was a son of Jonathan and Elizabeth (Scheetz) Wentz. Jonathan’s father was one of three brothers who came from Germany about the middle of the eighteenth century and settled in Worcester township, taking up a large tract of land. Wentz’s Reformed church in Worcester township was built by the Wentz brothers, and was named after the family, who were quite numerous in that vicinity.

Jonathan Wentz (grandfather) was born in Worcester township, but after his marriage to Elizabeth Scheetz settled in Whitemarsh township, where he became a prominent citizen. He was a farmer, miller and lime burner. He supplied flour for many years to the Eastern Penitentiary, besides sending large quantities to Philadelphia to supply the retail trade, the quality of his product making it very much in demand. He furnished lime to many contractors in Philadelphia, having it hauled by his own teams, and delivering it wherever it was wanted. He kept forty horses for teaming and farming, and carried on business very extensively in each line in which he was engaged. Many of his teams on the road consisted of four and six horses. He bought large quantities of wheat for his mill. The miller purchased and weighed the wheat at the mill, marking the number of bushels on the brim of the farmer’s cap, who would then go to the office at the Wentz residence, lay down his cap and receive his money. There was at that time a greater degree of confidence between buyer and seller than there is at the present time. Mrs. Wentz was a daughter of General Henry Scheetz, of the third generation of the family in America. His father, also Henry, was a judge and one of the organizers of Montgomery county. He was appointed associate judge on December 10, 1784. The son Henry acquired his title in the war of 1812. He was assistant to the first United States treasurer, and filled many posts of honor. He was one of the organizers of the Bank of Montgomery county, now the Montgomery National Bank, which was for many years the only institution of the kind in the county, and was for many years one of its directors. He died at Sugar Loaf Hill. His children: Mrs. Jonathan Wentz, Mrs. Eliza Acuff, Mrs. Hitner. The children of Jonathan Wentz: Henry S., a civil engineer; Elizabeth, Mrs. Shugard; Catharine, Mrs. Shade; George H., father of Senator Wentz.

George H. Wentz married at nineteen years of age, and settled on the farm in Whitemarsh township on which he spent the remainder of his life. He died June 21, 1882. In politics he was a Democrat, but never sought or held office. He was a charter member of Fort Washington Lodge of the Masonic order. He married Sarah A., daughter of Jacob Wentz, a distant relative. Jacob Wentz assisted in organizing the Union Reformed church of Whitemarsh, and was a liberal supporter of it during his entire life. The church was built in 1818, and remained a Union church until 1894. The burying ground attached is still a union cemetery. The children of Jacob Wentz : Theresa, Mrs. Bitting, of Ambler, now deceased; Margaret, Mrs. Martin; Sarah A., mother of Senator Wentz; Mary E., Mrs. Yeakle; Daniel H.; Amanda, Mrs. Detwiler; Thomas J., and John. Jacob Wentz owned and resided on the old Hope Lodge farm near Fort Washington, where he died in 1855. He was a prominent Mason, having been secretary and treasurer for many years of Hiram Lodge of Germantown, and an organizer of Fort Washington Lodge of that order. He had the third story of his residence fitted up for a lodge room, but died before the organization was fully completed. His funeral was one of the most largely attended ever held in that vicinity, and his death was widely regretted.

The children of George H. and Sarah A. Wentz: Margaret M. (Mrs. S. S. Jones); Catharine, died unmarried in 1898; Jacob, a farmer; Theresa B., unmarried; John A., subject of this sketch; William A,, a machinist; Ella M., unmarried.

Ex-Senator Wentz’s record in the legislature has been highly commended by friends of good government without respect to partisan feeling, some of the best endorsements he has received coming from Republicans, who appreciated his independence and his honesty and efficiency as a public official.