My Genealogy Hound

JOHN MITCHELL VANDERSLICE, of Collegeville, soldier, author and lawyer, was born in 1846, and spent his early life upon a farm adjoining Valley Forge Campground. He was educated at Freeland Seminary, now Ursinus College, at Collegeville.

Before he had reached the age of seventeen years he enlisted in the service of his country during the Rebellion, becoming a member of the famous Eighth Pennsylvania Cavalry, a regiment which was at one time commanded by Colonel (afterwards General) D. McM. Gregg, and was thoroughly disciplined by that officer. Mr. Vanderslice served with this gallant regiment until the close of the war, when he returned to Freeland Seminary to review his studies, remaining there until 1866. He then entered the office of Theodore Cuyler, Esq., at that time one of the foremost lawyers of the city of Philadelphia. After three years of study he was admitted to the Philadelphia bar in 1869, since which time he has been in constant, active and successful practice, having been engaged in many important cases. He was at one time counsel for the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, which position he resigned in order to be able to give more attention to his other clients. His practice has been mostly in the civil courts, although he has tried two murder cases, being successful in both of them.

As a youthful soldier, John M. Vanderslice won special mention from his superiors on several occasions. He was awarded a congressional medal for distinguished gallantry at the battle of Hatcher’s Run, in February, 1864. At the time of the surrender of General Robert E. Lee to General Grant at Appomattox, he was a prisoner of war with the Confederate army, having been captured in a sabre charge under General Gregg, at Farmville, two days previously, after having his horse killed, the third one during a week. Mr. Vanderslice has been for many years secretary of the Survivors’ Association of the Eighth Cavalry, by the members of which organization he is held in the highest esteem. He was one of the early members of Post No. 2, Grand Army of the Republic, of Philadelphia, and was for several years its adjutant. He served for six years as assistant adjutant-general of Pennsylvania, and was one year department commander. During these seven years, owing to the organizing and executive ability of Mr. Vanderslice, the membership of the Grand Army in Pennsylvania was increased from 4,500 to 25,000. In 1883 he was appointed adjutant-general of the organization, during which year the total membership was increased a hundred thousand. He was for three years editor of the Grand Army Scout and Mail, and was also one of the commissioners appointed to organize the Soldiers’ Home at Erie, Pennsylvania. He was for seventeen years one of the executive committee of the Gettysburg Battlefield Memorial Commission, and he inaugurated the movement for state appropriations to erect monuments to mark the positions of the various regiments during that memorable conflict. He was secretary of the committee upon inscriptions, and his familiarity with the official reports and the studious attention which he gave to all the details of the work, caused him to be known as one of the best informed men as to the battle. When the Memorial Association transferred the battlefield of Gettysburg to the United States authority, Mr. Vanderslice was upon motion of General Daniel E. Sickles selected to write a history of the Association, and of the battle. This work was distributed by the Association among the several state libraries, and many thousand copies were afterwards published and sold by the author. It is the recognized authority upon the history of that great conflict.

Mr. Vanderslice has always been an ardent Republican in politics, and is considered an eloquent and forcible speaker, having made speeches in several states during national campaigns. He served for six years as a member of Philadelphia Councils, and, although bitterly opposed because of his independence, he has always been elected by increased majorities, receiving the votes of his fellow citizens without regard to their politics. He successfully advocated many improvements for the city, it being through his determined efforts that asphalt pavement, now so general in the city, was introduced, and improvements made in the water and other departments.

In religious faith Mr. Vanderslice is a Baptist. He is a member of Grace church, Philadelphia, Rev. Russell H. Conwell, pastor. Mr. Vanderslice frequently delivers lectures before literary and other societies. He is a past department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, a past master workman of the Ancient Order of United Workmen, and past regent of the Royal Arcanum.

Mr. Vanderslice married, in 1870, Caroline Cecilia Hamer, daughter of Dr. James Hamer, now deceased, of Collegeville. She is a graduate of Pennsylvania Female College, of which the late Dr. J. W. Sunderland was president. She is not only a fine classical scholar, but an accomplished musician. Her father’s people were among the Welsh Quakers who settled that section of Montgomery county at an early date. Her grandfather and father were well known physicians in Montgomery county, and her brother is also a physician, practicing in Collegeville. Her mother’s family, the Downings, were direct descendants of Cotton Mather. The children of Mr. and Mrs. John M. Vanderslice are: Miriam, Stanley, Ethel and Edith, all deceased, and Clarence and Mabel, living. Clarence is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, and was admitted to the bar in 1898. He enlisted a few days afterward as a private soldier in the Spanish war, in the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment, the services of which were confined to drill and discipline. He married Florence Livezey, of an old Pennsylvania colonial family, her ancestor, Jonathan Livezey, having come from England to the province in the time of William Penn. Miss Mabel is an accomplished musician, having had instruction at the Philadelphia Musical Conservatory, and afterwards by Professor Henry Gordon Thunder. It is worthy of note that the Vanderslice family has been represented by some of its members in every war in which the country has been engaged, from the time of the Colonial Indian wars to the late Spanish-American war.

The Vanderslices are one of the oldest families in Pennsylvania. Reynier van Der Sluys came from Harlingen, North Friesland, Holland, and settled in Germantown, in Philadelphia county, Pennsylvania, about 1700. He and his son Adrien were made citizens September 29, 1709, along with Daniel Pastorius, Dirk Keyser, and several other aliens. Their petition for citizenship was pending for several years. Reynier Van Der Sluys died in Germantown in 1713.

His will, witnessed by John Cadwallader, his attorney, and Daniel Sprogel, is on record in Philadelphia in the register of wills’ office. His wife Anna, also a native of Harlingen, survived him some years and died in Germantown. Reynier and Anna Van Der Sluys had six children, Adrien (Arnold), Henry, John, Anthony, Anna and Elencha. The third son, John, bought a tract of land from John Ruloff Vanderwerf on the Skippack Creek, in Worcester township, Philadelphia, now Montgomery county. The deed was dated May 13, 1726, and recorded in deed book 2 F, page 258, at Philadelphia. John Van Der Sluys died in 1742. He and his wife Frances had five children, Anna, Mary, Reynier, Jacob and John. The will of Frances is on record in Philadelphia. The vendue bill of the property of John’s estate is in the possession of Governor Pennypacker.

The second son of John and Frances van Der Sluys, Jacob, born in 1731, married Ann Francis. Jacob took title by patent recorded in Philadelphia, in patent book A, volume 11, page 189, to a tract of land upon the west bank of the Perkiomen, on the road from Shannonville (now Audubon) to Phoenixville. This land is now a part of the Gumbes estate. Jacob Vanderslice was a school trustee in 1768 and for many years afterwards, of Providence township, then Philadelphia, now Montgomery county, Pennsylvania. He died in 1793, leaving four children: John, Catherine, Debbie, and Thomas.

Thomas Vanderslice, born in 1736, served as a trooper during the Revolutionary war, and afterwards lived at the old homestead, dying there. It is still standing at the entrance to the Gumbes property. He married Tacy, daughter of Captain Joseph Richardson, a great-grandson of Samuel Richardson, who came from Jamaica, in 1684,and was a judge and also a member of the colonial council. Tacy Richardson’s great-grandmother was a daughter of Judge John Dean and Catharine Aubrey, born in 1637. Thomas and Tacy Vanderslice had nine children, as follows: Edward, Anne, John, Thomas, Marcus, Augustus, Mary, Jacob, and Joseph. All but two of these, with their parents, are buried in the graveyard of Lower Providence Presbyterian church at Mount Kirk.

Edward Vanderslice (grandfather) married Elizabeth Pawling, daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca (Lane) Pawling. Benjamin Pawling’s father, Joseph, was the son of John and Ephia (DeWitt) Pawling. John Pawling owned two grist mills and a large tract of land upon both sides of the Perkiomen, near Schwenksville, Montgomery county, Pennsylvania, including Pennypacker’s Mill, and what is now the home of Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker. John Pawling died in 1733, and his will is recorded in Philadelphia, in book E, page 243. He was buried in Pawling’s private burying ground on the farm near Gratersford, now owned by Enos Schwenk. He and his brother Henry, who in 1713 settled at Pawling’s Bridge, near the junction of the Perkiomen and the Schuylkill river, were the sons of Henry Pawling, an English officer who resigned his commission and, having married Neetje Roosa, settled at Esopus, New York, and afterwards served in the colonial service. He was the sheriff of Ulster county, New York.

Rebecca (Lane) Pawling, wife of Benjamin Pawling, was the daughter of Samuel Lane. Samuel Lane’s father was William, and William’s father was Edward Lane, who came from Jamaica in 1684 and took up several thousand acres of land on both sides of the Perkiomen from the Skippack creek to the present Germantown turnpike, embracing the present site of Evansburg and Collegeville. The Lanes and Pawlings are buried in the churchyard of St. James Episcopal church at Evansburg, of which their families were the founders, and which was partially endowed by the Lanes.

Edward and Elizabeth Vanderslice had six children,-Benjamin Pawling, Tacy, Rebecca, Marcus LaFayette, John Van Rensselaer and Samuel Lane.

Marcus Vanderslice (father) was born on the Pickering creek, near Kimberton, in Chester county, Pennsylvania, in 1813. He married Margaret Mitchell, and had nine children, as follows: Ellen, Thaddeus Lawrence, Ann, John Mitchell, subject of this sketch; Theodore Pennypacker, Louisa, Elizabeth, Gertrude and Arabella. He was among those who early and strenuously advocated improved educational facilities in the public schools. He was in his youth an organizer of the Sons of Temperance in Phoenixville, and was an earnest and zealous member of the Abolition Society, aiding in assisting many escaped slaves along what was known as the “Underground Railroad” to freedom. He was in his early life a farmer, but afterwards engaged in business in Philadelphia, where he died in 1876. During Lee’s invasion of Pennsylvania he served two months with the emergency troops, although he was then fifty years of age, and his two eldest sons were in the United States service. Margaret Mitchell was the daughter of John and Margaret (Dennison) Mitchell, who came with other Irish Protestants from county Donegal, Ireland, and settled in Chester county in 1790. They are buried in East Vincent Baptist churchyard, in Chester county. Margaret (Mitchell) Vanderslice was from an early age a very active Baptist, aiding in the establishment of three Baptist churches, one of them being the Grace Baptist Temple, Philadelphia. She died in 1896, aged eighty-one years.