My Genealogy Hound

JOHN CLENDENIN ECKELS. Elsewhere in these biographical annals it is related that the first Eckels known to have settled in Pennsylvania had a son named Nathaniel. This Nathaniel Eckels for his second wife married Mrs. Isabella (Huston) Clendenin, who was the widow of James Clendenin and a daughter of Samuel and Isabella (Sharon) Huston. Nathaniel Eckels and Isabella, his wife, had a son Francis, who married Miss Isabella Clendenin, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Caldwell) Clendenin, by whom he had seven children, among them a son named John Clendenin Eckels. [Histories of the Clendenins and the Hustons appear in other parts of this volume.]

John Clendenin Eckels was born April 13, 1824, in the northwestern part of what is now Silver Spring township, in a home now owned by the heirs of the late William Jacobs, when five years of age his father moved to a large farm lying in Coffman’s Point, on the south side of the Conedoguinet creek, on the eastern border of Silver Spring township, where he farmed as a renter for six years. Here began the boy’s education and preparation for the serious duties of life. He was first sent to a school taught in a log house which stood on the north side of the turnpike, a little way east of where that road crosses the Silver Spring as it courses northward towards the Conedoguinet. The Eberlys, the Sprouts, the Emingers and the Cobles were some of his school and playmates. The turnpike was then the great thoroughfare of the country, and from morning until night was crowded with traffic. Swift stages, filled with dusty passengers, came and went; large Conestoga wagons with high bowed covers and bell teams passed in endless procession, and in full view of this moving panorama, along these shifting, distracting scenes. John C. Eckels was first taught to mind his books and study his lessons.

The next school he attended was on the McGuire farm, on the north side of the Conedoguinet, taught by his cousin Jonathan Eckels, who, though of diminutive size and deformed, was in his day one of the most successful teachers in the county. The McGuires, the Wilts, the Adamses and the Sprouts were some of his fellow pupils in this school. Afterward he attended for a session or two a school at Hogestown, which being situated on the turnpike presented to him much the same scenes which met his gaze from the door-steps of his first school, but being some years older they did not so vividly and effectually root themselves into his memory. In 1835 his parents moved a mile due north of New Kingstown, to a farm which became John C. Eckels’s home for nearly all the rest of his lifetime. Here he attended a school located near Crider’s Mill, on the road leading to Hogestown, and which was patronized by the Beltzhoovers, the Irvines, the Armstrongs, the Hermans, and other representative families of that section. By this time he had reached boyhood’s prime and won for himself prominence in class and on playground. He was beginning to feel the promptings of ambition, studied hard, and freely participated in the games and frolics which gave to the country school life of those days interest and zest. In his reminiscences in after years he frequently referred to his experiences at this school, and often related how a teacher of precious memory named Ben Hipple, on being barred out at the Christmas holidays, smilingly informed the boys that in anticipation of the event he had engaged with “Black Jack” at Hogestown a whole bushel of cakes, and capped the announcement by appointing a delegation to fetch the grand treat, of which proud and happy delegation John C. Eckels was a member. The adoption of the free school system wiped the school at this place out of existence and he then for several terms attended school at New Kingston. He was naturally of a bright mind and made good progress in the various branches that he studied. He also attended a Sunday-school which his father and John Herman organized and conducted in the old log school house near Crider’s Mill, and in his leisure hours did miscellaneous reading which added much to his stock of general information. Between school terms he worked upon the farm and with hands and mind thus constantly employed he steadily advanced upon the years of young manhood.

His standing at school had attracted attention and become the subject of conversation in the neighborhood ; his conduct and address had won him the respect and favor of influential people, and one day a committee unexpectedly called upon him with a formal request that he come and teach a school which they represented. He appreciated the compliment but hesitated to accept the responsibility; besides his father feared it might prove too much of an undertaking and cautioned him against acting hastily in the matter. The committee, however, were urgent, and finally persuaded him to teach their school. This was in the fall of 1845, and the school in question was known as Lambertons, in North Middleton, now Middlesex township. He boarded in the home of Squire Abraham Lamberton, where he found congenial associates who encouraged and strengthened him in his labors. In February of that winter his mother died, which was a very heavy affliction, but in the Lamberton home he found sympathy, and he often afterward recalled how Mrs. Lamberton consoled him in his sore bereavement. Squire Lamberton was an enthusiastic friend of popular education, and a practical surveyor, and from his example the young teacher caught inspiration that had much to do with shaping his course through life.

His term of teaching in North Middleton township was the opening of John C. Eckels’ career. In the following summer a new school house was built and a new school created in the immediate vicinity of his home. He did hauling and in other ways assisted in the erection of this house, and the school, because of its situation and associations, came to be known as the Eckels school. He became its first teacher, teaching it in the winter term of 1846-47 at a salary of $16 a month. In the spring of 1847 he entered New Bloomfield Academy, of which Rev. Matthew B. Paterson was the principal, and from Mr. Paterson received his first instruction in the science of surveying, in which he afterward so long and so successfully engaged. He spent one term in the New Bloomfield Academy and on his return home resumed teaching at the Eckels school, which he taught in all four winter terms. In the fall of 1850 he was employed to teach in the New Kingstown school. New Kingstown then had but one school and that was held in an old house which stood back of the former Lutheran church, and so low in the ground that in wet seasons the water would run in on the floor. This school was large and there were frequently between eighty and a hundred pupils in attendance. He continued to teach here until in the spring of 1852, when he started farming on the Eckels homestead, his father removing to New Kingstown.

On May 1, 1851, John C. Eckels was married to Mary Lee Kenyon, by Rev. O. O. McLean, pastor of the Dickinson Presbyterian Church. Mary L. Kenyon was a daughter of Samuel Maxson Kenyon and Eliza Jane (Kincaid) Kenyon. Both the Kenyons and the Kincaids were intelligent and progressive families, and in their day prominent and influential in the affairs of Cumberland county. The former were from New England, Roger Kenyon, the father of Samuel Maxson, being born in the State of Rhode Island. He married Esther Maxson and soon after his third child was born moved to Connecticut. From Connecticut he came by sea to Baltimore and from there to Adams county, Pa., where he followed the avocation of farming until near the end of his life. His wife died in their home in Adams county and is buried at Round Hill, in that county. After her death he removed to Allegheny county, to which locality his son had preceded him, and where he died at an advanced age. Roger and Esther (Maxson) Kenyon had the following children: Esther, who married William Moorhead, and lived near York Springs; Dennison, who enlisted in the army and was lost in the campaign against the Indians in Florida; Samuel Maxson; Robert, who married Eliza Halbert, of Carlisle, and removed to Pittsburg, and later to Missouri; Phineas, who went to California; and William, who died of yellow fever on board a vessel coming from Florida, and was buried at sea.

Samuel Maxson Kenyon was born at Westerly, R. I., July 27, 1801, and was yet very young when his parents moved to Connecticut, and only a youth when they located in Pennsylvania. His boyhood days were spent with his parents on the farm, but it is known that he also lived several years with “Judge” Neely, who was a farmer near Gettysburg. When about sixteen years of age he came to Carlisle, and attended a select school taught by a famous teacher named Gad Day. Stephen Culbertson and Dr. Robert Young, late of Mechanicsburg, were two of his schoolmates. About the time he reached his twentieth year he began teaching at a schoolhouse situated on the York road, in Dickinson township, at a place which was frequently known as Kenyon’s Cross Roads. Later the place was known as Weakley’s, and at present the schoolhouse is known as “The Hedge.” Here he taught a long time, and after some years bought a lot and built himself a house. Along with his teaching he also did farming, and for seven years farmed the farm now owned by John Monroe. Afterward he moved to a point on the Walnut Bottom road, where he lived during the latter years of his life. He taught for over forty years, and with the exception of one term all his teaching was done in Dickinson township. The Peffers, the Weakleys, the Hustons, the Stuarts, and other old families, whose names are inseparably connected with that part of Cumberland county, were his patrons, and in some instances into the second generation. He began teaching long before the free school system was created and his schools, though raised by subscription, were nearly always large, and included a winter and a summer term. After an interruption of several years he taught at “The Savannah,” which he taught against the advice and protests of his family. In 1849 he was elected justice of the peace, and afterward, at the expiration of each term, re-elected until his death.

The religious predilections of the Kenyons were Baptist, but on locating in Cumberland county Samuel M. united with the Presbyterian Church in Carlisle, then in charge of Rev. George Duffield, of whom he was a great admirer. He continued in this church until after he became permanently settled in Dickinson township, when he transferred his membership to the Dickinson Presbyterian Church because of it being nearer and more convenient. On Nov. 15, 1827, he was married to Eliza Jane Kincaid, the Rev. Dr. Duffield performing the ceremony. Eliza Jane Kincaid was born on March 14, 1806, and was a daughter of John Kincaid and Mary Lee, his wife. John Kincaid was married to Mary Lee on April 27, 1796, by Rev. Dr. Robert Davidson, and engaged at farming in Dickinson township until well advanced in years. He died while visiting one of his children in Sinking Valley, Huntingdon county, and is buried there. Mary Lee Kincaid, his wife, died Sept. 12, 1866, at the age of ninety-five years, and is buried in the graveyard of the Dickinson Presbyterian Church.

Samuel M. and Eliza Jane (Kincaid) Kenyon had the following children: Mary Lee, Jane Ellen, Esther Elizabeth, Anna Grizzelle, John Roger, Charles Cummins, James Woodburn and Benjamin Franklin. Six of these eight children became teachers, several of them teaching for a long while and with distinguished success. Samuel Maxson Kenyon died Sept. 12, 1869; Eliza Jane Kincaid, his wife, died Sept. 21, 1856, and the remains of both rest in the graveyard of the Dickinson Presbyterian Church in Penn township. Mary Lee Kenyon, the eldest child, was born Nov. 10, 1828, in Dickinson township. She received her education in the public schools of her native district under the immediate supervision of her father, and early began teaching. Along the schools she taught were Shady Grove and Savannah, of Dickinson township, Center, of Southampton, and Green Hill, of West Pennsboro. Her teaching career terminated with her marriage, but subsequently she several times taught as substitute for her husband, upon occasions when he was temporarily called away upon other business.

John C. Eckels had grown to manhood on the home which his father bought in 1835 and circumstances being favorable he started farming upon it in the spring following his marriage. He farmed continuously for twenty-seven years. After his father’s death he purchased the place and improved it, increasing the productiveness of its acres and the convenience and appearance of its buildings. To him it was the most loved spot on earth, for it had been the home of his parents, it was his home for forty-four years, and upon it all of his children were born and grew to maturity. He was a surveyor and along with his farming did much surveying. His reputation as a surveyor and draftsman spread, and in 1862 he was elected county surveyor continuing in that office for about twelve years. His friendship for the cause of education led to his election as school director in Silver Spring township, in which capacity he continued for twenty years and did some of his most beneficent and lasting work. Besides these trusts of a public nature he was also frequently called upon to act as trustee and guardian in private estates in which line he had much to do up to near the time of his death. In 1878 he was elected to the office of county treasurer and for three years discharged the duties of that responsible position with credit to himself and satisfaction to the public. After his election as county treasurer he relinquished farming and removed to Carlisle in order to be near his post of duty and to give several of his sons college advantages. After his term as county treasurer he again became interested in the settlement of estates, also in business enterprises, and for about fourteen years was a director of the Farmers’ Bank of Carlisle. In the fall of 1879 he purchased a home on South West street, Carlisle, where he lived until the end of his days.

In religion John C. Eckels was a Presbyterian, as were his ancestors before him. He united with the Church at Silver Spring when nineteen years of age, and in 1851, the year in which he married, transferred his membership to the Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle. In June, 1861, he was elected an elder, and from that date down to the time of his death, a period of thirty-five long years, discharged the duties of his eldership with the most reverent and conscientious fidelity. He was a delegate to the Presbyterian General Assembly at Detroit in 1872, also at Saratoga in 1883. He also attended the Assembly which met in Philadelphia in 1870; the Centennial Assembly in 1888, and the Assembly which met in Washington, D. C., in 1893. He was an industrious and zealous friend of the Sunday-school, was teacher of a Bible class almost continually and for several years superintendent of the school. He died May 22, 1896, and was laid to rest in Ashland cemetery at Carlisle.

John C. and Mary L. (Kenyon) Eckels had children as follows: Cynthia Jane, Mervin Johnston, Francis Kenyon, John Clendenin, Charles Edmund. William Alexander, and a daughter who died in infancy. Of the six children named five had the advantage of higher institutions of learning, three became college graduates, and all of the five in their earlier years engaged at teaching. Cynthia J., on leaving the common school, attended a young ladies’ seminary at Mount Joy, Pa. She is unmarried, and her aged mother and she comprise all of the family that is now left in the home at No. 156 South West street, Carlisle.

Mervin Johnston Eckels, the eldest son, was born June 18, 1854, and prepared for college at the Chambersburg Academy. He then entered Lafayette College and graduated from that institution in 1877. After his graduation from college he taught in the Academy at West Nottingham, Md., until in 1879, when he entered the Western Theological Seminary at Allegheny as a member of the class of 1882. He was ordained a minister of the gospel by the Presbytery of Baltimore in October, 1882. The first charge to which he was called was at Havre de Grace, Md., where he remained three years. Next he was called to Salisbury, Md., where he continued five years, after which he served a charge at Bradford, Pa., for three years He then received and accepted a call to the West Arch Street Presbyterian Church, in Philadelphia, which he has continued to fill ever since. In 1894 Lafayette College conferred upon him the degree of D. D. He is a member of the Board of Publication of the Presbyterian Church; a trustee of the Presbytery of Philadelphia, and a trustee of Wilson College, Chambersburg. During the summer of 1901, and again in 1904, he took trips abroad visiting England, Scotland and Ireland, also France, Switzerland, Italy, and other countries on the continent.

On Dec. 11, 1883, Rev. Mervin J. Eckels was married to Miss Susan Tudor Kenly, of Harford county, Md., by whom he has had two children, both of whom died in infancy.

Francis Kenyon Eckels, the third child, was born on Sept. 7, 1856. On leaving the public school he learned the printing trade in the office of the Valley Sentinel and afterward for a long time worked as a journeyman in Mechanicsburg. Later he worked in Carlisle and was foreman of the Sentinel composing room when he died. On Dec. 25, 1879, he married Katie Sheibner, of Mehanicsburg, and by her had one child, a daughter, who died at the age of six and a half months. He died on March 25, 1887, and afterward his wife had her home with his parents in Carlisle until her death. She passed away Jan. 7, 1904, and with her husband is buried in Ashland Cemetery.

John Clendenin Eckels, the fourth child, bears his father’s name. He was born Dec. 22, 1858, and was educated in the common school and at the Cumberland Valley State Normal School. Before completing his course at the Normal school he was called home by the illness of his father to attend to the management of the farm. With his farm duties he found time and inclination to do teaching and taught the Hepburn school in Middlesex township and the Eckels school in Silver Spring township, each one term. When his parents moved to Carlisle he took entire charge of the farm and farmed until 1881, when he also came to Carlisle. At first he clerked in a store, but soon formed a partnership with L. R. Brenneman, and under the firm name of Brenneman & Eckels conducted a retail shoe business. Mr. Brenneman sold his interest to W. C. Stuart, and Eckels & Stuart continued the business until in July, 1903, when Mr. Eckels sold out to Mr. Stuart for the purpose of going into the insurance and real-estate business, in which he is now engaged. In 1897 he was elected a director of the Merchants’ National Bank of Carlisle, and was made secretary to its board, which place he still holds. On Feb. 19, 1891, he was married to Miss Alice E. Smiley, daughter of Rev. James W. and Maria Emma (Green) Smiley, of Carlisle, Rev. W. A. West performing the ceremony. Mr. and Mrs. Eckels belong to the Second Presbyterian Church of Carlisle, the church of their parents, in which Mr. Eckels is an elder and clerk of the session. Formerly he held the place of trustee. He is also president of the Y. M. C. A. of Carlisle, and is active and influential in whatever sphere he is called upon to act.

Charles Edmund Eckels, the fifth child, was born Aug. 15, 1861, and graduated as A. B. from Dickinson College in 1885. He then taught in Cecil county, Md., and privately studied theology. After being thus engaged for two years he entered the Senior class at Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1888. He then placed himself in the hands of the Presbyterian Board of Foreign Missions, who the same year sent him as missionary to Siam, in which field he has been devotedly laboring ever since. He is now in charge of the station at Nakawn-see-tamarat, Siam, on the west coast of the Gulf of Siam. On Nov. 24, 1892, at Petchaburi, Siam, he married Miss Margaret Galt, a missionary from the State of Illinois, by whom he has the following children: Annabel, John Clendenin, Mary Happer, and Charles Kenyon.

William Alexander Eckels, the youngest son, was born Nov. 4, 1863, and prepared for college at West Nottingham Academy, Md. He then entered Dickinson College, from which institution he graduated as A. B. in 1883. After graduating he taught in academies, high schools and colleges of several different States and in 1898 received the degree of Ph. D. from Johns Hopkins University. He is now Professor of Greek in Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio. On June 24, 1904, at Shandon, Ohio, he married Anna Longley Williams, who was born at Kalgan, China, May 30, 1878. Her father, Rev. Mark Williams, D. D., has been since 1866 a missionary of the American Board (Congregational) in China, and is now a professor in the North China College at Tungcho. Her mother, Isabella (Riggs) Williams, was a daughter of Dr. Stephen R. Riggs, the veteran missionary to the Dakotah Indians, compiler of the Dakotah Dictionary, who for a short time served in the capacity of chaplain at the Carlisle Indian School.