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action or later. Please see Debugging in WordPress for more information. (This message was added in version 6.7.0.) in /home/goodspeedhist/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 6114This is a continuation of the story by Egbert T. Bush of the \u201a\u00c4\u00faBiggest Log Ever Brought to Stockton<\/a>,\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 in which he wrote about the owners of the Stockton Sawmill and the Stockton Spoke Works. These Hunterdon industrialists took risks to build their businesses, and sometimes failed badly. Here are two more examples of failure and success.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The failed business known as Wm. V. Case & Bro. was assigned to David Van Fleet and Edward P. Conkling. David Van Fleet (1819-1890) lived such an interesting life I will have to save him for a future post. What is relevant here is that Van Fleet, a former Assemblyman and then\u00ac\u2020Judge on the Court of Common Pleas, had a lot of practice dealing with bankruptcies before the Case Brothers went broke.<\/p>\n Edward P. Conkling was much younger than Van Fleet and did not have as much experience in these matters. The first assignment that Conkling worked on with Van Fleet occurred in 1871 when Conkling, Van Fleet and Miller Kline were commissioners to sell the real estate of Aaron Barcroft dec\u201a\u00c4\u00f4d. The next year, 1872, Conkling was admitted to the Bar and began practicing law, after his apprenticeship with George A. Allen in Flemington. At first he partnered with John T. Bird, but after two years he opened a sole practice.1<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Edward P. Conkling was born on August 10, 1847 in Morris County to Rev. Cornelius S. Conkling and Clarissa C. Mowbray. In 1870, he was a 24-year-old \u201a\u00c4\u00fastudent at law\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 boarding at the house of Elizabeth Combes. On June 27, 1871, he married Margaret (Jennie) Kee, daughter of John Kee and Elizabeth Thompson. John Kee, born about 1778, came from Ireland and was already active in Amwell Township matters by 1811. He died in 1854 and was survived by his widow Elizabeth Thompson Kee, at whose Flemington house her daughter Jennie married Edward P. Conkling. The ceremony was performed by Edward\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s father Rev. Cornelius Conkling.<\/p>\n When John Kee died in Flemington at the age of 76, his widow was only 36 (really), with two young children to raise. But he left them well provided for. In 1860, the widow Kee had real estate worth $5,460 and personal property of $1,000. It seems that Mrs. Kee had some business sense of her own, because ten years later, her real estate was worth $9,000 and personal property worth $15,000. This may have had something to do with the fact that Mrs. Kee\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s mother, Elizabeth Morehead Thomspon, had died in 1861, and probably left property to her daughter.2<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n Just before marrying, Jane or Jennie Kee had personal property worth $20,000, as shown in the 1870 census. Clearly, Edward P. Conkling married well. He and wife Jane had six children (Howard, Russell, Edward, Charles, Elizabeth, and William).<\/p>\n In 1875, Edward P. Conkling bought two properties in Flemington, one on Branch Street3<\/a><\/sup> and another on Main Street. The Main Street property, purchased from John S. Emery, cost $6,000, and was probably the Conklings\u201a\u00c4\u00f4 home.4<\/a><\/sup> The same year Conkling joined the Darcy Lodge No. 37, A. F. & A. M. (Ancient Free and Accepted Masons). He also acted as assignee of George T. Robbins.<\/p>\n In August 1878, Conkling purchased the factory and machinery of the Stockton Paper Works, under the name of E. P. Conkling & Co. In April 1879, Conkling became the \u201a\u00c4\u00faprincipal owner\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 of the Stockton Paper Ware Company. Sadly, the factory burned down in April 1879, incinerating Conkling\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s investment.5<\/a><\/sup> Stockton certainly suffered from damaging fires; only two years before, a fire had destroyed the Stockton Spoke Works.<\/p>\n The Stockton Paper Works came into existence thanks to a\u00ac\u2020fast-talking salesman from Canandaigua, NY. He persuaded local Stockton businessmen that\u00ac\u2020a paper company was a good investment, and got them to construct a factory building and purchase\u00ac\u2020all the necessary equipment. But the company was soon in debt by $9,000 and shortly thereafter went bankrupt. That\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s when E. P. Conkling & Co. bought it.6<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\n As for the fires, apparently this was not all that uncommon. As Iris Naylor wrote, \u201a\u00c4\u00faThe paperware factory in particular seemed to catch on fire every few weeks.\u201a\u00c4\u00f9 (p. 32) Eventually, in August 1881 Conkling managed to sell the paper-works to Knox & Co. of New York.<\/p>\n There were many real estate transactions made by Edward P. Conkling, but the sale that concerns us the most is the one in which the Stockton Spoke Works and Saw Mill, formerly owned by Wm. V. Case & Bro. was sold to its principal stockholder, Rev. Cornelius S. Conkling.<\/p>\n Rev. Cornelius S. Conkling was the son of Thomas Wheeler Conkling, who was a principal of a public school in New York, and then a merchant and farmer on Long Island.7<\/a><\/sup> His son Cornelius became a minister and began preaching in Boonton, Morris County, then West Milford in Passaic County, before settling in Mount Pleasant to be pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Alexandria.<\/p>\n Rev. Conkling appears to have had a life-long interest in education, which was acknowledged on April 5, 1870, when the State Board of Education met in Trenton and appointed Rev. Cornelius S. Conkling of Mount Pleasant, Superintendent for Hunterdon County schools.\u00ac\u2020The practice of naming County School Superintendents only began in 1867, when John C. Rafferty was appointed. Rev. Conkling was only the second such Superintendent. During this time, and for years afterwards,\u00ac\u2020he was also active in the Hunterdon County Bible Society and the Hunterdon County Sunday School Association, of which he was president in 1875.<\/p>\n The Hunterdon Republican reported that Conkling contemplated moving to Flemington.8<\/a><\/sup> Instead, he and wife Clarissa moved to a house in Frenchtown.<\/p>\n During the last year of his term as Superintendent, he sent out a call to all the school districts in the county for a summary of each school\u201a\u00c4\u00f4s history. He was appalled to discover that many districts had never kept records of its teachers or pupils, although some did. He compiled the information he received into a report that can be viewed at the Hunterdon County Historical Society. Despite the many lapses, it is a remarkable document and valuable piece of county history.9<\/a><\/sup> When Rev. Conkling retired as Superintendent in September 1876, he was presented with an ebony cane by the teachers of Hunterdon, in appreciation of the good work he had done.10<\/a><\/sup><\/p>\nEdward Payson Conkling, Esq.<\/h3>\n
Rev. Cornelius S. Conkling<\/h3>\n