Morris County, New Jersey

Source: History Morris County New Jersey, Volume II, Lewis Publishing Co., 1914

The development and prosperity of most towns is in a large measure due to the abounding energy, the resourcefulness and the large public spirit of a few of its citizens. Such a factor in Morristown has been for over the span of a long life the influence, example, and unflagging and patriotic zeal of Alanson A. VANCE. His whole career is inseparably interwoven with the development and growth of the city, and no small proportion of its prosperity is due to his efforts. Tireless and unselfishly generous, he has been one of those citizens who form the backbone of the community and are the ones always thought of and sought when any movement is being put on foot for the well being of the community. The lives of such men are a lesson to the oncoming generations. They bear the challenge to take up the torch that they hand on.

He belongs to one of those virile stocks that settled New Jersey and have given the State its proud place among her sisters in the union. Hew was born in Newton, New Jersey, January 25, 1826, and received his education in the schools of his native neighborhood. His ambition and ability became apparent at an early age, and the success that has attended him through life has been no mere fortuitous happening but the inevitable result of his own honest, intelligent, and well-directed efforts. He was apprenticed when a lad thirteen years of age to the printer’s trade, working first in the office of the Newton Herald and later in the employ of the Sussex Register. It was in the latter office he completed his term of apprenticeship. In 1847 he left his native region and sought work in the city of New York. Here he remained for a few years gaining a large fund of information and experience. He was at length persuaded by J. L. BARLOW to enter into an association with him at the establishment at Deckertown, New Jersey, of a new paper to be called the New Jersey Home Journal.

Very soon after his marriage in 1851 he left Deckertown, and returned to work in New York City as a printer. This was followed by a position on the Fredonian of New Brunswick, New Jersey. While at work on this journal he wrote his first editorial paragraphs, and these meeting with a measure of success he continued to write during the hotly contested political contest of the SCOTT campaign. His writing early began to attract wide attention and interest. While engaged in this work Mr. VANCE was waited upon by ex-Sheriff Abraham TAPPEN and Jeremiah M. DeCAMP, of Morristown, being sent as a delegation from the Whig party and desiring him to purchase the Jerseyman, a paper which had been established in 1826 but which was at that time being conducted in a way displeasing to the Whig sentiment. Mr. VANCE agreed to do this and before a short time had elapsed his editorials in this paper had attracted widespread and favorable comment. He was always a close student of the intricacies of the political situation and his extremely just and highly analytical mind made such an intelligent and discriminating use of this material as to make of his expositions works of great insight and illumination. He was recognized as a writer of the greatest influence by journalists throughout the State, and this influence was not confined to the defense or elucidation of the political principles in which he believed but he threw its weight wherever it was needed to further some movement that looked to the well being of the weak, the needy or the merely unrepresented. He threw himself fearlessly into any cause that made towards the educational, moral, industrial, or spiritual development of Morristown and the surrounding country. During the long years of his connection with the Jerseyman he advocated many public improvements and was a large factor in the forming of public opinion in favor of the incorporation of Morristown. The establishment of the public school system, and the organization of numberless churches, charitable institutions, and social service organizations found in him an ever ready and powerful friend and champion. An enthusiastic advocate of human rights he was one of the stoutest advocates of the Republican party when he found that one if its principal tenets was the prevention of the further extension of slavery. He was a staunch adherent of the Union cause in the dark days of political disruption and wielded his pen as effectively for national issues as for those of the municipality of which he was a citizen.

Mr. VANCE served as postmaster of Morristown for fourteen years being appointed to this office by President LINCOLN and re-appointed by President GRANT. After the war he still continued to write and in 1869 admitted as partner in his labors L. O. STILES. This association continued in force until 1896 when the Jerseyman passed under its present control. Mr. VANCE retired at that time from active participation in journalistic work. Mr. VANCE never sought political honors and it was only at the earnest solicitations of many friends that he accepted the office of chosen freeholder, to which he was elected in May, 1895. Mr. VANCE is the only survivor of those who met in the Trenton House at Trenton, New Jersey, to form the Republican party in the State of New Jersey in the winter of 1856.

Mr. Vance married (first) June 8, 1850, Mary E. MARTIN. Of this marriage was born:

• Martha Elizabeth, born 1852, died in a railroad accident with her husband and child in Texas in 1883;
• Alanson Austin, born 1854, died 1876, at the age of twenty-two years;
• Jesse, born 1856, wife of Edward W. PORTER, of Albany, New York;
• George Schooley, born November 13, 1861, now of North Yakima, Washington, married Jean DONALD, of North Yakima, Washington;
• Charles Martin, died in infancy.

Mr. VANCE married (second) at Morristown, New Jersey, January 6, 1876, Caroline Day MUCHMORE, born in Madison, New Jersey, February 14, 1843, daughter of Joel W. MUCHMORE. They had two children:

• Woodruff Muchmore, born August 15, 1877, now living in North Yakima, Washington, engaged in the newspaper business on the North Yakima Republic, married Clara YAWGER, of Morristown, they have three children:
  • Frederick M.,
  • Carolyn M.,
  • Clinton A.;
• Pauline Mestre, died in 1881, in infancy.

This biography was transcribed by John Cresseveur (1949-2003).

Copyright ©1999-2018 by Brianne Kelly-Bly, all rights reserved.