Gloucester County NJ Archives Biographies.....William Peniston TATEM, 1822 - 1896
************************************************
Copyright.  All rights reserved.
http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm
http://www.usgwarchives.net/nj/njfiles.htm
************************************************

File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by:
Joy Fisher http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00001.html#0000031 November 10, 2008, 3:16 am

Author: Mary Depue Ogden, Editor  (1917)

TATEM, William Peniston,
Business Man, Public Official.

  At the old Tatem homestead at Woodbury, Gloucester county, New Jersey, William
P. Tatem was born, May 28, 1822, and seventy-four years later, August 20, 1896,
he ended his useful life at Collingswood, Camden county. New Jersey. He came
from an old New Jersey family, well known in Gloucester county and South Jersey,
and in his own life maintained the high standards and best traditions of his
race. He obtained a good education, and for several years taught school in his
native county, but later engaged in the insurance business in Camden, New
Jersey, where for thirty-five years he was a director of the Camden Fire
Insurance Association and for twelve years its president. He was a good business
man, a capable executive and an authority in the insurance world in which he
moved. Mr. Tatem was a son of Joseph and Mary Tatem, and the old homestead in
Woodbury is yet owned in the family.

  Mr. Tatem was always deeply interested in politics and an ardent supporter of
the Republican party. He held many positions of honor and trust, through the
favor of the voters of Woodbury and Gloucester county, and each office held but
increased his hold upon public confidence. While he held many minor offices, he
also filled places of county and district importance. He was but thirty-two
years of age when elected sheriff of Gloucester county, and so satisfactory was
his administration of the duties of that office that later he was called to
represent his district in the New Jersey State Senate. In that body he became
well known throughout the State for his devotion to the interests of the people,
for his able work upon the floor of the Senate and his untiring labors in the
committees upon which he was placed. At the expiration of his term he was
reelected, and repeating the successes of his first term, his constituents
returned him for a third term, which he likewise served with honor and fidelity.
While he was a straight party man and always stood firmly by his principles, he
was not unfair or blindly partisan, and retired from every office he ever held
with the confidence and respect of the people he served irrespective of party
affiliation. In 1868 Senator Tatem was appointed internal revenue collector for
a New Jersey district by President Grant, an office he filled most
satisfactorily to the government and to those whose business came within the
scope of his authority until the first administration of President Cleveland,
when he resigned and retired from public life. From 1854, when elected sheriff,
until his retirement in 1885, his life was lived in the fierce light of
publicity and much of that period was one of heated political feeling when party
spirit ran high, but he held inviolate a strict sense of public honor and never
was there a stain upon his public record. In private and business life he
adhered to the same high ideals and left to his descendants an honored name. He
was one of the organizers of the Haddonfield Presbyterian Church, and was a
trustee of the church until his death. Within a square of his old home at
Collingswood a $50,000 Presbyterian church has been erected, being on a part of
the old homestead ground.

  Mr. Tatem married, in 1849, Achsah White Frazer, of near Bordentown,
Burlington county, New Jersey, and this life was an ideal one. Mrs. Tatem's
death occurred six years prior to her husband's. Four children were born of
their union: Joseph E., deceased; William P., Jr., died in infancy; Mary L.,
deceased; Henry R., resides in Collingswood, New Jersey, where he is engaged in
the real estate and insurance business; was the town's first mayor, acted as
postmaster for ten years, and served two terms in the New Jersey Legislature.


Additional Comments:

Extracted from:

MEMORIAL CYCLOPEDIA OF NEW JERSEY

UNDER THE EDITORIAL SUPERVISION OF MARY DEPUE OGDEN

VOLUME III
MEMORIAL HISTORY COMPANY NEWARK,  NEW JERSEY
1917


This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.net/njfiles/

File size: 4.6 Kb

This file is located at:
http://files.usgwarchives.net/nj/gloucester/bios/tatem-wp.txt