Northumberland County PA Archives Biographies.....Wolverton, Simon P. 1837 - living in 1899 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/pa/pafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com June 29, 2005, 3:02 am Author: Biographical Publishing Co. HON. SIMON P. WOLVERTON of Sunbury, Northumberland County. Pa., whose portrait is presented on the opposite page, is one of the foremost attorneys and one of the most successful and formidable corporation lawyers in this state, and ex-Representative in Congress from the Seventeenth Congressional District. He is a son of Joseph and Charity (Kase) Wolverton, and was born in Rush township, Northumberland County, January 28, 1837. Our subject truly is a self-made man. Starting out to make his way in youth he had as his resources an unusually brilliant intellect, a sturdy physique and a constitution which seems to have been built as of iron. From comparative obscurity, by his untiring industry and his personal merit and effort, he has risen to a position in the front rank of Pennsylvania's men of great attainments, and all who know him and realize his worth as a man and a citizen rejoice that he has won the honors and the success to which he is so justly entitled. In his youth Mr. Wolverton, who had secured a fairly good schooling, taught school, receiving a meager salary, determined to earn enough to pay his expenses through college. Subsequently, when he began the study of law, he read Blackstone day and night so eager was he to adopt the profession to which he was attracted and for which his strong and logical intellect seemed so well to fit him. As in his youth, Mr. Wolverton in his young manhood continued to be a diligent student and a hard worker, and the same traits of character have well served him through the remarkably successful career he has enjoyed as a lawyer and as a statesman. A man of even temper, of indomitable will and possessing the best of health, he has known no such thing as failure, nor has he encountered defeat. As a lawyer, Mr. Wolverton is very thorough in the preparation of his cases and in the courts he handles them with masterly skill. In his young manhood Mr. Wolverton completed his education at Danville Academy and Lewisburg University, in this state. In the university he doubled his studies and by hard work and persistent effort accomplished the work of the Junior and Senior courses in one year, doing that which ordinarily requires two years' study in the single year, and graduated from the institution in 1860. Following his graduation from the university our subject entered the office of Hon. Alexander Jordan in Sunbury, Mr. Jordan then being the presiding judge in the Eighth Judicial District as then constituted. Mr. Wolverton was admitted to the bar in April, 1862, and immediately entered upon the practice of law. His practice was interrupted when Gen. Stuart, the great Rebel commander, made his raid into this state, our subject raising a company of emergency men, of which he was captain, who did effective service. When a second invasion of this state was threatened by Lee's army, Mr. Wolverton again went out with the emergency company, which was known as Co. F, 36th Pa. The company was mustered into the service July 4, 1863, and mustered out August 11 of the same year. While in the military service Mr. Wolverton kept in touch with his law business, and on his discharge from the army immediately resumed it, and he has since followed it, to the exclusion of all else, and has built up a very large and lucrative clientage, excepting those periods during which he has given his services to the people. Political honors have been forced upon Mr. Wolverton, the demand for his services being of such nature as to be imperative. In the fall of 1878 he was elected, as a Democrat, to fill out the unexpired term of State Senator A. H. Dill, Senator Dill having resigned to be a candidate for governor. Twice Mr. Wolverton was re-elected, and he served ten years in the State Senate. He declined a re-nomination in 1888 because he preferred to resume the more active practice of his profession. During his term in the State Senate our subject was prominent in securing the enactment of many of the most important laws. For the ten years he was in the legislature he was a member of the committee on judiciary. He introduced and secured the passage of what is known as the "Married Woman's Act" in 1887. Mr. Wolverton's great popularity with the people of the Twenty-seventh Senatorial District may be estimated by his election to the Senate for three successive terms in a district which had a normal Republican plurality of over 1,000. For two years after his retirement from the State Senate Mr. Wolverton devoted his entire time to his profession. Then he was again compelled to respond to the popular demands of his friends and neighbors, and in 1890 he was elected representative in Congress from the Seventeenth District, which includes Northumberland, Columbia, Montour and Sullivan Counties. He served in the 52d Congress and in 1892 was re-elected to the 53d Congress. As representative he was an untiring worker in the interest of his district, faithfully and most ably representing those who had so strenuously insisted upon again bestowing upon him political honors. At the expiration of his second term in Congress our subject's legal business had attained such magnitude that he realized he either must abandon law and its practice or give up political position. He decided to abandon politics, except as he might participate in political affairs as a citizen, and to devote his entire time and energy to the practice of his profession. No better endorsement of the great ability of Mr. Wolverton as a lawyer could be put forward than the statement that he is attorney for a number of very large corporations, including the following: Philadelphia & Reading Railroad; Philadelphia & Reading Coal & Iron Company; Lehigh Valley Railroad Company; Lehigh Valley Coal Company; Cox Bros. & Company, the largest coal operators in Pennsylvania; the Delaware, Sunbury & Schuylkill Railroad Company, and many other corporations of less magnitude. Our subject was among those prominent in organizing and constructing the Sunbury, Hazleton & Wilkesbarre Railroad and the Shamokin, Sunbury & Lewisburg Railroad, of which he was president, and which is now a part of the Reading system. Mr. Wolverton built the Sunbury & Northumberland Electric Railway and is now interested in it. He also is interested in the Sun-bury Electric Light & Power Company, the Northumberland Illuminating Company, and other local enterprises which are of a semi-public and beneficial character as greatly aiding in the development and growth of Sunbury. On March 23, 1865, Mr. Wolverton was united in marriage with Elizabeth D. Hen-dricks, daughter of Benjamin Hendricks of Sunbury. They have reared a family of three charming children: Mary G., wife of Bidd'.e Arthurs of Pittsburg, Pa.; Elizabeth K.; and Simon P. Jr., who is a student of law in his father's office. This review of the interesting and wonderfully successful career of Simon P. Wolverton would be somewhat incomplete without suitable reference to his ancestry. The Wolverton family is of English-Quaker origin. According to well authenticated tradition three brothers emigrated from Wolverhampton, England, about 1700 and settled on Long Island, N. Y. The family was then, as now, one of distinction, and its coat of arms bore the wolf's head. The descendants are scattered over nearly every state in the Union, and many are residents of Canada. Many members of the family have attained prominence in business, political and professional circles. Of the three brothers who originally came to this country Charles Wolverton, the lineal ancestor of the subject of our review, Simon P. Wolverton, in 1714 removed to Hunterdon County, N. J., where the family resided for several generations. Charles Wolverton, a lineal descendant of the Charles Wolverton who was one of the original immigrants, was the great-grandfather of our subject. He served in the Wrar of the Revolution. He owned a large tract of land in Hunterdon County, N. J., which he granted to his son, Isaac, grandfather of our subject, on February 12, 1816. Isaac Wolverton was born in Hunterdon County, N. J., August 11, 1777, and came with his father and family to Augusta township, Northumberland County, in 1800, where he died in 1800. His father died in Augusta township, as did the son who died in 1855. Isaac Wolverton was a prosperous and successful farmer. He was a Democrat in politics and served as county commissioner. He was a devout Baptist and filled numerous offices in the church society of which he was a member. He married Lucretia Chamberlain and reared a family of five children,—two sons and three daughters. Joseph Wolverton, father of our subject, was born in Augusta township, Northumberland County, September 25, 1803, and died in Sunbury in 1883. He spent his lifetime in his native township and in the neighboring township of Rush, and was engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was a Baptist. He married Charity, a daughter of William Kase, who was of German descent, and resided in Rush township, where he was a farmer, and also served as a justice of the peace. The family of Joseph and Charity Wolverton consisted of two sons and three daughters. Additional Comments: Extracted from "Biographical Sketches of Leading Citizens of the Seventeenth Congressional District, Pennsylvania" Biographical Publishing Co., Chicago, Ill. and Buffalo, NY (1899) This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/pafiles/ File size: 9.8 Kb