Hon. Henry Pawling Ross and Mary Clifton

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Husband Hon. Henry Pawling Ross ¹

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           Born: 16 Dec 1836 - Doylestown, Bucks Co, PA 1
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         Father: Hon. Thomas Ross (1806-1865) 1 2 3
         Mother: Elizabeth Pawling (      -Aft 1879) 3 4

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       Marriage: Jun 1865 5

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   Other Spouse: Emily Genung (      -      ) 5 - 1875 5

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Wife Mary Clifton ⁵

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           Born: 
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           Died: 26 Nov 1873 5
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Children

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1 F [Unk] Ross

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General Notes: Husband - Hon. Henry Pawling Ross

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After receiving the usual elementary training, he entered Princeton College in 1853, and graduated in 1857, receiving the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Soon after completing a college course, he entered the office of his father to read law and enter upon the family profession. He was admitted December 16th, 1859. In 1862 he was taken up by the Democracy of his native county for District Attorney and elected, serving three years. In 1864 and 1866 he was brought forward for Congress in like manner by his political friends in Bucks County, but not elected. In 1864 and 1868 he represented in part the Democrats of the Sixth district in the national Presidential convention. In 1865 he was appointed Deputy Escheator General for Bucks County, and in 1869 elected Additional Law Judge for the Seventh district, composed of Bucks and Montgomery counties. Shortly after, the two counties being erected into separate districts, Judge Ross resigned the joint position in 1871, and was elected President Judge of the courts of Montgomery alone.
His qualities as a Judge early drew public attention to him as a suitable incumbent for the bench of the Supreme Court, and at the Democratic convention in 1874 he was next to the highest candidate before it for that office. At the State convention at Erie in 1876 he was a very prominent candidate for Governor, coming very near a nomination. In 1878 public sentiment early began to manifest itself through the Democratic press of the state in favor of Judge Ross for the vacant seat on the Supreme bench. Accordingly the convention that met at Pittsburgh in May nominated him for the place on the first ballot, and although he was not elected, owing to the divided state of the party, his vote in Bucks and Montgomery, where he was personally well known, was very complimentary
He was one of the founders of the English and classical seminary at Doylestown. Being selected by his Alma Mater to deliver the oration before the literary societies of Princeton College in 1873, he did so with marked credit on the topic, "The duty of the American scholar to become an active agent in American politics." He was in like manner invited to deliver addresses to the graduates of some high schools at their annual commencements, and performed the duty with great acceptance.
Judge Ross was affable, courteous and social in an eminent degree, with an utter absence of that hauteur so common to men in his position. He took a deep interest in all political questions as they arose, and the necessary retiracy of his high position was rather enforced than voluntary. His mental and physical endowments indicated a predominance of nerve, giving quickness, intrepidity, and decisiveness to every action. As a writer and speaker he used language always concise, direct and forcible, and never confused the hearer with mere verbiage. As an elocutionist he learned what very few public speakers had, that syllables, words and sentences are ideal pictures addressed as such to the understanding of the hearer, and which, from rapidity and indistinctiveness of utterance by many are misapprehended or lost. Judge Ross' deliverances from the bench, therefore, sounded to the unlearned listener very like a carefully delivered law lecture. The perspicuity of his charges, also, rarely if ever failed to give juries a clear idea of the cause in hand, and his quick and analytic mind seldom erred in a ruling. Consequently his decisions did not often come back from the Supreme Court for another trial. Few county Judges in a short period presided over so many important cases as he, such as the murder trials of Curley, Pistorius, Whalen, and Sutton.
In his intercourse with the bar and the public he escaped the imputation of favoritism and partiality, and his integrity and uniform inflexibility commanded the confidence of all.
Though not a member of any church, his affiliations and attachments were towards the Episcopalian.

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General Notes: Wife - Mary Clifton

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from Princeton, Mercer Co, NJ

1 M. Auge, Lives of the Eminent Dead and Biographical Notices of Prominent Living Citizens of Montgomery County, Pa. (Norristown, PA: Privately published, 1879), Pg 377.

2 Morton L. Montgomery, History of Berks County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Everts, Peck & Richards, 1886), Pg 525.

3 Josiah Granville Leach, LL.B, Some Account of the Pawling Family of New York and Pennsylvania (Lancaster, PA: Wickersham Press, 1918), Pg 22.

4 Theodore W. Bean, History of Montgomery County, Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, PA: Everts & Peck, 1884), Pg 506.

5 M. Auge, Lives of the Eminent Dead and Biographical Notices of Prominent Living Citizens of Montgomery County, Pa. (Norristown, PA: Privately published, 1879), Pg 379.