of the city, and in 1643 one of the "eight men." In 1657 he was admitted to the rights of a burgher. His children were Levina, Peter, Abraham, Isaac, Catharine, and Henry. Of these Isaac Abraham, Sr., was born in Holland in 1634. He came over with his father and settled in New Ainsterdam, where he married in 1659 Jannetie Jans, widow of Adam Van Sandt, from Arnheim in Gelderland. He eventually removed to Albany, N. Y., where his son, Abram Isaacsen Van Deusen, married, in 1682, Ann, daughter of Zacharias Sickels. His son, Isaac Abrahamsen Van Deusen, born at Albany in 1688, married, April 5, 1713, Ann Waldron, and had issue, among other children, Daniel, who married Lea Hertie and settled at Tappan in 1735. John Bernard Van Dusen, probably a brother of Isaac's, married a La Roe, and settled in Washington Township, Bergen County, N. J. From these two brothers are descended the Van Dusens of Bergen County.

AUGUSTUS A. RICH, who has successfully practiced law in Hudson County since 1876, is the son of Samuel A. Rich, a native of Genoa, Italy, who followed the sea all his life, leaving home at the age of thirteen. His mother was Ellen E. Stephens. Mr. Rich was born in Brooklyn, N. Y.. December 28, 1851, and in 1854 moved with his parents to Hoboken, N. J. In 1860 the family settled in West Hoboken, Hudson County, where the subject of this article has since resided, and where he received a good public school education.

Mr. Rich studied law in New York City with the well known firm of Van Schaick, Gillender & Thompson, and was admitted to practice in that State in 1873. He was admitted to the bar of New Jersey as an attorney in November, 1874, and as a counselor in February, 1878. He began the active work of his profession in Hudson County in 1876, and for many years has been the leading lawyer in West Hoboken. Following without interruption a general law practice, Mr. Rich has achieved eminent success as well as a high reputation, which is by no means confined to his immediate locality.

He has also held several positions of trust and honor. In 1882 and again in 1883 he represented West Hoboken in the New Jersey Assembly, and served both years as Chairman of the Committee on Revision of Laws and as a member of the Judiciary Committee. During these two terms he introduced a number of bills of local importance and was active and influential in all legislative matters. Since then he has drafted several important measures, including the general act for the government of towns, under which Kearny, West Hoboken, West New York, and other boroughs were incorporated and organized, and which served as the model upon which the general act for cities in New Jersey was drawn. In this respect Mr. Rich has gained wide distinction. Having made a special study of town and municipal governments, and endowed with rare good judgment and great legal ability, he is regarded as an authority on these matters, and his prominence in connection with them attests his standing and usefulness. During the past eighteen years he has served as corporation attorney for West Hoboken, and at present he is also attorney for the Townships of West New York and Weehawken. Since 1895 he has been Chairman of the Hudson County Board of Elections, and in May, 1899, he was appointed a member of the committee whose object is the promotion and ultimate incorporation of Greater Jersey City, to include all or nearly all the cities, boroughs,

and townships in the County of Hudson. He is a Democrat in politics, and has distinguished himself as a public spirited, progressive, and patriotic citizen. He is unmarried.

ROBERT F. LORD, of Kearny, Hudson County, is the son of John and Jane Lord, and a grandson of Robert Lord and James and Sarah Lang. His ancestors on both sides came to this country from the North of Ireland. Mr. Lord was born in Newark, N. J., on the 22d of January, 1853, but was taken by his parents when young to Kearny, Hudson County, where he received his education. For twenty-five years he has been actively

associated with the Stewart Hartshorn Company, the well known manufacturers of shade rollers, of Harrison. During that period he has filled nearly every position in the establishment, being at the present time the efficient and successful manager of the company's New York office at 486 Broadway.

Mr. Lord has displayed marked executive ability and business capacity, and during his long connection with the great Hartshorn Company he has discharged his duties with credit, honor, and satisfaction. In politics he is an ardent Republican. He has been for many years one of the most active men in the affairs of his municipality, which he served for a term

of two years as a member of the Board of Aldermen, and upon the incorporation of Kearny as a town he was elected a member of the first Common Council, a position he now holds. He has also been active in the Kearny Volunteer Fire Department and is a member of the Masons and the Heptasophs.

Mr. Lord married Miss Martha Coulson, of Jersey City, N. J., by whom he has had four children: Bella, John, Robert J., and William J.

THOMAS H. CUMMING, a prominent business man and Justice of the Peace, of Hackensack, was born in New York City on the 6th of November, 1839. He received his education in his native city, and after completing his studies entered a large dry goods store, where he remained three years, laying the foundations of a successful career. On severing his connection with that house he formed a copartnership with his father, and actively

THOMAS H. CUMMING.

engaged in the business of contracting, chiefly in New York and New Jersey, the former being mainly in the line of building sewers. Among other important contracts which they secured and executed was that for the construction of the Lodi branch of the New Jersey and New York Railroad, and another for the line running from Essex Street to Woodbridge.

In 1861 Mr. Cumming engaged in the oil trade in Greenwich Street, New York, and so continued for two years. Following this he was for six years engaged in the leather business. At the end of that period he removed to Hackensack, N. J., where he still resides, and engaged in contracting. In each of these lines of industry he has achieved marked success and a wide reputation for honesty and uprightness.

Mr. Cumming is also a Commissioner of Deeds and a Notary Public, and since 1885 has held the office of Justice of the Peace. He has always taken an active interest in the Hackensack Fire Department, serving faithfully and efficiently as a member of Hook and Ladder Company, No. 2, for twenty-six years, a part of the time as its Foreman. He is now an honorary member of that organization. For a number of years he has been President of the Hacken

sack Relief Association, and during the last thirteen years has served as Collector of License for the Hackensack Commission. He is an active and influential Republican, being Vice-Chairman of the County Executive Committee. He is also a member of the Royal Arcanum and a charter member of the National Union. His father, Thomas Cumming, Sr., was for many years a Lay Judge of Bergen County.

Mr. Cumming married a daughter of the late John H. Banta, of Hackensack, and has three sons.

FRANK B. POOR, President of the Hackensack Board of Trade and one of the most enterprising citizens of Bergen County, was born in Hackensack, N. J., about thirty years ago, and is the son of E. E. Poor, formerly President of the Park National Bank of New York City. He has spent nearly $250,000 in beautifying Hackensack and advancing its interests. He erected the Hamilton Building in 1899-1900 at a cost of $50,000. He formed the Bergen County Ice Company, which recently erected a $50,000 plant. He organized the Golf Club, which is erecting a $12,000 club-house, and he was instrumental in organizing the Hackensack Trust Company, which built in 1900 a $75,000 structure. His aim is to see Hackensack advance. As was recently said of him: "Mr. Poor has done more for our town in one year than has been done by many men during a generation. One evidence of his ability was the consolidation of the gas and electric light companies in Bergen County, which corporation now supplies thirty-three towns. Their product will be cheapened, and not a single stockholder in the old companies has lost a cent by the change. Mr. Poor is spending money lavishly and intends to turn over to the town many miles of macadamized streets, with sewers, etc., without a cent of expense to the town. Such enterprise is unprecedented, and it is done for the best interests of his birthplace."

JAMES H. BLACK, who has been successfully engaged in business as a blacksmith and carriage-maker in Harrison, Hudson County, since 1888, was born in Belleville, Essex County, N. J., January 15, 1863. He is the son of James V. Black and Elizabeth Vreeland, and a great-grandson of Benjamin Vreeland, a member of one of the oldest families of this State. His first maternal ancestor in this country was Michiel Jensen, who left Holland, October 1, 1636, in the ship "Rensselaerwyck," with his wife and two children, and originally settled opposite Albany, N. Y., but a few years later removed to New Jersey. He was one of the first magistrates of the new court at Bergen, and, although he bore the surname of Jensen, was the founder of the Vreeland family in Eastern New Jersey. Mr. Black's father, James V., was a native of Arlington, N. J., while his mother was born in Moonachie in this State. They were married in New Durham, Hudson County, and in 1857 removed to Belleville, where the subject of this article was born and educated.

James H. Black received the educational advantages which the excellent public schools of Belleville afforded, and after completing his studies became a bookkeeper in a large grocery house. Subsequently he interested himself in the manufacture of iron chains and later engaged in business for himself as a blacksmith and carriage maker at Woodside, N. J. In 1888 he removed to Harrison, Hudson County, and has since followed that business with constantly increasing success. He is widely known, not only for his

mechanical skill and ability, but also for his public spirit, enterprise, and great force of character.

Mr. Black is an independent Republican in politics, and takes a deep interest in every movement that affects the welfare of the community. He is thoroughly identified with the best interests of Harrison, has contributed materially to the success of many worthy objects, and is highly esteemed and respected. He is a member of Harrison Camp, No. 66, Fraternal Legion, of Sylvania Council, No. 5, Golden Star Fraternity, of Newark, and of the Master Horseshoers' Association, No. 67.

On Christmas Day, December 25, 1887, Mr. Black married Lillian Seaver daughter of Joseph B. and Annette (Sexton) Seaver, of Newark, N. J. They have two children: Ruth Black and Annette Black.

LOUIS FORMON, manager of the People's Safe Deposit and Trust Company of the Town of Union and Treasurer of the Town of Union, is the eldest of five children of William and Louisa (Siedentopf) Formon, natives of Germany, who came to America about 1850 and first settled in New York. There William Formon engaged in ship blacksmithing until just before the outbreak of the Rebellion, when he moved with his family to Secaucus, N. J., and devoted himself to farming. He soon returned to his trade, however, in which he achieved marked success, and died in Union Hill in 1872, widely respected and esteemed. He was a man of great strength of character, of unquestioned integrity and enterprise, and gave to his children the rich inheritance of a good name. His wife died January 7, 1898.

Louis Formon was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., July 24, 1854, and received his education in the public and German schools of New York City. Being the eldest child, and at the time of his father's death the only one of the family old enough to work, the support of his widowed mother and her children devolved almost entirely upon his energies, and though but eighteen years of age he took up his new responsibilities with commendable courage and marked success. Leaving school, fairly well equipped with a literary training, he engaged in the trade of piano making, which he followed successfully for eighteen years, supporting his mother and educating the younger children. He mastered every detail of piano construction; his skill and mechanical ability won for him a high rank among his associates, while his untiring attention to duty, his constant application, and his great care and practical devotion to the interests of his employers gained their appreciation and confidence.

As a resident of the Town of Union, N. J., he early came into prominence, displaying a broad public spirit and winning a deserved popularity. He has taken from the first an active interest in the welfare of the community, and has filled several offices of trust and honor. In the spring of 1890 he was elected Town Clerk of the Town of Union, and served six years, being twice re-elected without opposition; and so faithfully and satisfactorily did he discharge the duties of that position that when he resigned in 1896, to accept the post of manager of the People's Safe Deposit and Trust Company of the Town of Union, he was given a handsomely engraved gold watch, bearing the following inscription: "Presented to Louis Formon by the Officials and ex-Officials of the Town of Union, N. J., for efficiency and faithful service as Town Clerk from April, 1890, to May, 1896." This is a silent but potent evidence of the esteem in which he is held by his fellowcitizens, and especially by those who represent the leading interests of the Mr. Formon is still manager of the People's Safe Deposit and Trust