History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

TINSLEY JETER.

The ancestors of the subject of this sketch were of English extraction, and among the earliest settlers in Virginia.  His paternal grandfather, John Jeter, and his father, John Tinsley Jeter, were residents and owners of the village of Painesville, Amelia Co., a small place, whose name was given it in honor of Thomas Paine, the author of “The Age of Reason.”  His paternal grandmother was a Miss Chaffin, whose family formed part of a numerous race of tall, slender, red-haired, and long-lived individuals, whose descendants still retain in a great degree these characteristics.

John Tinsley Jeter was born in 1798, and married, in 1822, a Miss Elizabeth Newman, who died in 1835, leaving four children, the second of whom is the subject of this biography.  He was born at Painesville, May 7, 1827, and until the age of sixteen was a resident of that place.  In 1843 his father removed from Virginia with his family to Missouri, where his son received his collegiate education at the State University, located at Columbia, in that State.

In 1847 the father, becoming interested in commercial enterprises farther south, removed to New Orleans, and in the spring of 1848 the son sailed for the West Indies and South America as the custodian of his father’s business interests at those places.  He was absent from the United States more than three years, the larger part of which time was spent in Caracas, the capital of Venezuela.  In 1851 he returned to the land of his nativity, arriving in Philadelphia, which city he decided to make his future home.  He studied law under the Hon. Peter McCall, and was admitted to the bar in 1855.  He became about the same time the proprietor of extensive and very valuable iron-mines in Lehigh County, which demanded so much of his attention and care that, in 1859, he relinquished his growing practice at the bar, and henceforth devoted himself entirely to the development of his mining property, becoming, with Jay Cooke, Esq., of Philadelphia, the builder of the Ironton Railroad.  About the same time he made his home on Fountain Hill, near South Bethlehem, where he has since resided.  In 1866 he sold his entire mining interests to Robert Lennox Kennedy, Esq., president of the Bank of Commerce, New York, and since that time has devoted his undivided attention to the improvement and development of that portion of South Bethlehem already mentioned as Fountain Hill, a large part of which belonged to him.  In this his liberality and enterprise have been largely successful.  He is president of the “South Bethlehem Improvement Company,” whose whole capital is employed in the encouragement and establishment of new industries in South Bethlehem, and who have lately erected the Excelsior Knitting-Mills.

While engaged in these pursuits of a personal character, Mr. Jeter has also contributed his full share to the educational, charitable, and religious activities around him.  The Church of the Nativity, Fountain Hill, one of the most flourishing in the State, may be said to be the outgrowth of a movement begun in his own dwelling.  Lay services were conducted by him for two years in his home before the effort was made to erect a church, of which he is still a vestryman.  Mr. Jeter may be also called the founder of Bishopthorpe School for Girls, located near his residence.  He has contributed more to it than all others together, and has been for many years chairman of its executive committee,--the only one they have had.  In 1872 the Rev. Courtland Whitehead, then rector of the Church of the Nativity, but now Bishop of Pittsburgh, urged upon his vestry the establishment of a small hospital in connection with the work of the Episcopal Church in the Lehigh Valley.  This was done, and in all the early stages the largest share of the work devolved upon the subject of this sketch.  The charter of St. Luke’s Hospital was written by him, and its passage by the Legislature secured.  He was the only one of the three appointed to obtain subscriptions who consented to act, and succeeded in obtaining within a month nearly double the amount hoped for.  This hospital has since been the recipient of some of the princely liberality of Judge Packer and his sons, and is now a magnificent institution.  Mr. Jeter was the first chairman of its executive committee, and after an interval of some years is now again its chairman.

In politics Mr. Jeter, like his father, was in early life, “after the most straitest [sic] sect,” a Whig.  On the dissolution of that party he acted with that portion who advocated the election of Bell and Everett, and at the Presidential election of 1860 was the Presidential elector named for his district on that ticket.  Since that time he has affiliated with the Democratic party, but has never sought office of any kind.  In 1876 he was urged to permit the use of his name as a candidate for Congress before the Democratic convention.  He refused the make any political canvass or to expand any money for doubtful purposes.  Though warmly supported, he did not receive the nomination.

He is a member of the Episcopal Church, though Mr. Jeter’s ancestors were Baptists.  The late distinguished Jeremiah B. Jeter, of Richmond, Va., whose biography may be found in Appleton’s “Cyclopedia,” was a cousin of his father.

In 1852, Mr. Jeter was married to Mary, daughter of Thomas S. Richards, Esq., of Philadelphia, who like his father, Samuel Richards, and grandfather, William Richards, were among the most extensive makers of iron in the States of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.  Three children are the issue of this marriage.  John T., the only son, is a mining engineer in the service of the Lehigh Valley Railroad Company, and located at Wilkesbarre.  The daughters, Harriet and Mary, are not yet grown.

Page 420-421

History of the Counties of Lehigh and Carbon, in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania

Alfred Mathews and Austin N. Hungerford

J. B. Lippincott & Co., Pennsylvania. 1884

Transcribed by Annette Bame Peebles

The Lehigh County, Pennsylvania Biographies Project – http://freepages.history.rootsweb.com/~arkbios/Lehigh/index.html.

Date of Transcription: 16 June 2007

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