Thomas Haines Dudley

THOMAS H. DUDLEY had a long and interesting career, both in service in Camden and in service of the Federal Government. He was born in Camden on October 9, 1819, the son of Evan and Ann (Haines) Dudley; grandson of Thomas and Martha (Evans) Dudley; and great-grandson of Francis and Rachel (Wilkins) Dudley, who emigrated from the parish of St. Peter, Wolverhampton, Staffordshire, England, about 1730, and settled in New Jersey.

Thomas H. Dudley was admitted to the New Jersey Bar in 1845; he was serving as Camden County Clerk when called upon to write a City Charter for Camden. The “Dudley Charter” would serve Camden until 1871. A member of the Whig Party until it dissolved, he became a Republican when that party formed. Thomas Dudley was a delegate to the Republican national convention in Chicago in 1860, and was instrumental in securing the presidential nomination for Abraham Lincoln.

In his own words, Thomas Dudley wrote, “I was appointed Consul for Liverpool by Mr. Lincoln in 1861, and remained there for eleven years, when I resigned and came home. I am a lawyer by profession, and was in the convention that nominated A. Lincoln in 1860.”

Thomas Dudley went to Europe when the Civil War broke out, returning in the fall of 1861. He was then appointed as the United States Consul at Liverpool, England. In this capacity he was charged with stemming the flow of military supplies to the Confederacy from ostensibly neutral England. With a force of 100 agents he covered the United Kingdom, often traveling incognito as he was a marked man in certain pro-Confederate quarters.

In 1862 Dudley brought legal action in British courts concerning the steamship Alexandra, being built in a Liverpool shipyard with private funds and intended for the Confederate Navy. The attention attracted in this case gave cause to the British government to somewhat more strictly enforce their own laws regarding neutrality.

Dudley and his agents noted all activity in shipyards in Liverpool and its environs, and reported such activity to United States naval authorities. Of 324 ships built either to run the blockade of the Confederacy or as commerce raiders, 126 were sunk, in great part due to the intelligence reports of Thomas Dudley.

After the war Thomas Dudley returned to America, only to be sent back to Europe to settle the Alabama Claims, where the arbitration decided the extent of British liability for damage done by the U.K.-built commerce-raiders CSS Alabama and CSS Florida during the Civil War. He finally came home in 1872. He was elected a member of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1886, and was a member of the council in the American Philosophical Society in 1887, 1890 and 1893.

Thomas Dudley owned a large estate along Federal Street in what is now East Camden, centered by his mansion and known as Dudley Grange. A small village, known as Dudley, sprang up in the late 1870s and early 1880s within the bounds of Stockton Township.

Thomas H. Dudley passed away on April 15, 1893. Parts of his estate were sold to real estate developers, who built many residences along Federal Street and Westfield Avenue. The remainder of his estate, lying between those two roads and east of Dudley Street, in which lay his home, was eventually acquired by Victor S. King, who served as Camden’s Mayor in the years 1923 through 1927. He sold the land to the city, and it became Dudley Grange Park. The Dudley home was converted into use as a branch of the Camden Free Public Library during the 1920s. Sadly, the home of Thomas Dudley was neglected by city government and allowed to burn in 1980.

Thomas H. Dudley was born in Evesham township, Burlington County, New Jersey, October 9, 1819, being the descendant of an English family resident in this country since the latter part of the seventeenth century. His early education was obtained in the schools near the vicinity of his birth, and he grew to manhood on his father’s farm. Determining upon law as a profession, he entered the office of the late William N. Jeffers, in Camden, and in 1845 was admitted to the New Jersey bar. From the outset of his legal life he held a conspicuous place in his profession, his sound training in the principles and the practice of law uniting to make him successful. Until the dissolution of the Whig party he was one of its stanchest members. Since that event he has been a no less earnest Republican. Elected in 1860 a delegate at large to the Chicago Convention, he occupied a prominent position in it and was greatly instrumental through his energy and tact, in the committee on doubtful States, in securing the nomination of Abraham Lincoln for President. In 1861 Mr. Dudley went to Europe, and returned in the fall of the same year, and soon thereafter was appointed by Mr. Lincoln as consul to Liverpool.

The position of our consul at this port then was one of great consequence and of the greatest delicacy, for from this centre radiated the substantial aid tendered to the Confederates by their British supporters. In his efforts to enforce the maintenance of the neutrality professed by the government to which he was accredited, the utmost diplomacy was necessary to avoid bringing to open war the expressed hostility between the two countries. Everywhere his endeavor to check the flow of supplies to the Confederacy met with a determined resistance. With a force of one hundred men he policed the ship-yards of England and Scotland, he himself incognito, constantly visiting every shipping centre and registering every keel laid down upon the books of the Liverpool consulate. Nor was his zeal unattended with danger. Again and again he received anonymous letters warning him that unless he ceased his opposition to the extension of assistance to the Confederate government, that his life would be taken, and if found in certain designated spots he would be shot on sight. But these threats had small effects upon his stern nature. He had been charged with a high duty and that duty he fulfilled with a calm determination.

He remained at his post until November, 1868, when he returned to the United States for a brief visit. He resumed his duties in Liverpool, and three years later he again returned to America, and, wearied by his decade of arduous official life, tendered his resignation of his consulate. The government, however, requested his services in the case of the United States to be laid before the Joint High Commission at Geneva, and he assisted in the compilation of the case to go before the Geneva tribunal, supplying the material upon which the judgment in favor of the United States was rendered. In 1872 he again returned to the United States and tendered his resignation, to take effect upon the appointment of his successor.

Since his return to America Mr. Dudley has been engaged in the practice of his profession in Camden, New Jersey, residing upon his beautiful country-seat, three miles from the city. He has been president of the Pittsburgh, Titusville and Buffalo Railroad Company, and of the New Jersey Mining Company, besides being a member of the boards of direction of the Camden and Atlantic Railroad Company, West Jersey Railroad Company, Camden and Philadelphia Ferry Company and People’s Gas Light Company, of Jersey City.

Dudley is a small village southeast from Cramer Hill, and on the line of the Burlington County Railroad. It takes its name from the Hon. Thomas H. Dudley. There are from twelve to fifteen fine residences in the village, including the large mansion and buildings of the Hon. Thomas H. Dudley, and known as “The Grange,” also one church, one store and one physician’s office. The general store was started by the present owner, J. S. Corkhill, in 1885. Dr. Jerome L. Artz, who located in Dudley in 1885, was born in Ganges, Richland County, Ohio, in 1859; was educated in the schools of his native place; commenced the study of medicine with Dr. G. W. Kester in 1875, and entered the Homoeopathic Hospital College at Cleveland, Ohio, in 1877; in 1878 removed to Philadelphia and entered the Hahnemann Medical College, and graduated therefrom in the class of 1881. He was assistant at this college and the Children’s Hospital until 1885, when he removed to Dudley.

The cemetery belonging to the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Camden is located in the western portion of Dudley, between the Moorestown pike and Westfield Avenue. The area is about six acres, neatly inclosed and handsomely laid out in square lots, and wide avenues leading to the main drive.

Thomas Haines Dudley (1819–1893) led a remarkable life, and though little-known, made important contributions to the history of this nation. Born to a Quaker family on October 9, 1819 in Evesham Township, Burlington County, he moved to Camden in 1842. He became City Clerk and City Treasurer within a year, and became an attorney in 1845. He was originally a Whig, working for protectionist laws and on Henry Clay’s presidential campaign of 1844, and he in fact named his first child (who would die in infancy) after Clay.

But, perhaps owing to his Quaker background, he was also a fervent Abolitionist and he eventually became a Republican. In 1845, when a free Black family from Burlington County was kidnapped into slavery, the Quakers raised $1000 and Dudley volunteered to rescue the family. He disguised himself as a slave trader and, at great personal risk, was able to purchase the family’s freedom and bring them north. This first taste of intrigue in Dudley’s life created a theme that would later reappear.

Dudley became active in local politics, and in 1851 was elected Camden City Treasurer, followed by elections as City Solicitor in 1856 and 1857. By 1856 he was Chair of the Republican State Executive Committee of New Jersey, and he was a delegate to the Republican national convention in Chicago, where he expected to work on a platform which supported protectionism.

His role at the convention would turn out to be more pivotal than he would have ever expected. Though it seemed clear at the time that William H. Seward would get the nomination, delegates from four “swing states” which had voted Democratic in 1856 — Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey — were concerned that Seward was too “northern” (and too radical) to be elected. Dudley was prominent, some argue instrumental, in political maneuvers to find a compromise candidate — Abraham Lincoln — and to get him accepted by the entire convention.

Lincoln did not forget the favor, and he named Dudley as the American consul to Liverpool in 1861. The position drew on Dudley’s sense of intrigue. Liverpool was an important city in the cotton industry, and Dudley hoped to collect information on “blockade-runners” from the Confederacy who were delivering cotton to England. One historian writes, “With a force of one hundred men he policed the ship-yards of England and Scotland, he himself incognito, constantly visiting every shipping centre and registering every keel laid down upon the books of the Liverpool consulate.” Of “324 blockade steamers reported by Mr. Dudley,” Potts comments, “126 were either captured, sunk or battered to pieces.” This was not a job without its peril, as Dudley received many anonymous death threats in writing.

After the war he was sent to Geneva in 1871 as attorney for the U.S. in the Joint High Commission at the Geneva Tribunals. In later life he returned to the U.S. and was involved in various activities. He served as President of various railroads and utility companies. He was also President of the Bar Association of Camden and the Agricultural Society of New Jersey, and first vice-president of the American Protective Tariff League, a cause for which he delivered numerous addresses. A resident of Camden in later life, he was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 1880, and he joined the Historical Society of Pennsylvania in 1886 and the American Folklore Society in 1890. Dudley also wrote numerous articles, mostly on agriculture, trade, and tariffs, but also reflected on politics and international relations, as in his article, “Three Critical Periods in Our Diplomatic Relations with England During the Late War.

Dudley argued his position on tariffs with, among other people, Walt Whitman. In the diary of Horace Traubel, friend of Whitman’s and ultimately one of his literary executors, appears the following notation:

Sunday, April 1, 1888. At [Thomas] Harned’s. A crowded table. W[hitman] in fine fettle. Felix Adler there; also Tom Dudley, once consul at Liverpool and now retired. Dudley is among high-tariff apostles as high as any. W. is a free trader. The talk went hot, hit and miss, on the tariff. W. declared: “I am for getting all the walls down — all of them.” “So I suppose,” said Dudley, sarcastically: “even the walls between the planets if you could.” “If I could, yes,” retorted Walt, with spirit: “that’s what the astronomers are working all their days and nights, especially nights, to do!” He was even more explicit as the argument proceeded. “While I seem to love America, and wish to see America prosperous, I do not seem to be able to bring myself to love America to desire American prosperity, at the expense of some other nation or even of all other nations.” “But must we not take care of home first of all?” asked Dudley.

Perhaps,” replied W.: “but what is home — to the humanitarian what is home?

This was not the only time that Dudley and Whitman clashed over political opinion.

Monday, May 7, 1888… Professor Adler and Tom Dudley had a hot discussion at Harned’s in which D. spoke in severely disrespectful terms of the European masses, W. resenting it.

Despite the disagreements, it is clear from elsewhere in the diaries that both men enjoyed the discussions.

Dudley suffered a heart attack at Broad Street Station in Philadelphia on April 15, 1893 and died instantly. He is buried near Moorestown.

On the 16th of April, 1861, three days after the Confederates fired upon Fort Sumter, at the entrance of Charleston Harbor, a large number of loyal and patriotic citizens of Camden City and County issued the following vigorous and spirited response to the President’s proclamation:

To the President Of the United States:

“The unparalleled events of the last week have revealed to the citizens of the United States, beyond question or the possibility of a doubt, that peaceful reconciliation upon the form of our Constitution is repelled and scorned, and secession means, in the hearts of its supporters, both Treason and war against our Country and Nation.

“We, therefore, the undersigned Loyal Citizens of the United States, and inhabitants of the city of Camden, in the State of New Jersey, responding to the proclamation of the President of the United States, hereby declare our unalterable determination to sustain the government in its efforts to maintain the honor, the integrity and the existence of our National Union and the perpetuity of the popular Government, and to redress the wrongs already long enough endured; no differences of political opinion; no badge of diversity upon points of party distinction, shall restrain or withhold us in the devotion of all we have or can command to the vindication of the Constitution, the maintenance of the laws and the defense of the Flag Of our Country.

In response to a call, on the 18th of April an enthusiastic meeting was held in the county court-house, which was formed of a large collection of prominent citizens. The court-room was decorated with flags and mottoes. John W. Mickle was chosen president and Samuel C. Harbert and Thomas G. Rowand secretaries. The president addressed the meeting first and Rev. Mr. Monroe offered a prayer. Hon. Thomas P. Carpenter, Thomas B. Atkinson (mayor) and Joseph Painter were appointed a committee on resolutions. Judge Philip J. Grey addressed the meeting, after which the committee adopted a long series of patriotic resolutions. The Washington Grays, Stockton Cadets and the Zouaves marched into the room and were received with cheers. Samuel Hufty read a resolution which was signed by many persons, who immediately formed the Home Brigade. David M. Chambers, Captain Stafford, Benjamin M. Braker, John H. Jones and E. A. Acton each addressed the meeting. James M. Scovel was then called upon and responded in eloquent terms and with patriotic energy. S. H. Grey offered a resolution, which was adopted, that the City Council and the Freeholders of the county be requested to appropriate money for the equipment of persons who may volunteer in defense of the country, and S. H. Grey, James M. Cassady and Joseph Painter were appointed a committee to look after the interests of the resolution. The meeting continued in session until eleven p.m.