Charles Brodhead

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Jan 10 2016, 4:49:01 UTC

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Charles Brodhead, son of Albert Gallatin and Ellen (Middagh) Brodhead, was born at Conyngham, Luzerne county, Pennsylvania, August 4, 1824, and died in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, December 31, 1904. Until he was fourteen years of age he attended the schools of Delaware, Pike county, then for two years was a student in an academic school at Stroudsburg, conducted by Ira Burrell Newman. In the spring of 1840 he went with Mr. Newman to a newly established school at Dingmans High Falls, Pike county, where he finished his preparation for college. He matriculated at Lafayette College, of which the Rev. Dr. George Junkin was then the head, in November, 1840, being graduated as a member of the class of 1844. He at once began to read law in the office of his uncle, Richard Brodhead. then a member of Congress and afterward United States Senator from Pennsylvania, and while studying in this office attended the law school established at Philadelphia by David Hoffman.

Admitted to the bar at Easton, in 1846, Mr. Brodhead soon afterward beo-an his public service as sheriffs attorney, filling that office for three years, abandoning professional work to devote his time to real estate operations in Bethlehem His purchase of one hundred acres of Moravian farm land on the south side of the Lehigh in 1854, at the time the Lehigh Valley, the Central of New Jersey, and the North Pennsylvania railroads were running their lines in that direction, was characteristic of his wise, far-sighted business policv He laid out a large part of the present South Bethlehem and was one of the largest land owners of that locality, also owning considerable Davis then Secretary of War, and United States Senator Richard Brodhead, to secure the establishment of a government foundry in that place. Although it failed at that time, the project was not abandoned, and future years witnessed the manufacture of large stores of government materia m Bethlehem's mills and, during the World War, Bethlehem plants turned the tide of victory toward the allies. Charles Brodhead was the determing influence in the location of the works of the Bethlehem Iron Company at South Bethlehem, inducing Augustus Wolle to establish a projected enterprise in that place. Mr. Wolle had obtained a charter for an organization known as the Saucona Iron Company. Mr. Brodhead, becoming largely interested financially in this proposition, as he had been in other activities of Mr. Wolle, successfully advocated the choice of South Bethlehem as its location and was the author of a supplement to the original charter, changing the name to Bethlehem Rolling Mill & Iron Company, the parent of the present vast Bethlehem interests.

Charles Brodhead was the dominating factor in many plans of progress and improvement in Bethlehem. The plan of the eleven hundred feet long bridge connecting Bethlehem and South Bethlehem was conceived by him, and he also led in the agitation for the Broad street bridge between Bethlehem and West Bethlehem. As a member of the Constitutional Convention of Pennsylvania in 1873, he wrote into that document several valuable clauses, whose worth has been proven by the test of time and circumstances. One of these was the provision for free telegraph lines, prohibiting the considation of parallel or competing lines, a strong safeguard against the monopolies that soon came into vogue. He also secured the enactment of the section which prohibits all officers and employees of railroad companies form being interested, directly or indirectly, in the furnishings of supplies and material for the corporations with which they are connected, or being interested in transportation lines or contracts for transportation. A third subject on which he introduced and secured the adoption of regulations was the term of office of county treasurers, which was extended to three years, with re-election prohibited, a provision which had salutary effect. His legal training was valuable to him in this work, and to the deliberations of the convention he gave of the best of a keenly analytical mind, strong business acumen and devoted affection for his native State.

Mr. Brodhead was the builder of the railroad that became the Lehigh & Lackawanna railroad, now the Lehigh & New England railroad, and served form many years as its president. The line, constructed through his energetic perseverance and determination, was built with the double purpose of serving the great slate region and of connecting points in the popular vacation country nearby. The road was known among his associates during its construction as "Charley Brodhead's Huckleberry Railroad" a sobriquet rising from the general interest always attending an enterprise of local importance. He served on the board of trustees of Lehigh University, and lent general support to those institutions whose object was the care of the unfortunate. His long life was productive of benefits that will endure, and during it's course be held the high regard of men who, like himself, strove worthily in many fields. The rich talents that crowned his efforts with success were ever at the disposal of his fellows, though he would never enter public life, and his influence was always effectively used to further the forward and upward progress of his city and State.

Charles Brodhead married, June 1, 1858, Camilla M. Shimer, daughter of General Conrad Shimer, and extensive farmer, prominent in the military and political affairs in Northampton county, member of a family old in the locality, the name appearing in early records as Scheumer, Sheymer, Shymer, and in other forms.