Biographical Sketches-Minersville
Charles N. Brumm was born on the 9th of June, 1838, at the southeast corner of Centre and Minersville streets, Pottsville, Pa., and is the son of George and Salome Brumm, both of whom were of German birth. In 1841 his family moved to Minersville, then a large and thriving town, and he has resided there ever since excepting about a year at Philadelphia.
Charles received a good common school education in the schools of his home, but, with the exception of a year spent at Pennsylvania College, Gettysburg, was unable to obtain a higher education.
His mother died when he was fourteen and his father when he was twenty years of age, but already at the age of seventeen he went out into the world to struggle for himself. He learned the trade of watch making, spending two years therein, and then two years longer as a journeyman at that trade. He possessed a remarkable mechanical mind, as was shown in later life by the invention of a meat cutter, for which he had letters patent granted, also a brick and mortar elevator, a railroad snow shove, and a self-starting car-brake, each of which inventions involved several combinations of mechanical movement; and, as is believed by a number of master mechanics, they are based upon the proper principles for accomplishing the intended work.
However, being fond of disputation and naturally a good talker, he was led to enter his name as a student in the law office of Hon. Howell Fisher, a highly successful practitioner of the law, then residing in Minersville. With Mr. Fisher, Charles studied for nearly two years, until the first gun was fired on Fort Sumter, and President Lincoln made his first call for volunteers for a three month's service.
Mr. Brumm closed his Blackstone, shouldered his musket and marched off with the first company of soldiers, to leave Minersville, a few days after the President's call.
He was soon after elected lieutenant of his company, in which position he served until the expiration of his term of service, when he immediately re-enlisted for three years in Company K, 76th regiment, Pennsylvania volunteers. He was shortly afterward detailed assistant quartermaster and served in that capacity on the staffs of Generals Barlow and Pennypacker, tenth army corps, until the end of his term.
After the war he was engaged in the drug business two years, but in the winter of 1866 and 1867 he resumed the study of the law in the office of Judge Edward Owen Parry. In the meantime much disorder existed in Schuylkill county and he was sent to Harrisburg by a number of leading citizens to obtain if possible the passage of a law creating a special police force; a new criminal court, having special jurisdiction in Schuylkill county, and the present jury commissioner law, it being believed by them that this would lead to the suppression of the then prevailing violence and disorder. Largely through his efforts these laws were enacted.
Shortly afterward he sought admission to the bar of his home county, but was unexpectedly met with refusal, not on the ground of incompetence nor want of good character, but because it was alleged that in the effort to have enacted the before-mentioned laws he had spread reports derogatory to the judge of the old court. For two years and a half he was refused admission upon this pretext, but finally, on the 7th of March, 1870, he was admitted to practice at home the profession for which he was so well adapted, and to which he had already been admitted in Lebanon and Dauphin counties.
Mr. Brumm has always taken an active part in politics, being an uncompromising anti-slavery, anti-free trace, anti-monopoly and anti-rebel advocate. As a Republican he has stumped his county and his State, powerfully denouncing the free trade and State rights doctrines of the Democratic party. In 1871 he was a candidate for district attorney, but was defeated by Hon. James B. Reilly, the Democratic candidate, Schuylkill county being at that time being overwhelmingly Democratic.
Mr. Brumm was very early attracted to the study of national finances, and long before the organization of the Greenback party he had espoused the doctrines which have since become distinctive of that party.
He made numerous efforts in the Republican party of his county and State to induce them to adopt those principles, but failing in that he joined hands with others having the same faith and aided in the formation of the National Greenback Labor party. He voted for Peter Cooper for President in 1876, and since then has been untiring in his efforts to spread the faith in the financial and economical doctrines to which he is attached. In 1878 he was nominated for Congress by his party in Schuylkill county, and ran against his old preceptor, Hon. John W. Ryon, the Democratic candidate, the latter being elected by a plurality of 192 votes.
In 1880 he was again nominated for Congress by his party, and being endorsed by the Republicans he was elected over Mr. Ryon by an overwhelmingly majority.
Mr. Brumm had always been an eloquent advocate of the rights of the oppressed, whether oppressed by the slaveholder, by the monopolist or the social aristocrat. He has believed in the equal rights of all men to work out their own personal and social prosperity without special restriction from law, custom, cast or prejudice, although as positively opposed to the demoralizing and destroying tendencies of so-called Communism. He strongly urges the necessity of governmental control of great corporate influence and believes that the immense power wielded by the corporations of our country must be restrained by the all-powerful hand of the nation.
~ History of Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania, 1881, Page 173.
You can visit the memorial page for
Charles Napoleon Brumm.
