HISTORY OF BUCKS COUNTY. 



83 



•county and, finishing his term there, was 

 re-elected in 1881, but died at Norristown, 

 April 13. 1882. 



George Ross, son of Thomas and Eliza- 

 "beth (Pawling) Ross, was born August 24, 

 1841. He obtained his preparatory edu- 

 cation at the Tenent school at Hartsville. 

 -conducted by the Rev. Alahlon anfi Charles 

 Long, and at the Lawrenceville. New Jer- 

 sey Academy, under the tutorship of Dr. 

 Hamill. He entered Princeton in January, 

 1858, and graduated in the class of 186 r. 

 He at once began the study of law with his 

 father and brother at Doylestown and was 

 admitted to the bar of the county June 13, 

 1864. At the death of his father the fol- 

 lowing year he formed a partnership w^ith 

 his elder brother, Hon. Henry P. Ross, 

 which lasted until the elevation of the lat- 

 ter to the bench in 1869. when he became 

 associated with Levi L. James, under the 

 firm name of George Ross & L. L. James. 

 At the death of Mr. James in 1889, J. Ferd: 

 inand Long became the junior partner. 



Mr. Ross, like his father and grandfather, 

 was a trained and erudite lawyer, by years 

 of study and patient industry he had mas- 

 tered the great principles of common and 

 statute law, and soon earned the proud 

 distinction of being the recognized leader 

 of the bar in his native county. He \vas a 

 forceful speaker, quiet and undemonstra- 

 tive in his manner, not given to self-asser- 

 tion in oratory. One of his contemporaries 

 has said of him. "if the absence of art is 

 the highest quality of oratory, he was an 

 orator indeed. His remarkable knowledge 

 of the law. his subtle power of logic, and 

 his indomitable perseverance in the ad- 

 vocacy of the cause of a client, have made 

 his memory dear to the people he served, 

 and made his name remembered and hon- 

 ored in the community in which he lived." 

 In 1872 he was a member of the constitu- 

 tional convention that framed our present 

 state constitution, representing the counties 

 of Bucks and Northampton in that body. 

 He was elected to the state senate in 1886, 

 and succeeded himself four years later, a 

 distinction exceedingly rare in the history 

 of his county. He was a life-long Demo- 

 crat, and therefore represented the minority 

 in the law-making body of the state. Not- 

 withstanding this fact he soon became 

 known as the recognized leader in all that 

 pertained to the best interests of his state. 

 At the organization of the senate on Janu- 

 ary 2, 1895, Senator Brewer, of Indiana 

 county, who w-as not of his political faith, 

 in calling the attention of the body to the 

 death of Senator Ross, said in part : "Sel- 

 dom has any legislative body been called 

 upon to mourn the loss of a more disting- 

 uished member. This is not the proper 

 time to pay a tribute to the distinguished 

 services he rendered his state. There is 

 such a thing as leadership, known and rec- 

 ognized among men, and the members of 

 this body, irrespective of party, accorded 

 to George Ross leadership. Although we 



have scarcely passed the threshold of this 

 session, his absence is noticed and his coun- 

 sel is missed. " Mr. Ross stood deservedly 

 high in the counsels of his party. He was a 

 delegate to the national conventions of 

 1876. 1884. and 1892. He was the Demo- 

 cratic nominee for congress in the seventh 

 district in 1884, but was defeated at the 

 polls by Hon. Robert M. Yardley. He w^as 

 also the caucus nominee of his party for 

 the Um'ted States senate in 1893. He was 

 deeply interested in the local institutions 

 of his county and district was one of the 

 original directors of the Bucks County 

 Trust Company, and its president at the 

 time of his death. He was also a trustee 

 of the Norristown Insane Asylum until 

 his death. He died at his home in Doyles- 

 town, November 19, 1894. The disease 

 which caused his death had given his fam- 

 ily and friends much concern for probably 

 a year. The state senate, of which he was 

 a member at the time of his death, ap- 

 pointee' a committee of five to draft resolu- 

 tions expressive of the sense of that body 

 upon his death, and fixed a special session 

 on January 23, 1895, to receive and con- 

 sider the report of such committee. At 

 this special session the resolutions adopted 

 and the speeches of his colleagues show 

 the merited appreciation of his public ser- 

 vices and private virtues. We quote from 

 one of these speeches the following : "Our 

 friends was not of humble origin, nor could 

 he boast of being wholly a self-made man. 

 He had great advantages, coming ^rom a 

 long line of distinguished ancestors, a race 

 of lawyers, some of whom had worn the 

 judicial ermine; he had the benefits of a 

 most liberal education, and claimed the 

 famous college of Princeton for his alma 

 mater. This scion of one of the most il- 

 lustrious families of Pennsylvania, in 

 whose veins flowed some of the best blood 

 in this grand old Keystone state, worthy 

 of his origin, was a prince among men." 



George Ross married, December 4, 1870, 

 Ellen Lyman Phipps, a daughter of George 

 W. Phipps, of Boston, Massachusetts. The 

 children of this marriage are : Thomas, 

 born September 16, 1873 : Elizabeth P., 

 George ; Ellen P., I\Iary ; Gertrude. 



Thomas, the eldest son, was educated at 

 Lawrenceville and Princeton, and gradu- 

 ated at Princeton in the class of 1895. He 

 studied law under the preceptorship of Hon. 

 Harman Yerkes, and was admitted to the 

 bar December, 1897. He formed a partner- 

 ship with his father's old partner, J. Ferd- 

 inand Long, which terminated with the 

 death of the latter in January, 1902. 



George Ross was born May 28, 1879. He 

 graduated at Lawrenceville in 1896 and at 

 Princeton in 1900. He studied law with 

 his brother Thomas at Doylestown and at 

 the University of Pennsylvania Law School 

 and was admitted to the bar December 22, 

 1902. and entered into partnership with his 

 brother. In 1904 Hon. Harman Yerkes be- 

 came a member of the firm. 



