"Portrait and Biographical Record of Hunterdon and Warren counties, New Jersey"
Chapman Publishing Company, New York and Chicago, 1898
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J. MITCHELL REESE, M. D., president of
the board of education in Phillipsburg, is one
of the representative citizens of Warren
County, and stands high in social, professional
and business circles of this portion of the state.
His influence and material aid are always given to
the promotion of the welfare of his fellow-citizens,
and that he is very popular with them is well
manifested by the fact that though this is a
Democratic locality, he has been kept for years
in office as a member of the board of education,
being elected on the Republican ticket. The subject of better school advantages for the rising generation is one in which all good citizens should
be actively interested, as he believes, and in this
direction lies the solving of many of the most
serious questions that now confront us as a nation. For this reason, if no other, it is the duty
of every patriot and lover of America to uphold
the hands of those who are seeking to elevate
the public-school system.
A native of Phillipsburg, born July 27, 1858,
Dr. J. Mitchell Reese has always been thoroughly
interested in and identified with the progress and
upbuilding of the town. His father, Adam
Reese, was a man of great genius and executive
ability, and, had he been afforded the opportunities for an education that are now open to every
child at this day, he would have made a grand
success of his life in a financial way. However,
in spite of unusual difficulties which he encountered, he was fairly prosperous, and was a
man of undoubted influence. He established a
plant in Phillipsburg for the manufacture of farm
machinery and was a pioneer in this line.
Among many other valuable inventions and
improvements which he brought forth for the
benefit of the world was the original self-raking
harvesting machine, and the now rich and powerful McCormicks owed much to his genius, as they
bought some of his most practical patents, and
proceeded to manufacture the machines that have
since wrought a complete revolution in the
methods of agriculture. He was very liberal and
enterprising and Phillipsburg owes much to him.
An ardent Republican, he was enthusiastic for
the success of his party, but would never accept
official honors. One of the founders and most
active members of the First Presbyterian Church
of this place, he occupied many of the official
positions in its management and was a generous
contributor to its work. His busy and useful life
came to a close in June, 1897, and with deep regret and earnest sense of loss his fellow townsmen
mourn his absence from the place he filled so long
and well among them. His father and two uncles
were early settlers just across the Delaware River
in Pennsylvania. The wife of Adam Reese,
whose maiden name was Rachel Arnold, was a
daughter of Thomas Arnold, of Easton, Pa. She
died in 1884, and of their four children three survive: the doctor; Alice, wife of William Ashmore, agent for the New Jersey Central, in this
place; and Adam Reese, train dispatcher for the
same corporation.
Dr. J. Mitchell Reese, after completing his public-school education in Phillipsburg, was a student
in Lafayette College, Easton, Pa. His inclinations seeming to lie in the direction of the practice of the healing art, he took up preliminary
work under the guidance of Dr. J. F. Shepherd,
of this place, and graduated from Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York City, in 1883.
Since that time he has been actively engaged in
practice here at his old home. He has been
president of the Warren County Medical Society,
and is still a member, and is connected with the
Lehigh Valley Medical Association and the New
Jersey Medical Society. Under the administration of President Harrison he served four years
as a member of the board of pension examiners
for the fourth congressional district. For many
years he has been surgeon for the Pennsylvania
and Delaware, Lackawanna & Western lines at
Phillipsburg. During a period of several years
he was a member of the county Republican committee and fourteen years has served as a member of the board of education, all but four years
of this time having been its president. He belongs to the Ancient Order of United Workmen
and is medical examiner for the same. A Knight
of Pythias, he has been very prominent in that
order, having passed all the chairs, and now being
a member of the Uniform Rank. The doctor
was the captain of Ortygia Division three years,
at the end of which time he was elected colonel
of the Second Regiment, K. of P. , of the state.
In February, 1896, he was further honored by
being elected brigadier-general of the New Jersey Brigade, U. R. His uniformly agreeable
and courteous manners and his pleasing personality win for him scores of friends wherever he
goes, and his true and sterling worth is a matter of general comment by those who know him.
The marriage of Dr. Reese and Miss Emma
Scammell, daughter of John Scammell, of Trenton, N. J., was solemnized in April, 1S95. Mrs.
Reese comes of an old and honored family; one
of her ancestors is mentioned in history as an
aide to General Washington. To the doctor and
his estimable wife has been born a daughter,
Dorothy Arnold.
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