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WILLIAM SICKLES BANTA
Originally published in 1900 |
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WILLIAM SICKLES BANTA was for many years one of the leading
citizens of Hackensack. He was a lineal descendant of Epke Jacob Banta,
who was born in Harlingen, West Friesland, Holland, and who sailed from
Amsterdam in the ship " De Trouw," for America, February 13, 1659, He
settled in what is now Bergen County, N. J., and became one of the Judges
of the Oyer and Terminer in 1679. Ian (John) Banta, one of his direct
descendants, located at Pascack, in Washington Township, about 1750, and
died there, being succeeded by his eldest son, Hendrick Banta, who was
born May 27, 1749. The latter died February 15, 1503, leaving about five
hundred acres of land in Bergen County which was divided among his five
sons. He also had three daughters. His son, Henry H. Banta, born at
Pascack, September 30, 1784, was a shoemaker by trade, but spent his
active life as a farmer and merchant. In 1832 he removed to Hackensack,
and with his brother Tennis carried on a general mercantile business until
his death in February, 1849. He was Postmaster of Hackensack for several
years, ranked as Adjutant in the State militia, was a Justice of the
Peace, and by appointment served as a Lay Judge of the Court of Common
Pleas of Bergen County from 1829 to 1834 and 1838 to 18.48. He married
Jane, daughter of William Sickles, of Rockland County, N. Y., who died
in 1870, aged seventy-six. She was descended from Zacharias Sickles, who
came originally from Vienna, Austria, to Holland, and thence to Curacoa,
one of the West India Islands, where he met Governor Peter Stuyvesant,
with whom he came to New York and thence in 1655 to Albany. Zacharias
Sickles is regarded as the common ancestor of the Sickles family in America.
Judge Henry A. Banta had three children: Margaret (deceased), William
S., and Jane (Mrs. John de Peyster Stagg). William S. Banta was born in Pascack, Bergen County, December 12, 1824. He was educated in the public schools and at the private classical school of Rev. John S. Mahon, in Hackensack, and was graduated from Rutgers College in 1844. He read lau with Hon. A. O. Zabriskie, of Hackensack, and was admitted to the bar of New Jersey as an attorney in October, 1847, and as a counselor in April, 1851. He subsequently became a Special Master in Chancery and a Supreme Court Commissioner. In the spring of 1848 he opened an office in Hackensack, where he continued in successful practice until his retirement from the more active duties of the profession in 1868. During this period of twenty years he established a wide reputation as an able and painstaking lawyer. He was Prosecutor of the Pleas of Bergen County from 1860 to 1868, when he resigned. In 1872 he was appointed Law Judge of the County of Bergen to fill the unexpired term of Judge Green, and on April 1, 1873, he was re-appointed for a full term of five years. In 1879 Governor McClellan appointed him Associate Judge of the same court, and he served in that capacity until the expiration of his term in 1884. Judge Banta, on leaving the bench, retired from the active duties of his profession and afterward devoted his time largely to the care of his private interests. He was widely recognized for his sound judgment, strict integrity, and knowledge of the law. In educational matters he was especially prominent. He was School Superintendent of New Barbadoes, Bergen County, under the old law, and afterward was appointed, with Rev. Alber Amerman, one of the Board of Examiners for teachers of public schools by the Bergen County Board of Chosen Freeholders, a position he held for several years. In 1862 Governor Olden appointed him commissioner of the draft of the County of Bergen, in accordance with orders of the general government, and in this capacity he carried out in a highly creditable manner the provisions of the order by making an enrollment of all persons in the county liable to military duty. Within a month of the time appointed for the draft several companies volunteered, thus filling the quota required for Bergen County. This was a part of the machinery of the State inaugurated and set in motion by Governor Olden, who was pre-eminently the War Governor of New Jersey, and who more than any other man established that system which it was impossible to reverse and which ranked the State among the first in the Union during the entire Rebellion. Judge Banta was also Deputy Internal Revenue Collector for the County of Bergen during a part of the war period. He was a member of the Hackensack Improvement Commission, for several years President of the Hack ensack Gas Light Company, and for a long time Secretary of the old Bergen County Mutual Insurance Company. He died May 7, 1900. May 30, 1850, Judge Banta married Sarah, daughter of John and Caty Ann (Hopper) Zabriskie, of Hohokus, N. J., who died in 1853, leaving a son who died in infancy. In May, 1861, he married her sister, Adelia, who died in 1869. March 16, 1876, he was married to Jane Anne, daughter of Abraham H. and Maria (Anderson) Berry, of Hackensack, and a lineal descendant of John Berry, one of the original patentees of Bergen County. She died February 6, 1900, in the seventy-first year of her age.
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