Biographical Sketch of Antoine Bolmar (1797-1861); Chester County, PA

Contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by John Morris <jmcdmorris@comcast.net>.

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Source: "Biographical and Portrait Cyclopedia of Chester County, Pennsylvania, 
comprising a historical sketch of the county", by Samuel T. Wiley and edited by 
Winfield Scott Garner, Gresham Publishing Company, Philadelphia, PA, 1893, pp. 
563-564.

"Antoine Bolmar, who has been for a number of years in the employ of the 
Pennsylvania Railroad Company at Philadelphia, is a son of the distinguished 
French scholar and educator, Jean Claude Antoine Brunin de Bolmar, and was born 
at West Chester, Chester county, Pennsylvania, September 1, 1842.  His boyhood 
was spent in West Chester, and his education was obtained in his father's 
academy at that place.  On December 21, 1865, Mr. Bolmar was united in marriage 
to Antoinette R. Worthington, a daughter of Carver Worthington, of that borough, 
and to them were born three children, two sons and one daughter: Eugene A., who 
resides at St. Paul, Minnesota; Carver Worthington, deceased; and Anne S., who 
became the wife of Robert Hamill Newlin, of West Chester.

Jean Claude Antoine Brunin de Bolmar, or Anthony Bolmar, as he came to be called 
at West Chester, was born in 1797, at Bourbon Lancy, a small town in the 
department of Saone-et-Loire, Lower Burgundy, France.  In 1810 he entered the 
Imperial lyceum of Clermont-Ferrand, where he remained until after the downfall 
of Napoleon I, in 1815, and the following year went to the city of Lyons, where 
he began learning the silk business as an apprentice with the famous firm of 
Cordier & Co.  There he remained until nearly twenty-one years of age, and as at 
that time he would have to draw his lot in the class of conscripts for 1819, he 
quit the silk business and enlisted in the French army, in order to secure the 
privilege of choosing the regiment with which he would serve.  He selected the 
6th Hussars, then commanded by Compte de Pernollet, of Lyons, served in the war 
of 1822 between France and Spain, and after six year in the army, again entered 
civil life.  About 1826 he went to Switzerland, and from there to England and 
Scotland, and early in 1828 came to the United States and settled in 
Philadelphia.  There he engaged in teaching the French language, and in the 
preparation of text books adapted to that purpose, not less than six or eight of 
which were published and widely used.  When the Asiatic cholera made its 
appearance in Philadelphia in 1832, Mr. Bolmar retired to the borough of West 
Chester to continue his work on his school books, and was so pleased with the 
place that he remained a resident ever afterward.  In 1834 he was prevailed on 
to take charge of the West Chester academy, which sprung at once in to wide 
popularity, and in 1840 he purchased the elegant building in which Mrs. Almira 
H. Lincoln's boarding school for young ladies had been conducted, and opened 
therein a boarding school for young men and boys.  This school speedily became 
one of the most popular and flourishing educational institutions in the State, 
securing almost a world-wide celebrity and attracting students from many distant 
points, especially from the Southern States, the West Indies and South America.  
The energetic principal was regarded as the Napoleon of teachers, and educated 
many thousand of boys and young men, numbers of whom afterward distinguished 
themselves in different walks of life.  He was noted for the strict discipline 
he maintained, and the semi-military exactness which characterized all his 
methods.  He continued to conduct the establishment until 1859, when some 
business concerns required his presence in France, and the seminary was closed 
to allow him to visit his native land.  On his return he attempted to re-open 
his school but his shattered health, which had been sensibly declining for some 
time, prevented the accomplishment of his purpose, and he died February 27, 
1861, aged sixty-four years.  Before he settled in West Chester he had married 
Adelaide Williams, and by that union had a family of ten children, two of whom 
died in infancy.  Those who attained maturity were: Charles H., a resident of 
Topeka, Kansas, who has been elected and served one term as a member of the 
legislature of that State; Antoinette, E. M. C., S. P., Antoine, Henry C., now 
connected with the World's fair management in Chicago; Sophie Picot, married 
Jacob Heffelfinger, now deceased; and Lucy, who became the wife of Rufus T. 
Chaney, now connected with the navy department at Washington."