NYPL RESEARCH LIBRARIES
3 3433 08254171 9
THE
NEW YORK PUBLIC LIBRARY
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PRESENTED BY
Arthur Emmons Pearson
|[ November 3, 1919
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
Microsoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/biographicalhistmass02elio2
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JBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
tilde: dations
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Biographical History of
Massachusetts
Biographies and Autobiographies of the
Leading Men in the State
Samuel Atkins Eliot, A.M., D.D.
Editor-in-Chief
Volume II
With opening chapters on
Massachusetts Ideals
By Hon. John Davis Long
MASSACHUSETTS BIOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS
l9n
PUBLIC LIB:
A?TP,R, LENOX AND
TILDEi. I .TIONS
r 1919
Copyrighted, 1911, by
Massachusetts Biographical Society
All rights reserved
• '• ,
THE • PLIMPTON • PRESS • NORWOOD ■ MASS • U ■ S ■ A
CONTENTS. VOL. II
BIOGRAPHIES AND FULL PAGE PORTRAITS
ENGRAVED ON STEEL
SAMUEL NELSON ALDRICH
LEWIS DEWART APSLEY
WALTER IRVING BADGER
HENRY ALBERT BAKER
ALBERT GILMAN BARBER
WALTER CABOT BAYLIES
SIDNEY OSBORNE BIGNEY
CORNELIUS N. BLISS
CHARLES HENRY BOND
JOSEPH ABRAHAM BOWEN
GEORGE FLINT BRADSTREET
HENRY KING BRALEY
ELLIS BRETT
ARTHUR TRACY CABOT
ERLON RIENZI CHADBOURN
ARTHUR EDWARD CHILDS
ROBERT PARKER CLAPP
BENJAMIN WILLIS CURRIER
SAMUEL SILAS CURRY
JOSIAH STEARNS CUSHING
ORLANDO HENRY DAVENPORT
ROBERT THOMPSON DAVIS
CHARLES ADDISON DENNY
DANIEL DORCHESTER
AMOS WARREN DOWNING
HENRY ENDICOTT
GEORGE FRANCIS FABYAN
EVERETT OLIN FISK
JOHN DEXTER FLINT
ASA FRENCH
ASA PALMER FRENCH
ALFRED DWIGHT GLEASON
THOMAS HENRY GOODSPEED
WILLIAM HENRY GOVE
THOMAS NORTON HART
EDWARD HOWARD HASKELL
HENRY WILLIAMSON HAYNES
HORACE CARTER HOVEY
CHARLES RICHARD HUNT
WILLIAM EDWARDS HUNTINGTON
FREEDOM HUTCHINSON
THEOPHILUS KING
ELISHA BURR MAYNARD
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MELLOR
JAMES SMILEY MURPHY
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL
HENRY NEWHALL
HENRY PHILLIPS OAKMAN
CONSTANTINE O'DONNELL
ROBERT TREAT PAINE, 2d
WILLIAM FRANKLIN PALMER
HENRY WAYLAND PEABODY
HENRY SPALDING PERHAM
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
JOSEPH GORDON RAY
DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT
AUGUSTUS ELWIN SCOTT
FREDERICK JESUP STIMSON
EDWARD EVERETT THOMPSON
FRANCIS M. THOMPSON
WILLIAM A. TOWER
STEPHEN MINOT WELD
GEORGE WARREN WEYMOUTH
HORACE MANN WILLARD
CHARLES BRANCH WILSON
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW
INTRODUCTION
MASSACHUSETTS IDEALS
IT is not a great fault, but it is certainly an incompleteness, that
we are forever basing our estimate of our dear old Common-
wealth on the fame of a comparatively few conspicuous names.
We ring the changes on those of a score or two of orators, poets,
and literary lights, forgetting that their prominence is only a little
above that of the average of the higher and better culture and ser-
vice of the great mass of our vanguard. It is not unlikely that to
many minds the first suggestion on reading these biographical
sketches is that they are of men of no wide-spread fame, but of local
repute and not likely to have lasting records.
But while this may be true, the fact is that it is they who really
represent the true Massachusetts ideal. Of the especially conspicu-
ous men of our time, not half a dozen names, if even so many, will
outlast the oblivion of the next fifty years.
Recently to a stenographer, an intelligent young lady, graduate
of the high school in a neighboring city, I dictated a letter in which
I used the name of John A. Andrew. Forty-five years ago he was
the most prominent man in our Commonwealth. What was my
surprise when she gave me her cop}^ to find the name written " Johnny
Andrew" she evidently thinking I had referred to some schoolboy.
I said to her: "Do you not know who John A. Andrew was?" She
replied that she had never heard of him.
Probably if a generation hence some mouser, even an ordinarily
well-informed one, shall run across this present volume and haply
read what I now write, he will pause and knit his brow and say to
himself: "Well, who was John A. Andrew?" What will last and
will have its vital influence on the future of our civilization is the
aggregate power of the moral, intellectual and industrial forces
which make Massachusetts to-day a tremendous factor in the world's
progress.
INTRODUCTION
And these are finding expression in the lives of her leading though
not especially conspicuous men — men who all over her area, in busy
cities and in rural villages, promote industrial enterprises, develop
resources, improve transportation and the comforts of living, put
out the products of improved agriculture and manufacture, culti-
vate the refinements of the homes alike of ease and labor, teach,
write, cure, comfort, minister, and serve in every walk or profession.
The ideals of Massachusetts are illustrated too in the striking
fact that these sketches are not of any one class or station or calling.
They are of men born with silver spoons in their mouths and of men
who went barefoot in their boyhood — men who have had all the
advantages of college training yet not been spoiled by it, and men
who, though they hardly ever saw the inside of a schoolhouse, have
yet made equal mark. It only needs that there should be added
to the list due representation of the Massachusetts women who have
so abundantly leavened the lump and who in every avenue and
phase of life have inspired and refined the atmosphere, helped in
the common work, and especially held high the ideals.
I suppose that a hundred years ago the ideals of Massachusetts
would have been looked for in the three learned professions, law,
medicine, and the pulpit. In each of these there has been a tre-
mendous advance. The range of the lawyer was then much nar-
rower. He dealt and dealt soundly with questions of constitutional
law and the fundamentals of commercial and real estate law. But
since then the marvelous development of science and the magic of
invention have vastly widened the area of his profession and made
a new field for the application of legal principles to the infinitely
ramifying conditions of modern times. Instead of the all-round,
old-fashioned lawyer, whose practice embraced everything from
a five-dollar slander suit to an opinion on the power of Congress,
we have now the specialist in every branch of legal inquiry. There
are few eloquent speeches to juries. Rhetoric is at a discount.
Plain, direct, pointed argument and statement have taken its place.
If Rufus Choate were in practice to-day not many would go into
the court-room to hear him. Best of all, the manners of the lawyer,
which then were brutal and browbeating, have become towards
one another and towards witnesses and the court those of the
gentleman. And this betterment is due not a little to some of the
men whose sketches are in the volumes of this work.
INTRODUCTION
The advance of the ideals in medicine and surgery, in the train-
ing of physicians, in the qualifications required for their admission
to practice, in the results of their beneficent skill and in the speciali-
zation of their practice, are still more striking — even marvelous.
In the pulpit the old theology in every denomination has been
liberalized to a degree that would make its reappearance as quaint
and antiquated as that of Rip Van Winkle after his twenty years'
sleep. The test of a man's religion is no longer in his professional
faith but in his conduct of life. The recent notable religious revival
in Boston was a distinct and cheering advance on the past in its
insistence on personal righteousness in living. This liberalizing
tendency is the significant thing in the present ideals not alone
of this but of the other professions. The mind is open as never
before to new light from whatever source it may break.
But the three learned professions no longer absorb the first place.
We look for the ideals of Massachusetts also in commercial and
industrial lines — in her traders, manufacturers, mechanics and,
to the honor of our time, in her labor. The standards in all these
have steadily advanced. Of course, the standard is always higher
than the individual practice of the units which march under it.
Cheating, lying, shirking, and all the foxes that would spoil the
vines are, as they always have been and will be till the millennium,
pests incident to human nature. But the most helpful thing
to-day is the persistence and relentlessness with which all these are
ferreted out and brought to shame and punishment. The public
conscience is wide awake to them. No finer ideal exists among us
than that which not brave leaders alone but the public opinion at
large is enforcing. It had a great impulse in the transcendental
movement in the later half of the last century which flowered in
Massachusetts, and especially in the antislavery crusade which —
perhaps more easily because it dealt with the mote in our brother's
eye and not in our own — stirred everywhere the moral sentiment
of our people to a heat that is not yet lost but is still a warming
precedent to which we turn. Our poets have been a notable factor
in the idealization of Massachusetts, the poets of freedom, of nature,
and of human sympathies — doing their work so well that, with
the passing of the occasion for them, there are none now. George T.
Angell, just gone to his rest, has spread the mantle of Christian
brotherhood over the dumb animals and made them kin.
INTRODUCTION
In education the ideals of Massachusetts have always been high,
from the time when in 1647 the colony voted that every town should
maintain a public school and every one of one hundred families a
grammar school. Education is as boundless and free as the air.
The public school is an alembic in which will be distilled from our
influx of foreign elements the pure waters of our republican citizen-
ship. At the North End of Boston, where the Irishman supplanted
the Yankee and in turn has been supplanted by the Jew, the Italian
and the Russian, and where, at the grammar school graduating exhi-
bitions to-day, the children of these last constitute the whole gradua-
ting class, the observer cannot distinguish them in their dress, their
manner, their spirit, their culture or their patriotism from the pupils of
any purely native school. They sing America and The Star Spangled
Banner; and their thoughts, their ideals, their spirit and tone are
all American. Our schools of high grade, our normal schools, tech-
nical schools, colleges, are the universities of the common people.
Industrial education is rapidly supplying the greatly disproportion-
ate lack which a too purely academic education was in danger of
causing. Our teachers of all grades share with the church minis-
ters a vital, wholesome, intellectual, and moral influence over the
community. There are no very brilliant literary lights, of which
we used to boast a few, but literary culture is more universal, and
if at a more common level it is an advanced level. Almost any
schoolboy or schoolgirl, ambitiously alive in that line, can write as
good poems as appear in the magazines.
Indeed education and labor have gone forward, hand in hand,
and this comradeship is ideal. Not only have the conditions of
labor been softened but all its accompaniments in the line of
living, home-refinement, amusements, books, libraries, music and
self-respect, are indistinguishable from those of wealth. The divid-
ing line is not between rich and poor, but between those who adopt
the fine standards of life and those who do not, between good taste
and bad taste, between good manners and bad manners. All that is
worth having and that truly conduces to the best and happiest life
is open to all.
The ideals of Massachusetts are high and noble. The need is
not so much as to them as it is to the conduct and practice of the
individual in living up to them. In that respect there is indeed
unlimited cause for vigilance and improvement. Our frame of
INTRODUCTION
government is a perfect democracy. Yet under it are often graft
and prostitution of public office and infidelity to trust, from all
which the ideal is calling in trumpet tones. The simple life is the
text, and the ideal is not riches and ostentation, but good health,
good habits, a clear conscience, industrious occupation, modest
income, simple tastes and a contented spirit. Yet often extrava-
gance and waste and dissipation of time and character fail to follow
or even to think of this ideal.
But good examples abound. The great mass of the people lead
healthy, honest lives and look upward to the serenities. The ideals
go before like the cloud by day and the flame by night; and these
biographical sketches, taken from the body politic at large, and
reflected in the lifelike portraits which give them a more enduring
vitality, exemplify their embodiment.
: rUbj
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SAMUEL NELSON ALDRICH
SAMUEL NELSON ALDRICH was born at Upton, Massachu-
setts, February 3, 1838. He died at his summer home in
Lynn, Massachusetts, September 27, 1908. His father was
Sylvanus Bucklin Aldrich and his mother Lucy Jane (Stoddard)
Aldrich. Like many successful men he recognized the helpful influ-
ence of his mother upon his intellectual, moral and spiritual life.
He had difficulties in obtaining an education through sickness and
lack of funds. He attended Worcester Academy and the South-
ampton Commercial Academy. He entered Brown University,
but after two years was obliged to leave college on account of his
health. He taught school at Upton, Holliston, and Worcester,
and then took up the study of law with Hon. Isaac Davis and E. B.
Stoddard at Worcester, and also at the Harvard Law School.
In 1863 he was admitted to the Bar and began the practice of
his profession at Marlborough, Massachusetts, from 1863 to 1874,
after which time he had an office in Boston while retaining his res-
idence at Marlborough, where he had a prominent part in the polit-
ical affairs of the town. He served on the school committee for
nine years, and for several years was chairman of the board. For
four years he was one of the selectmen, and he held other impor-
tant offices in the town. He was a director in the Peoples Bank of
Marlborough and president of the Board of Trade. He was also
president of the Framingham & Lowell railroad and of the Mass-
achusetts Central railroad. He was vice-president of the American
Surety Company of New York, a director of the Boston Merchants
Association, and also a director of the Boston & Maine Railroad
Company.
In 1879-80 he was elected to the Senate of Massachusetts from
the Fourth Middlesex district, and served as chairman of the Com-
mittee on Taxation, and also as a member of the committee on
bills in the third reading, on federal relations and on constitutional
amendments. In 1880 he was returned to the Senate, and served
81&869
SAMUEL NELSON ALDRICH
with efficiency on the same committees as in the previous year, also
on the committee on the judiciary. In 1883 he was a member of
the House of Representatives. In 1880 he was Democratic candi-
date for Congress from the old eleventh district of Massachusetts,
but was defeated by the Hon. William Russell of Lawrence. In
March, 1887, by appointment of President Cleveland, he became
Assistant Treasurer of the United States at Boston. He resigned
in 1890 to become president of the State National Bank of Boston,
and he continued in this office until the close of his life. In the
public stations which he filled he was active and influential; a good
debater and a wise administrator. He was a member of the Algon-
quin Club, Athletic and Art Clubs of Boston, and was treasurer of
the latter club for many years.
He was married at Upton, September 15, 1865, to Mary J. Mac-
farland. Their only child is Harry M. Aldrich, who follows his
father's profession in Boston.
This is an outline of a life of integrity and rich usefulness.
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
riLDEN FOUNDATIONS
LEWIS DEWART APSLEY
ONE of the born business leaders that, coming from a sister
State, has gained full development on the favored soil of
Massachusetts, is Lewis Dewart Apsley, who took a prom-
inent part in national affairs for several years, and is now at the
head of one of the most important rubber goods industries in Amer-
ica.
His grandfather, William Apsley, came from England to the
United States in 1800, and settled in Chestertown, Kent County,
Maryland, where, March 8, 1805, he married Susan Meeks. They
had five children. Of these, the youngest, George Apsley, was
born March 13, 1818, married Anna Catherine, daughter of Conrad
and Anna (Bartleson) Wenck, emigrants from Germany and Hol-
land, respectively, who had settled in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania.
By this marriage there were five sons and a daughter. Mrs. Apsley
died December 9, 1893, but her husband is still living and in active
business in his ninety-second year, being a merchant at Lock Haven,
Pennsylvania. His longevity, as well as his success, may be attrib-
uted in no small degree to his industry, integrity, genial frankness,
and cheerful optimism under all circumstances.
Lewis Dewart Apsley was the fifth of the six children, and was
born at Northumberland, Pennsylvania, September 29, 1852. He
was nine years old when the family moved to Lock Haven. Here
he developed physical strength in out-of-door life, athletic sports
and games, of which he was fond, and spent some years in rudimen-
tary studies at public and private schools. He found the desire
for business so strong that he failed to appreciate the importance of
collegiate training. To him price-lists and catalogues afforded the
most helpful reading, and he can testify that such works — pro-
duced at a great outlay in time and money — have an educational
value that few realize or ever consider.
Following his own preference, he left school at the age of six-
teen, becoming a traveling salesman in Northern Pennsylvania.
LEWIS DEWART ASPLEY
His first experience was in selling tobacco and cigars on commission
for A. Ralph & Company, of Philadelphia, and commissions of more
than $150 for his first week drew immediate attention to his extraor-
dinary business ability. He was called to Philadelphia, where
he continued in the employment of this firm and others in the same
line for eight years. In 1876 he became assistant superintendent
of the department of boots, shoes, and rubber goods in John Wana-
maker's store in Philadelphia. In 1877 he resigned that position,
and, with a partner, engaged in trade for himself in the same line.
Soon selling out to his partner, he associated himself with the Gos-
samer Rubber Company of Boston. In this place he remained
until 1885, when he, with J. H. Coffin, of Boston, founded the Good-
year Gossamer Company, at Hudson, Massachusetts, and engaged
in the manufacture of rubber clothing. Enlarged three times
within five years, this factory quickly became the largest producer
of gossamer garments in the country. Purchasing his partner's
interest in 1892, he incorporated the business as the Apsley Rubber
Company, adding the manufacture of rubber boots and shoes. At
this time a site of sixteen acres had been acquired, and large brick
buildings, on a model plan, had replaced the wooden structures
burned a short time before.
His activities have extended to numerous organizations for the
promotion of trade. He was president of the Gossamer Manufac-
turers' Association in 1887; and in 1895 became president of the
New England Rubber Club. He organized the Rubber Manufac-
turing and Distributing Company in 1906, having distributing houses
in Chicago, Illinois, and in Seattle and Spokane, Washington. He
is more or less identified with other business institutions.
He is a devoted adherent of the Republican party, to which he
has rendered important service not only in affairs of the Common-
wealth but in those of the nation. In 1892 he was elected to the
Fifty-third Congress from the Fourth Congressional District of
Massachusetts. As a candidate for the Fifty-fourth Congress, he
was re-elected, and received a plurality of 8560 votes, which was
the largest gain made by any Congressman in the State. He served
on the Committees on Agriculture, Invalid Pensions and Labor.
In 1894 he was chosen vice-chairman of the Republican Congres-
sional Committee. In 1896 he was summoned by President Mc-
Kinley to Canton, Ohio, and was offered the chairmanship of that
LEWIS DEWART APSLEY
committee, but declined, urging the reappointment of Hon. Joseph
W. Babcock as chairman. He consented, however, to continue as
vice-chairman, and to share the responsibility for the campaign.
The knowledge and experience gained in the successful cam-
paign of 1894 led him to visit the Pacific Coast, armed with a letter
from Hon. Mark Hanna, chairman of the Republican National
Committee. He was cordially received, and was everywhere suc-
cessful in harmonizing discordant elements and in arousing enthu-
siasm for the principles of the party. His visit led the National
Committee to interest itself more than ever before in the campaign
on the Pacific Coast. He was highly complimented by the party
leaders for this work.
Mr. Apsley takes a loyal pride in Hudson, his adopted home
town, and loses no opportunity to promote its welfare and progress.
He represents numerous local interests besides the great manufac-
turing company of which he is president and treasurer. He is a
Unitarian, and lends his influence to the advancement of the pros-
perous Hudson church. Still retaining his liking for recreation of
energetic kind, he finds his keenest enjoyment in open air sports
and amusements.
He is a member of numerous and varied fraternal, social and
other organizations, including the Freemasons, Elks, Odd Fellows,
Knights of Pythias, Mystic Shrine, and Patrons of Husbandry. He
has long been a member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce. He
belongs also to various clubs, such as the Republican, Middlesex,
Norfolk, and Home Market.
Mr. Apsley married, November 5, 1873, Laura M., daughter of
John S. and Eliza Clark (Swain) Remington, and a descendant from
Richard Swain, who came from England to New England about
1640. Their only child died when six years old.
Mr. Apsley urges " establishing early in life high ideals and ambi-
tions, and endeavoring to attain them; doing such things, and only
such, as will command one's own respect and the respect of others."
Adherence to these principles, he affirms, will bring success.
WALTER IRVING BADGER
WALTER IRVING BADGER, corporation attorney and
lawyer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, January 15,
1859. His father, Erastus Beethoven Badger, was a son
of Daniel B. and Anne (Clarke) Badger and a descendant from Giles
Badger, who came from England to Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
about 1750. Erastus B. Badger married Fanny Babcock, daughter
of James and Fanny (Babcock) Campbell. He was a manufacturer
of copper and galvanized iron utensils and appliances and a man of
remarkable energy. Walter Irving Badger was a vigorous, athletic
child and youth, brought up in both the city and country and fond
of all kinds of sport. He played four years on the Yale University
football team and three years on the Varsity nine, being captain
of the latter. During his boyhood he was frequently called upon to
do his share of the work about the house as boys of his time were
accustomed to do. He was greatly influenced by the example and
disposition of his mother, who was in many ways an unusually strong
woman. His most helpful reading when a boy, he says, was such
biographies as the Life of Benjamin Franklin. After passing through
the Grammar and English High School in Boston he was fitted for
college at Adams Academy and matriculated at Yale University in
1878, graduating A.B. with the class of 1882. Having determined
to adopt the profession of law in conformity with the wishes of his
parents, combined with other favorable circumstances, he became
a clerk in the law office of Solomon Lincoln in 1882, and while serving
as a law clerk he took the regular course in the law school of Boston
University, graduating LL.B. 1885. In speaking of this period of
his life Mr. Badger credits the influence of home and contact with
men in professional life as the most important factors in influencing
his own career; school, and school companionship having less influ-
ence. His law practice included such clients as the Boston and Maine
Railroad; the Travelers Insurance Company; Henry H. Rogers of
New York City; the Boston Ice Company; the Boston Gas Light
pp -
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WALTER IRVING BADGER
Company; the Cudahy Packing Company; the United States Rubber
Shoe Company; the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company of Pittsburg,
Pa.; the United States Express Company, etc. He was attorney
for the gas company in the celebrated trial of the cases growing out
of the subway explosion of March 4, 1897 and also for Mr. H. H.
Rogers in the litigation growing out of the gas war in Boston. He
was married October 6, 1887, to Elizabeth Hand, daughter of Daniel
and Frances (Ansley) Wilcox, of New Haven, Connecticut, and the
two children born of this marriage are Walter Irving Badger, Jr., and
Grace Ansley Badger.
His political affiliation is with the Republican party and he never
changed his allegiance. He is a member of the Baptist denomina-
tion. His recreation is driving and yachting and his club member-
ship includes the University of Boston; the Exchange; the New
Algonquin; the Curtis; the Country Club of Brookline; the Univer-
sity of New York; the Yale of New York; the Eastern Yacht and
the Boston Yacht. To young men he says: " Honesty, integrity,
loyalty, application and unbounded energy, all are essential to sue-
HENRY ALBERT BAKER
HENRY ALBERT BAKER was born November 27, 1848, at
Newport, New Hampshire. His father, Rufus Baker, an
excellent type of the high-minded conscientious farmer,
faithful and industrious and noted for good citizenship, died in 1897,
at the age of seventy-six. He was a descendant of Captain Love-
well Baker who came to this country and settled in Pembroke, New
Hampshire. His mother was Mary E. George. By family connec-
tions he was allied also to the Lanes and Emersons, all good New
England stock.
As a farmer's son he was obliged to take part in the multifarious
labors that seem to have no end, but as his tastes were entirely on
mechanical lines he found the duties connected with the care of live
stock and the cultivation of the soil excessively distasteful and he
used to welcome stormy days when he might be free to work on his
beloved mechanical devices. Schooling was attended with many
difficulties: he had to walk three miles to school twice a day, but by
his zeal and enthusiasm for study he managed to get ready for the
medical department of Dartmouth College which he attended. He
began his life-work, the practice of dentistry, in 1873, later came to
Boston and graduated from the Boston Dental College in 1879, receiv-
ing the degree of Doctor of Dental Surgery. He was rewarded for
his work in the senior class with the first college prize. As he had
made up his mind definitely what profession to choose he naturally
found that books bearing on that specialty were of the greatest
assistance to him. In farming and the limited companionship which
an isolated home among the New Hampshire hills affords he had
comparatively little encouragement for higher pursuits, but as he
was possessed of an overmastering ambition to excel he read vora-
ciously and bent every effort to make his way.
Shortly after his graduation in April, 1879, his ability brought
him the honor of being chosen Demonstrator in Operative Dentistry
at the Boston Dental College. From 1880 until 1887 he was lee-
ij.d.s.
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HENRY ALBERT BAKER
turer on oral deformities in the same institution and during the past
two years he has given special lectures in the dental department
of Tufts College. Dr. Baker has never aspired to hold public office
but, imbued with the conviction that it is a man's duty to aid his
fellowmen in practising those pursuits to which he is most strongly
called, he has rather confined himself to his own profession, straining
every endeavor to gain a marked ability in fields of operation not
already attained by others. To these specialties he is now devoting
his entire time. As early as 1872 he was led to the invention of the
pneumatic mallet by a curious accident, so trifling that it seems
almost incredible. He happened to have in his hands a tube such as
boys use for bean-blowers. At the same time he had in his mouth
a round piece of candy which dissolved rapidly. He playfully put
one end of the tube between his lips and accidentally the candy slipped
into the tube. He covered the lower end of the tube with his finger
to prevent it from dropping. As soon as he felt it touch his finger he
sucked the candy back and to his surprise it flew up the tube with
such force that he thought he had fractured one of his front teeth.
He lay awake nearly all the following night trying to evolve a plan
to utilize the force so mysteriously concealed. The next morning
he was at the machine-shop bright and early and within three days
he had the pneumatic mallet complete. Ever since that time it
has been conceded by the profession to be a most ideal force for
condensing gold into the excavated cavities of the teeth.
Four years later, in 1877, he read before the Vermont State Dental
Society a paper descriptive of a new invention which he had evolved
for restoring normal features in artificial dentures. After the lapse
of still another four years, in 1881, he invented an artificial palate
for correcting imperfect speech. For two weeks he shut himself
up in his house, working nearly all the time day and night, allowing
himself very little sleep and giving strict orders that he should not
be disturbed by any one, and at last he succeeded in overcoming the
difficulties that stood in the way of perfecting this invention which,
as he felt sure in the beginning, would, if his endeavor succeeded,
revolutionize the whole treatment of this troublesome and humilia-
ting deformity. He succeeded in every point at stake and won the
proud distinction of being recognized by his profession as "standing
alone in this specialty." In 1893 Dr. Baker invented still another
most useful and beneficent device for correcting and overcoming
HENRY ALBERT BAKER
protruding and receding jaws. This also has been accepted by the
dental profession as placing the whole subject of Orthodontia on
an entirely new plane. It is known under the name of the " Baker
Anchorage." Amid all these exacting occupations Dr. Baker found
time in 1887 to contribute a chapter on " Obturators and Artificial
Vela" to the American System of Dentistry.
His services in the cause of his profession have won him many
honors. He is a member of the American Academy of Dental
Science, an honorary member of American Society of Orthodontists,
honorary member of the Vermont State Dental Society, and also
of the New Hampshire State Dental Society. In 1876 he called the
Vermont dentists together and formed a society of which he was
elected vice-president. This society now has an adequate law to
govern the practice of dentistry. He is a member of the Boston
Athletic Association, of the Bay State Automobile Club, of the
Highland Club of West Roxbury, and of the Massachusetts Rifle
Association of which he is a director. He holds the world's record
in rifle-shooting on the Columbia target. He has been president of
the Jamaica Plain and Dedham Sportsmen's Clubs. He has always
been a great advocate of out-of-door sports.
In November, 1874, he was married to Julia, daughter of F. F.
and Mary E. (Mower) Wills, whose ancestors were among the promi-
nent founders of Watertown. He has two sons: Lawrence Wills
Baker has adopted his father's profession, and is a member of the
teaching staff of the Harvard Dental School; the second son, War-
ren Stearns Baker, is still a Massachusetts Institute of Technology
student.
In reading the biography of this successful man, one could have
no doubt that his recommendation for achieving success in life would
be based principally on his own experience. "In selecting a life-
work," he says, "be sure to choose that which you are adapted to,
for failure is sure to follow one who is not qualified for what he
selects. All great men" he adds, "have made their success by work.
Idle men never become famous. After one has chosen wisely, strive
to be a leader in that work." It is certainly most inspiring for the
young to realize what a name a poor New Hampshire farmer's boy
may win for himself by decision, determination, unflagging industry
and a definite idea of what he wants to do. Such a life is open to
all who have the will and the ability.
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
ILL LATIONS
i.m - - —
ALBERT GILMAN BARBER
ALBERT GILMAN BARBER, one of the successful business
men of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was born in
Epping, New Hampshire, July 18, 1857. Hard work on a
farm was his early lot. Deprived of a mother's care at the age of
six, "I had to do my share of the work," he says, "from the age of
seven." This labor of the hands left its impress for good on him, and
he now says that he believes it a benefit to any boy to thus begin life.
Mr. Barber comes of old Colonial stock. The marked character-
istics of his father were industry, frugality and piety. His ancestor,
Robert Barber, came from England to Exeter, New Hampshire, in
1675. His father, James Pike Barber, a well-to-do farmer, married
Lucinda A. Jenness. He is on both sides of families whose members
have generally lived out more than the allotted years; his grand-
father on the one side, Daniel Barber, living from 1792 to 1876, and
James Jenness, born 1798, lived to 1866.
Circumstances directed the early occupation of Albert Gilman
Barber. His father's farm and the public schools of Epping were
the educators of his early years. He found that meeting men who
have lived out the strenuous way, was to him his highest stimulant
to success.
Mr. Barber's domestic life has been a happy one. New Year's
Day, 1880, brought to him his wife. She was Annie E. Skerrye,
daughter of Frederick and Susan (Starrett) Skerrye, of Liverpool,
Nova Scotia; a woman of influence, and highly esteemed by her
wide circle of friends. Of their two sons, Frederick Arthur is vice-
president and advertising manager of the Globe Optical Company,
and the other, Raymond Jenness, is a mining engineer. Three years
after his marriage, at the age of twenty-six, Albert Gilman Barber
left the farm, and coming to Boston entered into mercantile life.
He clung to his first choice and his first choice, the optical busi-
ness, clung to him, each bettered by the connection. He entered
the employ of John W. Sanborn & Company in 1888, and in .1889,
ALBERT GILMAN BARBER
ALBERT GILMAN BARBER, one of the successful business
men of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, was born in
Epping, New Hampshire, July 18, 1857. Hard work on a
farm was his early lot. Deprived of a mother's care at the age of
six, "I had to do my share of the work," he says, "from the age of
seven." This labor of the hands left its impress for good on him, and
he now says that he believes it a benefit to any boy to thus begin life.
Mr. Barber comes of old Colonial stock. The marked character-
istics of his father were industry, frugality and piety. His ancestor,
Robert Barber, came from England to Exeter, New Hampshire, in
1675. His father, James Pike Barber, a well-to-do farmer, married
Lucinda A. Jenness. He is on both sides of families whose members
have generally lived out more than the allotted years; his grand-
father on the one side, Daniel Barber, living from 1792 to 1876, and
James Jenness, born 1798, lived to 1866.
Circumstances directed the early occupation of Albert Gilman
Barber. His father's farm and the public schools of Epping were
the educators of his early years. He found that meeting men who
have lived out the strenuous way, was to him his highest stimulant
to success.
Mr. Barber's domestic life has been a happy one. New Year's
Day, 1880, brought to him his wife. She was Annie E. Skerrye,
daughter of Frederick and Susan (Starrett) Skerrye, of Liverpool,
Nova Scotia; a woman of influence, and highly esteemed by her
wide circle of friends. Of their two sons, Frederick Arthur is vice-
president and advertising manager of the Globe Optical Company,
and the other, Raymond Jenness, is a mining engineer. Three years
after his marriage, at the age of twenty-six, Albert Gilman Barber
left the farm, and coming to Boston entered into mercantile life.
He clung to his first choice and his first choice, the optical busi-
ness, clung to him, each bettered by the connection. He entered
the employ of John W. Sanborn & Company in 1888, and in 1889,
ALBERT GILMAN BARBER
with Mr. Sanborn, organized the Globe Optical Company, Mr. Bar-
ber acting as manager. Three years later he assumed the duties
of treasurer and general manager, and in 1902 was elected president
and treasurer.
In politics, Mr. Barber is a Republican and has never changed
his political or party allegiance. With a mind religiously inclined,
he early in life became a member of the Methodist Church, where in
his own city of Newton he is a prominent member. He is a Mason,
member of Sullivan Lodge, Epping, New Hampshire; is also a mem-
ber of R. A. Chapter and Gethsemane Commandery of Knights
Templars, of Newton, Massachusetts. Together with these Mr.
Barber is identified with the Methodist Social Union; Boston City
Club; Economic Club; New Hampshire Club, and American Asso-
ciation of Wholesale Opticians.
Living out a busy life, doing the good that may come within his
sphere to do, active in all that makes for good citizenship, still in
the prime of his manhood, he stands the exemplification of business
success by business means, ever directed by high and noble Chris-
tian standards. He is a man who has made himself — his own way
in the world, and that part of the world which comes within his
reach, knows and respects him for it. "To attain success in busi-
ness," he says, " a young man must first believe in himself. If he does
this, works hard and steadily, has confidence in his calling, be-
lieving that to him who masters it there is a great future, then he
cannot fail of success. All this comes if he takes care of his health,
is honest, industrious and has good habits."
IKE NET'
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTGR, LENOX
TILDE N FOUN DATION3 !
WALTER CABOT BAYLIES
WALTER CABOT BAYLIES, a leading Boston merchant and
corporation manager, was born August 13, 1862, at Taun-
ton, Massachusetts. His father was Edmund Lincoln
Baylies (May 18, 1829 to November 28, 1869), son of Edmund Bay-
lies (September 22, 1787, to May 16, 1878) and Elizabeth Ann (Pay-
son) Baylies; and married Nathalie E. Ray, daughter of Robert
Ray (July 14, 1794 to March 4, 1879) and Cornelia (Prime) Ray, of
New York City. His great-grandfather, General Hodijah Baylies,
was on the staff of General Washington, and married Betsy, the
daughter of General Benjamin Lincoln. He is a descendant of
Thomas Baylies, who came to Massachusetts from England in 1737,
and of John Ray, who left England soon after 1700, and settled in
New York City.
Home and school were undoubtedly the strongest influences in
molding his tastes, and aspirations, but his early companionship in
life out-of-doors also greatly affected his future. In 1877 he entered
Phillips Exeter Academy to fit for college, and in 1880 was admitted
to Harvard University, from which he graduated with the A.B.
degree in 1884.
At this time the railroads of the country were well launched upon
their period of extraordinary development. He had taken much
interest in railroading, which seemed to offer great opportunities,
and in the autumn of 1884, directly after graduation, he entered the
freight department of the Erie Railroad. About a year was spent
at Elmira, New York. He was then transferred to the general
office of the Erie Company in New York City, where he was made
chief clerk, and afterwards became assistant general freight agent.
The latter position he continued to hold until 1889, when he resigned
and removed to Boston.
In 1891 he associated himself with the Edison Illuminating Com-
pany of Boston, and was made its vice-president. About this time
he became connected with numerous other corporations, including
WALTER CABOT BAYLIES
the Boston and Lowell Railroad Company and the Taunton Copper
Company.
On January 1, 1896, he became partner in the dry goods com-
mission house of Amory, Browne & Company, selling agents for New
England and Southern cotton-mills. The mills represented have
kept in most successful operation, and their products have been
widely distributed.
Though the business of Mr. Baylies as a merchant has been so
important, he has not permitted it to monopolize his energies. He
has been particularly interested in the electric and gas light com-
panies of Boston. He has retained a leading part in the manage-
ment of the Edison Electric Illuminating Company, and has been
a director for fifteen years. He is also vice-president and chairman
of its executive committee. He is a director in the Boston Con-
solidated Gas Company; Commonwealth Trust Company; Gosnold
Mills Company; New England Trust Company; Newton and Water-
town Gas Light Company and president of the Boston and Lowell
Railroad. He is a trustee of the Suffolk Institute for Savings in
Boston; Massachusetts Gas Companies ; New England Gas and Coke
Company; also vice-president and director of the New England
Cotton Yarn Company and the Wellman Sole Cutting Machine Com-
pany. In Taunton he is a director in the Taunton-New Bedford
Copper Company.
He has always kept his residence in Taunton, having a home in Bos-
ton only during the winter months. He has a fine farm in the former
place, and has given much attention to its cultivation and improve-
ment, finding in it his favorite diversion from business cares. He was
president and director of the Bristol County Agricultural Society for
several years. In politics he is identified with the Republican party.
Mr. Baylies is socially inclined, and is a member of numerous clubs
in New York and Boston, being president of the Somerset Club of
Boston. He is affiliated with the Protestant Episcopal Church.
He was married November 17, 1888, to Charlotte Upham,
daughter of George P. and Sarah (Sprague) Upham, granddaughter
of Phinehas and Mary (Avery) Upham and Peleg and Sarah
(Sampson) Sprague, and a descendant of John Alden, of the little
band of settlers brought by the Mayflower to Plymouth in 1620.
Six children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Baylies — Lincoln,
Charlotte, George Upham, Walter Ray, Edmund and Ruth.
m&t.
SIDNEY OSBORNE BIGNEY
SIDNEY OSBORNE BIGNEY, sole proprietor of the great
manufacturing establishment of S. O. Bigney & Company of
Attleboro, Massachusetts, was born in Wentworth, Cumberland
County, Nova Scotia, November 4, 1854. He is the son of James
and Sarah Jane (Black) Bigney. On the paternal side he comes
from the old French Huguenot ancestry, being a lineal descendant
of Jean Henri Merle d'Aubigne, D.D., the eminent Swiss divine and
ecclesiastical historian, son of Louis Merle d'Aubigne. In 1823 Jean
Henri Merle d'Aubigne was appointed court preacher at Brussels;
after the revolution of 1830 declined the post of tutor to the Prince
of Orange; received his degree of D.C.L. from Oxford; was professor
of church history at Geneva, 1831, and filled the chair of church
history in the theological seminary until his death. Charles Fran-
cois d'Aubigne, the French engraver and painter, pupil of Edme
d'Aubigne, was associated with the famous Fontainebleau group
of painters, and belonged to a coterie of great masters of landscape
painting. Later the name was anglicised into the present form,
Bigney. Among those who bear the family name are Mark F.
Bigney, the poet, who was formerly managing editor of the New
Orleans Times; Dr. P. M. Bigney, of Cincinnati, a war veteran of
1862, and Major Thomas Oozsley Bigney, an historian and poet of
Colorado.
On the maternal side Colonel Bigney is of Scotch descent, and
a lineal descendant of Adam Black of Edinburgh, well known in
connection with Sir Walter Scott's works. Of this family were
James Black of Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, who was his party nominee
for President of the United States in 1872; Dr. Joseph Black, the
celebrated chemist, who succeeded Cullen in the chair of chemistry
at Edinburgh University ; and Jeremiah Sullivan Black, the emi-
nent jurist and attorney-general of the United States under Pres-
ident Buchanan in 1857 and Secretary of State in I860. The first
of this name to settle in Massachusetts was Henry Black, who was
SIDNEY OSBORNE BIGNEY
admitted freeman in 1645. William Black came from Haddersfield,
England, to Nova Scotia in 1774. He was born in Paisley, Scotland,
in 1727, whence he immigrated to England, and thence to Nova
Scotia, where he settled on a farm near the town of Amherst, Nova
Scotia, which is still occupied by some of his descendants. Among
his descendants are Charles Allan Black, M.D., Amherst, Nova
Scotia, born August 23, 1844, at Salem, Cumberland County, Nova
Scotia; and William Black, general superintendent of Wesleyan
Missions in British America.
The subject of this sketch received a good business education
in the schools of his native town. At the age of eighteen his am-
bitious nature manifested itself, and he determined to seek a wider
field than was afforded him at home. He came to North Attle-
boro, Massachusetts, and entered the employ of Draper, Pate, &
Bailey, and made a thorough study of the manufacture of jewelry.
After eight years of indomitable perserverance in the various de-
partments, under the most experienced workmen, he had acquired
complete and practical knowledge of the business, and in Decem-
ber, 1879, with C. A. Marsh, founded the firm of Marsh & Bigney,
and began the manufacturing of jewelry in the Stephen Richardson
building at North Attleboro, which, eighteen months later, was
completely destroyed by fire. The partners at once secured a shop in
the Robinson building at East Attleboro, and began getting out new
samples, and were again in the market on the opening of the sea-
son's trade. July, 1894, Mr. Bigney purchased his partner's inter-
est, and has ever since conducted the same under the firm style of
S. 0. Bigney & Company, of which he is the sole owner.
The particular branch of the industry which commands his
attention is the manufacture of ladies' and gentlemen's high-grade,
rolled plate and gold chains, and embraces a large and complete line
of original and unexcelled designs in lorgnettes, neck chains, silk
fobs and charms, with dainty trimmings. Massachusetts is the lead-
ing state in high-grade chain manufacture in the Union, and no
better evidence of the rapid development of the industry can be
found than that presented in the growth of S. 0. Bigney & Com-
pany. The unique trade-mark of the firm is composed of the initials
of Mr. Bignejr's name entwined in a horseshoe which is enclosed
within a triangle, and is emblematical of that good fortune which
has attended his fair dealings and business methods. The firm is
SIDNEY OSBORNE BIGNEY
one of long standing in the jewelry world, and the trade-mark is so
well known by all jobbers of the jewelry trade that it is a sufficient
guaranty for the excellent quality of the goods. Colonel Bigney
has now one of the most conveniently arranged, modern and up-
to-date factories in New England. It embraces about one half
mile of floor space, finely fitted offices, packing room and workshop,
equipped with all the latest improved machinery and appliances,
and in which a full complement of employees are now at work in
turning out large quantities of high-grade chains.
Mr. Bigney has been actively identified with the growth and
development of the town of Attleboro, and there is no spot on earth
to which he is more intensely loyal than to the state of his adoption.
It is not alone in the jewelry trade that he is known. He has taken
an active part during the last five years in politics, and has held
many important offices. Colonel Bigney, for thus he is best known
to the people of Massachusetts, in 1904 won a three-cornered contest
for delegate from the Fourteenth Congressional District of Massa-
chusetts to the National Republican Convention, and had the pleas-
ure of helping to nominate Theodore Roosevelt. In 1905 he was
elected to the governor's council from the Second Councilor District,
three other candidates already in the field having resigned in his
favor. In 1906 he became prominent as the advocate of a tariff'
policy which should have a fixed minimum rate which could not be
changed except by a vote of Congress, and a maximum rate which
the President might reduce or increase in accordance with the com-
mercial interests of the United States in dealing with the hostile
or friendly tariff provisions of other nations.
In the year 1908, when representatives of the delegation known
jocularly as "The Big Four at Large" were to be chosen to go to
the Republican National Convention, Colonel Bigney declared to the
people of Massachusetts in unmistakable terms, that "the time had
come when the Republican party should pass over some of its tem-
porary honors to the men who have helped to build up its industries,
instead of lavishing them upon men who are already burdened with
them. There should be one active business man on the "Big Four
at Large." As a result Senators Lodge and Crane, ex-Governor
John D. Long, and S. O. Bigney were duly elected as the four dele-
gates at large from Massachusetts. He was also selected to repre-
sent Massachusetts on the notification committee which notified
SIDNEY OSBORNE BIGNEY
Judge Taft of his nomination for the Presidency, at which time, in
a very neat speech, he presented to Judge Taft a life-size portrait
of himself as he appeared in full winter dress on his last visit to
the old Bay State. Mr. Bigney has become one of the best off-hand
speakers in Massachusetts. His eulogy on William McKinley in
1902, at the Opera House at Attleboro, before a large audience,
was highly complimented.
Colonel Bigney is an all-round athlete, fond of fencing and box-
ing and outdoor exercise. At the Attleboro factory he gets to
work promptly at or before seven o'clock in the morning, is on duty
all day and is generally the last to leave it at night. His office is
fitted up for business, but the walls are covered with pictures, en-
gravings and photographs, bearing witness to the cosmopolitan
and artistic temperament of the man.
Quick to say yes, he is equally ready to say no. Prompt in
decision, pleasant and courteous to employees and customers, Colonel
Bigney has a host of sincere friends and honest admirers. His
knowledge of the jewelry trade is comprehensive, as was shown
when the commercial treaty between France and the United States
had been negotiated and seemed likely to be ratified. Mr. Bigney is
a member of the Republican Club of Massachusetts; Home Market;
Middlesex (Boston) ; Central Club (Providence, Rhode Island) ; and
the West-Side (Attleboro). He is one of the most ardent admirers
of nature and a man whose sympathies easily respond to distress and
injustice. He is faithful in friendship, and full of tenderness for his
kindred, and is reckoned among the enterprising and substantial
citizens of Attleboro. He has one son, Harold Osborne Bigney,
who is actively engaged with him in the manufacture of jewelry.
His Attleboro house is magnificently furnished, and abounds in
evidences of the artistic and literary taste of its hospitable owner,
who delights to entertain his many guests. His stables were once
famous among the lovers of high-grade horses, and are still in keep-
ing with his establishment, but the automobile has taken the first
place in Colonel Bigney's estimation.
A motto appearing permanently on his business cards may sug-
gest the temper and turn of mind of the man toward the young
men of America:
"Eternal hustle, coupled with honesty and integrity, is the just
price of success."
7^S^7-z^^^
CORNELIUS N. BLISS
CORNELIUS X. BLISS, who for a generation has been identified
prominently with the business interests and civic life of Xew
York City, was born in Fall River, Massachusetts, January 26,
1S33. His father was Asahel Xewton Bliss, of Rehoboth, Massachu-
setts. His mother was Irene Borden Luther Bliss, of Fall River,
Massachusetts.
The family is of the old Devonshire stock, which in so many
fields of enterprise has made its mark upon the history of the Eng-
lish people. The first comers of the family in this country settled
at Weymouth. Massachusetts, about 1633. It was represented a
little later by Thomas Bliss, who was among the founders of the town
of Rehoboth.
The father of Mr. Bliss died during the boy's infancy, and his
mother re-married and removed to Xew Orleans. The son was
left in Fall River under the care of relatives and was educated there
in the public schools and in Fisk's Academy. When fourteen years
of age he joined his mother in Xew Orleans and. after studying for
about two years in the Xew Orleans High School, he began his busi-
ness career in the counting house of his step-father. Edward S. Keep.
In the fall of 1S4S he returned to Massachusetts and at once became
connected with the wholesale dry goods business, in which he even-
tually rose to a position of recognized leadership.
Mr. Bliss was first employed in Boston in the wholesale dry
goods house of James M. Beebe it Company, at that time one of
the largest importing and jobbing firms in the American trade.
He won his way to the front, through successive promotions, until
finally he became a partner of the reorganized firm. When this
firm was dissolved in 1S66, Mr. Bliss became a partner in the dry
goods commission house of John S. and Eben Wright <fc Company,
of Boston.
He later established a branch of this house in Xew York City.
the firm name being Wright. Bliss £ Fabyan. The fimi established
CORNELIUS N. BLISS
another branch in Philadelphia and Chicago and in 1881 changed
its name to the present form of Bliss, Fabyan & Company, Mr. Bliss
being the senior partner. The business which has been developed
by the firm is one of the most extensive in the commercial world.
The firm is agent for the output of many of the chief mills in the
United States, including the Pepperell, Androscoggin, Otis & Bates,
Boston Duck Company, Columbian Manufacturing Company, Cordis
Mills and the American Printing Company. Outside of his immedi-
ate business, Mr. Bliss has had an active part in many large enter-
prises of the metropolis. He has served as vice-president of the
Fourth National Bank; director of the Central Trust Company; of the
Equitable Life Assurance Company and Home Insurance Company
and several manufacturing companies in Massachusetts.
The extensive commercial interests of Mr. Bliss have not engrossed
him so completely as to leave little time for participation in public
affairs. In philanthropic and civic undertakings he has been a
wise counselor. Among the important public positions which he
has held are the following: governor, president and treasurer of
the society of the Xew York Hospital; president Xew England
Society; member of the Pan-American Conference; president of the
American Protective Tariff League; and president of the Union
League Club of Xew York City. He has been prominent for a
quarter of a century in the councils of the Republican party. He
was chairman of the New York Republican Committee, 1887-88;
and treasurer of the Xational Republican Committee in 1892, 1896,
1900, and 1904. He declined to be a candidate for governor of
New York in 1885 and in 1891. He was Secretary of the Interior
in the first cabinet of President McKinley, resigning in 1899. Mr,
Bliss is a member of the Congregationalist Church and is president
of the Board of Trustees of Broadway Tabernacle, New York City.
Mr. Bliss was married in Boston, March 30, 1859, to Elizabeth
Mary Plumer, daughter of Avery Plumer. They have two children,
Cornelius X". Bliss, Jr., and Elizabeth Plumer.
The career of Mr. Bliss is an inspiring example of steadfast fidelity
to the highest ideas of commercial integrity and public service. He
has combined the successful pursuit of business with a generous
devotion to the larger civic interests of city, state and nation. He
stands as a type of the finest leadership in American industry,
philanthropy and politics.
LIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
TTLDEN FOUNDATIONS
CHARLES HENRY BOND
CHARLES HENRY BOND was born in Cliftondale in the town
of Saugus, Massachusetts, on July 13, 1846. His grand-
father was Charles Milton Bond, and his father, Charles
Milton Bond, Jr. His mother's name was Mary Amerize. His
oldest immigrant ancestor was John Bond, of Newbury, Massachu-
setts, who was a Freeholder in 1641, and probably came from Corn-
wall, England.
Mr. Bond was a direct descendant from Joseph Bond, of New-
bury, who served in King Philip's War. There was nothing per-
haps to distinguish Mr. Bond in youth from the rank and file of
his mates save his love of music, which lasted to the day of his death.
As a boy he kept poultry and had a knack for making things; a
footstool which he made when only four years of age still survives.
His education was that of the common schools and later he attended
Speare's Commercial School of Boston. Like many another suc-
cessful New Englander, he was anxious to confer upon others the
benefits of which he had been deprived and he had ever a listening
ear and an open hand for young men and women struggling for an
education. His favorite authors were Dickens and Victor Hugo.
One book which he read repeatedly was "John Halifax, Gentle-
man," and later he bought and gave away scores of copies.
Mr. Bond entered the cigar business in 1863 at the age of seven-
teen, and continued in it until his death. His dominant character-
istic as a business man was his untiring energy and enterprise.
Both he and his partner were firm believers in printer's ink. Hon-
est goods and ample publicity finally made the name of Waitt and
Bond famous throughout the country. This house was among the
largest and best known cigar manufacturers in New England, and
so successful were they that both partners amassed ample fortunes.
Though a manufacturer and apparently immersed in trade, he was
never absorbed by his business. In temperament he was a natural
artist of refined taste. He might under other circumstances have
CHARLES HENRY BOND
developed into a musician or painter. This taste found expres-
sion in generous patronage of music and the drama.
In religion he was a Unitarian, being a member of the Second
Church of Boston, and served on both the Standing Committee of
the church and also on the Music Committee for many years.
Later in life he was much interested in Christian Science. In
pohtics he was a stanch Republican and occasionally took a hand
in practical pohtics, though not as an office-holder.
As a public-spirited citizen, he never failed to recognize his
responsibility to the community. In 1885 he founded the CHf ton-
dale Public Library and was president of the Library Association,
also serving for a time on the Saugus Water Board. He was also
president for many years of the Mutual Helpers Flower Work of
Boston, a member of the Boston Art Club, serving on its entertain-
ment committee, a member of the Tedesco Country Club, and a
trustee of the New England Conservatory of Music.
Mr. Bond may fairly be said to have had a passion for helping
young people. He gave prizes in the Saugus High School for over
twenty years, for a dozen years at the Wesleyan Academy at Wil-
braham, and later he gave prizes at the New Orleans University for
colored students, and aided students at St. Lawrence University.
Indeed, the number of students whom he aided directly and in-
directly would run into the thousands, some of whom have later
achieved national and international reputations. One of his favor-
ite methods was to find engagements in churches, lyceums, and
entertainment courses for gifted students of music and elocution,
and assume the cost himself, thus enabling the student to help him-
self by service in his own profession. Any church or charity could
always count upon Mr. Bond to furnish an entertainment at his
own expense, partly because he wanted to help the charity, but
more particularly because he wanted to help the young women or
young men who gave the entertainment.
Mr. Bond was twice married. His first wife was Martha A.
Morrison, of Lawrence, Massachusetts, in 1872, to whom were born
two children: Sara Augusta and Charles Wadsworth. His second
wife was Belle Bacon, of Washington, D. C. The children of this
marriage were Edith Louise, Mildred M., Kenneth Bacon, Charles
Lawrence, and Priscilla Isabelle. Mr. Bond's tastes were very
domestic and his family life particularly happy.
[C LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
TIONS
JOSEPH ABRAHAM BOWEN
AMONG the most honored and respected citizens of Fall
River is Joseph Abraham Bowen, coal merchant for more
than half a century, representative of a family closely
identified with the history and upbuilding of this flourishing
cotton-manufacturing city. He was born October 10, 1832, within
a few rods of his present home. His father was Abraham Bowen
(August 26, 1803, to January 24, 1889), son of Abraham (March
2, 1773, to March 9, 1824) and Ruth (Graves) Bowen; and his
mother was Sarah Ann Read, daughter of Joseph Evans (Sep-
tember 13, 1776, to July 6, 1857) and Sybil (Valentine) Read.
The Bowens were of Welsh extraction. John Bowen settled in
1739 in that part of Tiverton now included in Fall River, where he
became a large land owner, and built a homestead that is still —
though in much altered form — one of the landmarks of that section.
He lived to be about one hundred years old. His wife was Penelope
(Read) Borden, the widow of Stephen Borden, and daughter of John
Read, Jr., an early resident, whose father is said to have come from
Plymouth, England, and to have been one of the first settlers of
Newport, Rhode Island. His son, Nathan, was a soldier in the
Revolution.
Many members of the connected families — including the Bordens,
Durfees, Reads, Winslows, Valentines and Tisdales — have taken
important part in the history and progress of New England. John
Valentine, who came from England, was one of the most learned
and distinguished lawyers of Boston, and held the office of advo-
cate general at the time of his death in 1724. Simon Lynde, who
was born in London in 1624 and came to America in 1650, was judge
of the Superior Court and considered one of the leading men of his
time. He lived mostly in Boston, until his death in 1687, and owned
much property in Boston and Freetown, his name being prominent
not only in the records of Boston but also in those of Plymouth,
Connecticut and Rhode Island. Richard Borden, Ralph Earle,
JOSEPH ABRAHAM BOWEN
William Havens and John Walker were among the original set-
tlers at Portsmouth, Rhode Island in 1638.
Abraham Bowen, Sr., son of Nathan and grandfather of
Joseph A., was one of the leading residents of Fall River a century
ago. He owned a large farm, was one of the original incorporators
of the Watuppa Reservoir Company, and was largely interested in
the manufacturer of cotton cloth, having been agent of the second
cotton-mill, the Fall River Manufactory, formerly called the White
Mill, which was built in 1813, and into which power weaving was
introduced in 1817. As there were no banks, the silver dollars he
collected from shareholders for building the mill were stored in the
case of his old-fashioned clock. Soon after the incorporation of
Fall River as a town in 1803, he suggested a change of name to Troy,
and this new name — adopted by the General Court in 1804 — was
retained until 1833. He was known as a very public-spirited man.
Abraham Bowen, Jr., carried on a printing business for many
years and published several papers; he was a man of strong individu-
ality and unquestioned probity, but marked eccentricity.
Joseph A. Bowen could read fluently before he was three years
old. He learned with ease, was gifted with a tenacious memory,
and developed rapidly under the thoughtful and beneficent influ-
ence of his mother, an earnest and intelligent Christian woman.
At the early age of eight years he was at work in his father's print-
ing office. He learned the trade and received his school education
at the same time, alternately working in the office and attending
the public and private schools of the town, including the high school.
From the age of seventeen until he was twenty-four, he was em-
ployed regularly as a newspaper and job printer. Busy as he was,
he found time for much reading, and he recognizes the influence
upon his after life of the books of philosophy, the miscellaneous
writings and the best works of fiction, that attracted him in these
early years.
In August, 1856, Mr. Bowen became a dealer in coal. Subse-
quently he bought the South Wharf, where his business has ever
since been conducted, and later he became owner of half the wharf
where he was originally located. His business has steadily increased
and has become of large importance. Dredging at his own expense
to deepen the water near his wharves, Mr. Bowen began the work of
improving the harbor of Fall River. The large amount of freight
JOSEPH ABRAHAM BOWEN
he received naturally interested him in coastwise navigation, and he
has become an owner in several large schooners.
An earnest Republican, with the interests of his native city at
heart, Mr. Bowen has been ever ready to aid in promoting the public
welfare. He was a member of the Common Council in 1862 and 1863,
and was elected to the board of aldermen for 1869 and 1870. In
1869 he was appointed chairman of the committee on water supply.
Several months were spent in visiting various cities and having water
analyses made, and he prepared a report in which he recommended
taking water from North Watuppa Pond. The recommendation
having been adopted, at a special election on August 3, 1870, he
was made a member of the first board of water commissioners.
He served on the board from 1871 to 1874, taking an energetic part
in securing a reservoir site ahead of speculators, and in aiding the
engineers in the many difficulties of installing the water-works.
Mr. Bowen was president of the Fall River Board of Trade and
a member of the Massachusetts Board of Trade in 1895 and 1896.
He has been president of the Arkwright Mills since 1897; and is a
director in the Seaconnet and Laurel Lake Mills.
He has been a member and earnest worker in the Central Congre-
gational Church, at Fall River, which he joined fifty years ago. Mr.
Bowen still enjoys an active out-of-door life and finds healthful
recreation in walking and driving.
Mr. Bowen was married January 19, 1865, to Fanny Maria,
daughter of Jonathan and Clarissa (Bennett) Corey, granddaughter
of Benjamin and Lucy (Briggs) Corey, and of Thomas and Tryphena
(Crossman) Bennett, and a descendant from William Corey, who
lived in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, in 1657. They have two chil-
dren — Joseph Henry and Fanny Corey Bowen; and three grandsons,
Joseph Whitney, Harold Corey, and Edward Hooper Bowen.
"Industry, inflexible integrity and perseverance" have been
Mr. Bowen's aim, and he recommends that our youth adopt these
principles.
GEORGE FLINT BRADSTREET
ONE of the most illustrious names in New England colonial
history is that of Bradstreet. The first man to bear that
surname on this side of the Atlantic continued in the
public eye nearly seventy years from the time of his entrance into
the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. This was Governor Simon
Bradstreet who was born in Horbling, Lincolnshire, in March,
1603, and died at Salem, Massachusetts, March 27, 1697. The
son of a Puritan clergyman in Lincolnshire, he took his degree
at that most Puritan of colleges, Emmanuel College in Cam-
bridge, and shortly afterwards became steward to the Countess
of Warwick, an office which he held at the time of his marriage, in
1628, to Anne Dudley, nine years his senior. His bride was the
second child of Thomas Dudley, and at this period, resident of Bos-
ton, Lincolnshire, and a parishioner of the Rev. John Cotton, vicar
of Saint Botolph's.
In 1630, two years after his daughter's marriage, Dudley sailed
for New England on the famous Arabella in company with John
Winthrop and other eminent Puritans as well as his daughter Anne
and her husband. Dudley had already been appointed deputy
governor of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay and after subsequently
serving as its governor, died in 1653, at the age of seventy-seven.
His son-in-law, Simon Bradstreet, attained even greater honors in
the colony, serving as its secretary from his arrival, 1630, till 1643;
as assistant from 1643 to 1678; as deputy-governor 1678 to 1679;
and as governor from 1679 to 1686, and again from 1689 to 1692.
The gifted wife of Bradstreet is even more widely known than her
husband, for she was the first woman of letters in America and was
called by her admiring contemporaries "The Tenth Muse." She
died at the Bradstreet home in what is now North Andover, Massa-
chusetts, on September 11, 1672, after a long illness, and in 1676
Governor Bradstreet married a second time.
Eight children were born to Simon Bradstreet and Anne, his
'
7^ tfj^tz-^z^e
TILI '
GEORGE FLINT BRADSTREET
wife, all but one of whom survived their mother and among their
various descendants are numbered such famous personages as William
Ellery Channing, Richard Henry Dana, Wendell Phillips and Oliver
Wendell Holmes. The third great grandson of the worthy governor
and his talented wife, Samuel Bradstreet, Jr., was sergeant in the
company of Minute Men which Captain Richard Perkins commanded
at the Battle of Lexington, April 19, 1775.
The paternal grandfather of George Flint Bradstreet was a
descendant of the renowned Colonial governor. This was Elijah
Bradstreet, Jr., who was born December 15, 1792, and died June 28,
1882, at the ripe age of eighty-nine. He married Hannah Carlton,
and their son, Justin Edward Bradstreet, was born October 21,
1830. For thirty years he was in the beef and provision business,
both retail and wholesale, in Bradford and Haverhill. In 1885, when
his son George went to New York, he took charge of the country store
business at Ward Hill and carried on his three farms. He was favor-
ably known throughout that region for his strict honesty, entire
integrity and kindness of heart. The wife of Justin Bradstreet was
Almira Ellis and their son George, whose ancestry we have so far
traced, was born in Bradford, April 3, 1854. The son's boyhood,
like that of most country boys a half century ago, was one of more
or less active employment, such tasks of household chores being
required of him as were incident to country homes. Indeed he seems
to have been noted for his spirit of willing activity, and being much
interested in his father's business began to work in the latter's market
at the age of thirteen. His opportunities for education were some-
what limited, a circumstance partly owing to somewhat poor health
which did not permit of the confinement of school.
In spite of the drawback, however, he attended school for two
years during the winters and subsequently attended an evening
business school. At seventeen he purchased his father's retail
beef business and since that time has always been actively engaged
in business for himself. In 1875 he established a country store at
Ward Hill, the western portion of Bradford, and later established a
post-office in the store. In 1885 he removed to New York City,
though still retaining his interest in the Bradford store, and there
accepted the responsible position of general manager in the packing-
house business of the G. H. Hammond Company. Not long after
his removal to New York, Mr. Bradstreet, who seems to have an
GEORGE FLINT BRADSTREET
especial talent for business organization, established the Wheeler
Bradstreet Company, a corporation of commission dealers disposing
of the goods of the Hammond House, of Chicago, in the New York
metropolitan district. At the same time he continued to manage the
business of the Hammond firm at its New York branch houses for the
State of New York and a portion of Pennsylvania, and established
in the city of New Haven the New Haven Public Market, then the
largest retail store in Connecticut, placing it in the care of a manager.
Ten years later, in 1895, Mr. Bradstreet, feeling the necessity
of giving more attention to home interests than he had yet been
able to do, sold out his share in the New York business and made
his headquarters in Boston. Scarcely six months had elapsed from
the time of his leaving New York when his friend of many years, the
well-known head of the Armour Packing Company, Mr. Philip D.
Armour, proposed to Mr. Bradstreet that the latter should under-
take the management of the entire New England business from
Boston headquarters. The offer was accepted and for nearly three
years Mr. Bradstreet was responsible for the management of the
Armour business in New England, with forty-four branch houses and
consignees under his charge.
The strain of such a position was naturally very severe and the
manager's health presently became so seriously affected that he
felt compelled to resign. So reluctant, however, were the Armours
to part with so admirable an official that the retiring manager was
retained on the Armour pay-roll for more than six months after his
resignation, even although he could give scarcely any attention to
their interests.
Mr. Bradstreet 's private interests increasing rapidly he organ-
ized the George F. Bradstreet Company, a corporation of which he
became president in 1899, and a business which still flourishes under
his presidency. In 1900 he turned his attention in a new direction,
organizing in that year the New England Gold and Copper Mining
Company, of which he became the treasurer, a post he still holds.
At nearly the same time he accepted the position of treasurer of the
Aztec Gold and Copper Mining Company which, like the first named
company, is a most successful mining concern, managed conservatively
on a strictly business basis, and he still retains his treasurership.
One might suppose that Mr. Bradstreet 's time would have been
quite sufficiently filled with all these demands upon it, but the year
GEORGE FLINT BRADSTREET
1900 was not ended before he organized the New Era Machinery
Company, whose scope is the manufacturing and selling of the New
Era printing press and printing machine specialties, becoming its
first president and still occupying that responsible position. It
perhaps should be added that although his name does not appear
in the patent of the New Era Printing Press, he rendered material
assistance in its invention. In the following year he became
treasurer of the American Mining and Engineering Company, but the
pressure of other and multifarious duties presently compelled his
resignation of this office. He also resigned several directorships in
other corporations held for longer or shorter periods, urged thereto by
unwillingness to remain upon official boards when demands upon his
time rendered it impossible for him to attend their regular meetings.
Mr. Bradstreet has long been connected with the Republican
party but has held no offices dependent upon political allegiance,
except the postmastership of Ward Hill in his native Bradford, a
post which he filled from 1880 until his removal to New York in
1885, when he was succeeded in office by his father, Justin Brad-
street. He was for some time a member of the Bradford Good Gov-
ernment Club and is a prominent Mason, being a member of all
Masonic bodies up to and inclusive of the Commandery of Maiden,
Massachusetts, where he resides, also Aleppo Temple of the Shrine
of Boston. Other societies which count him among their members
are the United Order of Pilgrim Fathers; the Deliberative Assembly
of Maiden; the Metaphysical Club of Boston; the Bostonian Society;
the Art Collector's Club; the Congregational Club of Boston, and
Sons of the American Revolution. In 1906 he was elected one of
the supreme directors of the United Order of Pilgrim Fathers, being
promptly placed upon its investing committee, and to his excellent
management is due the present large and growing reserve fund of
that organization. In 1907 he was promoted to supreme lieutenant-
governor. He is also an officer in Beauseant Commandery of Knights
Templar of Maiden; president of the Metaphysical Club; and past-
patron of the Order of the Eastern Star.
At present, as for many years previously, Mr. Bradstreet has
been a member of the First Congregational Church, of Maiden, and
in the Sunday school he has charge of a flourishing class of one
hundred and ten members. He was superintendent of a Sunday
school in Bradford from 1878 to 1885.
GEORGE FLINT BRADSTREET
Mr. Bradstreet had not reached his twenty-first birthday when,
on December 23, 1874, he was married to Julia G. Kimball, the
daughter of Gilman and Eliza A. Blackstone. His wife's grand-
parents were Phineus and Mehitable Kimball, the Kimball ancestry
being directly traceable to Richard Kimball and his wife, Ursula
Scott Kimball, who emigrated from the parish of Rollesden in the
English County of Suffolk in 1634.
Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Bradstreet, the
eldest, Augusta Warren, an assistant to her father in his business,
Mary Ella and Elsie Belle.
In his youth the influence of Mr. Bradstreet's mother was notably
strong in shaping and determining his spiritual life. He has always
held to high ideals and is a firm believer in the importance of forming
good principles in early life and adhering to them no matter how
difficult it may be or how much such adherence may seem to be tem-
porarily disadvantageous. Fair play methods, he believes should be
strictly followed, and clean habits once adopted in early life will
strengthen with years and become a dominating fact of existence. It
is well to look up to the men of high minded ideals whom one may chance
to know, but in the end one must think for one's self and act up to the
demands of one's conscience. In his personal experience the influ-
ence of home was the strongest factor in the formation of charac-
ter, and next to this was that of contact w^ith men engaged in active
career of one kind and another. Personal preference determined in
a measure his choice of occupation after reaching manhood, and
favoring circumstances occurring from time to time in his career
were responsible for final decision in the matter.
Mr. Bradstreet has not been a reading man in any wide sense of
the term, and, indeed, after learning the history of his career it is
impossible to see wrhere he could have secured the time for such
reading, but he has been a reader of the daily newspapers and re-
ligious weeklies. In much younger days, while Bradford yet re-
mained his home, his most prized amusement was the raising and
breaking of colts, while in later life he finds diversion in the driving
of good horses, a form of relaxation more or less interspersed with
amateur photography. He is a great lover of flowers, and the adorn-
ment of the terraces and rockeries on his beautiful grounds in Maiden
make it one of the show places of the city.
— —
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR., LENOX
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
-tcJ. /
HENRY KING BRALEY
THE New England Braleys are of Quaker origin. Their
progenitor, John Braley, a disciple of George Fox, settled
at Portsmouth, Rhode Island in 1693, from which the
family gradually spread into Massachusetts.
They were law-abiding, God-fearing men; and for the most part
farmers or sailors. Samuel Tripp Braley (the father of Judge
Braley) who died at the early age of fifty-two, followed the sea
for most of his life, having been master of a ship for twenty years.
He also had served more than once as selectman of the town, and
was known as a man of sterling integrity, great clearness of thought
and expression, unflinching in adherence to his convictions, reso-
lute in his purposes and energetic in their execution.
Henry King Braley, was born at Rochester, Massachusetts, on
the 17th of March, 1850. His father being at sea, his mother (Mary
A. King before marriage) became his chief companion and guide.
To her he gratefully refers as having exerted a most wholesome and
stimulating influence upon his early years, encouraging intellectual
development, setting before him high moral aims, and fostering
equanimity of temper. His early years were spent on a farm, where
he gained the love of nature and the habits of careful observation,
that have affected his tastes ever since. From the beginning he
was a diligent seeker after knowledge, and, although hindrances
had to be encountered in securing an adequate education, his
intellectual bent became manifest in especial fondness for the study
of Shakespeare, Bacon, Milton, Emerson and the English Bible.
Beyond these he found a charm in works of biography and history.
After leaving the common school he became a student in the
Rochester Academy, and graduated from Pierce Academy of Middle-
boro. He was, for a time, beginning in 1869-70, a school-teacher
in Bridgewater, Massachusetts.
Having gone through a thorough course of legal study in the
office and under the supervision of Latham & Kingman, and after-
HENRY KING BRALEY
wards of Hosea Kingman, in Bridgewater, he was admitted to the
bar at Plymouth on the 7th of October, 1873. He entered upon
the practice of his profession in Fall River, in December, 1873, being
first associated with the late Nicholas Hatheway, Esq., and after-
wards with the late M. G. B. Swift, Esq., the firm name being first
Hatheway & Braley, and then Braley & Swift. Of this latter firm
he remained an active member until appointed by Governor Russell,
in 1891, to the position of Justice of the Superior Court of Massa-
chusetts. From this office he was promoted by Governor Crane,
who, in 1902, advanced him to the position of Justice of the Su-
preme Judicial Court of Massachusetts.
Judge Braley has, from time to time, received marks of apprecia-
tion and confidence. He was made an A.M. by Dartmouth College
in 1902; and has been identified with the financial interests of the
community as director of the Globe Yarn Mills; trustee of the Fall
River Savings Bank, trustee of the Fall River Public Library and
director of the Fall River Masonic Association. He has filled
official positions as city solicitor of Fall River, and mayor of that
city. He has been prominently connected with various fraternal
and benevolent societies, being a Freemason, a Knight of Pythias,
and a Past Grand Master of the Order of Odd Fellows. He is also
a member of the University and Union Clubs of Boston. His
political affiliations have been with the Democratic party, but he
has not allowed himself to be hampered by party lines when, in his
judgment, the public interest has required an independent vote.
In the discharge of the duties of the judicial office, his inde-
pendence, clearness and vigor of mind, and loyalty to duty, coupled
with kindliness and courtesy, insure to him the good-will of those
who come before him, and inspire confidence in his decisions.
He was married on the 29th of April, 1875, to Caroline W.,
daughter of Philander and Sarah T. Leach, of Bridgewater. His
wife is a direct descendant of Elder Cushman, who came from Eng-
land to Plymouth in the Mayflower. Two children have been born
to them, of whom one, Abner Leach Braley, now survives.
Judge Braley's career well illustrates the virtues which he com-
mends as fundamental in the development of character and con-
ducive to success — "a love of learning, courage, integrity, industry
and perseverance."
K LIBRARY
'OR,, LENOX
'ilONS
VU^t
ELLIS BRETT
ELLIS BRETT, president of the Plymouth County Safe Deposit
and Trust Company, was born in North Bridgewater, Ply-
mouth County, Massachusetts, October 23, 1840. His father,
Ephraim Brett, son of Joseph and Olive (Beal) Brett, was a stone and
brick mason and farmer, honest, industrious and strictly temperate.
His first ancestor in America, William Brett, was at Duxbury, 1645,
and one of the original proprietors and settlers in original Bridge-
water and in that portion since known as West Bridgewater. He
was an elder of the church, and a leading man in town affairs. He
was wont to preach when the pastor was sick and was a frequent
representative to the General Court. He is referred to in the early
church records of Plymouth as a grave and godly man, their ruling
elder.
Ephraim Brett married Ruth, daughter of Ebenezer and Hannah
(Godfrey) Copeland, of West Bridgewater; and their son, Ellis Brett,
was brought up on the farm. He helped his parents by manual
labor on the farm, attending school winters, and completing his school
training at Hunt's Academy during those portions of the year when
there was no pressing farm work. He found in his reading that
books that emphasized the Golden Rule were most helpful and satis-
factory. His mother's influence, through both precept and example,
urged him on to the attainment of something nobler and better in
intellectual, moral and spiritual life. He continued his occupation
as a farmer and served also as assistant town assessor, 1881-84; as
tax collector, 1884; as principal assessor, 1885-97; as overseer of
the poor for many years; as chairman of the Republican City (Brock-
ton); committee and treasurer of the Republican County Committee;
and as president of the Plymouth County Safe Deposit and Trust
Company of Brockton from 1903.
He is affiliated with the New Jerusalem Church, serving as auditor
and as a member of its leading committee. His services are in
repeated demand to serve his fellow citizens as appraiser and appor-
ELLIS BRETT
tioner of real estate, as trustee, administrator, executor, guardian
and conservator. He is a member of the Independent Order of
Odd Fellows. In writing of his successes and failures in life he says:
" Whatever has come to me has come unsought — I have simply-
done my duty as I saw it, not troubling myself further/' and he
adds this message to young men: "In whatever position it is one's
lot to live, be it ever so humble, be faithful and honest therein and
do whatever is required cheerfully to the best of your ability; giving
good measure, pressed down and shaken together because it is right,
not trying to give as little as you can, and taking out all you can.
An honest man is the noblest work of God."
He was married November 10, 1892, to Elizabeth Florence,
daughter of Richard and Lucy (Alden) Howes, of Boston, and their
only child, Roger Ellis, aged two years, one month, four days, died
in infancy.
TOR LE]
ARTHUR TRACY CABOT
ARTHUR TRACY CABOT, one of our most progressive
and successful physicians and surgeons, honoring the
name of a distinguished ancestry, was born in Boston,
Massachusetts, January 5, 1852. His father, Samuel Cabot, also
a leading physician, was the son of Samuel and Elizabeth (Perkins)
Cabot, and married Hannah Lowell Jackson, the daughter of
Patrick Tracy and Lydia (Cabot) Jackson.
Patrick Tracy Jackson, the maternal grandfather, born at New-
bury port in 1780, was a pioneer manufacturer. He joined his
brother-in-law, Francis C. Lowell, in introducing the power loom
into American cotton manufacture, and together they built at
Waltham, in 1813, the first factory in the United States combining
under one roof the various processes used in converting cotton into
the finished cloth. In 1821 Mr. Jackson organized a company which
built cotton-mills forming the nucleus of the present city of Lowell.
Thomas Handasyd Perkins (1764-1854), grandfather of Dr.
Samuel Cabot, was a Boston merchant of large trade in the West
Indies, China, and other parts of the world, and a leading philan-
thropist. In 1812 he donated his fifty-thousand-dollar Pearl Street
mansion to found the Perkins Institute for the Blind, and subse-
quently gave largely to the Massachusetts General Hospital, the
Mercantile Library, and the Boston Athenaeum, besides substan-
tially aiding the builders of the Bunker Hill Monument and the
Washington Monument. He was the principal organizer of the
Quincy Railroad of 1827, the first in the United States.
The youth of Arthur Tracy Cabot was passed amid quiet and
pleasant surroundings. After attending the Boston Latin School,
he entered Harvard University, and graduated with the class of
1872. Deciding to follow his father's profession, he took a course
at the Harvard Medical School, receiving his M.D. degree in 1876.
Directly afterward, in July, 1876, he went abroad, and spent four-
teen months in study and travel, receiving instruction in the lab-
ARTHUR TRACY CABOT
oratory of Rudolph Virchow in Berlin — an experience that in
itself was a liberal education in medicine.
In 1878 he began the practice of medicine and surgery in
Boston, which he has continued up to the present time. With his
natural fitness and thorough equipment, his progress was rapid,
and in one of the most prosperous and appreciative communities
in America he has long enjoyed the fruits of a reputation for skill
and successful results.
In difficult surgical cases he has been at his best. At various
times he has been surgeon to the Carney Hospital, surgeon to the
Boston Children's Hospital, and surgeon to the Massachusetts Gen-
eral Hospital, and he has been able, in an exacting field, to apply
the most advanced methods of modern science.
His many papers, published in the reports of the medical soci-
eties, reflect his industry and achievements. These papers are
mostly of professional interest only, but "Realism in Medicine,"
which formed an annual discourse before the Massachusetts Medical
Society on June 13, 1900, is one that could be read with profit by
every thoughtful person. This is a brief general review of previous
medical progress. It points out that the nineteenth century brought
realism, when the study of disease by the scientific or inductive
method became general, and the advance was greater than in all
the preceding centuries of vague speculation and theorizing.
In all history we find six medical contributions of the first
rank. Harvey's discovery of the circulation of the blood belongs
to the seventeenth century, and Jenner's introduction of vaccina-
tion to the eighteenth; but surgical anaesthesia, cellular physiology,
and pathology, antiseptic surgery, and the germ theory of disease
are all gifts for which we have to thank the nineteenth century. Of
the six great gifts of all time, one alone was made by empiricism
instead of science — that of surgical anaesthesia, which we owe to a
bold but haphazard experiment made by Thomas G. Morton, a
Boston dentist, with sulphuric ether. Other writings of Dr. Cabot
give much of his own special experience in the methods and prac-
tice of surgery, and have added materially to the sum of surgical
knowledge of really accurate and scientific character.
Since 1904 Dr. Cabot has taken great interest in the problem of
prevention of tuberculosis. As chairman of the Associated Com-
mittees of the Massachusetts Medical Society for the Prevention
ARTHUR TRACY CABOT
and Control of Tuberculosis, and also chairman of the Massachusetts
Commission on Consumptive Hospitals, he has had a hand in organ-
izing and directing the anti-tuberculosis work throughout the State.
Dr. Cabot was president of the Massachusetts Medical Society
from 1904 to 1906, and is a member of many other medical soci-
eties. He was made a Fellow of Harvard College in 1896. He has
taken much interest in painting and sculpture, and is a trustee of
the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He is also a member of the
American Academy of Arts.
He belongs to the Union Club, Tavern Club, St. Botolph Club,
Brookline Country Club, and University Club (New York). He is
a Republican, but with independent views, placing men and prin-
ciples above party, and supported Cleveland for President. He is
affiliated with the Unitarian Church. He is fond of out-of-door
sports of all kinds, and shows by example how the wise physician
seeks to maintain health and vigor.
Dr. Cabot was married August 16, 1882, to Susan Shattuck,
daughter of George 0. and Emily (Copeland) Shattuck. They have
had no children.
ERLON RIENZI CHADBOURN
ERLON RIENZI CHADBOURN was barn in Auburn, Maine,
March 25, 1855. He is the son of Sylvanus Chadbourn, born
April 20, 1827, died July 31, 1903, and Lurana Small Moody,
born August 19, 1830, died October 15, 1900. He is the grandson on
his father's side of John Chadbourn, born 1795, and on his mother's
side of David Moody, born 1800. His father's mother was Lucy
Landers, and his mother's mother was Sarah Small. His father was
a carpenter by trade, a true and genuine son of New England, dis-
tinguished for his integrity, industry, frugality and temperance.
Mr. Chadbourn traces his ancestry back to William Chadbourn,
who came from Devonshire, England, and settled in what is now
South Berwick, in 1634; and Humphrey, his son, who had preceded
him in 1631, and became one of the large landholders of ancient
Kittery, a prominent builder and millwright, and a leader in public
affairs. A later ancestor was Corporal Samuel Chadbourn, who was
with Captain Noah M. Littlefield's Minute Men, April 19, 1775, and
served through the war of the Revolution. The Small family has
been active in Massachusetts and Maine affairs, and has furnished
many soldiers and business and professional men.
In early life young Chadbourn had the care of a large garden,
and more or less farming, and this, with the drudgery of learning
the printer's trade, formed the valuable habit of persistent hard
work. His educational opportunities were limited to the common
schools at Lewiston, Maine, and attendance upon various scientific
lectures at a later period. An early dream was to follow some
work connected with chemistry, which he was able to study only
during a limited time at home. Having no chemical balance for
his many boyhood experiments, he made one from walnut, neatly
hollowing the pans out of the wood, and suspending them by linen
thread from a beam mounted on a knife-edge set in the wooden
standard. The balance proved to be accurate and sensitive, turning
with a small fraction of a grain. With only the known weight of
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ERLON RIENZI CHADBOURN
a coin as a guide he filed old nails and pieces of iron into a set of
weights from one grain to several ounces, and when tested years
afterward with the standard weights of a high grade analytical bal-
ance these showed no error.
Failing to realize his hope of taking up chemistry or assaying as
a life-work, he became an apprentice to a Lewiston printer in August,
1873. He continued in this place four or five years, learning the
details of book and job composition and presswork, and then for
two or three years he was employed in various places in Massachu-
setts and New York City and elsewhere, — as printer and in other
capacities. He had a typewriter from the first lot claiming to be
successful — one of the original machines made for Sholes & Glidden
by the Remington Arms Company, and using only capitals, with a
ribbon that made broad blotches or left no mark at all according to
the degree of humidity in the air. He tried to interest Boston
lawyers, but found machine writing regarded as a huge joke, the
consensus of opinion of the Suffolk Bar being that the typewriter
might be an interesting toy — nothing more. In 1880 he took the
office at Lewiston where he had learnecLhis trade, engaging in general
book and job printing on his own account.
Just before beginning his apprenticeship he had become inter-
ested in a boyish way in certain newspaper correspondence. This
was continued evenings during his work as a printer, and in 1879
he added to it a special weekly letter of scientific miscellany. He
abandoned the printing office after about two years in the business,
his time since 1882 having been given chiefly to his newspaper
specialties.
He has been editor of young people's departments in the Port-
land, Maine, Argus from 1873 to the present time; Chicago Inter
Ocean, since 1880; Buffalo Express; Hartford Times; Portland,
Oregon, Telegram; Spokane Spokesman-Review; Charleston News
and Courier; St. Paul Dispatch; Boston Congregationalist ; New
York Christian Advocate, and many other leading journals. For
periods of a few months to twenty years and more, he has had regular
contracts with important publications in about every important
city in the United States and Canada.
His weekly letter of scientific miscellany has been widely used,,
not only in every State of the Union, but also in the British Isles,
Australia, Hong Kong and other parts of the world. In a modest
ERLON RIENZI CHADBOURN
way, with care to ensure accuracy, it has supplied several millions
of readers weekly with notes on scientific events of popular interest.
Having lived mostly in a section famed for its rare minerals,
he became early interested in collecting specimens to illustrate
mineralogy, and this developed into a pet hobby during his residence
in Maine. By personal collecting, exchanging and other methods,
he acquired one of the choicest private collections in New England.
For seven or eight seasons several cases selected from this were
exhibited in the Maine State Building at Poland Spring, where the
beautiful specimens from every part of the world were much ad-
mired. A large smoky quartz ball — the finest ever turned from
New England material — and a light yellow beryl gem of thirty-
four carats are Maine specimens that are still retained, and are ever
attractive to New Englanders.
He is a Republican in politics, but reserves the right to exercise
his private judgment in regard to local issues. His favorite form
of recreation is walking, which he has specially enjoyed in connec-
tion with his mineral collecting.
He was married June 22, 1887, to Lillie G. Walker, for a number
of years a successful teacher of Woburn, Massachusetts, daughter
of James and Mary (Simonds) Walker, a relative of former President
Walker, of Harvard, and a descendant of Augustine Walker, who
came from Berwick-on-Tweed and settled in Charlestown about
1638. They have one child, Ralph Warren, born December 6, 1891.
They made their home in Lewiston until September, 1904, when
they moved to Melrose, Massachusetts, where they now reside.
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ARTHUR EDWARD CHILDS
ARTHUR EDWARD CHILDS was born in Montreal. Canada,
September 16, 1S69. He is the son of George Childs, who
was born in 1825. and died in 1S95.
In early life, in fact from his boyhood, he was deeply interested
in mathematical studies, and practical engineering. At the same
time he pursued definite lines of reading, for the most part sug-
gested by his instructors, and to a large extent closely related to
his professional work, and the career he had in hand. He com-
menced his practical career in the shops of the Canada General
Electric Company.
In politics he is a stanch Republican, and a Congregationalist
in his church relations.
His recreations consist in riding, driving, automobiling, general
farming, and raising Jersey cattle on his New Hampshire farm.
He was married. February 1. 1894, to Miss Alice Moen, daughter
of Philip and Maria (Grant) Moen. He has two children. Philip
and Alice. For twenty-two years Mr. Childs has taken an active
part in the development of the application of electricity to lighting.
traction and power transmission.
He is one of the most energetic and progressive men in the
industry and his position has not been the result of chance ad-
vancement. His progress has been slow and sure; and patience.
perseverance and tenacity have predominated in all his undertak-
ings. Never daunted by temporary obstacles, nor discouraged by
apparently insuperable difficulties. Mr. Childs always pursued his
purposes with a definitiveness of design that could have none but a
successful termination. That he has won a high place in the esti-
mation of the engineering world, as well as among the business men
of Boston, is evidenced by the position he holds in the several cor-
porations with which he is now connected.
The story of Mr. Child's career may be told in a few words. He
is a graduate of the McGill Universitv. Montreal. Canada, with the
ARTHUR EDWARD CHILDS
degree of Bachelor of Science, and later on had the degree of Master
of Science conferred on him. After his course in mechanical engi-
neering in McGill, he took up a course of electrical engineering and
graduated from the Central Technical College, of South Kensington,
London, England, one of the colleges of the University of London,
and afterwards was made a Fellow of this college. He began his
professional work with the Canadian General Electric Company as
wireman. Inheriting in an eminent degree the qualities of per-
severance and determination, Mr. Childs left the employment of the
Canadian Company to become assistant to Dr. Coleman Sellers in
the preliminary development of the great power plant at Niagara
Falls. After this he was appointed District Engineer of the Westing-
house Electric and Manufacturing Company, with headquarters at
Philadelphia, where he remained three years, planning the erec-
tion of electric light, power and street railway power plants. He
then went to Boston, Massachusetts, as New England Manager of
the Electric Storage Battery Company of Philadelphia, where he
remained until 1897, when he organized The Light, Heat and Power
Corporation of Boston, of which he is president, for the purpose of
acquiring gas, electric light and power plants situated in the Eastern
States, and also for the purpose of building new ones. All those
plants which were acquired by The Light, Heat and Power Cor-
poration in the State of Massachusetts were afterwards put into a
Trust, namely, the Massachusetts Lighting Companies, of which
he is president, and which, through its subsidiary companies, now
holds important contracts with many towns in the State of Massa-
chusetts. In addition to looking after developments in the Eastern
States Mr. Childs was for five years actively engaged in consolidating
gas, electric light and long distance plants in the central part of
the State of California, and with Mr. R. R. Colgate, of New York,
Eugene DeSabla, John Martin and R. M. Hotaling, of San Francisco,
organized the California Gas and Electric Corporation, which to-day
operates in over fifteen counties and forty towns in the central part
of the State of California.
He is a man of many activities, and in addition to the above, he
is director of the Columbian National Life Insurance Company,
president and director of the Hotel Somerset Company and vice-
president and director of the Boston and Worcester Electric Com-
panies. He is a director of the following Companies: Boston and
ARTHUR EDWARD CHILDS
Worcester Street Railway Company, American Investment Securi-
ties Company, Arlington Gas Light Company, Clinton Gas Light
Company, Milford Electric Light and Power Company, Spencer Gas
Company, Worcester County Gas Company, Northampton Electric
Lighting Company, Ayer Electric Light Company, Leominster Gas
Light Company, and the Leominster Electric Light and Power
Company. Further, he is a member of the following scientific
organizations: American Institute of Electrical Engineers, Ameri-
can Society of Mechanical Engineers, Canadian Society of Civil
Engineers, the Institute of Electrical Engineers, London, England,
and a member of minor organizations. He is a member of the
Algonquin Club, Country Club, University, and other similar clubs.
As the result of his experience and observation, and both of
them have been wide in their range, and somewhat minute as to
details, he does not favor the present tendency to elective college
courses, but believes "that one's success in life very largely depends
upon an education in continuity, and an unyielding determination
to succeed with the immediate matter in hand."
ROBERT PARKER CLAPP
ROBERT PARKER CLAPP, descendant in the ninth genera-
tion from Captain Roger Clapp, who came from England in
1630 in the ship Mary and John, and led in the settlement
of Dorchester, was born October 21, 1855, at Montague, in Franklin
County, Massachusetts. His father, George A. Clapp (born 1827,
died 1889), was a country merchant and manufacturer, a man of
the strictest integrity and independence of character, with a notable
aversion to all sham and hypocrisy and a liking for naturalness and
simplicity. He possessed remarkable mechanical skill and ingenuity
and believed that every boy should be taught not only to work but
to love work. With this object in view his son, even when he was
in the grammar school, was set to regular tasks in the shop of a tin-
smith and required to devote his Saturdays and other available
spare time, including a part of his vacations, to systematic mastery
of this interesting trade. Later he was employed as a clerk in his
father's store.
In his youth he cared less for literary than for manual pursuits,
as he inherited a good deal of his father's dexterity; but he found a
great stimulus to make the most of himself in reading Benjamin
Franklin's Autobiography and also in Emerson's Essays. He
fitted for college at Williston Seminary in Easthampton; from
there he proceeded to Harvard College where he was graduated,
cum laude, in the class of 1879. Up to this time, save some self-
help in the latter part of the college course, his father provided his
education, but during the following three years at the Law School he
supported himself by reporting and writing for newspapers, tutoring
other pupils, and securing a good deal of stenographic work for
which he was well prepared, having acquired a practical knowledge
of shorthand while at the preparatory school and perfected the art
during his college course. He graduated from the Harvard Law
School in 1882, and during the summer of that year began his active
life-work, for six months occupying the position of clerk and stenog-
/%rfcr* ^? <££*/*
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ROBERT PARKER CLAPP
rapher for William Caleb Loring,Esq.,now a Justice of the Massachu-
setts Supreme Judicial Court, but at that time General Solicitor for the
New York and New England Railroad. In 1887 he became assistant
legal counsel to the Thompson-Houston Electrical Company, serving
in that capacity for five years and part of the time occupying also
the position of Special Justice of the District Court of Central Middle-
sex. In 1893 and 1894 he was in the legal service of the General
Electric Company, but the following year resigned to take up the
regular practice of his profession and has been engaged in that ever
since, under the firm name of Johnson, Clapp & Underwood, with
offices at 50 State Street, Boston.
In October, 1886, he married Mary Lizzie, daughter of the Honor-
able Charles H. Saunders, formerly Mayor of Cambridge, and took
up his residence in the historic town of Lexington, in whose local affairs
he has been especially active. For several years he has been chairman
of the board of sewer commissioners, and is now a member of the
water board also; he has been a member of the Lexington school
committee and other committees and has many times been chosen
moderator of the town meetings. He is a member, and was for two
years president, of the Lexington Historical Society; was the first
president of the Old Belfry Club on its organization in 1892 and for
two years thereafter. He is also a member of the Lexington Golf
Club and other local organizations, as well as of the St. Botolph and
Exchange Clubs in Boston.
In 1884 he changed his allegiance from the Republican to the
Democratic party largely on tariff issues. Since 1895 he has been
an Independent. He has been associated with the First Congre-
gational (Unitarian) Church of Lexington. He has published no
books, but the Memorial Day address which he gave in Lexington in
1903 has been printed in pamphlet form. He has given other occa-
sional addresses. One delivered before the Pocumtuck Valley
Memorial Association of his native town of Montague has been
published in the proceedings of that Association.
His favorite amusements have been for the most part those
that took him out-of-doors. Horse-back riding, when he was a
youth, and again for some years preceding 1904, was a pastime with
him. Recently he has taken to automobiling. During the long
summer he has delighted in extended canoe trips in Maine and
Canada. He loves the woods and like all healthy minds is never so
ROBERT PARKER CLAPP
happy as when with congenial companionship he can get near the
heart of Nature.
Mr. Clapp attributes his success largely to the influence of his
mother over both his intellectual and moral life and to the admi-
rable system of training to which his father subjected him. Home
and school stood first in their beneficent effect upon his character.
Contact with men in active life and private study were of- more
importance to him than the effect of early companionships. He be-
lieves that parental discipline is the most important factor in the
training of the young. Modern methods in education, he thinks,
tend to substitute state or municipal control of children for the
supervision of the father and mother. " School discipline," he says,
" should not be allowed to supersede the discipline of the home.
The former should be a supplement to the latter and not a substi-
tute. Early training in manual and other labor, exacted under the
eyes of parents, is all important in developing character and laying
the foundations for success in after years. The kindergarten scheme
of making everything savor of play is allowed too wide a scope in
the bringing up of children."
Such has been his own bringing up and such he is striving to
attain in the training of his two promising children. Such a career
is always an inspiration and example for the young in any com-
munity.
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BENJAMIN WILLIS CURRIER
BENJAMIN WILLIS CURRIER, bank president, financier and
merchant, was born in Lynn, Massachusetts, January 14, 1838.
Receiving his education there, he became one of Master King's
Schoolboys and later entered the High School in the class of 1852.
The school catalogue also records him as a member in 1853. He
traveled extensively at different parts of his life, but never changed
his residence and Lynn remained his permanent home. When the
final call came to him, at his summer camp in Wenham, on the
morning of October 31, 1908, it found him in the fulness and vigor
of his manhood.
He was the son of Benjamin Hallowell and Rebecca (Estes)
Currier, and on the paternal side was a descendant of Richard Cur-
rier (1), of Salisbury and Amesbury, and his first wife, Ann .
Richard was born about 1616 and died in Amesbury February 22,
1686-87. By occupation a planter and millwright, he received land
in both townships, was clerk of Amesbury and in the seating of the
meeting-house in 1667, his name stands first "to set at the tabell."
He also appeared to be one of the brethren of the Salisbury church
ten years later.
Thomas (2) , deacon and town clerk, was born in Salisbury, March
8, 1646, married Mary Osgood, December 9, 1668, and resided in
Amesbury. He died September 27, 1712, nearly seven years after
his wife, who died November 2, 1705.
Thomas (3), of Amesbury, yeoman, was born November 28, 1671,
and married Sarah Barnard, September 19, 1700.
Thomas (4) was born in Amesbury May 10, 1717. Jemima
Morrill, of Salisbury, born December 9, 1717, the daughter of Ensign
Daniel and Hannah (Stevens) Morrill, became his wife on March 5,
1740-41.
Joseph (5), born in 1746, married Elizabeth Tweed, a resident of
York when that town was in the Province of Massachusetts Bay.
After their marriage they resided in Deerfield, New Hampshire.
BENJAMIN WILLIS CURRIER
Joseph (6), a tailor, was born October 30, 1775. He married
Lydia Witt Richards, of Lynn, Massachusetts, October 26, 1802.
Her birth is given as October 17, 1781.
Benjamin Hallo well (7), born in Lynn May 15, 1812, married
Rebecca Estes April 14, 1836, and died December 24, 1887.
Benjamin Willis (8).
On the maternal side he was descended from Matthew Estes (l)r
a master mariner and Quaker, son of Robert and Dorothy of Engand.
The records of the Salem Monthly Meeting, Society of Friends, give
Matthews birth as 28:3m:1645 (May). Matthew came to New Eng-
land before 1676 and as early as 1695 owned a good deal of land in
Lynn, especially in Woodend and on Sagamore Hill.
John (2) was born in Dover or Portsmouth, New Hampshire,
July 14, 1684, and died in Lynn, September 29, 1723. He removed
with his father from Portsmouth to Salem, and then to Lynn. He
married 15:12m:1705-6, Hannah, daughter of William Bassett,
Jr., yeoman, and Sarah Hood.
William (3), a feltmaker, was born 23:6m:1718 (August) and
died April 6, 1781. He also lived in Lynn, and married Ruth
Graves, January 1, 1745-6.
Mark (4), born September 13, 1752, married Elizabeth Fowler,
and died March 11, 1841. It was his good fortune to receive from
his father, William, "all his tools for the hatting business and all
the ingredients for coloring hats."
Ezekiel (5) was born in Lynn, April 17, 1781, and died October
15, 1844. He married Mary, daughter of Ebenezer, and Mary Breed
of Weare, New Hampshire, 23:10m:1805.
Rebecca (6), born June 9, 1813, died April 12, 1881; married
on April 14, 1836, Benjamin Hallo well Currier, son of Joseph and
Lydia (Witt Richards) Currier.
Benjamin Willis (7).
Through the rather unusual coincidence of one ancestor follow-
ing the trade of tailoring, while others in the opposite branch of
the family were feltmakers and hatters, and through the long asso-
ciation of his father with the clothing business, it was not strange
that his son should be attracted to that occupation. Mr. Currier's
business career began with Macullar, Williams & Company, clothiers,
at 47 Milk Street, Boston, soon after he left high school. In 1857
BENJAMIN WILLIS CURRIER
he entered the employ of Jesse C. Johnson & Company, 65 Congress
Street. In 1858 he transferred his duties to Talbot, Newell & Com-
pany, 98 Congress Street, who in 1860 moved to 138 Devonshire
Street, Winthrop Square. Mr. Currier, with E. D. Chamberlin,
formed a copartnership in 1863 under the name of Chamberlin and
Currier, in which firm George A. Newell was a special partner. They
suffered a total loss by the Boston fire in November, 1872, and found
temporary quarters in the Pine Street Church, 658 Washington
Street, where they remained during the rebuilding of the burnt dis-
trict, and in 1874 they removed to 38 Summer Street. In 1881
the business was transferred to 403 Washington Street, the present
location. The Standard Clothing Company was formed in 1887
with Mr. Currier as treasurer, and in 1903 the name was changed to
the Talbot Company. His interests were also extended to other
cities, and at the time of his departure he was not only treasurer of
the Talbot Company but closely associated with several retail firms.
And yet his busy days were not confined solely to the clothing
industry. He was a director of the Commercial National Bank,
Boston; of the Merchants National Bank, Salem, and of the Salem
Electric Light Company. He was president of the Manufacturers'
National Bank, Lynn; and of Master King's Schoolboys' Associa-
tion; a member of the Lynn Historical Society and Oxford Club,
the Tedesco Club of Swampscott, the Merchants' Club and Beacon
Society of Boston.
In pohtics he was identified with the Republican party and
never saw fit to change his allegiance.
As a boy Mr. Currier attended the First Universalist Church
when the society worshiped on Union Street. He had seen the
society grow until the church edifice was twice enlarged, and in
1870 when it was decided to erect a new house of worship on Nahant
Street, he was one of the eighteen gentlemen who served on the
building committee. He had a deep interest in the welfare of the
church, was always found among those who substantially contrib-
uted to the financial needs of the society, and at the time of his
death was a member of the Board of Management.
Mr. Currier found relaxation from the cares of business and
especial enjoyment and pleasure in driving good horses over the
beautiful roads adjacent to his homes in Lynn, Wenham, and
Ormond, Florida.
BENJAMIN WILLIS CURRIER
Mr. Currier married on August 22, 1860, Clara Bassett, daughter
of Ephraim and Elizabeth (Cloon) Ingalls, of Swampscott. She
was born September 18, 1838, and died June 1, 1862, in Swamp-
scott. One child lived but a short time.
On February 3, 1864, he married Louise Carleton, daughter of
William Phippen Merritt and Jemima (Carleton) Martin, who then
resided in Swampscott. She was born in Marblehead, February
19, 1834, and lived until February 22, 1881. Of their seven chil-
dren, five are now living, — William Martin; Clara Ingalls (Mrs.
George A. Seaverns); Frank Josselyn; Charles Hazeltine; and Louise
(Mrs. Frank W. Howard).
Mr. Currier married (3d) on April 22, 1886, Emily M., daughter
of Charles H. and Julia M. Pinkham, of Salem, Massachusetts, who
with three of their four children, Helen, Donald Estes and Benjamin
Willis, Jr., survive him.
Mr. Currier was charitable and kind-hearted, a man of sterling
character, conscientious motives, and possessed of seemingly undy-
ing buoyancy of spirit and energy. His home and family life were
ideal. He took especial pride in his garden, not for himself alone,
but for the pleasure and happiness it could give to his friends. As
a business man he was successful in the widest and highest mean-
ing of that word and considered himself a trustee of the money he
had gained to be used for the welfare of others.
Optimistic and hopeful by nature, he believed in the ultimate
triumph of good as a means to a higher freedom. One quality that
stood out in bold relief was his kindness to those with whom he came
in daily contact. It was an inspiration to hear Mr. Currier greet
the policeman at the street crossing, the clerk in the store, the con-
ductor on the train, with a cheerful "good-morning." For every-
one, in whatever walk of life, he always had a pleasant salutation.
Tr
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SAMUEL SILAS CURRY
SAMUEL SILAS CURRY, president of the School of Expression,
Boston, author and educator, was born on a farm in Chatata,
Bradley County, Tennessee, November 23, 1847. His father,
James Campbell Curry, was a farmer, characterized by honesty and
uprightness. He married Nancy Young, a relative of David Crockett.
Dr. Curry's great-great-grandfather on his father's side was Robert
Campbell (1755-1831) brother of Col. Andrew Campbell and
of Col. Arthur Campbell (1745-1781) whose ancestors came from
Scotland through the North of Ireland and settled in Augusta
County, Virginia. Robert Campbell removed to the Holston Valley.
He was ensign in the battle of King's Mountain, North Carolina,
October 7, 1780, where he served with conspicuous bravery as
adjutant to his brother, Col. William Campbell (1745-1781). For
nearly thirty years he was a magistrate of Washington County,
Virginia, and removed in 1825 to Knox County, Tennessee, where
he died, December 27, 1831. Dr. Curry's great-grandmother had
eight uncles in the battle of King's Mountain.
Samuel Silas Curry was brought up in the country on his father's
farm. He did his full share of hard work while preparing himself
for college during the period of the Civil War, and while at college
during vacations. He had few books in childhood, but studied
history by the advice of his father. He subsequently found his
greatest help in the works of Ruskin, Wordsworth and Browning.
His mother's precepts and example aided in fixing his moral and
spiritual life. To her he owed his perseverance and strong intui-
tions; to his father his love of scholarship.
He planned to enter one of the eastern colleges, but through the
influence of Dr. N. E. Cobleigh, president of East Tennessee Wesleyan
University at Athens, he matriculated there in 1869, taking his A.B.
degree in 1872, with the highest honors of the class or of any previous
class of the college, having done four years' work in two and a half
years of residence. He had an imaginative and artistic temperament.
SAMUEL SILAS CURRY
Literature was from his childhood his ambition, and President Cob-
leigh therefore advised him to adopt it as a profession. He therefore
entered Boston University as a post-graduate student, taking within
eight years the successive degrees of A.D., A.M. and Ph.D. Much
of his work was done in the Boston Public Library, where he pursued
many courses of reading and independent investigation. He was
teacher of Latin and Greek in New Hampshire Seminary in the
spring of 1873. In 1878 he was graduated in the Boston University
School of Oratory. He had expected to enter the ministry, when
the loss of his voice compelled him to relinquish his plans, but not
until after he had taken vocal lessons of specialists in all parts of
the world hoping to regain his voice. This experience led him to
take up the teaching of speaking as his life-work.
In 1879, on the death of Prof. Lewis B. Munroe, dean of the
Boston University School of Oratory, and the consequent discon-
tinuance of the School of Oratory, he became instructor of elocution
and oratory in the College of Liberal Arts connected with the Uni-
versity. He made three trips to Europe, and while there was a pupil
of Lamperti, James, Goodsonne and Ricquier, and had the advice
and counsel of Regnier with the privilege of observing the methods
at TEcole de Declamation in the Conservatoire. Besides his instruc-
tion from these masters, he was a pupil for several years of Steele
Mackaye, the pupil and successor of Delsarte, and Mackaye made
him a tempting offer to take charge of a school of acting in New
York City, which he declined. In 1883 he was made Snow professor
of oratory in Boston University, and in 1880 he was granted the
privilege of arranging special classes from the overflow of applicants,
and these classes in 1884 became a part of the School of Expression.
In 1888 he presented to the directors of the University the alterna-
tive of allowing him to establish a separate department, or to accept
his resignation as a teacher in the University. An increase in salary
and other advantages were offered to him, but the University again
declined to recognize officially a school of oratory, and he thereupon
resigned and devoted the time thus released to developing the School
of Expression which had already become well known. He was
acting Davis professor of oratory at Newton Theological Institution
from 1884; instructor in elocution, Harvard College, 1891-94; in
Harvard Divinity School, 1892-1902. In 1895 he founded a quar-
terly review, "Expression," and made it the organ of the School of
SAMUEL SILAS CURRY
Expression. Its aim, like that of the school, is to show the relation
of vocal training to education; to make the spoken word the expo-
nent and servant of the highest literature, and thus to save elocution
from becoming merely mechanical and artificial; to raise the standard
of public taste and to prove the possibility of successfully reading
the best literature in public entertainments. Sir Henry Irving gave
a recital for the benefit of the school in 1888, the proceeds endowing
the Irving lectureship.
From this school experience, Dr. Curry undertook a series of
works based upon his investigations and discoveries in regard to
voice training, vocal expression and delivery, and the relations of
these to art, with a view of publishing them as text-books. The
first of these was "The Province of Expression" (1891), followed by
"A Text-Book on Vocal Expression" (1895); "Imagination and
Dramatic Instinct" (1896); "The Vocal Interpretation of the Bible"
(1904). He also edited "Classics for Vocal Expression" (1888), and
has several other volumes nearly ready for publication.
He received the degree of Litt.D. from Colby University in 1905.
He is a member of the Boston Art Club, which he has served for
fifteen years as librarian. He has made scientific investigation of
the cause of minister's sore throat, of stammering, of the primary
cause of the misuse of the voice, of the fundamental principles
underlying the science of training the voice, also of the training of
the body. He has endeavored to reform all elocutionary teaching
and to show that true speaking can only be taught by stimulating
the processes of the mind. In speaking of his experiences he says:
"Young people should dare to do as they dream; to think about
what they do and to act out what they think; not to be governed
too much by outer influences."
In 1882 he married Anna Baright, of Poughkeepsie, New York.
Miss Baright was of a long line of Quaker ancestors, including the
Carpenters, Deans, Mabbetts and Thornes, well-known families of
Duchess County. Her maternal great-grandfather, the only break
in the Quaker line, was Gen. Samuel Augustus Barker, who served
in both wars between the United States and Great Britain, and
afterward was a member of the New York Legislature. Mrs.
Curry was a graduate of the Boston University School of Oratory,
and she was a teacher at the School of Expression from its estab-
lishment. They have had six children of whom four are living.
JOSIAH STEARNS CUSHING
JOSIAH STEARNS CUSHING was born in Bedford, Massa-
chusetts, on the third day of May, 1854, son of William Cushing,
born May 15, 1811, died August 27, 1895, and Margaret Louisa
(Wiley) Cushing. His grandfather, Edmund Cushing, born Decem-
ber 2, 1776, died March 22, 1851. The name of his paternal grand-
mother was Mary Stearns (Cushing). His maternal grandparents
were Thomas Wiley and Margaret Wright Wiley. Matthew Cushing,
an early ancestor, was born in Hardingham, England, and settled
in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638.
Mr. Cushing's father was a Unitarian clergyman, devotedly
following his calling and proclaiming with joy and confidence his
religious message of liberty and light, holding honesty and temper-
ance as the principles of his daily living.
Mr. Cushing very early in life developed a taste for reading
which grew into a decided passion as the years passed. With this
eager desire for knowledge, he developed habits of industry and fru-
gality. At the early age of eight years he began his duties as a
farmer boy. "Result : I became used to hard work and to little
play, which has made it easy to work hard ever since/' Mr. Cush-
ing adds to this, the emphatic admonition, " Never give up because
work is hard or tedious."
The very strong influence which Mr. Cushing's mother must
have exerted upon his life may be inferred from what he says of
her. "She is a particularly refined woman, and no hardship ever
lessened her insistence upon right living and absolute truth and
honesty from her children."
There were good schools in Clinton, Massachusetts, where Mr.
Cushing lived from his third to his twelfth year, but necessity for
his rendering services on the farm in the absence, in the army or
navy, of his older brothers permitted only a limited attendance,
or about half the school hours. He was not able to attend school
except for a few weeks after his thirteenth birthday, but being an
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JOSIAH STEARNS CUSHING
omnivorous reader, eagerly absorbing everything he could get, from
Oliver Optic to Shakespeare and the Bible, Mr. Cushing was thus
able to furnish his mind with the elements of a fair education. On
his fourteenth birthday he entered upon his career as a printer, in
the employ of the University Press at Cambridge.
Mr. Cushing was President of the Boston Typothetse for nine
years. He was also Secretary and Vice-President for many years
of the United Typothetse of America. He has designed several
" faces " of type for printers which are in general use in this country
and Europe, and by sagacity, foresight, and indomitable energy
has risen to the head of the great business which bears the name of
"The Norwood Press," in Norwood, Massachusetts, where the best
work in the manufacture of school and college text-books and scien-
tific books is carried on.
In military affairs Mr. Cushing has had considerable experience.
He took active part in the Militia of Massachusetts, his last official
position being Captain and Quartermaster of the Corps of Coast
Artillery, M. V. M., 1904-1907. He was a popular Commander of
the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Co., with the rank of Cap-
tain, 1902-1903. His influence in this organization is still strong,
the old corps recognizing his worth and being guided often by his
counsels.
In social matters Mr. Cushing has not been idle. He is a member
of the Athletic Association of Boston, Fulton Club and Aldine
Association of New York, and is an ex-president of the Old Boston
Dining Club, originally the " Bird Club/' which was the birthplace
of the Republican party. In Norwood town affairs he was for several
years president of the Board of Trade and chairman of the Public
Library Trustees.
Mr. Cushing has written many articles for magazines on print-
ing, or interests directly or indirectly connected therewith, and so
has constantly kept in touch with the broader matters of his busi-
ness as related to the world at large.
The influence of his home life, the benefits of private study and
his contact with men of affairs, in the activities of his life, he is
inclined to feel, have been the most helpful agents in his upward
journey.
In politics he has been identified with the Republican party.
In religious lines he has been identified with the Universalist Church.
JOSIAH STEARNS CUSHING
His present recreation consists largely of horseback riding, driv-
ing, and automobiling, though for many years yachting and fishing
were his paramount enjoyments, and for several years he was com-
modore of the Winthrop Yacht Club.
On the 30th of March, in the year 1876, Mr. Gushing was united
in marriage to Lilias Jean, daughter of William and Elizabeth Ross.
From this union three children have been born, only one of whom
survives, Lilias Stearns Cushing, a maiden of eighteen years, who
resides with her parents in the family mansion at Norwood, Massa-
chusetts.
On November 2, 1909, Mr. Cushing was elected a member of
the Governor's Council, to represent the Second Councilor District
of Massachusetts.
Mr. Cushing's remarkably successful life is an inspiration for
young men. He has demonstrated the possibility of steadily ascend-
ing the road to complete success in comparatively few years, by
industry, courage, and the application of his powers to a definite
end.
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ORLANDO HENRY DAVENPORT
IS a descendant from Thomas Davenport who emigrated from
Coventry, Warwickshire, England, to the Colony of Massachu-.
setts Bay during the year 1637, and soon after his arrival
settled in Dorchester, quite near to the present junction of Wash-
ington, Harvard, and Bowdoin Streets. He became a member of
the First Church of Dorchester, November 20, 1640, and his wife
Mary joined it, March 8, 1644. He held many town offices during his
residence of about forty-eight years, and died November 9, 1685.
Immigration to New England during the seventeenth century
was less frequent from the midland counties than from other parts
of Old England; yet there were several bearing the family name
who at about the same time were induced to exchange their native
Warwickshire homes for Massachusetts.
Thomas and Mary Davenport had nine children, and Orlando
Henry descended from their youngest son, whose name was John.
He was born at Dorchester, October 20, 1664, and died at Milton,
Massachusetts, March 21, 1725. He married Naomi Foster, of Dor-
chester, about the year 1690. They had four children, one of whom
was named Joseph, who was born at Dorchester, August 30, 1701,
and died at Newton, Massachusetts, March 12, 1752. In early life
Joseph settled in that part of the present city of Newton called
Wabon, and only a short distance west of the Wabon railroad station.
He married Sarah Ware, of Needham, Massachusetts, April 29, 1731.
They had nine children, one of whom was named Benjamin, born at
Newton, June 16, 1743. He died at Needham, Massachusetts,
December 28, 1833, and was buried in the family lot of the First
Parish Cemetery at East Needham. He married Sarah Wilson, of
Dedham, Massachusetts, January 26, 1769. He was one of the
company of militia who marched from Dedham to Lexington, and
took an active part there in the celebrated battle of April 19, 1775.
It may further be said of him that during his life of upwards of
ninety years, all who knew him had implicit confidence in every
ORLANDO HENRY DAVENPORT
statement made by him. He had nine children, one of whom was
named Benjamin, Jr., born at Needham, March 27, 1786. He died
at Newton, June 27, 1862, and was buried in the family lot of the
Winchester Cemetery at Newton Highlands. He married Mehitable
Beard, of Westminster, Massachusetts, January 1, 1811, by whom
he had four children. Mehitable died March 26, 1826. His second
wife was Sarah Whitney Simmons, of Watertown. Of this marriage
three children were born, of whom Orlando, the subject of this
sketch was one.
Orlando Henry Davenport was born at Newton Upper Falls,
Massachusetts, on the 17th day of May, 1830. The household of
which Orlando was the youngest son, consisted, in addition to his
parents, of five sons and two daughters. His father followed the
occupation of blacksmith, and in his tireless industry, his scrupulous
honesty, his respect for the rights of others, and the sanctity of an
oath, he might well have served as an original for the Village
Blacksmith Longfellow has immortalized.
Each of the five sons was from early age required to daily per-
form some regular duty and was taught to esteem hard labor as
honorable and of great benefit. Mr. Davenport in his old age is em-
phatic in his opinion that children should perform some useful manual
work daily after they have arrived at the age of six or seven years.
When seven years old Orlando was put to work in the Mule Spinning
Room of the Ellis Cotton Factory at Newton Upper Falls, where
at that time thirteen hours were required for a day's work. He
continued work at this factory about two years, except that he
attended the district school one term annually during the winter
months. The following two years, except during the winter term
at school, he was placed at work with the village butcher. Then fol-
lowed a little over one year at the school of Mr. Marshall S. Rice,
at Newton Center. His education obtained after that date was
acquired in part by study evenings and in the sterner school of ex-
perience. When arriving at nearly thirteen years of age he was
employed at the livery stable of Messrs. Thayer & Billings, occa-
sionally driving the four-horse daily mail and passenger coach to
Boston, or the stage from the village to the railroad depot at West
Newton, or the mail and passenger stage to Needham and Dover.
The following two years he was an apprentice at the blacksmith
shop of the William Clark Machinery Works, and then worked with
ORLANDO HENRY DAVENPORT
his father until the early spring of 1849, at which time he accepted
a situation in the water department of the city of Boston, where he
remained until December, 1855.
During these years Mr. Davenport often received encouraging
offers to enter other employment, but his individual cautiousness
and the advice of his father, who would often repeat to him the
adage, "A rolling stone gathers no moss," caused him to decline
them and to be satisfied while he was doing reasonably well. Mr.
Davenport takes pride in saying that each and all of his employers
increased his wages during the time he remained with them without
solicitation on his part or that of his father.
It was on the 25th day of December, 1855, that Mr. Davenport
was married to Sarah Ann Reynolds, of Marblehead, Massachusetts,
who was the daughter of William Hooper and Eliza Glover Reynolds;
her father (William H. Reynolds) was captain of the Marblehead
company of militia during the War of 1812, her maternal grandfather
was Samuel Glover, merchant of Marblehead, and her great-grand-
father was Gen. John Glover, whose bronze statue now adorns
Commonwealth Avenue, in the city of Boston. It may therefore
be seen that both Mr. Davenport and his wife came from good sturdy
English stock alike; self-respecting and unassuming. One child, a
son, was born to them, who died when about one year of age.
It was also during this month and year that Mr. George Adams,
who was the proprietor of the Boston Directory Establishment,
made him such a liberal offer to enter his employ that he
promptly accepted it. In about one year and three quarters from
that time, Mr. Adams gave Mr. George Sampson (who had been his
bookkeeper for many years) and Mr. Davenport a partnership
interest with him in the business. The firm name of the copart-
nership was Adams, Sampson & Company, and the business was con-
tinued under this firm name until after the death of Mr. Adams.
In 1865 the firm name was changed to that of Sampson, Davenport
& Company, and under this style of firm the business was continued
up to September 1, 1883, at which time Mr. Davenport retired.
The business of the Boston Directory Establishment in 1855
consisted mainly in publishing the annual directory of the city and
in publishing, at intervals of about two years, directories for the cities
of Roxbury, Charlestown, Lynn, Salem, Newburyport, Lawrence,
Lowell, Taunton and Fall River, in Massachusetts. The city of
ORLANDO HENRY DAVENPORT
Manchester, in New Hampshire; the annual register and business
directory for the State of Massachusetts, and a similar publication
for the State of Rhode Island.
Very soon after Mr. Davenport entered the employ of Mr. Adams,
he was assigned to an active part in collecting and compiling material
for the first business directory of the New England States. This
publication was issued in the spring of 1856. In December of 1856
he purchased for his employer the copyright and good-will of the
directory for the city of Albany, New York, and in March, 1857,
he purchased the copyright and good-will of the Troy, New York,
city directory. He also soon added to these publications, directories
for the following nearby cities, viz.: Rensselaer, West Troy, Cohoes,
Waterford and Lansingburgh. In 1860 he purchased the copy-
right and good-will of the Providence, Rhode Island, city directory,
and as the principal editor and compiler of these publications he
continued issuing them annually in the name of the copartnership,
up to the time of his retirement. In 1859 he edited the first business
directory for the entire State of New York, and at intervals of a few
years continued publishing it.
As has already been shown, Mr. Davenport's opportunities for
obtaining an education were of an extremely limited character.
He, however, cheerfully accepted the situation of his early years, and
now in later life he looks back with gratitude to his parents for so
much of an education as they were able to give him, also with greater
thankfulness to them for instilling firmly upon his mind the impor-
tance of being ever willing to labor for the best interest of his employer
and to always be found reliable and trustworthy in all respects.
The early guidance of his parents was supplemented by the
reading of such historical works as came in his way and by the assist-
ance he obtained in his early days by listening to the preaching
of Rev. Otis A. Skinner at the Warren Street Universalist Church
in Boston from 1850 to 1857, and later listening to the Rev. Henry
Ward Beecher at Brooklyn, New York. He heard Mr. Beecher
preach and lecture forty-six times during one year. It has also
been his good fortune to frequently come in contact with noted men
of affairs, among whom were Hon. Cyrus W. Field, of New York
City; Erastus Corning, Thomas Olcott, Charles Van Benthuysen and
Adam Van Allen, of Albany, New York, from each of whom he
received many favors and valuable advice.
ORLANDO HENRY DAVENPORT
Mr. Davenport has always been a stanch Republican in poli-
tics and has never seen good reason for transferring his allegiance
from that party since it first became his privilege to vote. He was
for many years a Justice of the Peace and for a short time a United
States Internal Revenue Assessor. He has been a member of the
Gate of the Temple Lodge of A. F. and A. M., and the Saint Matthew's
Royal Arch Chapter, of South Boston, since 1860. He is a life mem-
ber of the Bostonian Society and also of the Massachusetts Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. Mr. Davenport's religious
affiliations have been, since he was quite a young man, with the
Universalist Denomination.
During Mr. Davenport's long business life he has served for about
thirty years as a director in the Commerce Insurance Company of
Albany, New York, and in the Equitable Fire and Marine Insurance
Company of Providence, Rhode Island, and as one of the trustees
of the Franklin Savings Bank, in Boston.
Mr. Davenport's only amusement or relaxation from his business
has been with his gun and dogs afield. The scatter gun, the hunting
dogs, and the fishing rod are still very familiar to him. He built his
present home in 1870 at No. 20 Waverley Street, Roxbury.
From his long experience in business he suggests to young Ameri-
cans: "The practice of the strictest honesty; carefulness in select-
ing only worthy companions; a willingness to work faithfully from
early morning to late evening and with constant watchfulness for
the best interests of his employer." These principles, it is need-
less to add, have been active factors in Mr. Davenport's own long,
respected, and prosperous career.
ROBERT THOMPSON DAVIS
ROBERT THOMPSON DAVIS was born in the Province of
Ulster, Ireland, August 28, 1823, and died October 29, 1906,
at his home in Fall River, Massachusetts, having enjoyed
a long life, richly filled with honor. His ancestry was Presbyterian
on the paternal and Quaker on the maternal side.
In 1826, John and Sarah (Thompson) Davis, with their son,
Robert, and their three other children came to New England and
settled in Amesbury, Essex County, Massachusetts, where the son
was brought up and received his school training at Friends School,
Providence, Rhode Island, at Amesbury Academy, and from private
teachers. He subsequently took up the study of medicine in the
home of Dr. Thomas Wilbur, of Fall River, and afterward attended
the Tremont Medical School for two years, then conducted by Doc-
tors Jacob and Henry J. Bigelow, D. Humphrey Storer and Oliver
Wendell Holmes, and after taking the usual course, graduated from
the Medical Department of Harvard University in 1847. After his
graduation he was appointed dispensary physician in Boston. As
his district included Fort Hill and the region of the clocks, he saw
much of the ship fever which prevailed among the poor emigrants
in the famine and fever year of 1847. In the latter part of the year
he removed to Waterville, Maine, where he engaged in general prac-
tice for three years. In 1850 he returned to Fall River where he
has since resided with the exception of four years spent in New York
City. He became a member of the South Bristol Medical Society
of which he was twice elected president. He was also a member of
the Massachusetts Medical Society and repeatedly chosen councilor.
He was also a member of the American Medical Association, and of
the National Public Health Association, and upon the organization
of the Harvard Medical Alumni Association he was elected an hon-
orary member.
He was appointed by Governor Andrew, medical examiner of
the volunteer soldiers during the early part of the Civil War, and was
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ROBERT THOMPSON DAVIS
also medical examiner of those persons claiming exemption from
military duty on account of physical disability. He responded to
the call of the Government for surgeons after the second battle of
Bull Run and assisted in treating the wounded at Alexandria. He
was appointed by the mayor to take charge of the cases during the
only visitation of Asiatic cholera from which Fall River has suffered.
At the request of the president of the Massachusetts Medical So-
ciety he was appointed by the Old Colony Railroad Company to
treat all cases of caisson-disease occurring during the erection of a
bridge over the Taunton River, and make a report of its causes,
symptoms and treatment to the councilors of the Society, the first
report made to that body upon the subject.
Dr. Davis was, from early manhood, strongly interested in public
affairs. In 1851 he addressed a meeting called in Fall River to in-
struct its representatives to vote for Charles Sumner for United
States Senator, who, after a protracted struggle, lacked but one vote
to secure his election. Hon. N. B. Borden obeyed the instructions
passed by the meeting, and Fall River has justly claimed the credit
of deciding that contest. In a speech delivered by Senator Hoar,
he declared that the action of that meeting was due to the speech
of Dr. Davis, whom he mentioned among twenty other men as the
leaders of the political anti-slavery movement in Massachusetts. Dr.
Davis was a member of the Constitutional Convention of 1853, and
was State Senator in 1859 and 1861. In the former year he was chair-
man of the Committee on Charitable Institutions, and a member of
the Committee to report upon the revision of the Statutes. In 1861
he was chairman of the Committee on Education, and member of a
committee to confer and advise with the governor upon the great
public exigency then existing. In 1873 Dr. Davis was elected mayor
of Fall River without opposition, and during his term of office a plan
for thorough sewerage was inaugurated, new engine houses, new
police stations, several new and well-equipped schoolhouses were
erected, including the Davis School named in his honor, and free text-
books were furnished to all pupils in the public schools. His salary
as mayor was given by him to the Children's Home of Fall River.
Dr. Davis was elected to the Forty-eighth, Forty-ninth, and Fiftieth
Congress, 1883-1889. He was an active and influential member,
and made a number of speeches on subjects of national importance.
Upon his retirement from Congress he was appointed by Governor
ROBERT THOMPSON DAVIS
Ames a member of the Metropolitan Sewerage Commission. He
was a member of the conventions which nominated Lincoln in 1860,
Hayes in 1876 and Roosevelt in 1904. He delivered the memorial
address on Decoration Day in 1868, the first of the series which
have been continued yearly since; the address in memory of Grant
and Sherman before the Grand Army, on the Centennial anniversary
of the adoption of the Constitution of Massachusetts, before the
pupils of the public schools of Fall River; the memorial address in
Amesbury in 1888 at the unveiling of the statue of Josiah Bartlett,
a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who was a native of
that town, and many other addresses on public occasions. Dr.
Davis was one of the chief factors in the development of the manu-
facturing industries of Fall River, and was the president of the Wam-
panoag Mills, the Stafford Mills and the Algonquin Printing Company;
was also director in the Merchants and Stevens Mills. He was a
liberal contributor to the charities of Fall River, and one of the
original subscribers to the Fall River hospital, was its president
and one of its trustees, and vice-president of the Children's Home.
In 1903 he was elected president of the Home Market Club and re-
elected in 1904. He was president of the Commercial Club of Fall
River and a member of the Quequechan Club. He was also for
many years a member of the Union League Club of New York City,
and vice-president of the Massachusetts Club.
Dr. Davis married, in 1849, Sarah C. Wilbur, the daughter of his
medical preceptor, who died in 1856. Their only son died in infancy.
He married in 1862 Susan A. Haight, the daughter of Moses Haight,
of Newcastle, New York, who died in 1900, and is survived by a son,
Robert C, born in 1875, who graduated at Harvard A.B. 1897,
A.M. 1899, received his legal education at Harvard Law School,
and is a member of the law firm of Jackson, Slade & Borden, of Fall
River.
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CHARLES ADDISON DENNY
CHARLES ADDISON DENNY, manufacturer of machine
card clothing, State Senator for two terms, belongs to a
family that has been intimately connected with the history
of Leicester, Massachusetts, where he was born March 4, 1836. His
father, Joseph Addison Denny (May 13, 1804, to February 25, 1875),
was the son of Joseph Denny (April 2, 1777, to November 19, 1822),
and Phebe (Henshaw) Denny; he married Mary Davis, daughter of
Joel Davis of Rutland, Massachusetts (March 7, 1779, to November
14, 1837), and Mary (Smith) Davis.
The first of this family in America, Daniel Denny, son of
Thomas and Grace Cook Denny, came from Combs, Suffolk County,
England, in 1715, and settled in Leicester in 1717, making
himself influential in the political and religious life of the town.
The family of to-day trace connection with numerous ancestors of
distinction in national history. Among them may be mentioned
John Alden of the Mayflower immigrants; Capt. Roger Dudley; his
son Gov. Thomas Dudley, Governor of the Massachusetts Province;
Dudley Wade Swan, and Col. William Henshaw, an energetic sup-
porter of the Revolutionary cause. Afterwards, upon the break-
ing out of hostilities, Colonel Henshaw commanded the Worcester
regiment of " Minute Men " that started from Worcester at ten o'clock
the night of April 19, 1775, and making a forced march reported at
Cambridge at ten o'clock the next morning. Not long after leaving
the regiment under command of its lieutenant-colonel, Samuel
Denny, of the same family, Colonel Henshaw served on the staff
of General Washington as assistant ad jut ant- general, second to
Adjutant-General Horatio Gates. At the same time, Colonel Hen-
shaw was a member of the Provincial Congress and upon the Council
of War. After the siege of Boston, and the British had been forced
from the town and its harbor, Colonel Henshaw went with General
Washington to Long Island, having command of the 12th Regi-
ment of the Continental Army, then to Flatbush, King's Bridge,
CHARLES ADDISON DENNY
and White Plains, and continuing in Washington's campaign in
New Jersey, joining in the engagements at Trenton, Princeton and
Morristown. After this service, having a large family as well as a
large farm at home, he resigned his commission, and at home found
abundant opportunity to make himself useful, serving his God and
his country faithfully.
Joseph Addison Denny, of the fourth generation from Daniel
Denny and eighth from Robert Denny, was a man of marked literary
tastes, interested especially in historical research. He was widely
known as a manufacturer of machine card clothing, as a trustee and
administrator of estates. WThile attending to this business he also
found time to attend to the interests of the Leicester Bank, was a
trustee of Leicester Academy for forty years, and for twenty-five
years the clerk of the town, and an active member of the Congre-
gational Church for forty-eight years. As a good neighbor and en-
terprising citizen he will long be remembered, for in all trouble and
difficulty among the people he was sought as a wise counselor, and
in all distress his aid was freely rendered.
The boyhood of Charles Addison Denny was shaped by the lofty
ideals and sound practical methods of his father, not less than by
the strong intellectual as well as moral influence of his mother. He
was early led in the paths of healthful and right living and was given
regular duties to perform, thus helping to form habits of industry
through life. While he had a vigorous boy's love for travel and out-
of-door life, yet from early years he placed "business first." He
attended the common schools of the town and afterwards took a
course of studies at the Leicester Academy.
Upon reaching years of mature development, he decided to fol-
low the occupation of his father and he served a preliminary appren-
ticeship of three years in machinery and office work. Reaching
his majority in 1857, he entered business with his father, in the firm
of Bisco & Denny of Leicester, Massachusetts, and Manchester, New
Hampshire. The manufacture of card clothing by this establish-
ment became extensive and widely known. He continued in the
firm for thirty-three years. In 1890 he became vice-president and
general manager of the American Card Clothing Company of
Worcester, in which position he enjoyed marked success until 1904,
when he retired from active business.
Mr. Denny has held the esteem of his fellow townsmen in his
CHARLES ADDISON DENNY
section of the State to an unusual degree, and has had many tokens
of their confidence and their appreciation of his interest in the public
weal. On the death of his father in 1875 he was made treasurer
of Leicester Academy, which position he filled to 1908. He has been
director and member of the Finance Committee of the State Mutual
Life Assurance Company since 1877; was president of the Leicester
National Bank from 1879 to 1903.
A Republican in his political affiliations, he was elected by his
party to the State Senate in 1884 and again in 1885; he was in 1885
appointed by the Governor a member of the State Board of Health,
Lunacy and Charity, upon which he served four years.
Mr. Denny is a prominent member of the Congregational Church
of Leicester, in which town he continues to make his home. He
belongs to numerous social organizations, including the Worcester
Club, the Commonwealth Club, Sons of the Revolution and the
Worcester Congregational Club. His favorite relaxation is found
with good horses, in riding and driving, and also in travel of all
kinds.
Mr. Denny was married October 29, 1861, to Caroline Woodcock
(October 27, 1840— June 30, 1900), daughter of Josephus and Cath-
erine (Davis) Woodcock, granddaughter of John and Ruth (Mehuren)
Woodcock, and of Adin and Lydia (Lincoln) Davis, and a descend-
ant from Dolor Davis, who came from Kent, England, to Cambridge,
Massachusetts. Of four children born, three are living; Walter
Josephus, representing Waterbury Manufacturing Company, Bertha
Woodcock and George Addison, who is with Crompton & Knowles
Loom Works. A daughter, Alice Catherine, died September 6,
1868, at the age of thirteen months.
It is perhaps a trite saying, and yet, though hackneyed, as true
as it ever was in the past, that the teachings of successful and useful
lives are among our most precious heritages. Mortals may not
command success, but they can do much to deserve it, and, when
it is won, deserve the congratulations of their fellows. For the
students of to-day, Mr. Denny condenses the lessons of a long and
active life into these few words: "Steady, moral habits that will
conduce to good health; persistent attention to whatever is under-
taken; strict honesty and open, frank intercourse with fellow men;
temperance and purity of life — are all needed for success and happi-
ness."
DANIEL DORCHESTER
DANIEL DORCHESTER, clergyman, was born in Duxbury,
Massachusetts, March 11, 1827, and died in West Rox-
bury, Massachusetts, March 13, 1907.
His father, Daniel Dorchester (January 23, 1790 to August 6,
1854), was the son of Daniel (August 3, 1763 to 1820) and Sarah
(Keeney) Dorchester. He was a Methodist clergyman of marked
character and influence.
His mother, Mary (Otis) Dorchester, was a lineal descendant
through her mother, Mary Chester, of Elder William Brewster of
the Mayflower.
John Dorchester, an ancestor, was prior of a monastery in Eng-
land in 1534. Anthony Dorchester immigrated to this country
and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1630 and removed to
Windsor, Connecticut, in 1634. Twenty-seven ancestors were
soldiers in the Revolutionary War, serving at Concord, Lexington
and Valley Forge. Seven of these bore the name Dorchester, ten
that of Otis, and ten that of Chester, the family of his maternal
grandmother. His ancestors were also conspicuous in civic and
educational affairs, and won renown in law, medicine and other
professions.
He is the third of six Daniel Dorchesters, five of whom are or
have been in the ministry of the Methodist Episcopal Church, four
of whom have attained distinction in that ministry.
Young Dorchester had many difficulties in acquiring an educa-
tion. He fitted for college at Norwich (Connecticut) Academy,
and entered Wesleyan University, Middleton, Connecticut, in 1848.
Because of ill health he left during his Junior year. But the Uni-
versity has since conferred upon him the degree of A.M. in 1856,
and D.D. in 1874.
He commenced his life-work as pastor in Somers, Connecticut,
in 1847, and joined, that year, the New England Southern Confer-
ence of the Methodist Episcopal Church. He subsequently became
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DANIEL DORCHESTER
pastor of six other Connecticut churches. In 1858 he joined the
New England Conference. He held pastorates in Charlton, Worces-
ter, Lowell, Charlestown, Salem, Chelsea, Natick, Springfield and
Roslindale. He also served three full terms as presiding elder of
Worcester District, 1865-69; Lynn District, 1874-78, and North
Boston District, 1882-86.
In 1854, when twenty-eight years of age, he was elected to the
Connecticut State Senate, and served on the State Commission of
Idiocy. He served also as a member of the Massachusetts House
of Representatives in 1883. His latest public office was United
States Superintendent of Indian schools.
He was for many years president of the National Temperance
League. He wrote a great deal upon Temperance reform and pro-
hibition. He lectured extensively, and delivered many public
addresses upon the subject. He wrote a notable work, "The Liquor
Problem in All Ages." He was also the author of "Christianity in
the United States"; "The Latest Drink Sophistries vs. Total Ab-
stinence'7; "The Why of Methodism"; "The Problem of Religious
Progress"; "The Concessions of Liberalists to Orthodoxy"; "A
Half Century of My Ministry,'7 etc. He was also a frequent contrib-
utor to magazines, and the religious press, especially the "Metho-
dist Review," "Zion's Herald" and the "Christian Advocate."
He was not only renowned in his own denomination throughout
the country, but had large influence among representative men of
other faiths and among prominent citizens generally. He was twice a
delegate to the General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church,
and in 1884 received sixty votes for the office of Bishop, although
refusing to take any measures to advance his own candidacy.
April 12, 1850, he married Mary, daughter of Henry and Matilda
Davis, of Dudley, Massachusetts. Their children were Daniel, who
entered the ministry of the M. E. Church in 1877, was thirteen years
professor in Boston University and is now pastor of Christ Church,
Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Liverius Hull, for three years pastor of
Lindell Ave. Church, St. Louis, Missouri, now pastor of Elm Park
Church, Scranton, Pennsylvania; Chester Otis, of the National
Shawmut Bank, Boston; Ernest Dean, of Texas, and Mrs. Orrin
L. Woods, of West Roxbury. Two others were early translated.
October 12, 1875, he was again married to Merial A. Whipple,
of North Charlestown, New Hampshire, who did not survive him.
AMOS WARREN DOWNING
SAGACIOUS in counsel and most exact in all business relations,
Mr. Amos Warren Downing, banker, is one of the men of
far-reaching influence in Haverhill, Massachusetts. Like so
many other successful men of his time, Mr. Downing began life on
a New England farm, with no especial advantages except the habits
of vigorous industry developed there. He was born in Middleton,
New Hampshire, March 31, 1838, the son of Samuel Hawkins Down-
ing, a farmer, and Eliza Ann (Whitehouse) Downing, his wife. The
Downing name came to New England from London. There in the
great capital of the English-speaking world the Downings were
and long had been bankers.
Jonathan Downing of this celebrated English stock came from
London to New England about the year 1660. On his mother's
side Mr. Amos Warren Downing is descended from a colonist of prom-
inence, Thomas Cotton, sometime governor of New Hampshire.
Mr. Downing's mother is remembered as a lovely Christian
woman, and her impress on the intellectual and moral life of her
son was very powerful. She governed her household with wisdom,
and her son cherishes to this day a peculiar gratitude to her mem-
ory.
Mr. Downing as a boy had his tasks in the farm home and many
of them. Far from easy was the lot of the farmer's boy in New
Hampshire sixty years ago. There was work and hard work to
be done summer and winter. Opportunities for schooling were
few and chances for recreation and pleasure fewer. Yet this life,
though stern, bore in thousands of lads a splendid harvest of char-
acter.
There were summer and fall terms only in the country school-
house in Mr. Downing's native town. These terms lasted from six
to ten weeks. They were devoted necessarily to the elements of
an education. But perhaps because there was the less chance for
a dividing and distracting of attention, or because the habit of
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AMOS WARREN DOWNING
thoroughness was more firmly implanted than now, these district
schools of rural New England did their work well, and produced a
remarkable number of men and women capable of playing a strong
part in the life of New England.
Mr. Downing's boyhood reading was of a serious character.
He was a student of the Bible and of Proverbs in particular, and
later he gathered help and inspiration from that admirable work,
" Getting On in the World," by Professor Matthews, of Chicago,
to which so many lads owe a debt freely and often acknowledged..
In 1861, just at the beginning of the great war, Mr. Downing
began his business career in a country store in New Durham, New
Hampshire. He took immediately an active part in the affairs
of the community, and from 1861 to 1864 served New Durham as
selectman and as recruiting agent of the town for the Federal Army.
Those were difficult years for men of business and for public officers,,
but they were years calculated to develop strong qualities, sure to
tell in after life.
From a country store in New Hampshire, Mr. Downing came to
the energetic manufacturing city of Haverhill, Massachusetts, and
there entered upon a career of larger breadth and usefulness. He
had had an excellent business training. Even as a boy he had
been fond of trade, and his experience as a country merchant proved
exceedingly valuable. He became interested in banking in Haver-
hill, and advanced rapidly in this profession, becoming president
of the Haverhill Cooperative Bank and vice-president of the Haver-
hill National Bank. Like other manufacturing communities,
Haverhill has had its ups and downs. Its growth has not always
been constant. It has suffered from business depressions of its
own when the country has felt the heavy weight of reverses. But
on the whole Haverhill has grown remarkably in industrial activity,
financial strength and population, and in all of this evolution Mr.
Downing has been a potent factor through his shrewdness and fore-
sight and through the respect which his judgment and integrity
have commanded among his fellow citizens. Industrious and
faithful in all things, Mr. Downing has always sought to impress
the importance of these characteristics upon others. He has given
single-minded attention to his own business.
Mr. Downing is not only a sound and active financier; he is a
citizen of public spirit, full of zealous interest in good causes. He
AMOS WARREN DOWNING
is a devoted member of the First Baptist Church of Haverhill, and
for thirty years has served it on its prudential committee. He has
also been chairman of its building committee. He is influential
also in the affairs of the Baptist denomination at large. For fif-
teen years he has been a trustee of the Newton Theological Institu-
tion. He is a member of the executive board of the Massachusetts
Missionary Society, and for twenty years has borne a part in shaping
the policies of this beneficent and powerful association. He has
also been conspicuous in guiding the work of the Children's Aid
Society of Haverhill.
A member of the Masonic Order, Mr. Downing is affiliated with
Saggahew Lodge, and he is a member of Haverhill Commandery.
In politics, Mr. Downing is proud to be known as a "Mugwump,"
but he supported the Republican party when Mr. Bryan came
forward and the issue of free silver was raised.
Mr. Downing was married on October 31, 1859, to Susan A.,
daughter of Robert and Ann D. Grace. Mr. and Mrs. Downing
have a son, Mr. Irving G. Downing, a Boston broker in, and importer,
of hides.
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Past Grand Ma.: stei of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts
Past Eminem Com.-. of Boston Commandery of K.-.T.-.
HENRY ENDICOTT
HENRY ENDICOTT, master machinist, financier, business
man, was born in Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts,
November 14, 1824. His father, Elijah Endicott, son of
Captain James and Abigail (Puffer) Endicott, was a farmer, selectman
of the town of Canton, a man of uprightness and geniality. He
married for his second wife Cynthia Childs, of Dover, Massachusetts,
who bore seven of his nine children, the four youngest being sons.
The earliest known ancestor in a direct line was Henry Endicott,
born near Chagford, Devonshire, England, not later than 1480.
The earliest ancestor in America was Gilbert Endicott, born in
Marldon, England, 1648. On immigrating to New England, land
was granted him at Wells, Maine, where he married Hannah
Gouch. He removed to Canton, Massachusetts, and was the first
person to be buried in the graveyard there, where six of his genera-
tions were in turn given sepulcher. Captain James Endicott, of
Canton, Massachusetts, was a distinguished officer in the American
Revolution; held office as Justice of the Peace, judge of the court;
Representative in the Massachusetts Legislature.
Henry Endicott was a strong, athletic child and youth, fond of
sports and games. He was brought up in the country and had the
regular work assigned to farmers' sons. He considered his farm
training with its regular and responsible work a great advantage
in after life. He had a good public school education, but being the
youngest of a large family wTent to work early as an apprentice in a
machine-shop. He learned his trade throughly. In 1848 he
entered into partnership with Caleb C. Allen, forming the firm
of Allen & Endicott, manufacturers of steam engines, boilers
and general machinery. He retired from business in 1873.
Later the Allen and Endicott Building Company was organized
and incorporated and he was made president of the corporation.
He is also president of the Hittinger Fruit Company and of the Cam-
bridgeport Savings Bank and a director in the First National Bank
HENRY ENDICOTT
of Cambridge, afterwards merged into the Harvard Trust Company.
He is also a director in the Cambridge Gas Light Company. He has
held subordinate offices in different Masonic institutions; was master
of Amicable Lodge and of Mizpah Lodge; high priest of St. Paul's
R. A. Chapter, Boston; of Cambridge R. A. Chapter under dispen-
sation; eminent commander of Boston Commandery; sovereign grand
inspector-general of the thirty-third degree; grand master of the
Grand Lodge of Masons in Massachusetts, 1887, 1888 and 1889; hon-
orary member of Mount Olivet, Amicable and Mizpah Lodges, of
Cambridge; of Converse Lodge of Maiden; of St. Paul's Chapter,
Cambridge; of Boston Commandery and of St. John's Commandery,
of Philadelphia. He is a Republican in national politics and affili-
ated with the Unitarian denomination in religious worship. His
recreation he finds in club intercourse and in driving. He was
married September 2, 1851, to Abigail Hastings, daughter of Asaph
and Lois (Hastings) Browning, of Petersham, Massachusetts, and
their only surviving child is Emma, now Mrs. Joseph Mason Marean,
of Cambridge. He says : " I don't know that I ever failed in anything
I attempted, but I have never attempted much. As to success I
consider absolute honesty and reliability the first essentials, then
enjoyment of hard work."
PUB, ;
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GEORGE FRANCIS FABYAN
A CONSPICUOUS merchant of Boston for more than a gen-
eration, George Francis Fabyan was a native of Somers-
worth, New Hampshire, the descendant of a family, French
in early origin, which, however, had made its home in Berkshire,
England, since the reign of Henry the Third. The first of the race
in America was John Fabyan (spelled also Fabian) , who was born in
England in 1681 and, coming to this country in his youth, settled in
the town of Newington, New Hampshire. John Fabyan, by trade
a tailor and draper, was for many years a justice of the peace. He
left a comfortable estate and founded a family here which has made
no small impress on the life of New England.
Joseph Fabyan, a son of John Fabyan, left the homestead about
1730, in a period of rest from the Indian wars, and went with his
brother John of Scarboro in Maine, settling upon the widespreading
acres of what is now the old Fabyan farm, held uninterruptedly to
the present time by their descendants. Joshua Fabyan, the son
of Joseph, was a wealthy man in Scarboro, active in public affairs,
a justice of the Court of General Sessions and an earnest patriot in
the Revolution. He was one of the founders and first overseers of
Bowdoin College. His son George graduated from the Medical
School of Maine in the class of 1833, and practised his profession in
Providence, Portland and Boston, serving as a member of the school
committee of Boston.
George Francis Fabyan was the eldest child and only son of
Dr. George and Abigail (Junkins) Fabyan, and was born in Somers-
worth, New Hampshire, June 26, 1837. He received an excellent
education in the local academy and the famous Phillips Academy
at Andover, Massachusetts. His father had wished him to study
medicine, but this did not appeal to the young man. He preferred
a career of active business, and when he was seventeen he began
his career in a dry-goods house in Boston. Soon after he entered
the employ of James M. Beebe & Company, wholesale dry-goods
EVERETT OLIN FISK.
TO the American educational public few names have been
more familiar during the last score of years than that of
Mr. Fisk.
The Fisk Teachers' Agency, while not the earliest in the field,
having been established only so recently as 1884, has within the
period of its existence grown to be the most extensive agency of the
kind in the world. In the lapse of twenty-three years it has filled
over twenty-two thousand positions of all grades, from the college
presidency to the kindergarten. Important institutions in every
one of the United States have been served through its means, includ-
ing nearly all academies of high grade, over four hundred colleges
and universities, and many thousands of public schools. Nor has
its scope been confined to the American Union since more than
seven hundred educational vacancies in Canada, Mexico, the West
Indies, South America, Europe, Asia and Africa have been filled by
its interposition.
The president and founder of this far-reaching business establish-
ment taught school for two years following his graduation from
Wesleyan University in 1873, and for the decade succeeding this
experience he was the New England agent of the important school-
book publishing house of Ginn and Company. The duties of this
position required him to make frequent journeys in behalf of the
firm's interests, and in this way he obtained an intimate knowledge
of educational men and institutions which stood him in excellent
stead when he subsequently organized his own business. Since that
event he has continued to travel widely, both in this country and in
Europe, and has thus been enabled to maintain intimate relations
with men and institutions in the educational world.
Mr. Fisk was born in Marlborough, Massachusetts, August 1, 1850,
the son of a Methodist Episcopal clergyman, among whose many
admirable qualities, those of humor, self-poise and wise judgment
stood prominently forth. The boy was one of six children and in
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EVERETT OLIN FISK
his boyhood was accustomed to farm labor. As his father's means
were but limited it was not an altogether easy matter for him to
secure the education he coveted, but he attended the schools in the
vicinity of his home and from the age of thirteen to sixteen employed
his vacations in canvassing for a "Life of Abraham Lincoln" and
other books. The lesson of self-reliance in his case was thus early
acquired. At seventeen and eighteen we find him employed in a
hardware store in Natick, Massachusetts, and in 1869 he was gradu-
ated from Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Massachusetts.
But he was not satisfied with the education he had already gained
and longed ardently for college training in addition. He could not
expect pecuniary assistance from his father, as the means of the
latter were limited and the responsibilities great, and accordingly
the young man resolved to put himself through college. This he ac-
complished by dint of teaching winter schools, tutoring and hard
wTork during vacations. Even thus he was compelled to borrow
seven hundred dollars to make ends meet, but this amount he was
fortunately able to repay during his first year out of college. The
insti, .tion of his choice was, as previously mentioned, Wesleyan
University at Middletown, Connecticut, whence he received his
Bachelor of Arts degree in 1873 and that of Master of Arts in 1876.
Mr. Fisk's earliest ancestor of that name in America was Nathan
Fisk, who emigrated from England about the year 1642 and settled
at Watertown, Massachusetts. Other ancestors, including Stones,
Aliens, Cobbs, Jennisons, Warrens and Clarks, also came hither from
England in the early days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony. His
great-grandfather, Moses Fisk, fought at the Battle of Lexington,
and in subsequent years was a member of the Massachusetts General
Court, as were several other of his ancestors. His grandfather,
another Moses Fisk, was born in 1776 and died in 1851, his wife
being Sibella Jennison.
The father of Everett Fisk, the Reverend Franklin Fisk, was born
in 1814, was married to Chloe Catherine Stone in 1839 and died in
1896 at the age of eighty-two. His mother, the daughter of Na-
thaniel Stone and Chloe (Cobb) Stone, was greatly beloved by her
children, and the impress of her character was deeply felt in the
development of their intellectual as well as in that of their moral and
spiritual life.
Immediately upon graduation from the university, Mr. Fisk
EVERETT OLIN FISK
taught school for a year at Wallingford, Connecticut, where he was
also superintendent of schools, and another year at Enfield in the
same State. Teaching, indeed, was his first choice as regards a career,
but a nervous breakdown, no doubt induced by too great strain in
the years when he was paying his way through college, forced him
to relinquish this and turn to business. The influences that have
been strongest in determining his subsequent success have been in
the order we have named them, those of home, of school, of daily
contact with business men, of study in private and of early asso-
ciates.
In spite of the active life he has led, Mr. Fisk has always been
a reading man; works on history, sociology, economics and litera-
ture having been found most helpful by him, and his especial
favorites among famous authors have been Dickens, George Eliot, Sir
Walter Scott and Thackeray. In regard to sports and amusements
he enjoys golf, tennis, bowling, croquet and quoits, but does not
count himself an expert in any of these games.
As might be looked for from the circumstances of his early train-
ing, Mr. Fisk is an ardent Methodist in his religious belief, and has
been a member and trustee of the First Methodist Episcopal Church,
of Boston, for many years. He was also treasurer of that church
from 1881 to 1897. He is a member of the Wesleyan Association,
and a trustee of the Wesleyan Building in Boston; other denomina-
tional offices which he has held with acceptance from time to time
being those of membership in the General Conference of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church in 1892; of president of the Boston Missionary
Society of the same church from 1894 to 1896; of president of the
New England Conference Missionary Society from 1893 to 1895; and
of president of the Boston Methodist Social Union in 1895.
In politics Mr. Fisk is a Republican but he has never held any
political position. He is a trustee of the New England Home for
Little Wanderers and chairman of the executive committee. He
is a member and a vice-president of the American Peace Society,
and other societies on whose roll of membership his name occurs
are: the National Geographic Society; the National Municipal League;
the Roxbury Historical Society; the Twentieth Century Club; the
New England Methodist Historical Society; the Massachusetts
Club, and the Boston City Club.
The advice Mr. Fisk offers young people desirous of meeting
EVERETT OLIN FISK
with success in their various careers is summed up in these brief
suggestions derived from personal experience:
"Be of good courage; study attentively the best class of biog-
raphies; do one's best at all times; and never worry."
Mr. Fisk was married to Miss Helen Chase Steele on September 12,
1882, and their only child, Harriet Storer Fisk, a graduate of Boston
University, is now (1907) a post-graduate student in the University
of Chicago. Mrs. Fisk, who died August 31, 1901, was a daughter of
Francis Asbury Steele and Abby (Storer) Steele, her paternal grand-
parents being Joel and Jerusha (Higgins) Steele, and on the maternal
side Tristram and Harriette (Gookin) Storer. Among more remote
ancestors of Mrs. Fisk may be reckoned such famous Colonial per-
sonages as Rev. John Cotton, Major-general Daniel Gookin, Governor
Thomas Dudley, and the latter's son-in-law, Governor Simon Brad-
street.
Mr. Fisk is the brother of Dr. Herbert Franklin Fisk, for thirty-
four years a professor in Northwestern University at Evanston, 111.
JOHN DEXTER FLINT
JOHN DEXTER FLINT, mill owner, president and director
of manufacturing corporations, was born in North Reading,
Massachusetts, April 26, 1826 and died in Fall River, Massa-
chusetts, August 28, 1907.
He was the son of Henry (May 18, 1792 to November, 1886) and
Mary (Sanborn) Flint. His grandparents were John (April 3, 1761
to August 26, 1836) and Phebe (Phelps) Flint.
His father was by occupation a farmer; descended from Thomas
Flint, who came to America from Wales, in Great Britain, in 1636,
and was among the first settlers in Salem village, afterwards South
Danvers, Mass.
Mr. Flint's life presents the remarkable career of a man rising
from humble conditions, with meager resources, steadily advancing
by unwearied endeavors and moral character, to wealth, usefulness
and esteem.
When a boy of five j^ears the family moved to Peacham, Ver-
mont, where he worked on the farm until twenty years of age,
attending the public schools during three months of these winters.
To his mother he owed much of strong intellectual and moral in-
fluence upon his life. The Bible and hymn-book were his literary
guides.
His active business life commenced in New Bedford, Massachu-
setts, peddling tin, his health not admitting the confinement of work
in a store. The salary was $14 per month, he furnishing his horse
and harness. For his second year he received without horse $315,
and the third year $400; meanwhile he had become clerk and book-
keeper. In 1850 he purchased a half interest in the business. Thus
began a remarkable business career, which eventuated in large
ownership in mills and real estate.
He was president of the Flint Mills, also of the Cornell Mills;
director in Sagamore Manufacturing Company; Hargraves Mills,
Parker Mills, Wampanoag Mills. He was at different times director
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JOHN DEXTER FLINT
in the Fall River Merino Company, Seaconnet Mills, and the Davol
Mills. He helped establish and has been on the Board of Trustees
of the Home for Homeless Children; the Fall River Hospital; Home
for the Aged; the Fall River Deaconess Home; the Seaside Home for
poor sick children; the Boys' Club; the Associated Charities and
the Young Men's Christian Association. He was also actively
interested in the Home Training School for Nurses; the Salvation
Army; the Gospel Rescue Mission; the Maple Street African Metho-
dist Episcopal Church and the Italian Methodist Episcopal Church.
He was also a member of the Martha's Vineyard Camp Meeting
Association.
He was a Republican in politics and never changed. He joined
the Methodist Episcopal Church when seventeen years of age. He
was a deeply religious man, and has been regarded as the most
modest, generous, and in many respects the most useful layman of
that church in southern Massachusetts. He ever sought to do
good with his accumulating fortune. He led in organizing charities
for the public good. No worthy appeal for individual help was ever
turned away empty. No one will ever know the extent of his
donations.
So full of devotion to his work has he ever been that he writes
that he "never had time for sports."
January 17, 1850, he married Clarissa Waterman, daughter of
George and Maria (Curtis) Waterman. To them were given seven
children. Of these three survive him, Mrs. Ella (Flint) Stafford,
Mrs. Edith (Flint) Barker and Mrs. Jessie (Flint) Brayton. His
message to young Americans, beautifully illustrated in his own life,
is "to practise strict honesty, courage, caution, close application
to business and Christianity."
ASA FRENCH
ASA FRENCH, son of Jonathan and Sarah Brackett (Hay-
ward) French, was born in Braintree, Massachusetts,
October 21, 1829, and died there June 23, 1903. His ances-
tors had lived in that town from its first settlement. He re-
ceived his early education in the public schools of Braintree and at
Leicester Academy, and was graduated at Yale College in 1851.
He studied law in the Albany Law School and at the Harvard Law
School, graduating from the latter institution in 1853 with the
degree of LL.B. He was admitted to the New York Bar in 1853,
and after further study in Boston in the offices of David A. Sim-
mons and Harvey Jewell was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar
in Suffolk County, April 26, 1854. He continued to live in Brain-
tree, having an office in Boston, but was always identified with the
Norfolk County Bar.
In 1866 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Repre-
sentatives, and in 1870 was appointed district attorney for the
southeastern district of Massachusetts, consisting of the counties of
Norfolk and Plymouth, to fill the vacancy caused by the resigna-
tion of Edward L. Pierce. He held the office by successive elec-
tions until 1882, when he resigned. He had at this time shown so
conspicuously his ability at the bar, and the judicial character of
his mind, that in the latter year Governor Long offered him a seat
on the bench of the Superior Court, which he declined. Previous
to that time he had held for a number of years a position on the
Board of Commissioners on Inland Fisheries, and continued to hold
it for several years afterwards. Under the act of Congress passed
June 5, 1882, reestablishing the Court of Commissioners of Ala-
bama claims, he was appointed one of the judges, and in 1883 was
selected by President Arthur as one of the visitors at West Point
for that year. In 1870 General Sylvanus Thayer, of Braintree,
endowed a free public library in that town, and at his death
bequeathed to trustees $280,000 for the establishment there of
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ASA FRENCH
an institution for the education of children, free to all the citi-
zens of the old town, which embraced besides the present town of
Braintree the territory now included in the city of Quincy and the
towns of Randolph and Holbrook. The Thi yer Public Library
and the Thayer Academy have become important factors in pro-
moting the welfare of that section of the State. Judge French to
the time of his death was president of the Board of Trustees of both
institutions.
In October, 1858, he married Sophia B., daughter of Simeon
Palmer, of Boston, and the children born of this marriage were:
Asa P. French, now United States Attorney for the District
of Massachusetts; Emelyn L. French; Sarah H. French, now de-
ceased; Harriet C. Mixter, wife of Prof. Charles W. Mixter, of the
University of Vermont; and Sophia M. Valentine, wife of Hon.
Robert G. Valentine, Commissioner of Indian Affairs.
Judge French as a lawyer was eminently successful. He was a
strong advocate, and the presentation of his cases before whatever
tribunal he appeared was forcible, clear, and logical. He was gov-
erned in all his acts by a high sense of duty, and in the practice of
his profession never resorted to trickery to gain a point nor took
unfair advantage of an opponent. His course was not only ethically
the correct rule to follow, but one that will count to the advantage
of every lawyer, even where the sordid aim of pecuniary profit is
the only end sought.
He had an innate perception of the salient points of a cause,
and wasted very little time in investigating collateral issues that
had no particular bearing upon the question before him. He real-
ized that to a busy lawyer time is the essence of success. He aimed
at a definite point, to reach which he followed the straight road,
resisting the temptation often so pleasing of making excursions
into unexplored nooks and by-paths of the law.
To those outside the profession and to many within it, Mr.
French was probably best known as the prosecuting officer of the
southeastern district, an office which he held for eleven years. That
position is an important one, and is best filled by one who possesses
attributes broader than will suffice for a successful advocate. Its
duties are largely judicial, although of a somewhat different nature
than is required on the bench. Questions before a judge are de-
bated and decided in public, while the influence brought to bear
ASA FRENCH
upon a district attorney is often exerted in private. There he
listens to the advice and perhaps the importunities of personal
friends, or men of acknowledged ascendency in wealth or position,
seeking consideration for the relief of some or the punishment of
others charged with offenses; and an office like that of district attor-
ney, where the power is in many cases almost unlimited, requires
not only a high degree of integrity but good sense as well, a qual-
ity that learning alone does not insure, and where conscience itself
is not always a safe guide. Mr. French brought to the duties of that
office an unerring judgment that led him to do the right thing. But
furthermore, no personal consideration, no selfish ends, no desire
to please friends or placate the public, turned him from pursuing a
course that satisfied his own judgment.
Judge French took great pride in his native town and in the
institutions there with which he was intimately connected.
His services at Washington removed him in a measure from the
close observation of his acquaintances in the smaller community
where he had previously lived and acted, but in every position he
was called to occupy he proved a safe, intelligent, and careful official.
One word more must be added. Those who knew Judge French,
as many members of the Bar, especially the older members, knew
him, who had practised with him in the courts, who had en-
joyed his friendship, and who had met him in the close relations
of confidence and social intercourse, find it difficult to speak of
him without seeming to indulge in panegyric, although they are
sure that their tribute to his memory is not expressed in extrav-
agant terms. As is natural, perhaps, they appreciated him with a
deeper regard than those who observed only his public career. With
the latter his well-deserved reputation was the visible sign of his
character. But those who knew him in intimate personal relations
are aware that he possessed an element that bound them to him
by the strongest ties of friendship, and that keeps his name in grate-
ful remembrance. They are certain that trite words of praise for
his ability, industry, honesty, and integrity, qualities which they
freely accord him, fall far short of expressing all that he was.
THE J
PUBLIC III
ASA PALMER FRENCH
ASA PALMER FRENCH, United States Attorney for the
District of Massachusetts, was born January 29, 1860, at
Braintree, Massachusetts. He is the son of Asa and Sophia
B. (Palmer) French, and grandson of Jonathan and Sarah Brackett
(Hay ward) French and Simeon and Mary (Caldwell) Palmer. The
first of the surname in this country was John French, who was
born in England and immigrated to Dorchester, where he seems
to have resided for a time before settling in Braintree in 1640 or
earlier. The French family has been intimately associated with
the history of Braintree from this early settlement.
Asa P. French grew up in the pleasant town of his birth. He
attended the common schools of the town, and subsequently the
Brimmer School and the English High School in Boston, the Adams
Academy in Quincy, and the Thayer Academy in Braintree. Enter-
ing Yale he took a course of four years, and graduated in 1882.
Circumstances and his tastes led him then to study law, which he
did at the Boston University Law School and in the office of his
father in Boston.
He began the active work of fife as instructor in Latin and French
at the Thayer Academy. He was admitted to the Norfolk County
Bar in 1885, and the same year he was made clerk to the judges of
the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims at Washington, in
which capacity he served until 1886. In 1901 he was nominated
by both the Republican and Democratic parties district attorney
for the Southeastern District of Massachusetts, consisting of the
counties of Norfolk and Plymouth, was elected and held office by
successive elections until, in January, 1906, he was appointed by
President Roosevelt United States Attorney.
Mr. French's first notable work as an advocate was in the cele-
brated trial of Thomas Bram, mate of the Herbert Fuller, indicted
for the murder of the captain and his wife and the second mate of
the vessel while on the high seas in July, 1896. As junior counsel
ASA PALMER FRENCH
for the prisoner, in the two long protracted trials of this case in the
United States Circuit Court in Boston, and in the argument before
the Supreme Court in Washington resulting in the reversal of the
judgment of death imposed by the Circuit Court, Mr. French ac-
quired a national reputation. His successful prosecution, while
district attorney, of an agent of the tobacco trust under the Massa-
chusetts Anti-trust Act of 1904, which was the first prosecution
under the Act (Com. vs. Strausse, 191 Mass. 545) was, perhaps, his
most important work as state district attorney. Both as prosecuting
attorney for Norfolk and Plymouth Counties and as United States
Attorney, he has rendered notable public service. Mr. French is
known as a man of exceptional ability, strict integrity, and lofty
ideals of manhood.
He is president of the Randolph Savings Bank and of the Nor-
folk County Bar Association; a member of the Board of Trustees
of the Thayer Academy, and has been president of the Yale Alumni
Association of Boston and vicinity.
Mr. French is a member of several clubs and other social organ-
izations. He is governor of the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower
Descendants; a member of the Psi Upsilon and Skull and Bones of
Yale University; a Mason, and a member of the University Club of
Boston and of New York. He is actively interested in public
affairs.
In politics he has been a steadfast Republican. He is interested
in out-of-door sports, and gets much benefit from such recreations
as golf and tennis, which he especially enjoys.
Mr. French was married December 13, 1887, to Elisabeth A.
Wales, daughter of George W. and Clara (Ambrose) Wales. They
have two children: Jonathan W. (born in 1891) and Constance (born
in 1896).
. LIBRARY
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ALFRED DWIGHT GLEASON
THE great manufacturing industries of Massachusetts, chief
sources of wealth and power of the State, are not of Aladdin-
like growth, but represent the skilled and patient work of
generations. Time and time again it will be found that the suc-
cessful manufacturer of our day learned the business from his father
before him, adding to this inherited ability the enterprise of the new
era and its recognition of new ideas and new demands. Alfred
D wight Gleason, of Gleasondale, who has been a woolen manufac-
turer for a quarter of a century and all his life associated with tex-
tile industries, is the son of a distinguished leader in New England
textile arts, Hon. Benjamin Whitney Gleason, who was a Massachu-
setts State Senator at the outbreak of the Civil War in 1860 and
1861. The Gleason family is one of the oldest in Massachusetts,
dating back to Thomas Gleason, who settled in Watertown before
1640. This family is related to the Whitneys of Massachusetts, de-
scended from John Whitney, who settled also in WTatertown in 1635,
and is the ancestor of nearly all of the large family of that name,
many members of which have won distinction in America.
The Gleasons were farmers in the olden time, but farmers then
were often manufacturers also on a small scale. It was long before
the days of large mills. Not only had most of the clothing to be
woven in the household, but most of the tools and implements of
the farmer also had to be home-made. The stern requirements of
the times compelled ingenuity and versatility, and many of the
manufacturers of the Massachusetts of our day trace their origin
back to the resourceful farmer race of the Revolution.
The father of Alfred Dwight Gleason began his life as a cabinet
maker. He was a notable workman at his trade. He mastered
the use of textile machinery and persevered and succeeded where
others failed. Alfred Dwight Gleason was born while his father was
residing in the manufacturing town of Andover, Massachusetts, on
February 7, 1846. His mother was Louisa (Fessendon) Gleason.
ALFRED DWIGHT GLEASON
She died when her son was twelve years of age. He was deprived,
therefore, as a lad, of his mother's care, but his father's influence
and example were potent in the framing of his character. The
father was an unusual man, energetic, persevering, economical, with
a genius for business detail and a firm grasp, also, upon large busi-
ness principles. He brought up his sons to his own industry, thor-
oughly instructing them in its requirements and making them realize
ite exacting responsibilities. The son Alfred received his education
from private teachers and at the Highland Academy at Worcester.
The family patriotism was fervent. The elder Gleason did his
utmost in his community to sustain the government in the Civil
War with money and men, and the son Alfred, though a mere youth,
entered the service of the nation as first sergeant of a Massachusetts
regiment.
In 1872, when Alfred Dwight Gleason was twenty-six years old,
he was taken, with his two brothers, into partnership with their
father. That was the dearest ambition of the older man, and well
has Alfred Gleason rewarded his father's confidence. By patience,
incessant application and native ability he has become a foremost
textile manufacturer of Massachusetts. The woolen industry here
has always been one of peculiar difficulty, although of fairly regular
and now substantial growth. Far more than the cotton manu-
facturing industry it has had to face the competition of the skill and
business experience of the Old World. For many years, too, there
was the obstacle of popular prejudice to overcome — the super-
stition that imported fabrics were so intrinsically superior that Ameri-
can-made goods could be accepted only at a discount, if at all. The
history of woolen manufacturing, even in Massachusetts, where the
greatest and most notable American progress has been made, is a
record of strenuous combat and often of discouraging loss. A suc-
cessful woolen manufacturer who has come out of this ordeal with a
prosperous industry and an established reputation is a fortunate man
indeed, or rather is an unusual man in the qualities of courage,
professional aptitude and persistence.
Mr. Gleason is not only a successful manufacturer but a business
man of conspicuous, all-around ability. He is president of the
Hudson National Bank, trustee of the Hudson Savings Bank, direc-
tor of the Stevens Linen Works, and a member of the firm of J. P.
Stevens & Company, of New York and Boston. He is also a trustee
ALFRED DWIGHT GLEASON
of the Stow Library, of the Stow town fund and of the Stow poor
fund. His judgment in public affairs and in business affairs is highly
esteemed by his neighbors in the community and his associates in
manufacturing.
Mr. Gleason has been too much engrossed in his business duties
to spare much time for political life, but he is a Republican of strong
convictions, as was his distinguished father. Brought up partly
on a farm by a father who was fond of good horses and cattle and
understood them, Mr. Gleason has throughout his life taken pleasure
in driving good horses. But with the incoming of new ideas and
new devices, like so many others, he has changed his preference to
automobiles, and in them finds his present delight and recreation.
The Masonic Order claims the allegiance of Mr. Gleason. He is
a member of Doric Lodge A. F. & A. M., of Houghton Royal Arch
Chapter, and of Trinity Commandery, Knights Templars.
Mr. Gleason was married on May 12, 1870, to Blanche A., daughter
of Horace V. and Relief E. (Holman) Pratt. Mr. and Mrs. Gleason
have one child, a daughter, Alfreda Blanche, who is a student.
THOMAS HENRY GOODSPEED
THOMAS HENRY GOODSPEED, bank president and finan-
cier, was born in Phillipston, Worcester County, Massachu-
setts, November 15, 1833. His father, Thomas Goodspeed,
was a son of Luther and Betsey (Rugg) Goodspeed, and a descendant
from Roger Goodspeed, the progenitor of all the Goodspeeds in Amer-
ica, who settled in Barnstable, Plymouth Colony, in 1639. His
grandfather, Isaac Goodspeed, enlisted in Barre, Massachusetts, and
served in the Revolutionary War. Thomas Goodspeed married Mary,
daughter of Ignatius and Abigail (Damon) Goulding, of Phillipston.
She was left a widow in 1840 with four children, the eldest, a daughter,
being seven years of age. Thomas Goodspeed died of typhoid fever
when thirty-five years old and his gravestone has this record: " Chris-
tian, the Highest Style of Man." His property accumulated during
his married life amounted to two thousand dollars, and the two boys
were accustomed to work out for wages from their earliest years. Work
on a farm, chores for neighbors, work in a cotton and a woolen factory,
and stitching boots at home, the worl^being brought from and returned
to a boot manufactory in an adjoining town, filled up the time not
occupied by the two sessions of the district school of three months
each during the year. After his father's death his mother, wishing
her eldest son, Henry Goodspeed, to bear the name of his father,
applied to the probate court and the name was prefixed by Thomas
and he assumed the legal name, Thomas Henry Goodspeed.
When thirteen years old he began active business life as a clerk
in the country store of his uncle in Phillipston and the next year, in
order to make a place for his younger brother, he went to New Salem,
where he was sole clerk in the store and post-office. When sixteen
years of age he studied for one year in Williston Seminary, East-
hampton, returning at its close to be clerk in the store and post-
office at Phillipston, where he remained two years. He was nineteen
years of age when he began business on his own account, having
saved up a few hundred dollars and obtained a loan of one thousand
PUBLIC Lib
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THOMAS HENRY GOODSPEED
dollars from a friend. He conducted a store in Phillipston for
three years when he sold out to his brother-in-law and was clerk
in At hoi and Templet on, Massachusetts, about a year.
He was married October 22, 1856, to Lydia Elivira, daughter of
Martin and Lydia (Stow) Richardson, of Phillipston, and they had no
children. After his marriage he made his home in Athol, where he
entered the mercantile business with his uncle in a new store build-
ing erected for the purpose. In 1857 he bought out the interest of
his uncle and conducted the business alone, and with Samuel Lee as
a partner a portion of the time, for about twelve years. He was
drafted for military service during the Civil War, but on presenting
himself for examination was rejected by the medical examiner. He
was appointed postmaster of Athol, July 3, 1862, and held the office
continuously under the succeeding Republican administration for
twenty-three years. He was town clerk eleven years; town treasurer
four years; a member of the school board one year; Representative
to the General Court of Massachusetts one year; director, clerk and
treasurer of the Springfield, Athol and Northeastern Railroad corpo-
ration eleven years; Justice of the Peace forty-two years; commis-
sioner to qualify civil officers from June 30, 1882; conveyancer and
probate attorney from 1866; serving also as executor, administrator,
assignee, trustee, guardian, manager of estates and insurance agent.
He also served as treasurer and executive officer of the Worcester
Northwest Agricultural and Mechanical Society for more than thirty
years; member of the Massachusetts State Board of Agriculture,
1895-1903; attended the Republican National Convention of 1896
as alternate delegate, and was a regular voter at every national and
State election, and attendant at every primary and town meeting
with three or four exceptions, from the time he cast his first vote in
1855. In town affairs he was very prominent and served as chair-
man of the town appropriation committee; of the Athol sewer sink-
ing fund commission; of the building committee to erect public
buildings, and of the town committee to eliminate railroad grade
crossings. He was an original stockholder of the Athol Union Block
Company in 1864, and president of the company in 1904; director,
clerk and treasurer of the Athol Music Hall Association, 1871-77;
president of the Athol Building Company; the largest stockholder
and a director in the Citizens Building Company; director, clerk,
treasurer and local manager of the Athol Silk Company, 1882-94;
THOMAS HENRY GOODSPEED
president of the Athol National Bank from 1874, when he was active
in its organization; vice-president of the Athol Cooperative Bank from
its organization in 1894, and a valued contributor to the columns of
the Athol Transcript on subjects vital to the public interests of the
town.
In the matter of books and special lines of reading, Mr. Good-
speed says: "I have gained more knowledge from daily, weekly and
monthly publications than from books. In early life I was interested
in history, including History of the United States, Macaulay's
1 History of England/ Gibbon's 'Rome/ etc. Was always fond of
Shakespeare and at one time belonged to a Shakespeare Club. Have
always been interested in books of travel including Stanley's l Living-
ston/ Bayard Taylor's 'Paul Du Chaillu/ etc." He was largely
influenced by his mother in the direction of morality and in the
conduct of his business affairs both as a clerk and proprietor. He
was from boyhood a regular attendant of the Evangelical Congrega-
tional Church and for more than fifty years a liberal supporter
of that church, but never a member in communion. His father,
mother, grandfather and grandmother on his mother's side and his
wife were all members of that church. He devotes his leisure time
to gardening, the care of trees, shrubbery and lawns and to driving,
being fond of a good horse and the owner of one or more for fifty
years. For the benefit of young men he writes: "I would suggest
a constant endeavor to do whatever is undertaken in the best pos-
sible manner; giving thought and study unstintedly in the perform-
ance of all work; striving strenuously to make yourself so useful that
your service will be sought and appreciated. Keep yourself posted
as to what is going on in the world by selecting and reading good
newspapers and periodicals. Interest yourself in politics — not,
however, by hustling for office — if you are worthy of it you will be
sought for places of honor and trust. Also interest yourself in all
matters pertaining to the welfare of the community in which you
live. Cultivate habits of courtesy, order, neatness and promptness.
Be systematic and methodical, and with a fair degree of health under
all ordinary circumstances you cannot fail to attain true success in
life."
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WILLIAM HENRY GOVE
WILLIAM HEXRY GOVE is one of the prominent and
public-spirited citizens of Salem. A thoroughly trained
lawyer, he was actively engaged in the practice of his pro-
fession in that city for nearly twenty-five years, but since 1900 the
successful management of a large business enterprise has claimed his
attention. Active in public affairs, he served his city for several years
as an alderman, and as one of its Representatives in the Legislature.
The Goves are an old and well-known Xew Hampshire family of
sturdy Xew England stock, dating their history in this country
from the early Colonial days.
John Gove, the emigrant ancestor of the Goves of Xew England
and their descendants wherever found, was originally of London,
England, born in 1604. He came to these shores from London in
1646-47, with his wife Sarah and two sons.
Edward Gove, son of John and Sarah Gove, born in England in
1630, died July 29, 1691. As early as 1657 he was of Salisbury,
Massachusetts, where he bought a range of commonage of Josiah
Cobham. In 1665 he removed to Hampton. Massachusetts (now
X'ew Hampshire), settling on what is now the site of Seabrook,
where he bought a farm in that year. The house still standing on
this farm was built by his son John in 1713, and the property is
now owned by William H. Gove, the subject of this sketch.
John Gove (2d), son of Edward and Hannah (Titcomb) Gove,
was born September 19, 1661, and died in 1737. He was with his
father in the rising against Governor Cranneld, but was not held on
account of his youth.
John Gove (3d), son of John (2d) and Sarah Gove, was born
May 29, 1689, in Hampton, Xew Hampshire, and died at Hampton
Falls, March 23, 1737. In religious belief he was a Quaker, and
most of his descendants have been members of the Society of Friends.
Daniel Gove, son of John (3d) and Ruth (Johnson) Gove, was
born May 8, 1722, in Hampton Falls, Xew Hampshire, and died
there August 23. 1761.
WILLIAM HENRY GOVE
Daniel Gove (2d), son of Daniel and Rebecca (Hunt) Gove, was
born May 5, 1749, at Seabrook, and died June 11, 1843, at Weare,
New Hampshire.
Moses Gove, son of Daniel (2d) and Miriam (Cartland) Gove, was
born at Weare, New Hampshire, October 22, 1774, and died June
8, 1851, at Lincoln, Vermont.
Levi Gove, son of Moses and Hannah (Chase) Gove, born Febru-
ary 22, 1802, at Weare, spent the greater part of his life at Lincoln,
Vermont, but removed from there first to South Berwick, Maine,
and afterwards to Lynn, Massachusetts. He was a farmer by occu-
pation. His first marriage, on October 5, 1826, was to Ruth Varney,
who was born March 2, 1806, daughter of Joseph and Mary (Morrill)
Varney, and died March 19, 1835. On August 3, 1837, Mr. Gove
married Mrs. Sarah (Hull) Hoag, widow of Benjamin Hoag, and
daughter of Oliver and Polly (Hull) Gorton, of New Lisbon, New
York. She passed away November 9, 1848, and on October 31, 1850,
Mr. Gove was married to Mary Meader, a native of Sandwich, New
Hampshire, daughter of Joseph and Mehitable (Varney) Meader, of
South Berwick, Maine, and a descendant of John Meader, who came
from England to Piscataqua (now Dover, New Hampshire) about
1650. Mr. Gove reached the advanced age of eighty-three years,
dying August 13, 1885, and his wife died January 11, 1901, aged
eighty-three years, having been born April 18, 1817.
William Henry Gove was the second youngest in the large family
his father reared. He was born at South Berwick, York County,
Maine, on September 4, 1851, where his father was a farmer at the
time. His education was begun in the common schools and con-
tinued in Oak Grove Seminary, at Vassalboro, Maine, where he was
a student for two terms. Later he enjoyed the advantages of the
high school at Lynn, Massachusetts, whither he removed with his
parents in 1866, graduating from that school three years afterwards.
He then passed the entrance examination for Harvard, but the
state of his finances prohibited his taking a university course, and
he therefore entered the office of John W. Porter, of Salem, Massa-
chusetts, as clerk and student. In 1872 he was admitted to the bar in
Essex County, and in September of that year matriculated at Harvard
College, from which he was graduated in the summer of 1876, ranking
second in a class of about one hundred and thirty-five members. He
graduated from the Harvard Law School in the following year.
WILLIAM HENRY GOVE
Although he retained his residence in Lynn until after his marriage,
Mr. Gove began practice in Salem, which has always remained the
scene of his professional labors. He maintained his home in Lynn,
however, until he was married, when he became a resident of Salem.
While in Lynn he was an active member of the school committee
from 1878 to 1881 inclusive, and during that time prepared a thorough
and careful revision of the rules and regulations of that body. Since
his removal to Salem he has been equally interested in the local
welfare, and in 1894, 1895 and 1896 he served as alderman, during
the last two years acting as president of the board. He was a mem-
ber of the Legislature for 1903 and 1904 for the Seventeenth Essex
Representative District, and while there was a member of the com-
mittee on judiciary. A loyal Republican in political faith, he has
ever been active in the advancement of the party and its principles
and is an active worker in its ranks. Since 1889 he has been a mem-
ber of the Republican City Committee of Salem, of which he was secre-
tary from 1891 to 1897 inclusive, and of which he was chairman for
1898, 1899 and 1900. Mr. Gove has brought his professional experi-
ence to bear on numerous matters of vital importance to the commun-
ity. He is the author of a method of Proportional Representation
which is somewhat widely known as the "Gove System."
Mr. Gove is well known in the Odd Fellows and the Masonic
Fraternities, belonging to Bay State Lodge, No. 40, I.O.O.F., of
Lynn; Naumkeag Encampment, at Salem; Essex Lodge, A. F.
and A. M., of Salem; Washington Chapter; Winslow Lewis Com-
mandery; and the Massachusetts Consistory, thirty-second degree.
He also holds membership in the Phi Beta Kappa Society, in the
Essex Institute, which he has also served as a member of its council
for about fourteen years; he is a member of the Essex Bar Associa-
tion; and has been a trustee of the Salem Athenaeum. He is presi-
dent of the Second Congregational (Unitarian) Church in Salem.
On January 5, 1882, Mr. Gove was united in marriage with Aro-
line Chase, only daughter of Isaac and Lydia E. Pinkham, of Lynn,
and a descendant of some of the oldest families of that place. Four
children have been born to this union: William Pinkham, born
September 15, 1883, graduated from Harvard College, 1906; Lydia
Pinkham, born November 24, 1885, graduated from Smith College in
1907; Mary, born December 14, 1892; and Caroline, born May 2L 1895.
THOMAS NORTON HART
THOMAS NORTON HART, bank president, postmaster and
mayor of Boston, was born in North Reading, Middlesex
County, Massachusetts, January 20, 1829. His father,
Daniel Hart, son of Daniel and Polly Tapley Hart, and a descendant
from Samuel Hart, born in 1622, and connected with the iron works
on Saugus river. Daniel Hart married Margaret, daughter of Major
John Norton, of Royalston, Massachusetts, a soldier in the American
Revolution.
Thomas Norton Hart was brought up in his native town up to
the time he was thirteen years of age and attended the public school.
In 1842 he went, like many other country boys, to Boston, that he
might earn his living at something more congenial to his taste than
farming. He found his first employment in the dry-goods store of
Wheelock, Pratt & Company, where he continued as errand boy
and clerk for two years, when he changed his occupation and learned
the hat trade with Philip A. Locke & Company in Dock Square,
where he remained as helper, clerk, salesman and partner for eleven
years, when Mr. Locke retired and the firm became Hart, Taylor &
Company. He withdrew from the business in 1878 with a com-
petency, and accepted the presidency of the Mount Vernon National
Bank. He also became an active Republican and was elected three
consecutive years a member of the Boston city council, serving in
1879, 1880 and 1881. He was elected a city alderman in 1881 and
served three terms, 1882, 1885 and 1886. He ranked as a leader
in the board of aldermen as he had in the common council, and was
a member of important committees and a foremost advocate of
reform. In 1886 he was given the Republican nomination for
mayor of Boston, but was defeated at the polls by Mayor O'Brien,
the Democratic candidate, receiving 18,685 votes. He was renomi-
nated in 1887 and with the same opponent he succeeded in obtaining
25,179 votes, but not enough to insure election. In 1888 he ran for
the third time and defeated Mayor O'Brien by nearly 2000, receiving
-
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THOMAS NORTON HART
32,712 votes. He was reelected in 1889. He owed his majorities
to the confidence he had commanded during his first term in office,
and as all his nominations and elections had come to him unpledged,
his appointees were chosen for fitness rather than for past favors,
and he conducted the affairs of the city as he had been accustomed
to conduct his mercantile business. The public good was his only
consideration.
He was appointed postmaster of Boston in 1891 by President
Harrison, and here he applied the principles of the civil service law
in which he firmly believed. For the postal service he laid down
the rule that new appointees should generally begin at the foot of
the ladder so that advanced positions could be filled by promotion.
He instituted quick despatch of mail matter, frequent and rapid
delivery of the incoming mail, and due regard for the postal service
at the various stations in the residence districts. He continued in
office under President Cleveland up to June, 1893, when he resigned.
In the campaign of 1893 his name was before the Republican State
Convention as an available candidate for governor of the Common-
wealth, but the choice of his party fell upon another. In the muni-
cipal campaign that followed that year, he was for the fifth time
made the candidate of the party for mayor, but he failed to defeat
Mayor Matthews who had already given the city one satisfactory
term of service. He came into the field of city politics again in
1899, when he was elected mayor, and after serving for two years
retired from active political life, devoting his entire time to the
business of the Mount Vernon National Bank, of which he has been
president from 1878.
He was married April 30, 1850, to Elizabeth, daughter of John
and Betsy (Ridley) Snow, of Bowdoin, Maine, and their daughter
and only child became the wife of C. W. Ernst. He has a winter
home on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, and a summer home at
Galloupe's Point, Swampscott, Massachusetts. His church affiliation
is with the Unitarian denomination, and he has been an officer of the
Church of the Unity, Boston, and treasurer of the American Unita-
rian Association. He is a member of the Unitarian and Algonquin
Clubs and of the Hull Yacht Club.
EDWARD HOWARD HASKELL
EDWARD HOWARD HASKELL was born in Gloucester, Mas-
sachusetts, October 5, 1845. He comes of excellent English
stock, tracing his ancestry back to William Haskell who was
born in England in 1617, and at the early age of fifteen came to
Beverly, Massachusetts, and finally, in 1643, removed to Gloucester,
which became his permanent home. In the records of those now
distant days we find that William Haskell was among the prominent
citizens of this quaint New England town, for his name appears
several times as captain of the train band, as deacon of the church,
as selectman, and for eighteen years he was a Representative to the
Genera] Court. Colonel Haskell's lineage from this old Gloucester
citizen who held so high a place among his fellow townsmen is fol-
lowed through the successive generations of Mark, William, William
Jr., Elias, William, an officer of the Revolutionary War, and Wil-
liam H. William H., his father, married Mary Smith of Litch-
field, Maine. On the side of his grandmother he is a descendant
of Andrew Bray, who, with his brother Isaac, served under Capt.
Nathaniel Warren at Bunker Hill.
At the age of sixteen, having attended both the common and high
schools of Gloucester, he secured a position at the office of the Glouces-
ter Telegraph and started upon the career in which he hoped to do
his life's work. No sooner, however, had he begun to show his promise
in this direction than the war broke out and, though but sixteen years
of age, he enlisted in Company C, 23d Regiment, Massachusetts
Volunteers. This was in September, 1861. Three months later he was
assigned to special duty with the Signal Corps under General Burnside.
He was a participant in the engagement at Roanoke Island, at New-
bern, North Carolina (at this latter place suffering a slight wound),
and also at Fort Macon. In 1862 he served with the Army of the
Potomac, under the command of General Pope, in Virginia. He was
in the engagements of Cedar Mountain, Kelley's Ford, Rappahannock
Station, Manassas Junction and of Bull Run. During the latter part
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EDWARD HOWARD HASKELL
of 1862 and till August, 1863, he was employed as instructor in the
signal service in the Camp of Instruction at Georgetown, District
of Columbia. It was at this time that he was assigned to special
duty to report each day to Secretary Stanton at the War Department.
This gave him the opportunity of almost daily contact with President
Lincoln and the members of his cabinet. In the winter of 1863-64
he served with General Burnside in the East Tennessee campaign
and at the Siege of Knoxville. The following summer he served on
the staff of General Schofield, and later with General Sherman in
Georgia. At Kenesaw Mountain, Marietta, and throughout the
investment of Atlanta, he seemed to bear a charmed life, for though
almost constantly under fire he escaped without injury. After this
record of long and valiant service he was at last honorably discharged
in October, 1864.
The war over, Colonel Haskell returned to Gloucester and once
more took up his work in the office of the Gloucester Telegraph. Here
he spent two years, devoting himself with fidelity and enthusiasm
to his journalistic duties. In 1875 he became identified with the paper
trade and soon gave evidence of those marked characteristics as a
business man that made him successful in this department of manu-
facture. For some years he was treasurer of the Rumford Falls
Paper Company, whose mills are among the most prominent of the
newspaper mills of the country. His prominence in the paper-making
world led to his election as president of the Boston Paper Trade
Association, and for three years he held this office, discharging its
various duties with extraordinary ability and efficiency. In 1896
he became actively interested in the organization of the Great North-
ern Paper Company, which has since been developed into the largest
newspaper-making plant in the world, now producing five hundred
tons of paper each day.
The business interests of Boston and its commercial prosperity
have always found an active friend in Colonel Haskell. He has
been ready upon all occasions to further every project that has
looked to the advancement of the city as a business center.
Twice he has been vice-presiden' of the Boston Associated
Board of Trade, an organization which has been of invaluable
service to the city in the widening of its commercial activities,
and he has also been and is an active member of the Boston
Merchants' Association.
EDWARD HOWARD HASKELL
Outside of his business life he has served his native city and State
in innumerable ways in response to the call of his fellow citizens,
who have honored him with positions of trust and responsibility.
In 1877 he represented Gloucester in the lower branch of the Legis-
lature, and from 1880-83 he was assistant adjutant-general on the
staff of Governor Long. He was also for several years secretary of
the Republican State Committee, and rendered in this capacity
exceptional service. Twice he was elected a delegate to the National
Republican Convention in 1880, and also in 1884, serving as secretary
of the memorable National Convention which nominated President
Garfield.
In 1883 he was elected executive councilor from the Fifth Massa-
chusetts District, and served with Governor Butler. Two years later
he was the senior member in the council of Governor Robinson.
As chairman of the finance committee of the Grand Army of the
Republic he rendered valuable aid during the National Encampment
when it met in Boston in 1890, and also served in the same position
in 1904. During these years he has also served on the staff of several
of the Commanders-in-chief of the Grand Army of the Republic:
Commanders Merrill, Alger, Adams, Black and Blackmer. He is
at present one of the members of the Board of Trustees of the
Soldiers' Home.
This busy life, crowded with the affairs of business and matters
of high political import, has not narrowed Colonel Haskell's activities
to the exclusion of other interests of large importance for the welfare
of the State. He has been a foremost champion of the temperance
movement, serving in an executive capacity with the Massachusetts
Total Abstinence Society, the National Temperance Society, and the
National No-License League, giving generously of his time and money
to further the ends for which these societies were organized.
Other forms of public service have found in him also a stanch
supporter. He has served on the State Board of Lunacy and
Charity, as trustee of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital
at Westboro; as trustee of the Newton Hospital; as trustee of
the Massachusetts State Homeopathic Hospital; as president of
the Board of Trustees of the New England Baptist Hospital, and
in a multitude of ways has sustained and assisted the endeavors
of others who have sought to minister to the needs of the unfor-
tunate and the suffering.
EDWARD HOWARD HASKELL
Colonel Haskell is at present a member of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science; of the National Geographic Society;
the American Forestry Association, the Home Market Club, and also
a member of the Massachusetts, Middlesex and Essex clubs.
Colonel Haskell is a Baptist, a member of the Newton Centre
Baptist Church, where he now resides, and is prominent in many
forms of denominational activity throughout the State and the
country at large. As president of the American Baptist Home
Mission Society, he occupies a position in the denomination of wide
influence. He is also closely identified with the work of Foreign
Missions, and has but recently returned from an extended trip to
China and Japan as a member of a delegation from the United States
to get a first-hand impression of the foreign field and the results of
missionary work. Not often does a life touch with such helpful
influence so many fields of service. Honored in the business world,
associated with military leaders of the State, identified with many
of our noblest charities, and an active servant in the cause of religion,
Colonel Haskell occupies a position among his fellows attained by
but few.
His wife, to whom he was married in 1866, is Hattie J., the daughter
of William and Sarah H. Munsey. Four children have been born to
them, two sons and two daughters, Edward A., William H., Marian
R. and Edith L.
HENRY WILLIAMSON HAYNES
HENRY WILLIAMSON HAYNES, archaeologist, was born
in Bangor, Maine, September 20, 1831. His father, Na-
thaniel Haynes, was a son of John and Lydia (Coffin) Haynes,
and a descendant from Deacon Samuel Haynes, the emigrant, who
came from Westbury, Wiltshire, England, on the ship Angel Gabriel,
WTecked at Pemaquid, Maine, August 14, 1635. Nathaniel Haynes
was the editor of the Eastern Republican, one of the leading Demo-
cratic newspapers in New England during the administration of
President Jackson. He married Caroline Jemima Williamson,
daughter of William Durkee and Jemima Montague (Rice) William-
son. William Durkee Williamson (1779-1846) was a State Senator
of Massachusetts; Senator in the Maine Legislature; acting governor
of Maine: representative in the Seventeenth Congress, 1821-23; judge
of probate, 1824-40, bank commissioner, 1834-39; author of "The
History of Maine."
Henry Williamson Haynes was prepared for college at the Boston
Latin School, 1842-47; graduated at Harvard, A.B. 1851; served as
assistant in Mr. Dixwell's private school, 1851-53; studied law in the
office of Chief Justice Perley and William H. Bartlett, of Concord,
New Hampshire and at the Harvard Law School ; was admitted to the
Suffolk Bar, September 26, 1856, and received the degree of A.M. from
Harvard in 1859. He practised law in Boston, 1856-67, was a mem-
ber of the Common Council of Boston, 1858; school committee of
Bos-ton, 1857-60, 1862-65, 1879-80, a trustee of the Boston Public
Library, 1858-59, and 1880-95; was professor of Latin and Greek
in the University of Vermont, 1867-73; and studied the various
antiquities of Europe, 1873-78.
Mr Haynes made a specialty of the study of prehistoric relics of
Europe. He spent 1877-78 in Egypt in endeavoring to trace the pale-
olithic age in that region and on his return to Paris in 1878 he pre-
sented the results of his investigation to the International Congress of
Anthropological Sciences in Paris and received a medal and diploma
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HENRY WILLIAMSON HAYNES
in recognition of his services. The paper read there was published in
the "Memoirs" of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences for
1881. He returned to Boston where he was honored by being made
corresponding secretary of the Massachusetts Historical Society, a
Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a member of
the American Historical Association; a Fellow of the American
Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of the
American Anthropological Society. He took part in three Inter-
national Congresses of Archaeology and Anthropology. He pre-
pared the chapters upon the " Prehistoric Archaeology of North
America" and "Early Explorations of New Mexico" in Justin
Winsor's "Narrative and Critical History of America." At his home
in Boston he has accumulated one of the largest and most valuable
collections of prehistoric relics in America.
Professor Haynes was married in Paris, France, August 1, 1867,
to Helen Weld, daughter of John Adams and Sarah (Harding)
Blanchard, of Boston. Mrs. Haynes died in Milton. Massachusetts,
July 21, 1902, leaving no children.
HORACE CARTER HOVEY
IN a log cabin amid an almost unbroken forest, near Rob Roy,
in Fountain County, Indiana, Horace Carter Hovey was born,
January 28, 1833. His father, Edmund Otis Hovey, D.D.,
a home missionary, and identified with Wabash College, for forty-
seven years as founder, trustee and professor. His immigrant
ancestor, Daniel Hovey, son of Richard Hovey, of Waitham, Eng-
land, settled in Ipswich in 1635. Among his paternal ancestors we
find the names of Andrews, Freeman, Russell, Otis and Knowlton.
His mother, Mary Carter, was the daughter of Ezra Carter,
Esquire, of Peacham, Vermont, whose immigrant ancestor, Thomas
Carter, was one of the original proprietors of Salisbury, Massa-
chusetts; and among the maternal ancestors we find the names
of Stoddard, Edwards, Wareham and Ellsworth. His grandfather,
Roger Hovey, was a soldier in the army of the Revolution, as was
also his maternal great-grandfather, Ephraim Carter. Thus he has
a double claim to belong to the Sons of the American Revolution,
of which he is a charter member. Mr. Hovey was graduated with
honor from Wabash College in 1853, where he served for two years
as tutor; and in 1857 he was graduated from Lane Theological
Seminary. While preparing for the ministry he served one summer
as Sunday school missionary in his native county, where he organ-
ized twenty schools, and devised a method of Sunday school map-
making which has since been generally adopted.
He was ordained by the Presbytery of Madison in 1858. He
spent five years as a home missionary in Western fields and as a
secretary of the American and Foreign Christian Union. He has
held successively pastorates over the Florence Congregational
Church in Northampton, Massachusetts (1863-66); the Second
Presbyterian Church in New Albany, Indiana (1866-69) ; the Fulton
Street Presbyterian Church, in Peoria, Illinois (1869-73); the First
Presbyterian Church in Kansas City, Missouri (1873-75); the Pil-
grim Congregational Church in New Haven, Connecticut (1876-83);
the Park Avenue Congregational Church in Minneapolis, Minnesota
HORACE CARTER HOVEY
(1883-87); the Park Street Congregational Church in Bridgeport,
Connecticut (1887-91); and the First Presbyterian (Old South)
Church, in Newburyport, Massachusetts (1893-1908). In 1908 he
retired from the active pastorate in order to devote his time to
theological, literary and scientific work.
Dr. Hovey received the title of Master of Arts in 1856 from
Wabash College; and that of Doctor of Divinity from Gale Univer-
sity in 1883, and also from Wabash College in 1907. He is a fellow
of the A. A. A. S., and of the Geological Society of America, a mem-
ber of the International Geological Congress, of the National Geo-
graphic Society, of La Societe de Speleologie (France), of the Phi
Beta Kappa Society, and is President of the Merrimac Bible Society
and of the Daniel Hovey Association. During the Civil War he
served for four months in the Christian Commission, doing what was
termed "Battle-field Duty"'; in consideration of which he was made
an honorary member of the G. A. R.
Although not a professional geologist, Dr. Hovey has been deeply
interested in certain departments of geological research from boy-
hood. When but nine years old he found the first of all the myriads
of Crawfordsville crinoids which have since been sent to the leading
museums of America and Europe, and he still owns the original
crinoid-bank known as Corey's Bluff. In the summer of 1854 he
made an independent reconnaissance of the geological features of
southern Indiana, and was among the first to call public attention
to the valuable marble quarries and coal fields of that state. Dur-
ing that same year he explored a number of Indiana caverns, includ-
ing the famous Wyandotte Cave, of which he published the results
in the New York Tribune and other periodicals. He has since
explored many other caverns and is a recognized authority on the
subject. In 1897 he joined an exploring party amid the mountains
and caverns of France, also visiting Russia and other parts of
Europe. He has lectured in the principal cities of the United
States and Canada concerning his travels and on popular science.
He has been a frequent contributor to magazines, and has had
more than a hundred articles appear in the Scientific American
alone. Seven articles by him will appear in the forthcoming tenth
edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, describing American caves.
He is the author of "Celebrated American Caverns'' (1882); "Guide
Book to Mammoth Cave" (fifteen editions); "Mammoth Cave
HORACE CARTER HOVEY
Illustrated," jointly with Dr. R. E. Call (1897); "The Origin and
Annals of the First Presbyterian Church of Newburyport, Massa-
chusetts, (1897); and of a new "Hand-book of the Mammoth Cave"
(1909). More than thirty of his sermons and addresses have been
published in pamphlet form.
Dr. Hovey married, November 18, 1857, Helen Lavinia Blatchley,
daughter of Samuel Loper Blatchley, Esq., of New Haven, Con-
necticut. They have had four children: namely, Helen Carter
Hovey (Mrs. Ellin wood) ; Edmund Otis Hovey, associate curator of
the American Museum of Natural History, and married to Esther
Amanda (Lancraft) ; Samuel Blatchley Hovey (deceased) ; and Clara
Louise Hovey (Mrs. Raymond).
Dr. and Mrs. Hovey celebrated their golden wedding, November
18, 1907. The Presbytery of Boston afterward prepared and en-
grossed the following resolutions in his honor and presented them
by a committee in the presence of his congregation.
" We most heartily congratulate you and Mrs. Hovey upon this
exceptional consummation together of fifty years' service in the
vineyard of our Lord. We appreciate fully the worth and work
of such a term of service, and realize that for the ripe scholarship
which has adorned your preaching, the pastoral care which nurtured
it, the irenic spirit which sweetened it, the consistent godly life
which enforced it, and the large measure of success which has
attended it, the whole Church of God, and the land you love, are
your debtors. Your work as a Presbyter has been characterized by
loyalty to Presbyterian principles; your zeal for and unremitting
toil in their advancement have been tempered with sweet reason-
ableness, and charity to Christians in other flocks. Your knowledge
of church law has made you a safe counselor and leader in her
courts; for all of which we tender you our most hearty thanks, and
this small tribute to your worth."
The fifty-two years of Dr. Hovey 's ministry have been divided
between Presbyterian churches, in connection with which he has
spent about thirty years, and Congregational churches with which
he has spent twenty-two years. In recognition of this twofold
service, and by special privilege, he belongs to the Essex North
Association of Ministers, as well as to the Presbytery of Boston.
Dr. Hovey's words of advice to young people are to "practise
integrity, industry and self-reliance."
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CHARLES RICHARD HUNT
CHARLES RICHARD HUNT, railroad engineer, physician and
surgeon, was born in Easton, Bristol County, Massachusetts,
October 17, 1855. His father was John Richard Hunt, son
of Dr. John Earl Hunt, who practised medicine in Maine and New
Hampshire, and was of the seventh generation from William Hunt
who settled in Concord in 1635. He married Georgiana M., daugh-
ter of George W. and Sylvia S. (Pratt) Hayward, and a lineal descend-
ant from Sir Thomas Hayward, who settled in Plymouth Colony about
1635, on common land which became part of the town of Duxbury.
Charles Richard Hunt made his home with his maternal grand-
parents, George W. and Sylvia S. (Pratt) Hayward, in Easton. Here
he received his early school training, and he was graduated at the
Easton High School. Upon graduating he took up the study and
practice of civil engineering in the office of the city engineer of
Boston, and supplemented this training with special instruction from
professors teaching in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
In the city engineer's office his ability and thoroughness were es-
pecially noted and he gained considerable reputation by reason of
the skill he displayed in his chosen profession. About this time the
project of building the Mexican Central Railroad was being agitated
by American capitalists, and young Hunt was among the first en-
gineers consulted and engaged to make surveys for the road pre-
liminary to determining the route. He was made resident engineer
of the company, with headquarters at Aguas Calientes, and his work
gave him a thorough knowledge of the country through which the
road finally passed. In this service he gave unqualified satisfaction
and located that part of the road from Aguas Calientes to Zacat-
ecas, and constructed one section of the road-bed.
On his return home he consulted with his family and friends
and decided to take up the profession of medicine, which was
that of his paternal grandfather and of his mother's brother, Dr.
Joseph W. Hayward. He studied under the direction of his uncle,
CHARLES RICHARD HUNT
who was a celebrated physician in Taunton known for his skill as a
surgeon throughout the Commonwealth. In 1884 he began his stud-
ies in the Boston University School of Medicine and he was gradu-
ated M.D. 1887. He was one of the graduates selected from his
class to be resident house surgeon at the Massachusetts Homeo-
pathetic Hospital in Boston, and after one year's practice there he
removed to New Bedford and took up the general practice of his
profession. He served as visiting physician of the Bristol County
Jail and House of Correction for many years. His professional
affiliations include membership in the American Institute of Homeo-
pathy; the Massachusetts Homeopathic Society; the Rhode Island
Homeopathic Society; the Boston Homeopathic Medical Society;
the American Society of Orificial Surgeons and the Massachusetts
Surgical and Gynaecological Society. Dr. Hunt is a thirty-second
degree Mason; a member of Massachusetts Consistory; Past Com-
mander of Sutton Commandery, No. 16; Knights Templars, and
Past Patron of New Bedford Chapter, No. 49, Order of the Eastern
Star. He was married August 22, 1888, to Annie Vincent, daughter
of Charles L. and Amanda L. (Robinson) Haskins, of Raynham,
Massachusetts, and they established a home at 474 County Street,
New Bedford.
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WILLIAM EDWARDS HUNTINGTON
WILLIAM EDWARDS HUNTINGTON, son of a New
England clergyman, teacher, and physician who was dis-
tinguished for his versatility and well-stored memory,
descends in the sixth generation from Simon and Sarah (Clarke)
Huntington who came from England to Massachusetts Bay Colony
in 1633 and located in Roxbury. Dr. Huntington was born in
Hillsboro, Montgomery County, Illinois, July 30, 1844; graduated
at the University of Wisconsin A.B. and A.M. and at Boston
University S.T.B. and Ph.D.; preacher and teacher nine years;
dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Boston University twenty-two
years; president of Boston University from 1904. His father was
William Pitkin Huntington, son of the Rev. Dan and Elizabeth
Whiting (Phelps) Huntington; grandson of William and Bethia
(Throop) Huntington and of Charles and Elizabeth (Porter) Phelps.
The Rev. Dan Huntington was born in Norwich, Connecticut, Octo-
ber 11, 1774, graduated at Yale, A.B. 1794, A.M. 1798; A.M. Williams,
1798; tutored in Yale, 1796-98; married Elizabeth Whiting Phelps
and was a Congregational and subsequently Unitarian minister and
died in 1864. His son Dr. William Pitkin Huntington (Harvard,
1824) married Lucy, daughter of Luther and Hannah (Burnell)
Edwards, and removed to Wisconsin where he was preacher and
teacher, and a surveyor of government lands for a few months; on
regaining his health, at one time impaired, he returned to his voca-
tions of clergyman and teacher. His latter years were spent in
Amherst, Massachusetts, where he died in 1885. William Pitkin
Huntington's youngest brother, Frederic Dan Huntington (1819-
1904) was the rector of Emmanuel Church, Boston, Massachusetts,
1861-69, and the first bishop of Central New York from 1869 up to
the time of his death.
William Edwards Huntington was a child slender in build, but
never ill. He was brought up in the city of Milwaukee, where his
father preached and practised medicine. From the age of ten
WILLIAM EDWARDS HUNTINGTON
years up to his twenty-first year he lived on a farm in Wisconsin,
where the out-of-door life, habits of diligent labor, responsibility
for the discharge of regular duties were of great effect in his develop-
ment. He characterizes his mother as "a rare spirit" and her
influence on the son was particularly strong on both his intellectual
and on his moral and spiritual life. In acquiring his school training
he had no financial help from his father. Home study and attend-
ance at the district and village schools prepared him for college.
He was a private in the 40th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers in 1864;
first lieutenant in the 49th Wisconsin Infantry Volunteers in 1865
and was mustered out in the fall of 1865. He took a full classical
course in the University of Wisconsin, graduating A.B. 1870, A.M.
1874. He entered the Methodist Episcopal ministry in 1868 and took
the regular course in the school of Theology, Boston University,
where he was graduated S.T.B. 1873. He was a Methodist clergy-
man in Nahant, Jamaica Plain, Roslindale, Newton, Cambridge and
Boston, 1872-82; was dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Boston
University, 1882-1904, and in 1904 he was inaugurated president
of Boston University as successor to Dr. William Fairfield Warren,
resigned.
His society and club affiliations include the Phi Beta Kappa
Society, the Minister's Club of Boston, the University Club, Boston;
the University Club, Providence, Rhode Island. His relaxation
from study and teaching is in playing golf; but he has given no
special attention to athletics or the modern system of physical cul-
ture. His political affiliation is with the Republican party. He
was married May 10, 1881, to Ella M. Speare, daughter of Alden and
Caroline (Robinson) Speare, of Newton Centre, Massachusetts, and
of the four children born of the marriage three were living in 1909.
His home is in Newton Centre, Massachusetts. He received the
degree of Ph.D. from Boston University in 1881, S.T.D. from
Syracuse University, and from Wesleyan University in 1903; and
LL.D. from the University of Wisconsin in 1904, and from Tufts
College in 1905. His suggestions to young Americans as to the
principles, methods and habits that help to attain true success, are
"Christian principles as a foundation; simple, wholesome habits of
life; systematic, absorbing work, broken now and then by seasons
of rest."
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FREEDOM HUTCHINSON
FREEDOM HUTCHINSON, lawyer, was born in Milan, New
Hampshire, August 6, 1847. His father, Edwin F. Hutchin-
son, was a son of Timothy and Nizaula (Rawson) Hutchinson,
grandson of Bartholomew and Ruth (Haven) Hutchinson, and of
Ebenezer and Sarah (Chase) Rawson, and a descendant from Richard
Hutchinson, who came from England to Salem, in 1634, and was
paid a premium for setting up the first plow in Massachusetts. Ed-
win F. Hutchinson married Elizabeth Ann, daughter of Benjamin and
Elizabeth (Merrill) Flint, of Milan, and a descendant from Thomas
Flint, who came from Mattock, Derbyshire, England, to Concord,
in 1635.
Freedom Hutchinson attended the district school at Milan, and the
Nichols Latin School at Lewiston, Maine. There he was prepared
for Bates College where he graduated A.B. 1873, high in his class,
with the honor of an English oration at commencement. He was
principal of the high school at Topsham, Maine, 1873-74; read law
with Hutchinson & Savage in Lewiston, the senior partner of the law
firm being his elder brother, Liberty H. Hutchinson, and the junior
partner Albert R. Savage, subsequently justice of the Supreme Court,
of Maine. He was admitted to the bar in Auburn, Maine, April,
1876, and to the Suffolk Bar in Boston, Massachusetts, May 9, 1876.
His practice was in the civil courts and as attorney for corpora-
tions. His most prominent clients were the Swift Brothers, of
Chicago and Boston, who were so actively identified with the develop-
ment of the meat packing and transportation business throughout the
country and abroad, and it fell to him to organize their chain of
slaughtering, packing and transportation companies. He was largely
engaged in defending the various interests of these corporations,
especially in the eastern section of the country, as chief counsel,
but his law practice was not confined to corporation law, as he was
engaged in the trial of various civil cases, coming from his large
acquaintance with business men in the New England States.
FREEDOM HUTCHINSON
He was married February 15, 1886, to Abbie Laighton, daughter
of Dr. David P. and Eleanor (Bisbee) Butler, of Boston, and they
made their home in that city up to 1892, when they removed to New-
ton Highlands. He served the City of Newton as a member of the
Common Council in 1895-96. He is affiliated with the Masonic order
and is a member of Columbia Lodge, of Boston. He is a member of
the Middlesex Club, the Brae Burn Country Club and the Civic Club,
of Newton, and his church affiliation is with the Unitarians. He
has served the Newton Centre Unitarian Society as president and
chairman of the executive committee.
Mr. Hutchinson's counsel to young men, as gained from his own
experience in making his way to and succeeding in the profession of
law, is:
"I consider it important for a young man, especially when he is
devoting to his preparation the time requisite for a liberal educa-
tion, to have early in mind his life-work. This not only enables
him to work up along that line, but avoids the annoyance of a period
of uncertainty and consequent unrest.
"The choice of his vocation should be carefully and intelligently
made. There may be circumstances which will enable him readily
to come to a wise conclusion. Natural adaptation, as well as natural
impediments and disqualifications should be taken into consideration,
and the fact that there is sometimes an ancestral business to be in-
herited may be decisive. In the absence of these controlling influ-
ences, a young man is ordinarily as well adapted to one thing as
another.
" When a decision is once arrived at, it should be followed with a
determination which will guarantee success. No thought of retreat
should be indulged in, and the motto should be ' No step backwards.'
A mental reservation that one can change and select another business
if he does not happen to like the first choice has led to defeat in a
great man}' cases. When the chosen business is pursued with the
proper spirit, it becomes interesting and absorbing to such a degree
that all other troubles may be forgotten.
"The idea of becoming a statesman as well as a man of affairs is
sometimes flattering to young men, but it should be remembered
that it takes a whole man for either of these callings, and while the
ordinary man may attain success and prominence if one alone is
followed, he will unquestionably be reduced to mediocrity if his
FREEDOM HUTCHINSON
energy is divided between the two. One idea well developed is very
much more valuable than two half-way developed.
" Happiness and enjoyment of life is a duty, and very largely a
matter of habit. If you would realize the ideal, you must idealize
the real. Men and women are only grown up children, and they
need play and playthings. Enjoyable recreation and exercise in
the open air, with congenial companions, will have a tendency to
postpone old age a long time.
" Be temperate; be industrious; be methodical; and meet promptly
and faithfully all your engagements and obligations. These pre-
cepts may seem hackneyed, but they are so vitally fundamental
that they will bear repetition."
THEOPHILUS KING
WITH an inheritance of energy, uprightness and enterprise,
which the descendants of the Pilgrims often possess,
Theophilus King has won for himself a position which
reflects credit upon his name and State. He has strongly main-
tained the principles of his New England parentage, and his suc-
cess in the business and industrial world illustrates the strength of
his determination. He is a leading manufacturer and a prominent
financier of Boston, Massachusetts. He ventured upon his business
career at a very early age, unassisted by friends or influence. His
early years were passed in Rochester, Plymouth County, Massachu-
setts, where he was born on December 14, 1844. From his father,
whose name he bears, he acquired many characteristics of industry
and business ability. Both his mother and father, by precept and
example, impressed upon their son the importance of truth and vir-
tue as a foundation for all undertakings. His mother was of the
eighth generation in descent from John Howland, who landed with
the Pilgrims from the Mayflower at Plymouth, and was the last sur-
vivor in Plymouth of the little band. His marriage to Elizabeth
Fillary, who was also one who braved the voyage in the Mayflower,
was the first celebration of the kind among the Pilgrims after the
founding of their homes in New England. Their family was a large
one, which has continued to be the case through many succeeding
generations, thus constituting a great number of descendants.
During Mr. King's boyhood his father owned the mill in the village
where he lived and also acted as town clerk, postmaster and fire
insurance agent. His son, being quick and observing, soon obtained
an insight into many business methods. He took a course in the
public school and also in the academy. At the age of fifteen, by his
thrift and industry, he had bought and paid for, with the money he
had earned himself, a sixty-fourth part of a profitable whaler known
as the Admiral Blake. At the end of the year, although he had
realized a satisfactory gain on his investment, he sold his interest,
■
LudWJn.
THEOPHILUS KING
making a good profit and removed to Boston, to face the world, and
establish a name for himself amongst men. He was then but six-
teen years of age, and without the assistance of friends or relatives
or any business acquaintance he boldly made his start. Feeling
that confidence in himself that cannot fail, he approached Johnson
and Thompson for the position of clerk in the leather establishment.
His assurance and earnestness were his great recommendations,
and he obtained the position which he sought. He soon proved his
ability, and through his willingness and close application to every
detail he was soon given greater responsibilities and became an
important factor in the business. After eight years with this firm,
he formed a partnership with Charles B. Bryant, and began the manu-
facture of leather. The new firm was on the high road to success
and prosperity when the great fire in 1872 swept the city of Boston
and turned the tide of the affairs of so many. Not only was this dis-
aster distressing to the young firm, but soon a flood at Clinton,
Massachusetts, entirely devastated the factories and completely
destroyed the business. Mr. King and his partner, Mr. Bryant, set-
tled with their creditors, paying all they were able, which was seventy
cents on the dollar, and six years thereafter voluntarily paid the bal-
ance, with 6 per cent, interest. Nothing daunted, Mr. King turned
his attention to various other manufacturing interests and industries,
which rapidly brought prosperity. His every effort was crowned
with success and has ascended to the prominence his position gives
him in the financial world. One of his strongest characteristics has
been his power and ability to settle business difficulties, and adjust
the personal differences of others, which has led to his close associa-
tion with such an extended variety of business widely spread over
this country and in Canada, as appears in the following active busi-
ness connections. He is president of the following: National
Granite Bank of Quincy, Massachusetts; Eureka Silk Manufacturing
Company; Tide Water Coal and Coke Company; Climax Manufactur-
ing Company; and the Quincy Quarries Company. He is also vice-
president and director of the Indiana Manufacturing Company; and
was for many years vice-president of the National Bank of Re-
demption of Boston. Mr. King is also treasurer and director in the
following corporations: Abington Mills (cotton); Atlantic Mills,
Providence, Rhode Island; Eastern Pocahontas Coal Company; King
Coal Company; Summit Thread Company, and director in the Inter-
THEOPHILUS KING
national Reece Button Hole Machine Company; Reece Folding Ma-
chine Company; Lawrence Duck Company; Wm. L. Barrell Company
(Commission Merchants) Quincy Mutual Fire Insurance Company;
the Dallas Cotton Mills, and the Canadian Colored Cotton Mills Com-
pany, limited, of Canada, a corporation including six cotton-mills,
which he was largely instrumental in bringing together.
He is a member of the Reform Club, of New York City, the
Cachato Club, of Braintree, Massachusetts, and other desirable
associations.
On December 31, 1873, Mr. King was married to Miss Helen L.
Baxter, of Quincy, Massachusetts. Their two children are Delcevare
and Zayrna King. Mr. King is as vigorous as his forefathers and,
although spending more than fifty nights each year for the past
fifteen years on sleeping cars, can enjoy a good game of golf even on
a winter's day. His good spirits and genial temperament contribute
much to his social life, and he is ever ready to offer encouragement
to the young. He would never run for or accept public office,
though at times urged to do so; yet he was frequently heard on the
platform in political discussion, and publicly debated tariff questions
on the side of protection, and was always active as a speaker and
deeply interested in temperance work. He has always been active,
too, in church work, and at the age of twenty-four was elected a
deacon of Park Street Church, serving in that capacity until his
removal from Boston.
LIC LIBRARY
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TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
J
ELISHA BURR MAYNARD
ELISHA BURR MAYNARD, justice of the court of Massa-
chusetts, was born in Wilbraham, Hampden County, Massa-
chusetts, November 21, 1842, and died at his home in
Springfield, May 28, 1906. His father, Walter Maynard, was a farmer, a
member of the City Council of Springfield, a man of progress, brim-
ful of good-nature and always ready to give a helping hand. His
mother, Hannah (Burr) Maynard, was the daughter of Elisha and
Hannah (Larned) Burr, and his grandparents on both sides were of
the best New England stock, including many representative families.
Elisha Burr Maynard was brought up in the country until four-
teen years old, when his father removed to a farm on the outskirts
of the city of Springfield. He attended school winters and worked
on the farm summers, this work including driving a milk cart, and
marketing in the city the produce from the farm. In speaking of his
life at this time he says: "The steady work and my reliance upon
myself, to a great extent, in obtaining my education, added much
to my success in later years. When it was decided that I was to
attend college, that being the special desire of my mother, it was
arranged that I should work one half a day on the farm, the re-
mainder of the day to be devoted to study preparatory to entering
college. My instructor was Marcus P. Knowlton, subsequently
Chief-Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. I
also taught country schools five winters during this period, boarding
around the first two, and I taught night school three winters during
my college course. The most satisfactory suit of clothes I ever had
I obtained by picking up chips and trading them with a clothes
dealer for a suit. In my college education I helped myself so far as
I could, and beyond that, my parents did all that could be desired
to help me." His reading that he found most beneficial in fitting
him for his life-work, aside from those books pertaining to his
possession, he names in order: biography, history and classical
English.
ELISHA BURR MAYNARD
Being prepared to enter college, he matriculated at Dartmouth
and was graduated A.B. in the class of 1867. He then studied law
in the office of Stearns & Knowlton, the junion partner of the law
firm being his former tutor, and he was admitted to the bar
upon examination in 1868. He opened a law office in Springfield,
and his progress at the bar was such as would be expected
from a man of so thorough a preparation and he was soon recognized
as a leading spirit in the community. He was a member of the City
Council, 1871-72, a representative in the General Court of Massa-
chusetts, 1879; mayor of Springfield, 1887 and 1888; member at large
of the Springfield school board six years, between 1891 and 1898,
and on June 30, 1891, he was appointed a Justice of the Superior
Court of Massachusetts.
He was married August 25, 1870, to Kate Carol Doty, who died
April 4, 1889, leaving three children, seven having been born of the
marriage. He was married secondly, July 19, 1893, to Luella Eliza
Fay, of Springfield. He was brought up a Baptist in religious be-
lief, but when he married, his wife being a member of the Congrega-
tional denomination he attended that church with her, and their
children were brought up in that church. In political faith he has
always been a Democrat. He is a member of the Winthrop, His-
torical and Reality Clubs of Springfield, the Mayors and Dartmouth
Clubs of Boston, the Western Massachusetts Dartmouth Club and
he is affiliated with the Springfield Commandery of Knights Temp-
lars. He found inspiration to strive for higher positions in his pro-
fession through reading the lives of leading men, and the ambition
instilled by the precepts of his mother who was characterized by
him: "a model mother." In speaking to young men he says: "I
have tried in my private, social and professional life to be courteous
to every one; to do well whatever has been entrusted to my care;
to be honest and fair with whomsoever I have had to deal, my oppo-
nents as well as my clients. In my judgment a young man who
starts out in life with a purpose to make the most of himself, to lead
an upright life, to respect the rights and feelings of his fellow men
and to be industrious along the line he has adopted for his life-work,
will be sure of the confidence and respect of his fellows and will round
out a life of more than fair success."
! J LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
ILDEN -.TIONS
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MELLOR
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MELLOR, president and manager
of the Standish Worsted Company of Plymouth, Massa-
chusetts, is a good type of the thorough-going, practical
New England manufacturer. He knows his business from top to
bottom, having mastered every detail by personal application
through a lifetime of skilful and devoted industry.
He was born in a bustling manufacturing community, Woonsocket,
Rhode Island, on August 12, 1852. His parents, Joseph Mellor
and Nancy (Bentley) Mellor, had come over from England to Rhode
Island about the year 1846. The father was a capable and practical
textile expert, an overseer and manager in woolen mills. His was
a sturdy character. He is remembered as notably honest and
square in all his business relations, temperate, self-restrained, in-
dustrious. The mother was a worthy helpmate, and her wisdom
and devotion made an important impress on the life of her son.
The lad had a good education in the public schools of Woon-
socket, including two years in the high school, and then, at fifteen
years of age, he began work as a bobbin boy in Harris' Woolen Mill.
As a youth he was ambitious to become a first-class weaver
and a master of his trade. He applied himself unremittingly
to his daily calling, but, at the same time, he sought to supple-
ment his public school education with careful and profitable read-
ing. Dickens and Shakespeare were his favorites in literature,
and he gave especially keen attention to books bearing directly
on his own vocation. He was a studious youth, quick, zealous,
observant. From bobbin boy he became in due time successively
a weaver, a pattern weaver, a loom fixer, a designer, a superin-
tendent, a manager, a part owner and then a full owner of a factory.
Next after the wholesome influences of his boyhood home he sets
in importance in the making of his success his constant habit
of private study. It is this largely — this application to books
which taught the broader aspects of his profession — to which he
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN MELLOR
is indebted for his steady progress to a post of leadership in the
textile arts of Massachusetts.
After about four years in the employ of Edward Harris, he
went to the Waterbury Woolen Mills in Waterbury, Connecti-
cut. Then he went to Holyoke, Massachusetts, to the New York
Mill, owned by A. T. Stewart; then to the Hockanum Company
in Rockville, Connecticut; then back to the Beebe & Webber Com-
pany. From there he returned to Rockville. He remained with
the New England Mill for a long period, about twenty-one years.
When he left Rockville this time it was to go to Plymouth, Massa-
chusetts, to take up his present associations, where he has been for
eight years.
The Standish Worsted Company at Plymouth is his own insti-
tution. He guides its daily affairs and shapes its general policy.
A successful textile manufacturer of to-day in New England must
not only be adept in every branch of the processes of production,
but must be a strong, clear-headed man of business, a student
of markets, a sagacious financier. And this combination of powers
is particularly indispensable to a manufacturer who holds individual
control of his undertaking.
He has been fortunate in that his professional career has in-
cluded practical experience in some of the best known and most
successful textile establishments in New England. He has mastered
their methods as well as contributed himself to the making of their
good fortune.
Always devoted to his daily business, he has not aspired to any
conspicuous place in public life. He is a Republican in politics,
ever acting with that one party, and he is a Unitarian in his
religious associations. He is a member of the Odd Fellows, of
the United Workmen, of Masons, of Knights Templars. Horseback
riding, and outdoor sports are his favorite diversions.
Mr. Mellor was married on December 14, 1882, to Ethel Dorr,
daughter of George and Sarah Dorr. Mr. and Mrs. Mellor have four
children.
To young Americans Mr. Mellor's counsel is that the soundest
and most helpful qualities and the surest to win real success in life
are "courage, hard work, patience and good common sense." His
own life of energy, sagacity and good, solid achievement is a fine
exemplification of these sturdy characteristics.
JAMES SMILEY MURPHY
JAMES SMILEY MURPHY was born in Charlestown, now
Boston, January 17, 1849. He was the son of John Murphy,
born in 1823, died 1861. His mother was Jane Ann Smiley,
born in 1830, died in 1906. His father came to this country from
the North of Ireland and settled in Charlestown in 1844. His
mother's grandfather was Robert Smiley, who was a counselor in
Donegal, in the Xorth of Ireland.
In school Mr. Murphy had special tastes for mathematics. The
influence of his mother was very strong upon his intellectual and
moral life. He has been heard to say that " he never met a woman
of as great personal influence." He was educated in the public
schools and prepared for college in the Charlestown High School,
from which he graduated in the year 1866.
Between the years 1869 and 1875, he was prominent in New
England baseball affairs. He was president of the New England
Amateur Association.
He began the active work of his life in the office of a broker in
dyestuffs. Both his mother and his teachers in the high school,
urged that he should go to college, but he thought that his mother
could not spare the money, and he therefore proposed that he should
spend at least one year at work. During that year his success was
too great to permit of his retiring from business. He attributes his
prosperity in life largely to the influence of his mother which was
subsequently aided by his own private study and contact with men
of high character in active life. He was partner in the firm of Silsbee,
Fowler & Company, 1868-1871, and in the firm of Silsbee &
Murphy, 1871-1891. He was treasurer and director of the Stickney
& Poor Spice Company, 1891, and the same year he succeeded
Rufus B. Stickney as general manager of the company. This com-
pany is now one of the largest grinders of cream of tartar and spices
in the world.
Mr. Murphy is director of the Fourth National Bank; of the
JAMES SMILEY MURPHY
Eastern Cold Storage Company; the Dennison Brothers Coal Com-
pany and the Mutual Boiler Insurance Company. He was chairman
of the committee of three that closed up the affairs of the Washington
Mills in Lawrence.
Mr. Murphy served on the Charlestown school board, 1870-1871,
being the youngest member ever elected to that body. He did
excellent service as a member of the Boston school committee from
1884-1894. He was chairman of the committee that reorganized
the evening schools of Boston. He introduced and organized a
complete system of teaching cooking in the public schools, also a
system of manual training and was chairman of the committee that
established the Mechanics Arts High School. He resigned from the
board in November, 1893, because of press of business.
He is a member of the Algonquin Club; the Exchange Club; the
Boston Athletic Association; the Catholic Union, and Economic
Club; a life member of the Bostonian Society and also of the Massa-
chusetts Charitable Mechanics' Association, and is ex-president of
the Young Men's Catholic Association of Boston College.
In politics he has been an independent voter for the past ten
years. He was formerly allied to the Democratic party. He is a
member of the Roman Catholic Church.
He has three children: Rosanna, Jr., James Smiley, Jr., and
Robert S., all minors. As a motto for young people he would say:
"Do thorough work. Make the fewest possible mistakes."
PUBLIC LIBR1
ASTOR, LENOX
TILDEN FOUND
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL, son of Henry Newhall and
Ann, daughter of Zachariah Atwell, was born in Lynn,
Massachusetts, January 18, 1846. He inherited about
equally the characteristics of his parents; from his father, a modest
and retiring nature, sterling moral qualities and business sagacity;
from his mother, a buoyant temperament, quick and ardent sym-
pathies and a boundless charity, qualities that distinguished him
through life. His parents and their families were intelligent, cul-
tivated, given to reading and interested in public and social affairs.
Of delicate constitution, Charles had many serious illnesses that
marred an otherwise happy childhood. He could never engage in
rough sports, but his bright and playful spirit made him a center
of attraction. Ill-health also hindered him from systematic study
and the routine of school work, so that after being under tutors, at
private schools, and for a time at Chauncy Hall, Boston, he was
obliged to relinquish the hope of a college education. This was
during the Civil War. When the time came for nine months' volun-
teers, he quietly stole away to enlist. His parents remonstrated
on account of his health, and because he was not of age. Thwarted
in the patriotic attempt, and college out of the question, he went
into the employ of George W. Keene and Sons, leading shoe
manufacturers of the city, remaining with them some five years,
not so much with the purpose of fitting himself for manufacturing
on his own account as for business discipline.
Meanwhile he married Miss Helen Swasey, of Boston, but death
parted them after two perfectly happy years. As his father was at
that time infirm and of great age, Charles relinquished outside in-
terests and devoted himself wholly to filial cares. Assisted by the
invalid's old and faithful attendant, John Keefe, the son rendered
every attention; the relationship between the two was impressively
beautiful. For many hours every day, Charles was accustomed to
read to his father, and absented himself from the house but four
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL
evenings during a period of three years. His mother had died
some years before; after the death of his father, his wife, and that
of a good aunt who had been almost as a mother to him, the happy
household was empty of kindred.
Indirectly he had received from his father a valuable training
for financial administration and, inheriting property in Lynn cor-
porations, soon became influentially identified with them.
The interests of the Lynn Gas and Electric Company most
conspicuously engaged his attention. At the time of his death
he had been president for twenty years; and through his efforts
the company was built up from a small and unprofitable prop-
erty to one offering a secure and remunerative investment for its
stockholders and possessing a public utility for the rapidly increas-
ing population of the city.
Quick to appreciate and to adopt new ideas of whose value he
was convinced, and at all times insisting on fair treatment of the
public, combining with progressive instincts a tactful and superior
judgment, he soon attained prominence as one of Lynn's ablest and
must trustworthy business men. His success with the Lynn Com-
pany led to a wide-spread employment of his assistance in the organ-
ization and building up of similar companies in a large number
of neighboring cities.
The prosperity and high standing of the Second National Bank,
(originally the Laighton), of which he was for many years vice-
president, was a matter of deep pride to him, out of regard for his
father's honorable connection with it as president and that of his
father's brother, Francis Newhall, who preceded the former in the
same office. Mr. Charles Newhall was by instinct a business man,
and yet an intimate friend said of him, "His business was essen-
tially for others. A large part of his time was devoted to corpora-
tions to which he gave conscientious and effective service with no
thought of payment. He was distinctively the friend of the widow
and orphan, and of vast numbers of small investors in savings
and other institutions with which he was connected."
His ulterior motive, however, wTas not the amassing of wealth.
He looked with distrust upon the vast properties of multi-million-
aires. With his ability, it is easy to believe that he might have
become very rich; but that was not his ambition, and the distinc-
tion would have added nothing to his happiness. What would
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL
have made him happier would have been a more equitable distri-
bution of wealth and of the privileges and comforts it affords. He
seemed to acquire mainly to dispense, to gain in order to give. His
benevolence always overmatched his economy.
Six years after the death of his wife he was married to Miss
Lizzie H. White, daughter of Nathaniel and Armenia White of
Concord, New Hampshire, a lady possessing true qualities of woman-
hood, reared in a beautiful home by noble parents. They were
admirably fitted to enjoy life, and to make the highest use of it.
Again, after six happy years, the relationship was severed by her
death in 1887. He hid an aching heart, and under the strong
pulses of nature the period of depression passed, and he rose to a
career of still greater usefulness. From this time he was constantly
occupied with benefactions to the charitable and educational insti-
tutions of his community. To the Lynn Hospital he was not only
a large contributor of money, but also a personal friend. On the
board of management for twenty-five years he was as intimately
acquainted with every department as with his own household,
spending thousands of dollars upon its grounds, buildings, and fur-
nishings, its medical department and its smaller comforts. By
his will the hospital received an endowment of fifty thousand dol-
lars. The Home for Aged Women and the Home for Aged Men
were recipients of similar gifts and attentions. " Hardly a month
passed," says the matron of the Home for Aged Women, " without
some gift of provisions or some kindness to its inmates." For
twenty years or more the Thanksgiving dinner was his special
gift. *
Towards the completion of the beautiful Lynn Public Library
building he was one of the chief contributors, and the donor of
many valuable books.
The city of Lynn will hold him in special gratitude for his part
in building the Rhodes Memorial Chapel in Pine Grove cemetery.
The chapel was founded upon a legacy of twenty thousand dollars
by his aunt, Lydia Rhodes, in memory of her husband, Amos
Rhodes. Mrs. Rhodes had wished to leave her entire property, a
sum of about eighty thousand dollars, to Mr. Newhall: but he
declined to accept it; saying he thought it ought to be divided
equally between the children and grandchildren of Winthrop New-
hall, the father of Mrs. Rhodes, from whom the greater part of the
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL
money came. She then made him her adviser in the distribution
of her property, leaving a small portion of it to his own disposal.
That the architect might have greater freedom, he employed what
he derived from her estate, and a sum of his own sufficient to
more than double the amount of the legacy, thus securing to the
city this beautiful and permanent shrine. He also built a hand-
some gateway at the Springvale entrance, in memory of his
father. As a trustee, he gave constant attention to beautifying
the extensive grounds. One of the earliest appointed Park Com-
missioners, he was also one of the first to aid in the purchase of
the magnificent property known as Lynn Woods.
Mr. Newhall was a Unitarian by faith, as were his kindred. To
his church he was faithfully devoted. Every interest of the Uni-
tarian body received the same liberal support that he gave his own
church. Constant at worship, appreciative, a generous support to
the musical service, he was likewise a most thoughtful and con-
siderate friend to his pastor through his long ministry. Nor should
his liberal gift to Southern schools for the education of colored people
be overlooked. These things endeared Mr. Newhall to the com-
munity. But there was another characteristic even more endear-
ing. That was his innumerable private benefactions. The larger
part of his giving was done noiselessly and in secret. Friends in
misfortune, families and individuals in trouble or grief, how many
there were whom he was instant to remember with sympathy and
material help! There were those to whom he gave large financial
assistance, not expecting return and often receiving none. No one
was readier to aid young men and women seeking an education
or establishment in business.
Mr. Newhall sought no civil office, and although officially con-
nected with almost all the important institutions of finance and
charity in the city, insisted upon an inconspicuous position.
He had collected a library of some four thousand volumes, many
of them rare and beautiful; he enjoyed them as much as time per-
mitted. The sad domestic experience of his early life chastened
and ennobled him. For many years his beautiful home was with-
out other companionship than that of visiting friends and his faith-
ful servants; but his genial spirit filled the rooms. Visitor and
friend, and those who daily sought his charity, received from him
most cordial and comfortable hospitality.
CHARLES HENRY NEWHALL
The method of his life was sane and rational; his conduct beyond
reproach, his pleasures simple and lavishly shared with his friends.
In all relations only straightforwardness and honor would pass.
He had no patience with meanness or crookedness of any sort;
he was brave and outspoken for what was right.
After an illness of several months, he died in his home, April
22, 1908. Lynn felt that it had lost its most gracious, its most
benevolent citizen, a man unspoiled by riches, who turned them
rather to the spiritual life and happiness of the people with whom
he lived; whose life had ripened more and more richly with the
years. From no citizen has Lynn received so wide a range of large
benefactions as from Charles Henry Newhall.
HENRY NEWHALL
HENRY NEWHALL sprang from one of the oldest and lar-
gest families of Lynn, Massachusetts, his earliest ancestor
on American soil being Thomas Newhall, who came from
England in 1630. He was born March 10, 1797, and was the son
of Winthrop and Elizabeth (Farrington) . His immediate kindred
were people of intelligence and capacity. Winthrop, his father,
was a tanner by trade, and the sons, Francis Stewart and Henry,
followed in the morocco manufacture and trade, building up a lead-
ing business of the town, with offices in Boston and New York.
In 1850 Henry was compelled to retire from the firm on account
of ill-health, and spent several years afterward in travel at home
and abroad. Being able to resume the responsibilities of business,
he was elected president of the Laighton Bank (to-day the Central
National), and held the office from 1858 to 1876, when age and
infirmities obliged him to decline reelection. Henry Newhall
had the qualities of mind and character that command respect
and confidence. He was a man of perfect integrity, of firm and
careful judgment, honorable in business, and a good citizen. With
the development of Lynn he became identified with many of its
important interests, among them the Lynn Institution for Savings,
the Lynn Gas Light Company, and the Mechanics Insurance Com-
pany. He held a number of offices under the town government
(Lynn became a city in 1850); was one of the first commissioners
of the Lynn City Hall and City Debt Sinking Funds. The
Exchange and Lyceum Hall Associations were important organiza-
tions of which he was president. He possessed a broad and gen-
erous mind, and his associates esteemed him for his independent
and positive opinions, for which he had no lack of courageous
expression. Although his early educational advantages were
limited, he broadened his mind by extensive and thoughtful
reading, keen appreciation of the best things in literature, in-
sight into human nature, and a shrewd observation of the trend
^
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ICLIBRAR?
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HENRY NEWHALL
of human affairs. A book was always at hand, caught up in odd
moments, and there was little of interest going on in the world
that escaped his intelligent attention. Nor the least of his virtues
was his sympathy with educational and social reforms. While
he was by nature cautious and conservative, he was a patient and
tolerant listener to the advocates of new views and radical meas-
ures. He liked fair play, was a believer in the honesty of human
nature, and never doubted the progressive tendencies of human
society. His career covered the period of anti-slavery legislation
and the Civil War, during which the cause of humanity and the
government had his full support. His house was directly across
the street from the old Lyceum Hall, where the famous orators,
reformers, and lecturers of those days used to be heard, and it was
one of his pleasures to extend to them evening hospitalities.
His domestic relations were exceedingly happy, though sad-
dened by the early death of several children. His wife was a
woman of intelligence, vivacity and sweet benevolence.
It was during his youth that many of the First Churches of New
England were stirred by the Unitarian movement. The Quaker
meetings, of which Henry Newhall's ancestors appear to have been
adherents, were also affected by the ferment. When, in 1822, the
Second Congregational (Unitarian) Society was formed, Henry
Newhall was one of the most active in promoting its principles.
Through life he was a constant worshiper, and a generous
supporter of his church. His convictions of religion were far from
traditional, rather the outgrowth of conscience, experience and
appreciation of the development of religious ideas under the ex-
pansion of knowledge and new insight.
He is to be remembered as a man of sincerity, probity and
fidelity; a man who aimed to be just towards others, and who, in
their adversities, could be a friend, at heart and in deed.
In conversation he was most interesting, so richly was his mind
stored and so large had been his experience; companionable and
genial, it was with no affectation that his younger associates used
to address him as "Uncle Henry."
In his noble open face there was some resemblance to the typical
German contour and expression. During the Franco-Prussian War
he happened to be in Paris; a gendarme arrested him as a German
spy, and it was only through the intervention of the American
HENRY NEWHALL
Embassy that he was released, — an incident which he took with
great composure, and which he enjoyed relating.
For some years before his death he was confined to his house
and chamber, where he was most tenderly cared for by his son
Charles. His wife died long before him. The kindness of his
heart, his gentle speech, his patience with long continued illness
and cheerfulness, won the love of many friends. He died July 15,
1878, at his residence on Baltimore Street. By his will the Lynn
Public Library, from which he had derived great profit and pleasure,
received a valuable legacy.
The survivors of his family are his daughter, Catherine (Mrs.
Benjamin J. Berry), and her sons Henry N. Berry, Esq., and
Benamin N. Berry.
?/ f^O^c^,
HENRY PHILLIPS OAKMAN
IN the early years of the seventeenth century, Sir Ferdinando
Gorges obtained from King Charles a charter covering all the
lands between the 40th and 48th parallels of latitude in New
England, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The nattering induce-
ments which he presented to the minds of enterprising Englishmen,
enticed many persons of more than usual talents to enter into his
various schemes for the settlement of the province of Maine. Evi-
dences of the character of these early settlers are still seen in
the towns which were settled by them in southern Maine. The
quality of their literary taste is often seen in the prevalence of the
exclusively Shakespearian expressions which linger in the language
of the common people.
The men who entered into the enterprise, which resulted in the
settlement of "New Somersetshire," were mostly men of energy and
enterprise. They were not content to be limited by the narrowness,
which in many respects controlled the management of the Massachu-
setts Bay Colony, and out of the atmosphere which they created in
their own communities, have been sent forth many strong men. From
such an environment came the ancestors of Henry Phillips Oakman.
Samuel Oakman came from England and settled in Scarboro,
Maine, about the year 1657. A little over thirty years later he
removed to Marshfield, Massachusetts. A mixture of Scottish and
English blood furnished elements of strength in his character. In
early life he was a sea captain and prominent in public affairs, as
were others of the Oakman line, one of them being a somewhat
famous schoolmaster. Hiram Oakman, the father of Henry Phillips
Oakman, lived to the goodly age of eighty-three and was distin-
guished for his industry in his trade of shoemaker, and was counted
by his acquaintances as rather "plain spoken." The shoemaker's
shop was the rendezvous for the discussion of public affairs, and
even more than the country store was the political forum in the
New England village.
HENRY PHILLIPS OAKMAN
Of such an ancestry Henry Phillips Oakman entered into life
June 27, 1831, in Marshfield, Massachusetts. In his early boyhood
he was kept busy in his father's shop, a most valuable experience
for any boy. The sturdy and practical ideas of his father were
supplemented by the high and noble ambition of a wise mother,
and although he had only a common school education, this training
prepared him most efficiently for the work of life. At the age of
eighteen he was placed as an apprentice with his uncle to learn the
carpenter's trade. At the age of twenty he had developed sufficient
strength of character and business ability to assume a contract for
building a district schoolhouse in the town of Scituate, thus begin-
ning a successful career as contractor and builder, in which business
he was engaged for forty years. Mr. Oakman has been a life long
Republican. He served on the board of selectmen and assessors in
Marshfield for two years, and was postmaster at North Marshfield
until in 1868 he moved from Marshfield to Dorchester. Here his
experience and training in public service were recognized and he
served two years in the Common Council in Boston and repre-
sented his section of the city in the Legislature. He has held the
office of Justice of the Peace from the first year of his living in
Dorchester until the present time and has been fire insurance ad-
juster for fifteen years. In financial circles his business ability has
been utilized and he has held the position of president of one of
the banks in his community and director in two others. He has
held important trusts in the Church of the Unity at Neponset, and
in those relations gained the respect and cooperation of his asso-
ciates. During the Civil War he was a sergeant in Company K,
38th Massachusetts Volunteers, but received his discharge for dis-
ability before the close of the war. He has also been prominent in
the work of the Odd Fellows and G.A.R.
In 1853 he was married to Arethusa, daughter of Ichabod and
Celia Hatch. Five children have been born to them.
Gathering up the fruit of his experience Mr. Oakman has come
to put the highest value upon a careful preparation for the work of
life coupled with a clear and definite aim. " Strict integrity under
all circumstances, loyalty to exalted principles, fidelity to religious
connections " are his words of advice to young people.
PUBi ,ARY
ASTOR, LENOX
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
CONSTANTINE O'DONNELL
A CAREER as merchant and banker in the city of Lowell,
Massachusetts, of which any man might well be proud is
that of Mr. Constantine O'Donnell, long the active manager
of an important dry goods house, and director and vice-president of
the Lowell Trust Company and president of the Washington Savings
Bank. Mr. O'Donnell is known in Lowell as a merchant of a sub-
stantial, time-honored school, and a broad-minded, public-spirited
citizen.
His was a thorough, comprehensive, Old World training. Mr.
O'Donnell was born in County Tyrone, Ireland, in the town of Dough-
rock, on December 18, 1853, the son of Daniel O'Donnell and
Rose (Maguire) O'Donnell. His father was a farmer in comfortable
circumstances, a man of sterling worth, upright in his dealings and
generous to a fault. With his farming he combined the activities
of a cattle merchant, and his son as a lad was particularly fond of
accompanying his father to the different markets, whither he went
to buy or sell cattle, in Ireland and Scotland. The boy was an obser-
vant lad. He enjoyed these glimpses of the larger world of business
beyond his native town, and the business transactions of which he
was a witness awoke in him early an ambition to make his own place
in trade.
His path to an education was not easy. The family lived in the
country and the boy was obliged to walk four miles to school. At
the age of thirteen his school life ended, but he was a lover of books
and of reading, and his ambition impelled him to go on acquiring
knowledge even after he had shut the door of school behind him
for the last time.
In his fourteenth year he was apprenticed by his father to a dry
goods merchant in a neighboring town. He lived with this mer-
chant and served faithfully four years while mastering the intricacies
of the trade. He proved to be a good clerk and a thorough student,
and his habit of close and caref ul reading gave him, when his appren-
CONSTANTINE O'DONNELL
ticeship was ended, a breadth of information unusual in one of his
3^ears.
At nineteen Mr. O'Donnell, believing that he had mastered his
calling and that he could win success more quickly in a larger field,
followed in the footsteps of so many ardent and ambitious young
men of his native land toward the broader opportunities of America.
His first business experience in the New World was gained in a dry
goods establishment in Boston. He entered as a clerk there, and
proved himself a good one. Subsequently, at the suggestion of
relatives, Mr. O'Donnell removed to Lowell and connected himself
with a large dry goods house there in the city with which his success-
ful business career was to be identified.
In Lowell Mr. O'Donnell moved rapidly ahead. His under-
standing of the business, his faithful attention to duty and his unfail-
ing affability and courtesy won a multitude of friends. When he
was twenty-six years of age his habits of thrift and economy enabled
him to control enough money to start in business in a modest way
on his own account. His success as a merchant was remarkable
even in this land of opportunity. His energy, integrity and gracious-
ness of manner soon won recognition for him as one of the best-
equipped of Lowell's merchants. His business grew and prospered
greatly, and out of its profits he was enabled to become a large in-
vestor in real estate and a large holder of banking securities. Mr.
O'Donnell served the Lowell Trust Company as a director from its
founding, in 1890. He was vice-president of the Lowell Trust Com-
pany for a time and was also president of the Washington Savings
Bank. Mr. O'Donnell was always a sagacious counselor in the affairs
of these institutions. He had a firm grasp on the principles of busi-
ness, and his judgment of values was exceptionally good. He held
a creditable part in the mercantile development of Lowell, and helped
to make it one of the active and prosperous cities of the Common-
wealth.
From 1880 Mr. O'Donnell was the senior partner of the firm of
O'Donnell & Gilbride, dry goods merchants of Lowell, until the firm
was organized, in 1896, as a corporation. Then he became the presi-
dent of the company and held this post until 1904, when a fire caused
a dissolution of the corporation. Mr. O'Donnell reorganized it as
the O'Donnell Dry Goods Company, and became its treasurer, hold-
ing this post until his death, on February 22, 1906.
CONSTANTINE O'DONNELL
Few men of his race, which has borne so strong a part in the
industrial upbuilding of Massachusetts, have achieved as much as
Mr. O'Donnell in his notably active and successful business life. He
is remembered in Lowell for his fidelity to duty, his high standards
of integrity and the energy and determination of his purposes. He
was a man of warm heart and the kindliest of impulses. It was his
happiness to give happiness to others. Gifted with an alert mind,
trained not only by the observant habits which were acquired in his
business, but by careful, serious reading and by much travel in this
country and abroad, Mr. O'Donnell was a delightful member of any
social circle where he appeared. He was a member of the Vesper
Club in Lowell, of the Country Club, of the Yorick Club and of the
Knights of Columbus, and he was fond of driving for exercise and of
the theater for relaxation. In his political affiliations Mr. O'Donnell
was a Democrat. His religious faith was that of the Roman Catho-
lic Church.
Mr. O'Donnell had a pleasant home, overlooking the Merrimac,
and there he found his chief enjoyment with his family and friends.
He was married on November 26, 1888, to Katherine, daughter of
Patrick and Katherine (Clark) Fay, a descendant from Hugh Fay,
who came from Normandy to Ireland in the eleventh century.
Four children were born to Mr. and Mrs. O'Donnell, three of whom
are now living — Katherine M., Charles C. and Francis F., who are
in school.
ROBERT TREAT PAINE, 2d
ONE of the family names which have been borne with dis-
tinction in this country is that of Robert Treat Paine,
judge, patriot and signer of the Declaration of Independ-
ence. The race which he founded has a notable representation in
Massachusetts. One of his direct descendants is Robert Treat Paine,
2d, conspicuous alike for public spirit and for ability in practical
affairs. Mr. Paine was born in New Bedford, Massachusetts, on
December 3, 1861, and was the son of William Cushing and Hannah
Hathaway (Perry) Paine. William Cushing Paine, the father, was
a United States army officer, a military engineer who himself
exemplified the intellectual strength of the family — for he had
graduated high in the class of 1854 at Harvard College and first in
his class at West Point.
Robert Treat Paine, 2d, was prepared for college at Hopkin-
son's private school in Boston, and graduated from Harvard in the
class of 1882. He chose the profession of the law and began his
career in 1888, in Boston, a member of the Suffolk Bar. Mr. Paine
manifested at once an aptitude for the control and direction of
large business activities. Mr. Paine is both able business man and
able lawyer, and this equipment, with his conspicuous energy and
integrity, has made a large place for him in the financial circles of
both Boston and New York.
The utilization of electricity is the boldest industrial achieve-
ment of our generation in America, and Mr. Paine has been active
in the financial direction of this work. Electrical development was
still in its beginnings when he entered upon his profession in Boston.
The telephone was an established fact, but the chaining of electricity
to furnish light and, above all, power everywhere was something the
full potentialities of which were just being perceived by the boldest
engineers and the most sagacious investors. Mr. Paine is one of the
Bostonianswho hold to-day an important position in the financial con-
trol of the great electrical corporations. Mr. Paine is a director and a
Ks iwC XutS 7 a
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ROBERT TREAT PAINE, 2d
member of the executive committee of the great and powerful General
Electric Company; a director of the United Electric Securities Com-
pany, a trustee of the Boston and Worcester Electric Companies; a
director of the Electric Bond and Share Company; president and
director of the Railway and Light Securities Company; director of
the Dallas Electric Corporation; director of the Tacoma Railway
and Power Company; director of the Tampa Electric Company, and
he is interested also in the American Gas and Electric Company,
and the Northern Texas Electric Company. Thus Mr. Paine's
activities in the finance of electricity cover the whole United
States.
But Mr. Paine has been interested also in another field of industry.
He is an authority on the care and development of real estate —
vice-president and director of the Greater New York Development
Company; vice-president and director of the Metropolitan Associates;
director of the Brooklyn Associates; vice-president and director
of the Brooklyn Development Company; director of the Kings-
boro Realty Company; a member of the Wood-Harmon Real Estate
Trustees, and a member of the Staten Island Associates. Mr. Paine
is also a director of the Old Colony Trust Company, one of the great
financial institutions of New England; a director of the City Trust
Company; a director of the Rutland Railroad; and a trustee of the
Central Aguirre Sugar Companies. He is a director of the United
Shoe Machinery Company, and of the United States Smelting,
Refining and Mining Company, and a trustee and member of the
investment committee of the Suffolk Savings Bank for Seamen and
Others. Mr. Paine has taken charge of the affairs of the Working-
men's Loan Association as treasurer and director, and has served
the Boston Children's Aid Society as director. He has served the
cause of education as trustee of the Milton Academy and in connec-
tion with the newly founded Simmons College in Boston.
Mr. Paine's chief amusements are yachting and shooting. He
is a Republican in politics.
Mr. Paine married, in 1890, Ruth, daughter of Walter C. Cabot
and Elizabeth (Rogers) Mason. Mr. Paine has had five children, of
whom there are now living: Walter Cabot, Richard Cushing, Eliza-
beth Mason, and Ruth. He lives in the winter in Brookline and in
the summer on Coolidge Point, Manchester.
WILLIAM FRANKLIN PALMER
" f | >HE PALMER FLEET " is a pride of Massachusetts Bay
and its fame is known the world over as a wonderful
example of progressive Yankee ideas applied to ship-
building and navigation. These great schooners, fourteen in all,
with an aggregate registered measurement of 36,274 tons and a car-
rying capacity of about a million tons a year are the product of the
inventive force, the business acumen and the energy of Mr. William
Franklin Palmer, of Boston, architect and managing owner of the
fleet, a gentleman as conspicuous in his day as were the McKays and
the other celebrated Massachusetts clipper ship-builders of a genera-
tion ago.
Mr. Palmer is a thoroughgoing New Englander. He was "born
web-footed," as our familiar phrase goes, and though, after his gradua-
tion from college, he studied law for a while and was a master of
college preparatory schools, the sea kept calling him, and he bad to
obey.
Webster, in Massachusetts, was his native town, and his birth-
day was May 30, 1859. His father, a Massachusetts soldier and a
captain of volunteers in the Civil War, was killed in the Battle of the
Wilderness when his son was still a small child. Captain Palmer is
remembered as a man of rugged strength of character, stern and of
inflexible integrity. His wife, the mother of William Franklin
Palmer, was Jane Elizabeth (Hoyle) Palmer, a strong and forceful
woman whose influence in the intellectual and moral development of
her son was powerful.
On both sides the family was of stalwart Pilgrim or Puritan
extraction. His mother was descended from Captain Miles Standish,
the redoubtable warrior of the Plymouth Colony, and his father
from Thomas Palmer, who came from Yorkshire to Salem in
1638.
Hard work on a farm was the lot of William Franklin Palmer in
. y^
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WILLIAM FRANKLIN PALMER
his boyhood, and he has ever been thankful for that rough but whole-
some training. Ambitious for a thorough education, he entered
Williams College, graduating with the degree of A.B. in 1880, and
receiving the degree of A.M. in 1883. After a period given to law
studies, for a dozen years he followed the profession of a school-
master, and for eight years was at the head of Bristol Academy.
But all this time Mr. Palmer's dominant thought was of the sea and
ships, and there developed in him a determination to be a ship-
builder and owner. In the college preparatory school over wmich
he presided he had the best of opportunities to master naval archi-
tecture and to gather his resources for his great achievement.
Fifteen years before Mr. Palmer actually built a ship he used to
talk with his friends of what he would do when this dream was accom-
plished. Time and time again he made, only to destroy, the plans
of great vessels, but all the time he was slowly evolving a type of
ocean carrier which should exemplify the most advanced principles
of marine construction, and should be efficient and profitable beyond
anything the ocean knew. While still a master of schools Mr. Palmer
was actually engaged in designing vessels, and he derived a steady
income from this service.
When he began to build ships of his own he had no great amount
of capital, but he did possess unbounded enthusiasm and confidence
in the accuracy of his judgment. It was difficult to secure the money
requisite for the construction of the first vessel, but, once completed,
she splendidly vindicated her designer, earning 30 per cent, of
dividends the first year. Since that time Mr. Palmer has had only
to propose the building of a new ship to gain all the capital he needed
— such is the reputation which he has won and the confidence which
he has inspired among the prudent investors of New England.
"The Palmer fleet" now consists of fourteen large fore-and-aft
sailing vessels, so skilfully designed and constructed that they have
made money when other ships have been a burden on their owners.
Mr. Palmer has designed every one of these vessels, raised the money
to build them, managed and controlled them after they were launched,
and directly and in person supervised their operation. Mr. Palmer
is one of the busiest men in Massachusetts at his office home, 27
Hartford Street, in Boston. He has the proud distinction of having
built more tonnage in wooden sail vessels than any other man, firm
or corporation in the history of navigation in America.
WILLIAM FRANKLIN PALMER
Besides the fourteen great vessels of the Palmer fleet, Mr. Palmer
has himself designed about forty other vessels, half of them yachts,
and two other large ships now trading in the Pacific Ocean. He
has prepared plans for steamers which he would build if Congress
held out any inducement to American ship owners by extending to
them the protection generously given to every other industry and
equalizing conditions as between our own and foreign ships.
All that Mr. Palmer has achieved is the more significant because
he has won his victories in the face of heavy odds and against over-
whelming competition. He has built up his great fleet of ocean
carriers at a time when American shipping in general was going
down. Nothing but incessant industry, eternal vigilance and busi-
ness genius of a high order could have enabled Mr. Palmer not merely
to hold his own, but to increase his tonnage so enormously that the
Palmer house flag is recognized everywhere between the Bay of
Fundy and the Caribbean as that of one of the merchant kings of
the Atlantic coast.
Mr. Palmer is a Unitarian in his religious faith. He was married
on July 17, 1895, to Marie E., daughter of Albert Yale and Eliza-
beth P. (Caswell) Convers, who was descended from Governor Yale,
of Connecticut. Mr. and Mrs. Palmer have had three children, of
whom there are now living Fannie Palmer and Paul Palmer, ten
and eight years old respectively.
Since the preparation of this sketch Mr. Palmer has passed
away, his death taking place on September 29, 1909. The burial
was at Webster, in the family lot where three generations of
Palmers had been previously interred. His originality and ability
in designing was recognized by the Society of Naval Architects
and Marine Engineers, who elected him to their membership in 1904.
PUBLIC LIBRARY
ASTOR, LENOX
TTLDEN FOUN C
6cT
HENRY WAYLAND PEABODY
AMONG the most prominent and honored citizens of Salem
was Henry Wayland Peabody. Few names have been so
long familiar in this celebrated old New England town as
that he bears. His father, Alfred Peabody, merchant, was the son
of Nathan and Hannah (Stickney) Peabody, and a descendant from
Lieut. Francis Peabody (1614-1697), born in St. Albans, Hertford-
shire, England, who arrived in Salem, on the ship Planter, in 1635,
and settled at Topsfield, Essex County, in 1667. Alfred Peabody
was a prosperous Salem merchant, possessed of a gentle, honest
Christian character. He married Jerusha Tay, daughter of Ben-
jamin and Jerusha (Winn) Tay. Their home was a center of light
and influence in Salem for many years, and into it, on the twenty-
second day of August, 1838, Henry Wayland Peabody was born.
Mr. Peabody has always lived in Salem, though his business has
long been in Boston. Among the forces that have shaped his life
Mr. Peabody counted the training of that Christian home as the
most potent. The boyhood years were spent in the discharge of
such household duties as generally fell to the lot of a lad whose
parents were anxious that he should form habits of industry. He
was a pupil of the Hacker and Phillipps grammar schools, the
Jonathan F. Worcester private school, and the Salem Latin School
until December 30, 1855. Though not a college graduate, Mr. Pea-
body, by private study and from association in active life with
men of large affairs, had in no small measure made good the
inevitable loss that comes to one from ending his student course at
so early an age. He began active business life January 1, 1856, in
the counting room of Williams and Hall, importing and exporting
merchants in Boston, and in October, 1859, with Samuel Stevens,
merchant, becoming partner in 1862 in the firm Samuel Stevens
& Company.
In 1867 he founded the house of Henry W. Peabody & Company,
importing and exporting commission merchants. The house later
HENRY WAYLAND PEABODY
established offices in Boston, New York, San Francisco, London,
Lverpool, Sydney, N. S. W., Cape Town, Merida (Yucatan), and
Manila, P. I., and is one of the leading export and import houses of
the United States. Mr. Peabody's steady advancement in the com-
mercial world to the high position he now holds has been due to
those qualities of head and heart that have won him the confidence
and respect of all who know him. The Commission House of Henry
W. Peabody & Company holds an enviable reputation for high
business integrity and fair dealing.
He married, April 16, 1862, Lila, daughter of Daniel H. and Eliza
(Shepard) Mansfield, and had five children, of whom three are living :
Lincoln Rea (Harvard, 1887); Alfred (Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, 1904), and Bessie Winn. Mrs. Peabody died in Sep-
tember, 1890. Mr. Peabody was married again December 21, 1892,
to Mrs. Nannie (Brayton) Borden. She died May 17, 1905, and he
was married June 16, 1906, to Mrs. Lucy W. (McGill), Waterbury, of
Watertown, Massachusetts.
While having held no civic or political offices, Mr. Peabody was
always very deeply interested in all public questions affecting the
welfare of city, state, and nation, and was prominent in the
advocacy both by voice and in the press, of the necessity for sound
money and the need of government subsidies for American ship-
ping. He insistently maintained the moral obligation resting upon
the nation to deal fairly with its newly acquired possessions, the
Philippine Islands. Allying himself at his majority with the Re-
publican party, he never changed his allegiance in this respect,
though he was ready to criticise his party when its moral ideals
seemed to him unworthy.
He was for many years prominently identified with the Bap-
tist denomination throughout the Commonwealth and the country,
and was a deacon of the church in Salem of which he was a mem-
ber. He was repeatedly called upon to fill important positions
of trust in the executive management of the affairs connected with
the denominational life, especially of Massachusetts. He was
president of the Boston Baptist Social Union and chairman of its
Board of Trustees, and this at a time when large trust funds were
committed to his care. He was a trustee of the Newton Theo-
logical Institution and a member of the Executive Committee of
the American Baptist Missionary Union. He was chosen for one
HENRY WAYLAND PEABODY
of the Visiting Committee appointed by the Overseers of Harvard
College to report annually upon the condition and needs of the
Semitic Museum. He was a member of the Boston Art Club, and
the Exchange Club of Boston, and long a member of the Eastern
Yacht Club. Mr. Peabody died at his country home, " Parra-
matta," Montserrat, Beverly, December 7, 1908. Among the many
high tributes to his memory is this from the Boston Chamber of
Commerce: " We have lost one of our most useful and valued
associates. His long and successful business career as a Boston
merchant has left the memory of incorruptible integrity. We are
grateful for such an example. We are glad to cherish such a mem-
ory as he has bequeathed us." The Boston Transcript said of
him: " About as perfect a specimen as could be conceived of the
Puritan of Massachusetts Bay was Henry W. Peabody, of Salem
and Boston and Beverly, who has just gone to the reward of the
model life he lived as citizen and as merchant. Of not every man
of successful business can it be said, as is said most earnestly of
him, that he actually carried the Golden Rule into business. This
kept him ever conscious of walking in God's sight, as he believed,
in his daily work and conversation, and that without the least
Pharisaism or pretension." Such is the place Mr. Peabody came to
hold in the estimation of his fellows — a business man of ability
and foresight, who achieved a notable success by honorable
and straightforward methods, a Christian gentleman to be counted
on in positions of trust and responsibility, and a friend and neighbor
above reproach.
Mr. Peabody wrote for the readers of this work: " Avail with in-
dustry of all the opportunities for education open to you. If limited
to a common school education, master thoroughly the rudimentary
studies. When graduated, take the first suitable satisfactory oppor-
tunity for business and do your best in it. A good boy with such
principles is likely to become a good business man."
HENRY SPALDING PERHAM
HENRY SPALDING PERHAM was born in Chelmsford,
November 16, 1843. He was the son of David Perham,
a selectman of Chelmsford and Representative in the General
Court, and he was of the seventh generation of Perhams who owned
and occupied the same farm, a record probably unequaled in New
England history. The original Perham settled in Chelmsford in 1664,
and the succeeding generations intermarried with many of the lead-
ing families of eastern Massachusetts. Henry Perham was educated
in the schools of his native town and later attended West ford
Academy, of which John D. Long was then principal, and Law-
rence Academy at Groton. He also took a commercial course at
Poughkeepsie, New York. Between these educational adventures
he enlisted in the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment and in the service
suffered the loss of an eye which led to his discharge in 1863. The
succeeding year, however, he enlisted again and served as corporal
in Company B, Sixth Massachusetts, during its last campaign. Re-
turning to Chelmsford he succeeded his father in the manufacture
of vinegar, a product of the Perham farm for over seventy years and
a standard article well known to all in the trade. He was probably
the largest manufacturer of natural process cider vinegar in the
country, and enjoyed the highest reputation for business integ-
rity and honorable dealing. In the town of Chelmsford he was suc-
cessively chairman of the school committee; chairman of the board
of selectmen, and chairman of the trustees of the Public Library.
He was president of the Middlesex North Agricultural Society, and
at the time of his death a member of the State Board of Agriculture.
He was also the historian of Chelmsford and at the celebration of
the town's two hundred and fiftieth anniversary he was secretary of
the committee in charge of the arrangements and delivered an his-
torical address of unusual interest. He was a member of Post 185
of the Grand Army of the Republic; a member of the Sons of the
American Revolution; of the Lowell Historical Society; of the Ameri-
HENRY SPALDING PERHAM
can Peace Society; of the American Unitarian Association, and an
active member and officer of the First Parish Church. He died at
Daytona Beach, Florida, February 25, 1906.
Emerson said somewhere: "I see place and duties for a noble-
man in even- society; but it is not to drink wine and ride in a fine
coach, but to guide and adorn life for the multitude by forethought,
by elegant studies, by perseverance, self-devotion and the remem-
brance of the humble old friend, — by making his life secretly
beautiful."
Henry Perham belonged to that nobility. Clean and gentle
blood flowed in his veins from a stock of honest yeomen, who for
seven generations had lived on one estate, and with steady succession
served the community in which they worked by public-spirited en-
deavor and good example. He was himself pure, high-minded,
independent in judgment, refined in taste, courteous in bearing. A
successful man of business, he was also given to pleasant studies
and he sunned his soul in domestic peace and happiness. There
was no place in the world to him like his home. His avocation was
horticulture and the cultivation of flowers and fruit about his home
place. His antiquarian tastes brought him into relations with his-
torical scholars all over the country and he could give to them as
much information and inspiration as he got from them. He talked
well and he listened well. The genealogies of Chelmsford families,
the historic associations of Chelmsford anecdote and tradition had
for him perpetual fascination. Old localities, documents, attics,
the charm of local tombstones, possessed irresistible attraction.
From their records he constructed the pictures of bygone times and
his own imagination touched with color the faded hues, and renewed
memories of the generation that planted and upbuilt New England.
The Puritan conscience was embodied in him, the moral side of
public and private questions fascinated him and he stood for what
he felt was right even if he had to stand alone. In politics he was
an Independent, in religion a Unitarian. His interest in good causes
was persistent and patient. It did not have to be petted and cajoled,
but kept itself alert and active by the warmth of the inner fire.
Though often called to places of responsibility in the various public
organizations to which he belonged he did not need office to main-
tain his loyalty. He was perfectly ready to serve in the ranks. He
was not only a patriot in war but also in peace, taking an active
HENRY SPALDING PERHAM
part in every movement for the improvement of the town, a leader
in the school, in the church, in the literary union, and always an
advocate in town meeting of a management of town affairs that was
at once conservative and progressive. His advice to young men
was: "In selecting an occupation choose the one by means of which
you believe you may become the most useful, with that aim steadily
in view you will gain the greatest reward in happiness if not in wealth.
Upon public questions be true to your convictions. Never fear
espousing an unpopular cause believing it to be right."
His comrades of the Civil War testify to their appreciation of
his genial personality, his well-stored mind, his uprightness of char-
acter, and his supreme loyalty to conscience. His associates of the
Agricultural Society bear testimony that he was wise in counsel,
decided in opinion and calm and reasonable in debate. His town's
people found him ever industrious to serve the community, pains-
taking, courteous and serviceable. He spent happy summer weeks
at the Unitarian meetings at the Isle of Shoals, making many pleas-
ant acquaintances and friends among his fellow-workers, and these
friendships he was keen to maintain during the winter months. All
who came in contact with him, whether in business hours or play-
time, got an impression of inherent genuineness and manliness of
character and of serenity and refinement of spiritual life.
PUL RY
ASTOR, LENOX
TILDEN FOUNDATIONS
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
ONE of Farragut's brilliant officers — " the bravest man," to
quote the famous Admiral, "that ever trod the deck of a
ship" — George Hamilton Perkins splendidly justified his
fine New England lineage and the exact professional training which
the nation gave him. He was born on October 20, 1836, in Hopkin-
ton, New Hampshire, the son of a distinguished lawyer and man
of affairs, Hamilton Eliot Perkins, and of Clara Bartlett (George)
Perkins. Both father and mother were qualified to impress a par-
ticularly strong influence on the life of their son. He was the oldest
of a family of eight children, and as a lad was conspicuous for courage
and alertness and a leader in all daring boyish exercises. When
George was eight years old his father removed to Boston, and was
engaged there for several years as a merchant and ship-owner in the
trade with Africa, but wearying of business cares he returned to
his home in Hopkinton. There the son attended the local academy
and went afterward to a larger academy at Gilmanton. He was a
student in this latter school when an appointment to the Naval
Academy at Annapolis was offered to him by a friend of his mother,
Hon. Charles H. Peaslee, at that time a member of Congress and
subsequently Collector of the Port of Boston. The lad entered
Annapolis in October, 1851, and was graduated in June, 1856.
During his service at the Academy he distinguished himself in gun-
nery and seamanship. After a cruise in the sloop-of-war Cyane of
the Home Squadron, he was transferred to the store-ship Release
for service in the Mediterranean and South America. Then he
became a passed midshipman and was ordered to the steamer Sumter
as acting master in the most arduous duty that at that time fell
to the lot of American sea officers, the suppression of the slave trade
on the wTest coast of Africa. For almost three years the Sumter
remained in this inhospitable region under a burning sky, her officers
and crew scourged with fevers. Young Perkins bore himself so
well and withstood the climate so successfully that he came home
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
in the Sumter as acting first lieutenant and executive officer, a very
responsible post for one of his years.
The Civil War had now begun, and Mr. Perkins, commissioned
as master, was ordered to duty as executive officer of the new steam
gunboat Cayuga, one of the vessels built in ninety days for service
against the new Confederacy — a fine, handy little ship, carrying
one Dahlgren eleven-inch gun and several lighter weapons — a
portentous battery for a vessel of her draft and tonnage. The little
regular navy was being suddenly expanded to meet the emergencies
of a great war, and Mr. Perkins found himself the only regular
officer on board except the Captain, while ninety-five of his crew
had never before been aboard a man-of-war.
This was a position calculated to test the metal of a young officer
who as first lieutenant would be looked to to make ship and crew
efficient. By the time the Cayuga joined Farragut's fleet in the
Gulf of Mexico on March 31, 1862, the ship was prepared for hard
and dangerous work, and she was complimented by selection to bear
the divisional flag of Captain Bailey, commanding the van of the
fleet in the attack of April 19, on forts Jackson and St. Philip, below
New Orleans. "I hope the Cayuga will go down before she ever
gives up, and I guess she will," Lieutenant Perkins had written just
before the battle to his kindred at home. It was the little Cayuga
that led the line as the Federal fleet passed through the obstruc-
tions and stood up for the frowning forts on either side of the
Mississippi.
"Noticing," said Lieutenant Perkins, "that the enemy's guns
were all aimed for midstream, I steered right close under the walls
of St. Philip, and although our masts and rigging were badly shot
through, the hull hardly was damaged. After passing the last
battery, I looked back for some of our vessels, and my heart jumped
into my mouth when I found I could not see a single one. I thought
they must all have been sunk by the forts. Looking ahead, I saw
eleven of the enemy's gunboats coming down upon us, and I sup-
posed we were gone. Three made a dash to board us, but a charge
from our eleven-inch settled one, the Governor Moore. The ram
Manassas just missed us astern, and we soon disposed of the other.
Just then some of our gunboats came to the assistance of the Cayugay
and all sorts of things happened; it was the wildest excitement all
round. The Varuna fired a broadside into us instead of the enemy.
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
Another attacked one of our prizes; three had struck to us before
any of our ships came up, but when they did come up we all pitched
in and sunk eleven vessels in about twenty minutes."
When this desperate night encounter in the crowded river was
ended, the Cayuga steamed on, leading the way up the Mississippi,
compelling the surrender of the Chalmette regiment, and anchor-
ing to repair damages at quarantine. The next morning the Cayuga
again led the fleet right up into sight of the city of New Orleans,
and when Captain Bailey was ordered to go ashore and demand the
unconditional surrender of the city he honored Lieutenant Perkins
by asking him to accompany him. This proved to be an exceedingly
perilous duty, for the two Federal officers were assailed by a mob
immediately on landing, and were besieged in the office of the Mayor.
But Captain Bailey and his aide bore themselves with unflinching
fortitude, and managed to return unharmed to their ship. The
Cayuga was so seriously damaged in the battles with the forts that
she was sent North as a bearer of dispatches, in order that she might
be refitted at New York. Lieutenant Perkins thereupon made a
brief visit to the family at Concord, whither his father, now Judge
of Probate of Merrimack County, had removed, and there the young
officer was received with the heartiest congratulations on his bril-
liant service.
Rejoining his ship, Lieutenant Perkins returned to Farragut's
fleet in the Mississippi River, and was transferred in November,
1862, to the large sloop-of-war Pensacola. The following month
he was commissioned Lieutenant Commander. For a time he com-
manded the gunboat New London on the very dangerous service
of transporting powder during the operations at Port Hudson.
Following this he commanded for several months the gunboat
Sciota on the blockade off Texas. He had been relieved from that
service late in May, 1864, with leave to proceed home to recruit
his health, but arriving in New Orleans he volunteered for duty
in the forthcoming attack of Admiral Farragut on Mobile, and was
assigned to the command of a new monitor built on the Mississippi
by the famous engineer, Captain Eads, the Chickasaw, a double-
turreted armorclad carrying four eleven-inch guns and a crew of
twenty-five officers and one hundred and forty-five men. The
mechanics were still at work on the machinery of the Chickasaw.
It was of the utmost importance that she should be made complete
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
and perfectly ready for hard fighting service. Her young commander
personally supervised and hastened this work, and had the satis-
faction of seeing her ready for battle when she arrived off the Mobile
bar on August 1, 1864.
Four days later, on the memorable August 5, the Chickasaw,
fourth monitor in line, followed the flag of Admiral Farragut on
the Hartford into Mobile Bay. The armorclads were ordered to
steer between the wooden ships and Fort Morgan. Perkins was
the youngest officer in command. Ahead of him, steaming for the
Confederate ram Tennessee, the monitor Tecumseh suddenly struck
a torpedo and went down with nearly all on board. This appalling
spectacle caused some confusion in the fleet, but the Chickasaw did
not falter. Firing steadily at Fort Morgan, she kept on till the
wooden ships had passed above the fortifications. The ram Ten-
nessee, the most powerful vessel that ever flew the flag of the Con-
federacy, now challenged and attacked Farragut's wooden fleet.
Several sloops and frigates met her in succession without decisive
result, and the Admiral ordered the ironclads to go in and capture
or destroy her. This was the opportunity of the Chickasaw. Such
was the skill and care with which her young commander had made
her ready that she was the fastest and handiest of all the armored
vessels. Moreover, her turrets and guns were working perfectly.
Perkins steamed around his formidable enemy, seeking her most
vulnerable points. He found these aft, where the plates were
thinner than on the heavy sides of the Tennessee. And there at
the stern the Chickasaw hung and simply pounded the Tennessee
into submission. The guns of the Chickasaw served with the exact-
ness of target pistols, cut the steering gear of the ram, disabled the
shutters of the after port, put the after gun of the Tennessee out of
action, and wounded the Confederate Admiral, Buchanan, who
was forced to give over command. Then the Tennessee, with the
redoubtable little Chickasaw hanging to her ''like a leech," was
forced to surrender. The monitor took the monster Confederate
in tow and delivered her alongside the Hartford.
All observers agreed that this exploit of Perkins and the Chicka-
saw in grappling with and conquering almost single-handed an
armorclad of far greater power and tonnage was one of the bravest
and most decisive victories of the entire war — a deed that in any
other service would have won for the hero who performed it high
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
promotion and the honors of knighthood or their equivalent. It
did make the young commander of the Chickasaw the idol of the
fleet, and the whole country rang with his praises. It is charac-
teristic of the man that after the Tennessee surrendered he looked
immediately for more work to do, and found his ship and crew able
to undertake it. The Chickasaw in succession shelled Fort Powell
and compelled her comander to blow it up ; shelled Fort Gaines and
helped toward its capitulation, and joined conspicuously in the final
bombardment and capture of Fort Morgan. As an eye witness said:
" It was a glorious sight to see the gallant Perkins in the Chicka-
saw, nearly all the morning almost touching the wharf, and pouring
in his terrible missiles, two at a time, making bricks and mortar
fly in all directions, then moving ahead or astern a little to get a
fresh place. He stayed there till nearly noon, when he hauled off
to cool his guns and give his men some refreshment. In the after-
noon he took his ship in again, and turret after turret was emptied
at the poor fort."
It was by merit rather than by chance that the flag of the cap-
tured fort was given to the Captain of the Chickasaw and sent home
by him. He remained in charge of the Chickasaw until the end of
the war.
For a time Lieutenant-Commander Perkins was stationed at New
Orleans in charge of the ironclad fleet collected there, but in May,
1866, he was ordered as Executive Officer to the Lackawanna for a
cruise of three years in the Pacific Ocean. One of the memorable
events of this service was the hoisting of the American flag on August
28, 1867, over Midway Island, now a cable station and an important
ocean post of the United States. Returning from the Pacific he
was ordered on ordnance duty, in March, 1869, to the Boston Navy
Yard, where he remained two years. During this service, in Sep-
tember, 1870, he was married to Anna Minot Weld, daughter of
William F. Weld, a distinguished merchant and ship-owner of Boston.
On January 19, 1871, he was appointed Commander in the navy,
and in March of that year was ordered to command the Relief,
which carried stores from the United States to France to aid the
sufferers from the communist riots in Paris. For several years
thereafter Commander Perkins was lighthouse inspector of the
Second District, residing in Boston, which had now become his
home.
GEORGE HAMILTON PERKINS
In 1877 he was again ordered to sea duty in charge of the Ashuelot
on the coast of China. There he added in peace to the distinguished
reputation which he had long held as a most efficient naval officer.
The Admiral in command on the China station wrote that it was due
to Captain Perkins to say that his ship was in the best order and
had the best discipline of any ship he ever saw, and he did not
believe that he could ever see a better one. One of the agreeable
and important duties which Commander Perkins was called on to
perform in the far East was to convey in the Ashuelot ex-President
Grant and his party to various ports on the coast of China during
the General's famous tour around the world.
Returning to the United States in the summer of 1879, Com-
mander Perkins enjoyed a few years ashore, but in March, 18S2,
he was promoted to captain, and in 1884 and 1885 made a cruise
in command of Farragut's old flagship Hartford, then the flagship
of our Pacific Squadron. In the Hartford Captain Perkins revisited
familiar Pacific ports and cruised along the coast of South America.
After forty years of service on the active list of the United States
navy, Captain Perkins was retired in 1891. In 1896 a just and
gratifying recognition of his distinguished career was given by
Congress in the form of a special act, introduced by Senator Gallinger,
of New Hampshire, making Captain Perkins a Commodore on the
retired list. After the years of stirring and arduous service afloat,
Commodore Perkins enjoyed a well-earned period of quiet and rest
at his home in Boston, where he numbered among his friends many
of the most conspicuous and attractive people of the New England
capital. His daughter Isabel is the wife of Captain Larz Anderson.
On October 28, 1899, Commodore Perkins died in Boston in
the sixty-fourth year of his age. In a final tribute to his memory,
Hon. John D. Long, Secretary of the Navy, declared that he had
" earned the high respect and confidence of the navy and the coun-
try. Conspicuous among his services was the well-remembered part
which the ironclad Chickasaw, commanded by him, took in the
capture of the ram Tennessee, at the Battle of Mobile Bay." A
beautiful memorial of Commodore Perkins, the gift of his family,
was offered to the State of New Hampshire, was formally accepted,
and was unveiled in the capitol grounds at Concord on April 25,
1902. This memorial is the work of Mr. Daniel C. French, of New
York, sculptor, and Mr. Henry Bacon, of New York, architect.
K \
PUBLIC LIBRARY i
y<^ s?„
V
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
EDGAR KNAPP RAY, for many years prominent in manu-
facturing, railroading and other business in southern Massa-
chusetts and Northern Rhode Island, was born in Franklin,
Massachusetts, July 17, 1844, and died at his home, Elm Farm, May
30, 1906. To those who knew him less intimately he was, from
early manhood to the time of his death, the tireless, self-reliant man
of business, absorbed in the details of administration. As revealed
to his nearer friends and in constant association, he affords a notable
example of a life devoted with increasing intensity to business pur-
suits, but not so much for their own sake and for the personal profit
they might yield, as in subordination to his cherished ideals with
regard to the betterment of his little portion of the world and its
people.
Mr. Ray's natural aptitude for business had from the earliest
been strengthened by the influence of home. His fondness for doing
things was encouraged by the precept and constant example of his
parents. Opportunity was given him to work out his own ideas,
whether at his tasks or at play. Whatever he undertook he did it
with all his might. If he received praise, it was earned; bestowed,
indeed, from the deepest affection, but with a discrimination that
gave it moral value. The qualities that he later displayed and the
success that he achieved, were largely the product of this early dis-
cipline.
The usual attendance at the public school was supplemented by
two or three years at an academy in South Woodstock, Vermont, in
which his parents were interested because it was established by Uni-
versalists and had been largely patronized by liberal families in
eastern Massachusetts. Here the young man attended for a time to
such studies as might be of value in preparation for business, and
later entered on a course preparatory for college, from which he was
diverted by the breaking out of the Civil War. Only the critical
illness of his mother prevented his going to the front with the com-
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
pany that he had been instrumental in raising. Disappointed in
this direction, he took a Commercial College course in Boston, and
at nineteen years of age entered the office of J. P. and J. G. Ray,
cotton and woolen manufacturers, at Woonsocket, Rhode Island.
From this time on for more than forty years he was always at
work. He began with the determination to learn the business from
the foundation, in the mills and in the office. He learned by doing.
When a thing had succeeded or failed, he knew all about it. By
1870 this zealous student had been admitted to the firm, in which
he continued to the time of his death. Great business changes took
place in the course of years. Methods and equipment once adequate
in various manufactures became useless. Location came to be a
matter of great consequence. If the mill streams failed to furnish
power, coal might indeed be substituted; but facilities of transpor-
tation then assumed leading importance. All the widely distributed
interests of the Rays felt the full effect of such changes. Their
cotton business, with which Edgar Ray had been more immediately
concerned, was finally concentrated at Putnam, Connecticut. The
American Woolen Company absorbed their interests in this line,
and other transfers of less importance were made from time to time.
In these changes of a generation, the passing of enterprises with
which he had been connected, brought to Edgar Ray no discourage-
ment. He never doubted that the world is improving, not only in
general, but in particular. He looked always on the bright side.
He gave to the utmost his thought, his energy, his means to promote
the welfare of his neighbors, his native town and the region in which
his business enterprises had been developed.
Mr. Ray early became interested in railroads, and this interest
was shown in the practical manner characteristic of him, by build-
ing, chiefly in cooperation with his father and uncle, three roads
that gave to Franklin, and in a large degree to Woonsocket, connec-
tions south and west of great and increasing advantage. These
railroad builders were not simply at work on a profitable job; they
were far-sighted citizens of public spirit taking the lead in what
the situation demanded. This was Edgar Ray's introduction to
what proved to be the principal work of his life. The system of
street railways radiating from Woonsocket gave full scope for his
ability in their development from the small beginning of twenty
years ago to their practical completion at the close of his life.
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
The greater possibilities of that form of railway construction for
town and country as well as in the city limits were clearly foreseen,
as was also the revolution to be effected by the use of the electric
motor on such roads. Here was something to be accomplished that
would tax to the utmost Mr. Ray's inventive faculties, his executive
ability, his leadership of men, his strong self-confidence, his indomi-
table will. He began with the organization of the Woonsocket Street
Railway Company, which he pushed in the face of public opposition,
with very little support except his own audacity and courage. It was
the irresistible stir of the blood attending an opportunity discerned,
his imperative call to service. It was from the outset an electric
road that he planned, and the first electric car (the first in New
England, he believed) was running in the early autumn of 1886.
A trial trip had been made on the first of August, his father's
sixty-sixth birthday.
In a sense he had done what he set out to do, but he was years
too early with his invisible motor. Horses took fright, men would
have none of it, and to allay the spreading panic the daring inventor
reinstated the familiar horse-power and bided his time. He kept
at work all the same and extended tracks through the principal parts
of Woonsocket and neighboring towns and villages, adding largely
to the business of the city. He organized other companies and built
connecting lines, until more than seventy miles were in operation
under his general management. Needless to say that long before
the completion of his plans, and an indispensable factor in their
development, the electric motor had been universally accepted; and
the construction of his latest line was to provide the most favorable
conditions possible for the comparison of the electric road and the
steam road as carriers of both passengers and freight.
During these years of railroad organization, construction and
management, the various other kinds of business with which Mr.
Ray was still identified received their full measure of attention,
until in the last four or five years the condition of his health became
such as few men could have overborne. He suffered from a com-
plication of diseases, induced chiefly by overwork, until early in 1903
an injury to the right foot gave rise to blood poisoning, by which
he was brought to the point of death. When told that the only
possibility of escape was by amputation of the entire limb, with one
chance in a thousand of surviving the operation, he simply said he
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
would take that chance and forthwith made needful preparations.
His vigorous constitution, aided by all that professional skill and
loving care could supply, converted the one chance to a certainty,
and restored him strong in mind and resolute as ever to such con-
tinuance of his labors as a crippled body permitted. Warned by
his physicians that he could hardly live more than two or three years
unless he spared himself and left to others the chief part of the work
on which he had set his heart, while he might live three times as long
if he would relinquish the laboring oar; he deliberately chose the
active part, entered into all the details of his last and greatest piece
of railroad construction, and made secure its ultimate conformity
to his cherished ideal.
This achievement was possible only through the faithful assist-
ance of those long associated with him, and especially through the
efficiency of his son, Joseph Gordon Ray. The son had entered
Tufts College in 1898 for a special course of two years, but remained
to complete the full A.B. course, graduating with distinction in
June, 1902. It was none too soon for the father's needs, cheerfully
as he had continued to bear the increasing burden of business in
order that the son might have a larger opportunity for general study
than he had himself enjoyed before taking up the duties of office and
mill. There could be no question of preference on the part of the
son; he passed at once from college to the tasks that awaited him at
his father's right hand. How strong and acceptable the support
he rendered is shown by the father's will, committing to him the
entire estate and the management of all its interests for the term of
twenty-five years. Some idea of the responsibility so transmitted
may be inferred from the official positions held by Edgar K. Ray
at the time of his death. He was general manager and also presi-
dent or treasurer of the four street railways comprising the "Ray
System"; a director and the heaviest individual stockholder in the
Woonsocket Electric Machine and Power Company; treasurer of
the Putnam Manufacturing Company, of Putnam, Connecticut;
president of the Franklin National Bank and the Citizens National
Bank, of Woonsocket, and president of the Elm Farm Milk Com-
pany, Boston.
It was Edgar Ray's nature to trust others so fully and heartily
that they must be of the basest sort who could disappoint him. He
was no respecter of persons. He was too simple and genuine in his
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
own life to regard conventional distinctions among those with whom
he was in constant association. High or low, rich or poor, business
partner or humble workman, a man was a man "for a' that." His
friendships were strong and lasting. He had high standing in
Masonic circles, and was a valued member of Providence clubs. Local
attachments as well as personal were intense, and whatever he could
do for the improvement of places where he had done business or
made his home was gladly recognized as a claim on his best thought
and effort. He declined all official positions which his fellow citi-
zens wished to bestow, with the single exception of four years on
the board of selectmen in Franklin, when certain measures of public
improvement greatly interested him and could be promoted more
effectually by his support in office. It was characteristic of him that
he not only declined the salary to which this position entitled him,
but gave liberally of his personal means to promote the same ob-
jects. This was of a piece with his invariable payment of fare like
any other passenger on his own railroad lines. Graft was a word
not contained in his dictionary. He was farthest from all self-
seeking. The spur of poverty he had never known, money had
always been at his disposal, but he had never on this account claimed
exemption from toil or indulgence of expensive tastes. Always
thoughtful of others, he helped many a young man to a start in life,
maintaining a modest reserve with regard to these and all other
benefactions.
The foundations of self-respect lay deep in the achievements of
the generations from which Mr. Ray drew his life. He could not
miss the lesson of patriotism, of reverence for worthy character, as
he traced his own lineage. He was the son of James Paine and
Susan (Knapp) Ray, the grandson of Joseph and Lydia (Paine)
Ray, and of Alfred and Eleanor (Hawes) Knapp. The Knapp an-
cestors bore a noteworthy part in .the Revolutionary War. Edgar's
great-grandfather, Moses Knapp, held the rank of major, and at the
close of the war built, in 1784, the house ever since in possession of
the family. His great-grandfather, Joseph Hawes, entered the
Revolutionary War at seventy years of age with his seven sons.
On the father's side, the Paines were Quakers, and it is not difficult
to trace their severe simplicity and the successful industry of the
earlier Rays in their descendants to the present generation.
Edgar Knapp Ray married December 23, 1874, Margaret Lydia
EDGAR KNAPP RAY
Smith, of Fitchburg, Massachusetts, daughter of Artemus R. and
Ardelia (Fairbanks) Smith, of Ashburnham, Massachusetts, a de-
scendant in the eighth generation from Jonathan and Grace Fair-
banks, who, coming from England in 1630, built the famous mansion
house in Dedham, which the Fairbanks Association is seeking to
preserve. The children of this union are Eleanor Knapp Ray, who
was married June, 1900, to Edward G. Broenniman, of New York;
and Joseph Gordon Ray, who married May, 1905, Martha E. Pember,
daughter of Rev. Elmer E. Pember, of Bangor, Maine. A grandson,
Edgar Ray Broenniman, was born July 4, 1901.
It is probable that if Mr. Ray had been asked at any time within
the last twenty years to name his occupation, he would have chosen
to be known as a farmer. It is certain that the " Major Knapp
Homestead" under his management grew to be "Elm Farm," his
pride and his home. The fine old house was scrupulously preserved,
but extensive additions were built to meet the greatly increased
needs. The farm, which had been ample for generations, was en-
larged by repeated purchases, and farm buildings in extent and
variety not dreamed of by former owners became the evidence of
modern methods in dairy farming with all the accompaniments.
Elsewhere was relentless toil; here was relaxation for body and mind.
Here he was at home and himself; his natural tastes were gratified
and life was full of enjoyment. He would have everybody share
it with him. His hospitality was free as the air, lavish as the beauty
that filled the broad landscape. The secret of it all was that here
he was surrounded by his loved ones, and their happiness was the
richest gift life bore for him. Their love enfolded him the more
tenderly as his bodily powers were weakened and the life that is of a
spirit declared its supremacy. It was no careless utterance in which
he pronounced his last year the happiest year of his life; it was the
parting word of one who could speak from a profound experience in
witness to the highest realities. His body rests in the family lot
in Franklin and his headstone bears the fitting inscription:
"A man, with the courage of a lion and the faith of a child.7'
.
JOSEPH GORDON RAY
JOSEPH GORDON RAY, of Franklin, Massachusetts, son of
a great manufacturer and railroad manager, and himself an
active and conspicuous business man, was born in Franklin
March 26, 1879. His father, long one of the most conspicuous
business men of southern Massachusetts, was Edgar Knapp Ray.
His mother was Margaret Lydia (Smith) Ray, a descendant in the
eighth generation from Jonathan and Grace Fairbanks, who, coming
from England in 1632, built the famous Mansion House in Dedham,
which the Fairbanks Association is seeking to preserve. Ances-
tors of Mr. Ray bore a noteworthy part in the Revolutionary War,
one of them holding the rank of Major, and another, at seventy
years of age, entering the patriot army with his seven sons.
The son of such a remarkably able and successful business man,
Joseph Gordon Ray, naturally turned his attention to business
affairs when the time came for him to enter active life. The younger
man was brought up on his father's fine estate, Elm Farm, and he
was taught to bear his part in the regular farm labor. He developed
a fondness for agriculture and for animals, and on school holidays
he was taught to run machinery in the cotton mill.
From the schools of Franklin young Mr. Ray was sent to the
New York Military Academy at Cornwall-on-Hudson, and com-
pleting his preparatory course he entered Tufts College, in 1898,
for a special course of two years, but determined to complete the
full four years' course and was graduated with distinction with the
degree of A.B in June, 1902, being honored with selection as marshal
of his class. In college Mr. Ray became a member of the Delta
Tau Delta fraternity. He then spent one year at the Columbia
law school, from which he was called home by the gradual failure
of his father's health which threw upon Mr. Ray an increasing share
of the older man's great and onerous responsibilities. In 1905 he
became the active manager of his father's business, with his head-
quarters in Franklin. This was the result not only of his father's
JOSEPH GORDON RAY
desire but of his own decision. A year later the energetic and fruit-
ful life of the older man ended in his death at his home at Elm Farm.
He had leaned heavily upon his son, and the younger man had
proved equal to all responsibilities. The father's will committed
to him the entire estate and the management of all its interests for
the term of twenty-five years. The younger Mr. Ray thereupon
became the trustee of his father's estate, president of the Citizens'
National Bank of Woonsocket, Rhode Island, director in the Frank-
lin National Bank and president and manager of the Putnam Manu-
facturing Company of Putnam, Connecticut. As well as manager
of his father's private cotton waste business, Mr. Ray, since his
father's death, has invested heavily in large timber tracts, one
being an entire Maine township. Besides these business posts Mr.
Ray has served acceptably for two years as a member of the
Franklin Board of Selectmen.
Mr. Ray is a Republican in politics and is affiliated with the
Universalist Church, with which his parents and grandparents
before him were identified as ardent believers in this liberal faith
in the days when it was struggling for recognition in New England.
Like his father, Mr. Ray is devoted to farming both as a business
and a recreation, maintaining unabated the interest in this pursuit
which he had felt from childhood. He was married on May 17,
1905, to Martha E., daughter of Rev. Elmer E. and Martha (An-
drews) Pember, of Bangor, Maine. Mr. Ray is a member of the
Masonic Order, and a member of the Squantum Club of Providence,
Rhode Island.
His own experience and the vivid example of his father before
him have made Mr. Ray a firm believer in intelligent and methodical
industry. "Get a job and stick to it," is the best counsel, he be-
lieves, that can be given to a young American. The men of his
family, generation after generation, have practised this precept. of
hard work so successfully that while they have prospered them-
selves their efforts have brought greater and greater benefit to the
populous communities about them. The family name is one long
known and conspicuously honored in the busy, thrifty region stretch-
ing from Boston across Massachusetts to the Rhode Island line —
a region which has contributed more than almost any other region
of like extent to the strengthening and diversifying of the trade
and industr}7- of America.
[
£/uJL/^u* Tf~. v ^va-e^iX' <
DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT
DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT, born in Belfast, Maine, Sep-
tember 28, 1849, was the son of Benjamin Sargent, who
was born in Gloucester, Massachusetts, August 14, 1816,
and who died in Belfast, Maine, January 28, 1856. His mother
was Caroline J. Rogers. His grandfathers were Samuel Sargent
and Martin Rogers, born in Marshfield, Massachusetts, April 13,
1784, died October 20, 1848. His grandmother, on his mother's
side, was Sally Grinnell (September 5, 1792 to January 30, 1874).
His father was a ship carpenter and spar maker. He was strong
and vigorous physically, and fond of reading Shakespeare and the
English classics. His ancestors came from England and settled
in Gloucester. The mother's ancestors were descendants of John
Rogers, of Marshfield, Massachusetts, who came from London in
the Falcon, April, 1635.
Dudley Allen Sargent, in early childhood, had a decided taste
for drawing ships and sailboats, and was fond of all sorts of mechan-
ical devices. He lived by the water, and learned to row, skate and
swim, as unconsciously as to walk. He had a special fondness for
athletic games. From the age of twelve he lived largely in the
service of an uncle, who was a farmer, merchant, manufacturer
and general builder and contractor. By work with him, the boy
acquired a knowledge of a variety of manual labors, on the farm,
in the mills, in rough carpentry, in the handling of farm products
and in the care of horses. This fitted him, during the Civil War,
to work on sailing vessels, carrying constructive material, and
on fortifications and block houses. Though this work interfered
with schooling, it gave physical strength and a knowledge of
men and things, and, as early training, had very considerable value.
As he lived with his aunt between the ages of six and ten, the
influence of his mother was somewhat reduced. The son was for-
tunate in having access to books fitted to quicken his intellectual
and spiritual nature. His chief difficult}^ in obtaining an education
DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT
arose from the death of his father, when he was but seven, imposing
upon him the necessity of doing all that he could to support the
family. The books that were especially stimulating were Smile's
"Self Help"; Emerson's "Conduct of Life"; Chapin's "Sermons
and Essays." He was trained in the Belfast High School, the Bruns-
wick High School, and in Bowdoin College, receiving the degree of
A.B. in 1875. He won the degree of M.D. in 1878 at Yale Univer-
sity, and received the degree of S.D. in 1894 from Bowdoin. An
adept in gymnastic feats, he accepted the position of director of
the gymnasium at Bowdoin as a means of earning a college educa-
tion. After graduating at Bowdoin he accepted a similar position
at Yale as giving him the opportunity for medical instruction. He
remained at Yale until 1879, when he became director of the Hem-
enway Gymnasium at Harvard, where he has since remained.
In 1881 he established a normal school in Cambridge for the
training of teachers in physical education, and started the Harvard
Summer School of Physical Training in 1887. These two schools
have had an attendance of some twenty-five hundred students of
both sexes, many of whom have gone forth to teach the various
branches of physical education in schools, colleges and athletic
associations throughout the United States and Canada. Military
and naval schools have adopted his system of measurements and
his apparatus; and distinguished military officers have been among
his pupils.
He has published the following works: "In Case of Accident";
"Handbook of Developing Exercises"; " Handbook of Measurements
and Anthropometric Apparatus"; "Health, Strength and Power";
"Physical Education," and a large number of papers delivered
before medical and scientific associations, and a great variety of
popular articles for the newspapers and magazines.
He has invented many pieces of gymnastic apparatus and devel-
oping appliances, anthropometric charts, and systems of measure-
ments, cards and handbooks. Together with the late Frederick
Law Olmstead he planned and established the first out-of-door gym-
nasium in America at the Charlesbank in Boston.
Dr. Sargent is president of the Boston Health Education League
which has for its chief function the publication and dissemination
of literature on personal hygiene and the general care of the health.
Some two hundred thousand of these booklets have been distrib-
DUDLEY ALLEN SARGENT
uted to boys and girls at school, to working men and women and to
fathers' and mothers' clubs.
He is a member of the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity; Colonial
Club, Cambridge; Boston Athletic Club; Bowdoin Club, Boston;
American Physical Education Society; American Association for
the Advancement of Science; College Gymnasium Directors' Soci-
ety; American Playground Association; Boston Society of Natural
History; Boston Society of Medical Sciences. He has been pres-
ident of the American Association for the Advancement of Physical
Education; of the Society of College Gymnasium Directors; and
Fellow of the American Association for Advancement of Science.
He is an Independent Republican, and is connected with the
Universalist Church. His amusements in summer are sailing,
swimming and bicycling; in winter, light gymnastics. He was
married, April 7, 1881, to Ella Fraser Ledyard, daughter of William
Stuart Ledyard and Frances Lavinia Worthington, granddaughter
of Nathaniel Ledyard and Elizabeth Denison. She is descended
from John Ledyard, bom in England in 1700. There has been one
son, Ledyard, a graduate of Harvard, and engaged in research
work in chemistry.
He urges upon young men "the early perusal of biographies,
and books on the conduct of life; also the importance of a variety
of manual occupations and athletic exercises, thus training one's
active as well as one's receptive powers. When their life-work is
entered upon, they should push it forward courageously and
patiently."
AUGUSTUS ELWIN SCOTT
AUGUSTUS ELWIN SCOTT was born in Franklin, Massa-
chusetts, August 18, 1838. He was the son of Rila Scott,
who was born April 4, 1795, and died November 8, 1855.
His mother was Sarah S. Paine. His grandparents were Samuel
Scott, born July 2, 1764, and died April 22, 1834, and Selah Ballou
(Scott); and on the mother's side, James Paine and Lydia Aldrich
Paine. An earlier ancestor, John Scott, emigrated from Scotland
and settled in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1648. He was there asso-
ciated with the Quakers, who afterward sought a larger liberty in
Rhode Island. Two of his grandsons, one of them Joseph Scott,
settled in Bellingham, Massachusetts, on a large tract of land now
known as Scott Hill, where some of the descendants still reside.
Ballou's " History of Milford" describes the Scotts of earlier and
later generations as of high standing "in all the qualities that con-
stitute intelligence, enterprise, sound worth and social respecta-
bility/'
Rila Scott was a cotton manufacturer, and a man of sterling
integrity, with the energy which was essential to success. The son
was ambitious and determined to take high mark in his studies,
while at the same time he had great fondness for an out-of-door life.
He was brought up to work and to make himself of use as a matter
of duty. The influence of his mother was constant upon his intel-
lectual and moral life. She ruled her household with discretion;
sought the happiness and well-being of those who were in her care,
and encouraged them in all directions which would be of benefit
to them. The son bears grateful testimony to her control. He
writes of himself in these terms: "For a few years of my child-
hood, during a period of my father's ill health, we occupied the
old homestead farm on Scott Hill. During this time I had my
regular farm work to do, and acquired a great taste not only for the
ordinary farm operations, but also for the woods, for horticulture
and floriculture. This taste has been prominent during my whole
FW YC"
AUGUSTUS ELWIN SCOTT
life, and as fast as practicable, after I was established in my pro-
fession, I bought land in Lexington and gradually added to it until
I had a farm of upwards of a hundred and fifty acres, where I now
reside. I am out on the farm before sunrise much of the year,
planning and supervising the work of each day. Although I have
a competent foreman at all times, I assume the responsibility and
direction of everything and personally do very much of the horti-
culture and floral work, all the time adding such trees, shrubs and
perennials as will thrive in our climate. "
Mr. Scott studied in the Milford High School and in the Green
Mountain Liberal Institute at Woodstock, Vermont, and later at
Brown University and Tufts College. He received the degree of
A.B in 1858 and in 1861 Tufts College made him Master of Arts.
He studied in the Albany Law School and received the degree of
LL.B. For two years he was the principal of the high school in
Abington and for nearly six years of the high school at Lexington.
He did not intend to make teaching his profession, but he was suc-
cessful in this calling, and greatly enjoyed it so that he continued
for year after year, delaying his entrance on his professional work
perhaps longer than was desirable or profitable. Those who studied
under him were sought for as teachers in other places, where they
proved the benefit of his teaching. He has always felt the influ-
ence of his home and his schools, and of his private study, but his
life has naturally broadened beyond professional lines.
Mr. Scott had a prominent part in procuring the charter of the
Lexington Savings Bank in 1871, and has been an officer in the
bank and its attorney since it was established. He was a member
of the State Legislature in 1879-80 and of the Senate for two years,
1885-86. He was appointed by Governor Robinson, one of the
Commissioners of Public Records. He assisted in establishing the
Middlesex Central District Court and was for many years an Asso-
ciate Justice. He has pursued horticultural and botanical research
and is an authority on the flora of Eastern Massachusetts and of
high altitudes.
He was an early president of the Appalachian Mountain Club,
being one of its members and is one of the trustees of its real estate.
He was active in making explorations in the Appalachian System
and planning and building paths to important points in the White
Mountains. One of these is over the Twin Mountain Range, con-
AUGUSTUS ELWIN SCOTT
necting the Ammonoosuc and Pemigewasset valleys. The peaks
of this rugged range were difficult of access until this path was built.
His explorations have extended to Mt. Mitchell in North Carolina
and Roan Mountain in Tennessee. He was an early climber of
Pike's Peak and Gray's Peak. He was one of the first American
climbers of Mont Blanc and he has made explorations in the Scottish
Highlands.
Mr. Scott has been active in town affairs, especially in connec-
tion with the public schools. He organized the Lexington Field
and Garden Club, one of the first of the clubs for village improve-
ments in Massachusetts. He organized the Lexington Periodical
Club which has been in active work nearly fifty years, and was promi-
nent in the forming and incorporating of the Lexington Historical
Society, of which he was the first president. Besides these associations
he is a member of the Masonic Fraternity and of the Unitarian Club
of Boston. He is of the Unitarian denomination and has always
been a Republican in politics.
He was married January 20, 1891 to Cecilia, the daughter of
Dr. Frederick W. Gustine, who was born and educated in Boston,
whose father was buried in the cemetery on Boston Common and
whose grandparents are buried in the King's Chapel burying ground.
Dr. Gustine went into practice as a physician in New Orleans in
1836 and had a wide reputation as an oculist. Mrs. Scott's mother
was Sallie W. Gustine, whose family held large estates near Lynch-
burg, Virginia. The father was Rev. William Gillette Smith and
her mother Sarah A. Davis Smith. They established The Insti-
tute, a noted school in Columbia, Tennessee, where Sallie Ward
Gustine was born. Mr. Scott has one daughter, Mary G. Scott,
now a student at The Castle, Tarrytown-on-Hudson.
He gives this advice to young Americans: "Do well that you
may think well of yourself, but avoid conceit and do not wait until
life is nearly spent to find out that you know very little."
rxR i
APTOR, LENOX
■ILDEN FOUNDATIONS
i
JLSLC
L^L^.
FREDERIC JESUP STIMSON
FREDERIC JESUP STIMSON, author, lawyer, assistant
attorney-general of Massachusetts, commissioner uniformity
of law, United States counsel to Industrial Commission,
1901-02, was born in Dedham, Norfolk County, Massachusetts,
July 20, 1855. His father, Edward Stimson, was a son of Jeremy
(2) and Hope (Godfrey) Stimson; grandson of Jeremy (1) and Anna
(Jones) Stimson and of Col. John Jones and Mary (Simpson) Jones,
of Hopkinton, Massachusetts; and a descendant from George Stim-
son, who came from North Wales to Ipswich, Massachusetts Bay
Colony, in 1650, and was killed at the battle of Mount Hope in King
Philip's War, December, 1675. His grandsons, George Stimson and
Jeremy Stimson, served at Crown Point and Ticonderoga, New York,
and served under Washington in New York, New Jersey and Penn-
sylvania, in the American Revolution. Jeremy Stimson's son, Jeremy
Stimson, a famous physician, was a graduate of Harvard College,
A.B. 1804; A.M. 1807; M.D. (honorary) 1852; married Hope,
daughter of Thomas and Bethia (Gibbs) Godfrey, and died in 1869.
Edward Stimson graduated at Harvard (A.B. 1843, M.D. 1846),
practised medicine in Dedham, and was subsequently a railroad
president. He married Sarah Tufts, daughter of Asa and Elizabeth
(Bird) Richardson. He died June 2, 1878.
Frederic Jesup Stimson was a physically weak child, brought up
in the country, and was fond of books and of travel. He was pre-
pared for college at the Dedham High School; in Dubuque, Iowa,
where his father was president of a railroad; and at Lausanne,
Switzerland, where his father went for his health. He graduated
at Harvard in 1876, and from the Harvard Law School in 1878.
He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1879, to the New
York Bar in 1885. He served as assistant attorney-general of
Massachusetts, 1884-85; Massachusetts commissioner to secure uni-
formity of law between the States, by appointment of Governor
William E. Russell; a Massachusetts commissioner on Corporation
FREDERIC JESUP STIMSON
Law, by appointment of Governor W. M. Crane, 1901-02; general
counsel for the United States Industrial Commission, 1897-1901; and
as a director of the Fitchburg Railroad Company; vice-president
and director of the State Street Trust Company; and director of
the Realty Company, of Maine.
In 1902 he was the unsuccessful Democratic candidate for Con-
gress from the Twelfth District of Massachusetts, and is professor
of comparative legislation in the Harvard University. He was
counsel for the United States Industrial Commission, and has writ-
ten many articles and speeches against the evil of " government by
injunction." He also worked many years for uniform State legis-
lation. He was chairman of the committee on resolutions in the
Democratic State Convention of 1903. Mr. Stimson was originally
a Republican, but left the party in 1882 on the Blaine issue, and
thereafter he opposed the " tendency to plutocratic rule in the
Republican party."
Mr. Stimson served the Commonwealth as a member of the Massa-
chusetts Militia, being first corporal in Cadets and Troop A. He
is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He has been
twice married, first June 2, 1881, to Elizabeth Bradlee, daughter of
Henry Ward and Elizabeth (Bradlee) Abbot, of Boston, who died
in 1896; and secondly November 12, 1902, to Mabel, daughter of
Richard Lewis and Sarah (Frazer) Ashhurst, of Philadelphia, Penn-
sylvania. Mr. Stimson's law publications include: "Stimson's Law
Glossary" (1881); " American Statute Law" (2 vol. 1886, with tri-
ennial supplements); " Government by Injunction" (1894); "Labor
in its Relations to Law" (1894); "Handbook to the Labor Law of
the United States" (1895); " Uniform State Legislation" (1896);
"The American Constitution" 1908; "Federal and State Consti-
tutions of the United States " 1908. He is also the author of the
following works of general literature, some under the pen name
"J. S. of Dale": "Guerndale" (1882); "The Crime of Henry Vane"
(1884); "The Sentimental Calender" (1886); "The Residuary Leg-
atee" (1886); "First Harvests" (1887); "In the Three Zones"
(1892); "Mrs. Knollys and other Stories" (1894); "Pirate Gold"
(1896); "King Noanett" (1896); "Jethro Bacon of Sandwich"
(1901); "In Cure of Her Soul" (1906). He has also written a series
of magazine articles on "The Ethics of Democracy."
ASTOR, LENOX
7At/U2s&£:y
EDWARD EVERETT THOMPSON
EDWARD EVERETT THOMPSON was born in Woburn,
Massachusetts, December 18, 1826. He is a descendant of
James Thompson, who came from England in 1630 with
Governor Winthrop, and settled at first, it is believed, in Salem,
from which place he removed to Charlestown, where he remained
till 1640, when he joined the little company who founded the
town of Woburn. Here, in 1780, Charles Thompson, the father of
Edward Everett Thompson, was born, his death occurring in the
same place in 1869 at the ripe age of eighty-nine. His mother
was Mary Wyman, a direct descendant of John Wyman, one of the
signers of the town orders of Woburn in 1640. Her grandfather,
Samuel Wyman, Esq., was prominent as a patriot and member of
the Provincial Congress in 1775. Mr. Thompson's grandfather,
Abijah Thompson, served in the French war in 1758, was present
with two of his brothers at the Battle of Lexington, was armorer
and then adjutant in the Revolutionary Army, and finally filled the
office, in civil life, of deputy sheriff, for thirty years. Charles
Thompson, the son of Abijah and the father of Edward, was one
of the modest but respected citizens of Woburn, where, as black-
smith and farmer, and a trusted officer in the First Congregational
Church he was known as the friend of all, a lover of music, and a most
gracious neighbor. Here in the public schools of Woburn, Edward
Everett Thompson received his education, attributing much of the
influence which went to the shaping of his character to the quiet
ministry of his mother's life. Circumstances seemed, apart from
any special choice of his, to lead him into a business career, which
he began by entering a general store, and in which he continued till
the pressure of public office compelled him to devote his entire time
to these latter interests. To the associations with men in active
life, to his home, and to the companionships of his earlier years he
acknowledges his obligations as the most determinative of the forces
that have aided him in his attainment of success.
EDWARD EVERETT THOMPSON
The public offices that he has filled, and the positions of trust he
has occupied are more than those that generally fall to the lot of one
man, and bear their significant testimony to the high esteem in which
he has long been held in the community that has honored him by
almost every office in its gift. For twenty-one years he served as
treasurer of the Five Cents Savings Bank of Woburn, and for nineteen
years as trustee and treasurer of the Warren Academy Fund. Eight
years he was postmaster of North Woburn. In 1871 he represented
the town of Woburn in the State Legislature, for thirty years was
Special and Associate County Commissioner for Middlesex County;
for seventeen years was a member of the board of selectmen; twelve
years its clerk and one year its chairman; was clerk and registrar of
the water department of the town; was chosen to a seat in the
Common Council when the town became a city — serving two years
as president of the Council; in 1891 was elected mayor of the city;
was chairman of the board of sinking fund commissions for nine
years; and was appointed by Governor John A. Andrew, Justice
of the Peace in 1865, an office still held. He has also been one of
the directors of the Rumford Historical Association.
With the religious life of his native town Mr. Thompson has been
no less actively connected than with its civil life. He has served
as deacon in the First Congregational Church twenty-seven years; as
collector and treasurer of the parish for thirty years; was ten years
superintendent of the Sunday school; was several years secretary of
the church aid committee of Woburn Conference of Congregational
Churches, and has been a member of the state committee of the
Y. M. C. A. for twenty years. This is a record of public service and
trust equaled by few men. The very recounting of it reveals to us
the nature of those qualities that have made him the man upon
whom the responsibilities of office have been so persistently thrust.
Mr. Thompson cast his first vote, as a citizen, for John C. Fremont,
and has identified himself ever since with the Republican party.
In 1848 he married Sarah S. Hackett, of Wilton, New Hampshire,
the daughter of Ephraim and Lois B. Hackett. Two children have
been born to them, both of whom are now living, Mrs. Annie E.
Strout and Mrs. Lillian T. Smith.
BRARY I
OR, LENOX
IONS
i vLfr^Ajbjuy^
FRANCIS M. THOMPSON
FEW men have given more of their life to the public service in
various capacities than has Francis M. Thompson, of Green-
field, Judge of the Probate Court for the County of Franklin.
For twenty-one years he served the town of Greenfield as assessor,
town clerk, treasurer, or selectman. He was for twenty-nine years
register of probate for Franklin County, and has been for the last
ten years Judge of Probate.
Judge Thompson is of Scotch-Irish ancestry on the paternal
side and English on the maternal, and his ancestors were among
the oldest settlers in New England and prominent in the Revolu-
tionary War. He was born in Colrain, Massachusetts, October 16,
1833. His father, John Thompson, was born in Colrain, January 3,
1789, and was the son of Hugh Thompson and Jean Miller. His
mother, who was Elvira Adams before her marriage to John Thomp-
son, June 15, 1815, was the daughter of Capt. Edward and Sally
(Webber) Adams, and was born April 13, 1796. His great-grand-
father, Joseph Thompson, married Jennet McClellan in Ulster
County, Ireland, in 1749, and they came at once to this country,
settling in Colrain. Joseph Thompson was a soldier in the Revolu-
tionary Army. On his mother's side Judge Thompson is descended
from Henry Adams, who settled in Braintree, Massachusetts, in
1632. His great-grandfather, Edward Adams, carried on horse-
back the mail between Boston and Hartford all through the Revolu-
tion ; and his grandfather, Edward Adams, was a soldier in the army
which put down Shay's rebellion.
John Thompson, father of Francis M., kept at his farm in Col-
rain a tavern and general store, taking country produce and market-
ing it in Boston. With this business and a family of eight children
he was necessarily industrious, and was very quick and ingenious.
It used to be said of him that he was too "honest for his own good."
In 1843 he removed to a farm in Greenfield. Young Francis was
brought up on the paternal farm, but did not take kindly to coun-
FRANCIS M. THOMPSON
try life. His education was limited to the common schools, a few
terms in "select school" and a finishing course at Williston semi-
nary. His special taste ran to books of travel, geography, and
history. When he was fourteen years old he had read all the books
in the school district library, and was particularly interested in
Stevens' travels in Mexico and Central America. This interest in
travel and history had a strong influence upon his after years. At
the age of seventeen he obtained a position as bookkeeper in the
Neptune Iron Works at Essex, Connecticut, but he soon returned
to Greenfield to keep books for Jones & Thompson, his brother-in-
law and brother, at their machine shop and grist mill. Here he
remained until he was twenty-two, when he took a place in a broker's
office in Cincinnati, and later went into the company's New York
office. In 1859 he was sent to St. Paul, Minnesota, to act as cashier
of a proposed bank; but upon his advice the project was given up.
He then went to St. Louis, where he opened a broker's office, which
he sold out about two years later.
In 1862 he was a pioneer to the country now constituting the
State of Montana, where he took a prominent part in the movement
which resulted in the erection of the territory of Montana, from
Idaho and Dakota, and the appointment of Sidney Edgerton, of
Ohio, as its governor, working both in the mountains and in Wash-
ington for this result. He was a close friend of Governor Edgerton,
and became his adviser in the organization of the civil government,
and was elected a member of the council or upper chamber of the
first legislature. The governor and his nearest friends were in the
confidence of the leaders of the Vigilance Committee, of which a
nephew of the governor, Wilbur F. Sanders, afterwards United States
Senator, was chief. Mr. Sanders was Judge Thompson's partner in
business. Judge Thompson knew every one of the thirty or more
road agents who were hanged by the Vigilance Committee; and with
Henry Plummer, who played the dual part of high sheriff and
robber chief, he had a close personal acquaintance. At the session of
the first legislature Judge Thompson was instrumental in obtaining
a charter for the Historical Society of Montana, and was chairman of
the committee to establish a territorial seal. In his report he recom-
mended what is now the seal of Montana. From the record he kept
of this exciting and interesting period in his fife Judge Thompson
has prepared a manuscript volume for the benefit of his family.
FRANCIS M. THOMPSON
Returning to Massachusetts in the late sixties he settled in Green-
field, where he studied law and was admitted to the Franklin County
Bar in 1876. He took an active interest in town affairs, and was
elected to many offices. He became register of probate and insol-
vency for the County of Franklin, November, 30, 1870, and held that
office until May 17, 1899, when he was promoted to be judge, which
position he now fills. He has been a lifelong Republican, but votes
independently when he believes it necessary. For many years he
has been a vice-president of the Franklin County Public Hospital,
the Greenfield Library Association, and the Pocumtuck Valley
Memorial Association. Being greatly interested in local history, his
spare time for many years has been given to its study, and he has
written a "History of Greenfield," in two volumes, which was
officially adopted by vote of the town in 1904. Most of his other
literary work is published in the "Proceedings of the Pocumtuck
Valley Memorial Association."
Judge Thompson was married October 25, 1865, to Mary,
daughter of Lucius and Susan Cordelia (Amadon) Nims, a descend-
ant of Godfrey Nims (the ancestor of all the Nimses in America),
who was the third settler in Deerfield, Massachusetts about 1670.
They have one son, Francis Nims Thompson, who is register of
probate for Franklin County. Judge Thompson's chief interest,
aside from his official duties, is in historical and literary subjects,
He attends the Congregational Church, being a member of the
Second Congregational Parish. On his annual vacations at the sea-
shore in Maine he greatly enjoys the change from indoor life afforded
by sailing and fishing. His success in fife he ascribes to the influ-
ence of his mother and of his grandfather, Capt. Edward Adams.
From his experience and observation he offers the following advice
to young people who wish to attain success: "While in another's
employ make your employer's business your own; force him to think
that he cannot do without your services. Take active interest in
public affairs; avoid hypocrisy; be frank and strictly honest. Never
become a demagogue, or waive a principle for popularity. Accord-
ing to your ability do your part in all enterprises for the benefit
of the public. Be a man."
WILLIAM A. TOWER
WILLIAM A. TOWER was born on the twenty-fourth of
February, 1824, and died on the twenty-first of November,
1904. These eighty years were years of constant activity.
Mr. Tower played an influential part in the financial development of
his State and in all those things which belong to good citizenship.
Generously he responded to the heavy demands which were made
upon his talents, sympathies and purse.
Mr. Tower was descended from old New England stock, and it
was undoubtedly from this ancestry that he inherited much of his
natural vigor and many of his sterling qualities. The ancestor,
John Tower, emigrated from Hingham, England, in 1637 and settled
in Hingham, Massachusetts, in the same year. The particular branch
of the family to which Mr. Tower belonged, however, came from
Worcester County. This was determined by the fact that his great
grandfather, Joseph Tower, was a skilled millwright, and his work
took him into that county as early as 1768, and there he remained,
in the later years of his life as the owner and manager of a mill at
Rutland. The activities of the two succeeding generations were
confined to the near-by town of Petersham.
Petersham was and is one of the typical smaller Massachusetts
communities. It was intensely loyal to the cause of independence
in the days of the Revolution, and productive of a thrifty and sturdy
people whose influence counted for much in the Commonwealth.
It was in that town, and under such conditions, that Mr. Tower was
born. His parents were Oren and Harriet (Gleason) Tower, and he
was the oldest of four children and the only son. His mother died
early, but his father lived to the ripe age of eighty-four years. As a
boy he received such an education as the home schools afforded, but
at the age of fifteen he was thrown entirely upon his own resources.
Going to the neighboring town of Lancaster, he found emplo}^ment
as clerk in one of the local stores, and began the battle of life for
himself.
- YOB
ir
LIBRARY
^SS •
FOUW
WILLIAM A. TOWER
He remained at Lancaster for nine years, or until 1848, and for
the last three he was one of the owners of the business where he had
made his start. This fact, of course, was owing to his own industry,
but it was also illustrative of a conviction which he always held and
often used to express. He would say to young men who were thinking
of engaging in business for themselves: "You better try it. You
may or may not succeed. All are not fitted to be their own employers.
But I believe that every young man ought to make at least one
attempt to become such, and that he should make it early in his life
so that he can afford the risk which it involves."
Mr. Tower's business career divides itself naturally into two periods.
The first extends from 1850 to 1865, and includes that time in which
he was engaged chiefly in merchandising; and the second from 1865
to the time of his death, in which banking and railroad affairs had
his attention. As a merchant Mr. Tower was identified particularly
with the flour and grain trade. This began with the organization of
the firm of Rice, Tower & Company at Haymarket Square, Boston,
in the year 1850, and was continued through the succeeding firm
of Tower, Davis & Company. Two qualities distinguished him in
this field, untiring industry and boldness in the application of new
methods. Most important was the establishment of direct connec-
tions with the West for the sale of cereal products. His was the first
Boston house to undertake such a thing. To make a success of it
required a great deal of extra work, and particularly of traveling
about the country. The main part of this devolved upon Mr. Tower.
He threw himself into it with his characteristic energy, and the enter-
prise was rewarded with success, but the strain told upon his health;
so much so that in 1855 he was obliged to retire for a period of rest.
However, he still retained an interest in the firm which succeeded
his, and did not dispose of it altogether until ten years later.
This period of rest was spent largely in travel. On a visit to the
West he made the acquaintance of Mr. George Watson, a native of
Scotland but at that time a resident of Chicago, and the outcome
was the organization of the banking firm of Watson, Tower & Com-
pany. This concern did a profitable business, and Mr. Tower con-
tinued to be associated with its progress until 1860 when his health
forced him to return East. This return, however, was one only in
the sense of a transfer of his business interests, for his home had
remained in the town of Lexington, where he had established it
WILLIAM A. TOWER
in 1855. Five years later, in 1865, he retired permanently from
the Boston grain trade and started the banking house of Tower,
Giddings & Company. This house speedily took its place among the
first of its class in New England and continued to maintain that
position until the death of its founder made its dissolution necessary.
It was in this field of finance that Mr. Tower's activities were best
known. The affairs of his firm brought him into close contact with
banking and railroad conditions and he took an active hand in shaping
them. How wide were these activities is evidenced by the various
institutions with which he was identified. He was one of the founders
in 1871 of the National Bank of the Commonwealth, and a director
of it from the time of its organization to that of its purchase by the
Shawmut National Bank. For three times, also, he was its president,
and on its liquidation he became a director in the Shawmut Bank.
For three years, from 1870-73, he was president of the Concord
railroad in New Hampshire, and for 1877 and 1878 he was president
of the Nashua and Lowell railroad. He was a director of the New
England Trust Company, the Boston Safe Deposit and Trust Com-
pany, the Security Safe Deposit Company, and of the Guaranty
Trust Company of America. In addition, he was a trustee of the
Boston Five Cents Savings Bank and of the Equitable Life In-
surance Company of New York.
Mr. Tower made his home in Lexington for nearly fifty years,
locating there, as has been stated, in 1855. The property which he
bought at that time he converted, as the years went by, into one of
the most attractive country places about Boston, and it was amid
these home surroundings that the spirit and gracious qualities of
the man were best seen. He was exceedingly fond of outdoor life,
and gloried in the possession of well-tilled fields and well-kept animals.
Horses particularly appealed to him, and one of his chief recreations
was his daily drive to his business in Boston. He took a lively
interest in the affairs of Lexington, and in 1863 represented it in
the Legislature. In 1882 he was a member of the Governor's Council.
His rank of Colonel, by which he was most familiarly known, came
to him by reason of his service on the staff of Governor Rice. At the
centennial celebration of the battle of Lexington, he was not only
the chief marshal of the parade but was prominent in all that per-
tained to that well-remembered event in Lexington history.
Dignified and courteous in his bearing, he was a man of a most
WILLIAM A. TOWER
genial temperament. Well-informed on all public questions and
familiar with his own country and Europe, he possessed a fund of
experience and observation that made him a most delightful com-
panion. He was a generous helper, not only of those connected with
him by blood and marriage, but of a wide variety of public objects.
In politics he was an old-time Whig until the formation of the Re-
publican party when he connected himself with that and entered
with zeal into all the national measures for the preservation of the
Union.
Mr. Tower's home life was ideal. He was married in Lancaster,
on April 29, 1847, to Julia, daughter of Austin and Sally (Wellington)
Davis, and Mrs. Tower still survives her distinguished husband. Four
children were born to them, two of whom are now living; Richard
G. Tower, a Boston banker, and Miss Ellen M. Tower. The older son,
Clifford, who died a year before his father, had been prominent in
banking affairs in New York.
STEPHEN MINOT WELD
STEPHEN MINOT WELD, soldier, woolen manufacturer,
cotton broker and capitalist, was born in Jamaica Plain,
Massachusetts, January 4, 1842. His father, Stephen Minot
Weld, son of William Gordon and Hannah Minot Weld, was the
principal of an English and Latin school, member of the governor's
council, a man of great energy and faithfulness in performing his
duty.
Their first ancestor in America, Joseph Weld, was born in Eng-
land, immigrated to New England in 1632, and settled in Rox-
bury, Massachusetts Bay Colony, where he soon became promi-
nent and influential. He was a captain in the Massachusetts
Bay Colony, and in return for the valuable services which he ren-
dered in that capacity, the Colony granted him the estate in Rox-
bury, which was held for seven generations by the Weld family, and
subsequently became known as the Bussey estate and the Arnold
Arboretum. Joseph Weld was an intimate friend of John Eliot,
the Apostle to the Indians, and was a brother of the Rev. Thomas
Weld, the first pastor of the First Church in Roxbury. Capt.
Joseph Weld died October 7, 1646. John, son of Joseph, was born
in England, October 28, 1623, and, like his father, became a captain
in the Colony, and fought in the Pequot War. He died in 1691.
Joseph, son of John, was born in Roxbury, September 13, 1650,
and died February 14, 1711. Joseph, son of Joseph, was born in
Roxbury, July 12, 1683, and died January 10, 1760. Eleazar, son
of the last named Joseph, was born in Roxbury, February 19, 1737,
and died in 1804. He graduated at Harvard College in 1756 and
became both Colonel and Judge. His family were living at the
old mansion house when the news of the British invasion which
preceded the battle of Lexington reached him, upon which he judged
it prudent to remove his family to Dedham. It was, therefore,
at Dedham that a son was born on the 8th of May, 1775, whom
he named William Gordon Weld, in honor of his friend and pastor,
-■•■■-■
ASTOR, LENOX |
■ILDEN FOUNDATIONS!
STEPHEN MINOT WELD
the Rev. William Gordon, known as the historian of the Revolu-
tion, and the first minister of the Third Parish in Roxbury. This
son became, at nineteen, master of the London Packet. He dis-
tinguished himself in 1802 by the bravery with which he defeated
some Algerian pirates, capturing two of their vessels. He was
married, in 1798, to Hannah, daughter of Jonas Clarke Minot and
Hannah Speakman, and died at Lancaster, June, 1823. Their son,
Stephen Minot Weld, married Sarah Bartlet, daughter of Joseph
Balch of Jamaica Plain, and their sons were Stephen Minot,
William Fletcher, Francis Minot, Christopher Minot and John
Gordon Weld, all residents and extensive land owners in Jamaica
Plain.
Stephen Minot Weld, Jr., was a child in good health, brought
up in the country and fond of study and of outdoor sports. His
mother had a strong influence in forming and directing his moral
life, and he was given every advantage for obtaining a superior
education, first attending a school conducted for children by Miss
Jane Lane. He was prepared for college in his father's English
and Latin school and graduated at Harvard University, A.B. 1860,
A.M. 1863. He entered the Harvard Law school in 1860, and in
1861 he left school and home to serve his country in the Civil War.
He enlisted in the 18th Massachusetts Volunteers and was pro-
moted from 2d lieutenant to 1st lieutenant and captain of his com-
pany. He was transferred to the 56th Massachusetts Veteran
Volunteers, served as lieutenant-colonel and colonel and was brevetted
brigadier-general of volunteers for "gallant and meritorious ser-
vices during the War of the Rebellion, 1861-65."
In the Seven Days battles before Richmond he was attached
to the staff of Gen. Fitz John Porter in command of the 5th corps,
and his regiment, the 18th Massachusetts, Colonel Barnes, was the
second in the 1st brigade, 1st division, 5th corps and was detached
for special service with General Stoneman's command operating on
the right flank of the army. On the withdrawal of McClellan's
army from Beaver Dam Creek, on June 27, 1862, Lieutenant
Weld was captured by the Confederates. General Porter, in his
account of the battles of Hanover Court House and Gaines' Mill
as published in "Battles and Leaders of the Civil War," says: "My
brave and efficient aide, Lieut. S. M. Weld, however, was taken
prisoner."
STEPHEN MINOT WELD
On being mustered out of the volunteer service, July, 1865, he
became treasurer of the Eliot Felting mills, and after the failure of
that concern he became a cotton broker in Boston and also largely
interested in real estate. His social affiliation includes membership
in the Hasty Pudding and A. D. Club and the Alpha Delta Phi
fraternity of Harvard University; the Somerset, University, Union
and Algonquin clubs of Boston. His political belief made him a
Republican in politics, but he voted for Cleveland in 1884 when
James G. Blaine was the Republican candidate for President. His
church association is with the Unitarian Church. His recreation
and exercise are shooting, fishing and golfing, and the care of
flowers and trees.
kSTOR,
I TILD
GEORGE WARREN WEYMOUTH
GEORGE WARREN WEYMOUTH, manufacturer, represent-
ative in Congress, street railway and bank director, business
man, was born in West Amesbury, now Merrimac, Essex
County, Massachusetts, August 25, 1850. His father, the Rev.
Warren Weymouth, of Vershire, Vermont, son of Shadroch and
Elizabeth (Gilman) Weymouth, was a descendant from Sir George
Weymouth, who resided near Portsmouth, England, and explored
the New England coast as a navigator. Warren Weymouth was
a Methodist clergyman, and married Charity Maria, daughter of
Benjamin and Elizabeth (Dimmick) Fenno, of Hartford, Vermont.
George Warren Weymouth was a sturdy child, brought up in
a country village, where he could spend much time in the woods with
nature and find sport in hunting and fishing. He was fond of read-
ing history, but cared nothing for fiction until later on in life. His
mother had the best influence over him that a child could enjoy,
and being strongly developed, intellectually and morally and spirit-
ually, she shaped his course, and developed his character. He
attended the public school and West Amesbury High School, where
he was graduated in 1867, working during vacations, thus learning
the business of carriage making, trimming, painting and blacksmith-
ing. When he left the high school he continued in the business,
which he thoroughly enjoyed, and, to quote his own words: " Always
kept everlastingly at it."
He was married July 19, 1882, to Emma Josephine, daughter of John
S. and Elizabeth (Kennison) Poyen, of Merrimac, and the same year
removed to Fitchburg, where he engaged in the carriage business and
became identified with the business and civil affairs of the place.
He was a Republican in political faith and was elected by that party
a member of the Common Council of the city, and at the close of his
first term was offered the nomination for alderman which he refused.
In 1890, when the board of trade of Fitchburg was revived, he became
one of its most active and enthusiastic directors, and served as
GEORGE WARREN WEYMOUTH
president of the board. He was also a director in the Fitchburg
National Bank; vice-president and general manager of the Simonds
Rolling Mill Company; director in the Worcester Society of the JEtna
Life Insurance Company, and a trustee of the Fitchburg Savings
Bank. He was a representative from Fitchburg in the General
Court of Massachusetts in 1896; was a member of the first " Ways
and Means Committee/' instituted by the Massachusetts Legislature,
and the same year was made a delegate to the Republican National
Convention at St. Louis, and was elected a representative from the
Fourth District of Massachusetts to the Fifty-fifth Congress by the
largest majority any candidate for Congress ever received in this
district before or since. In 1898 he was elected to the Fifty-sixth
Congress. He served in Congress, 1897-1901, and was a member
of the committees on public buildings and grounds, and on pensions.
He became a director in the Fitchburg and Leominster Street
Railway, in the Orswell Cotton Mills and the Nockege Cotton Mills.
He also was a stockholder in the Wachusett National Bank of Fitch-
burg and in the Fitchburg Gas Company. He was also vice-presi-
dent and general manager Simonds Rolling Machine Company,
which was founded on the invention of George F. Simonds for mold-
ing into various forms, while rotating on their axles between surfaces
moving in opposite directions, bicycle balls, screws, pedal pins, axles
and numerous other articles of commerce which required to be abso-
lutely perfect to be of use. He was the manager of the only mill of
its kind in the world started in Fitchburg in 1886. He is now
president of the Atlas Tack Company, Fairhaven, Massachusetts,
the largest and oldest concern of its kind in the world. He
is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity and has attained the
thirty-second degree in Masonry. His religious affiliation is with
the Unitarian denomination. His recreation and amusements are
"camping out," "fishing and hunting" and "traveling." He
says to young men: "Self-reliance and work will be sure to gain
true and permanent success. " "Keep everlastingly at it."
" ' -
&^^C^
HORACE MANN WILLARD
FEW men of our time in New England have exerted a more
commanding or healthful influence as a teacher, or won a
deeper or more lasting place in the memory of his friends as
a man, than Dr. Willard. He was at the time of his death the prin-
cipal of the Quincy Mansion School, near Boston, which had been
founded and conducted by him for several years. One of its houses
is the elegant and capacious structure which was for many years the
home of the Quincy family. The natural beauty of the place, its
outlook upon the sea, the commodious and admirably planned build-
ings, added under Dr. Willard's immediate supervision, together with
the tasteful arrangement and ornamentation of the grounds, lent to
the historic spot new charms that, while equipping it admirably for
educational uses, preserved its home-like and intellectual atmos-
phere. The wide reputation of Dr. Willard as a skilful educator,
together with that of his no less accomplished wife, brought to the
school pupils from the most intelligent and refined households of
the land; and some were attracted also from foreign countries.
Aside from the thoroughness and comprehensiveness of the instruc-
tion given, parents recognize the value of the personal supervision
of the life and manners of each pupil, the domestic quietness and
familiarity of the household life, and the genuinely Christian atmos-
phere that has pervaded all.
Dr. Willard was a native of Canterbury, Connecticut, where he
was born on the twenty-fourth of March, 1842. His father, Rev.
George Willard, was a minister, and for a long time pastor of various
Baptist Churches. He was a man of sterling integrity and loyalty
to his convictions. He was also a very successful teacher. He was
greatly interested in public affairs, and was at times entrusted with
important civic offices.
Dr. Willard's mother, whose maiden name was Emmerette Aspen-
wall, was a woman of marked individuality. She was dignified and
firm in character, but was also gentle and kindly in temper, and a
CHARLES BRANCH WILSON
THE ancestors of Charles Branch Wilson came to New England
at an early date. George Ricker came from England to Dover,
New Hampshire, in 1670. Eleaser Keene came from England
to Keene, New Hampshire, in 1623. The wife of Eleaser Keene was
said to be a Swedish princess whose name was concealed for political
reasons. John Butler Wilson, the father of Charles Branch Wilson,
was born February 24, 1834, and died March 15, 1866. He was the
son of Adam Wilson (1801-1872), a distinguished minister. John
Butler Wilson was a physician of sterling character, and devoted
to his profession. He married Samantha Theresa Perkins, daughter
of Joseph Hartwell Perkins, 1801-1864. Charles Branch was born
at Exeter, Maine, October 20, 1861. He was occupied in his boy-
hood with the chores of a large household, and, like many another
New England lad, found the discipline thoroughly profitable. Chores
that start early in the morning and follow closely during the day
are the best antiseptic for the germs of indolence and indifference
that overtake a boy. These kindly, regularly and exactly done,
settle character.
The influence of his mother was of the best, and the atmosphere
of the home was at once stimulating and quieting. He met with
no serious difficulties in his education, earning board and clothing
by labor and teaching. He had from the first a strong taste for
nature and the studies associated with it. This was further stimu-
lated by the works of Louis Agassiz, Hugh Miller and Joseph LeConte.
Later his attention was directed to the writings of Alphonse Milne
Edwards, Henrick Kroyer and Carl Claus. He prepared for college
at Waterville (Colby) Classical Institute, and graduated at Colby
College with the degree of A.B. 1881, A.M. 1SS4, and Sc.D. 1908. He
was a tutor in botany 1881-84, at Colby College. His line of study
and labor was prompted by original taste, supported by personal influ-
ence. He acted as a private tutor from 1884 to 1891; was professor
of science in the State Normal School at Gorham, Maine, 1891-94;
&£«*. . m , TSJU^, ,
CHARLES BRANCH WILSON
post-graduate student and assistant in Zoology at Johns Hopkins,
1894-96; professor of biology at the State Normal School, Westfield,
Massachusetts, 1896-98; and is now the head of the science depart-
ment of that institution. He has served as assistant of the United
States Bureau of Fisheries, first at Woods' Hole, Massachusetts, 1900-
04, then at Beaufort, North Carolina, in 1905, and later at Culver,
Indiana, 1906.
He is the author of " Nature Study Outline," designed for graded
schools (1898); " Laboratory Work in Zoology" (1898, revised in
1900); "Laboratory Work in Botany" (1898, revised in 1903);
"Monograph of the Argulidae of North America" (1904); "Mono-
graph of the Caligidae of North America" (1904-06). He has pro-
duced numerous research papers for the leading scientific journals.
He is a member of the Masonic Fraternity; Knights of Malta;
American Association for the Advancement of Science; Boston So-
ciety of Natural History; Zoological Society of America; American
Morphological Society; Springfield Zoological Club; National Edu-
cational Association. He has held the position of Past Commander
and Grand Generalissimo, Knights of Malta; Past High Priest in the
Masonic Chapter; president of the Springfield Zoological Club; pres-
ident of the Department of Science of the National Educational
Association.
He belongs to the Republican party, and has held by that politi-
cal persuasion through thick and thin. He is affiliated in religious
belief and action with the Congregational Church. His summer
relaxation is golf; his winter, bowling.
He was married July 22, 1885, to Belle, daughter of Willard A.
and Eloisa (Blaisdell) Turner; granddaughter of Asa and Sarah
(Farnham) Turner, and of Stephen and Ellen (Foster) Blaisdell,
descendant of Elias Foster, to whom, with his brother, King George
III granted the township of Blackstone, Massachusetts.
There are two children, Carroll, a graduate of Williams College and
now a Rhodes scholar at Oxford University, England ; and John Ellis.
The general principles which have guided his own life are expressed
in his counsel to young men: "Choose one line of work; choose it
early in life and keep everlastingly at it; cultivate the power of con-
centration; work hard while you work, then relax and take proper
exercise. Remember that excess is always antagonistic to true suc-
cess; therefore, be moderate, temperate, pure and absolutely honest."
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW, archaeologist, historian,
journalist and lecturer, was born in Boston, Massachusetts,
January 13, 1840. His father, the Rev. Dr. Hubbard
Winslow (1799-1864), son of Nathaniel and Anna (Kellogg) Winslow,
brother of the Rev. Dr. Miron Winslow (1789-1864); was a Congre-
gational and then a Presbyterian clergyman, born in Williston,
Vermont, graduated at Yale, A.B. 1825; B.D. 1828; pastor of Bow-
doin Street Church, Boston, as successor to Dr. Lyman Beecher,
1832-44; editor of the "Religious Magazine," 1837-40; author of
many standard books; principal of Mt. Vernon Young Ladies' Insti-
tute, Boston, 1844-54. "America" was first sung by Dr. Winslow's
Sunday school in the Bowdoin Street church where Lowell Mason
was conductor of the famous choir. He married Susan Ward,
daughter of Joseph and Phoebe Ward Cutler of Boston, and a
descendant from Joseph Pemberton and from the Rev. Benjamin
Colman (1673-1747), pastor of Brattle Street church, Boston, 1699-
1747, son of William and Elizabeth Colman, who came from London,
England, with their family previous to 1673.
William Copley Winslow was as a child fond of reading English
literature and history. As a boy he was "handy" to have about
the house. He spent his winters in Boston and his summers in the
country, and his boyish employments made him industrious and
thrifty. His mother's influence was strong in forming his character.
His reading always inclined to the classics and history. Webster,
Choate, Everett and Winthrop, his father's friends, were among his
oratorical heroes. He read Shakespeare largely from his twentieth
to his thirtieth years. He attended the Boston Latin School with
the intention of entering either at Yale or Harvard, but his father
having removed to Geneva, New York, he matriculated at Hamilton
College, near Utica, New York. He was editor of " The Hamiltonian "
during his senior year; aided William G. Sumner and Joseph Cook,
of Yale in founding the University "Quarterly Review" in 1861, and
'U/hL €L- ft/^g
■uy
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW
on graduating at Hamilton, A.B. 1862, he carried a letter from
Edward Everett to William Cullen Bryant, editor and proprietor of
the New York Evening Post, having been urged by friends to take up
journalism as a profession. He was promised a position on that
paper, but he accepted one on the World temporarily. In the
spring he carried out a long cherished wish to prepare for the minis-
try, and he determined to enter the General Theological Seminary
in New York.
While in the seminary he was associated with Dr. Stephen H.
Tyng in editing the " Christian Times, " and was honored by Hobart
College, on graduating from the seminary in 1865, by the honorary
degree of M.A. for his journalistic and literary work. He was
admitted to the diaconate, and temporarily officiated at the church
of St. John the Evangelist (Wainwright Memorial) New York City
in 1865.
Mr. Winslow then studied archaeology in Italy for several months,
and on his return to America he lectured upon the topic. He was
advanced to the priesthood in 1867, and was rector of St. George's,
Lee, Massachusetts, from June, 1867 to October, 1870. He was
married June 20, 1867, to Harriet Stillman, daughter of Joseph
Henshaw and Mary (Davenport) Hayward, and they have one
child, a daughter. While a resident of Lee he served as chairman
of the school board; as vice-president of the Berkshire County Bible
Society; and on two occasions as orator upon Decoration Day. On
removing to Boston in 1870, he devoted his time chiefly to literary
labors. He, however, continued his ministerial duties, but did not
accept any permanent charge. He was chaplain of St. Luke's Home
for Convalescents, 1877-81, and by 1907 had conducted services and
preached in one hundred and twenty-seven Episcopal Churches in the
diocese of Massachusetts. He aided in founding the Free Church
Association, serving as secretary of the Massachusetts branch from
its organization in 1881.
Dr. Winslow's chief work has been the founding of the American
branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1883, and carrying the
undertaking to a successful issue. He spent much time in Egypt in
1879-80; saw the obelisk taken down for shipment to New York City,
and his many articles upon the important matters connected with
his studies in Egypt were widely read. When the discovery of the
site of Pithom (Ex. I, XI) was announced, he began a correspondence
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW
with Sir Erasmus Wilson and Miss Edwards, and this led him to
found the American branch of the Egypt Exploration Fund in 1883,
with which he was officially connected, for nearly twenty years,
receiving no financial recompense. His official positions have been
honorary treasurer, 1883-95; vice-president, 1885-1902; and honor-
ary secretary, a position like that occupied by Miss Edwards in
England, 1889-1902. The official circular of the society in London
for 1899 stated that "from its foundation the Egypt Exploration
Fund has received large pecuniary support from the United States,
chiefly through the enthusiasm and energy of the Rev. Dr. W. C.
Winslow, of Boston." By his efforts $130,000 were raised by sub-
scriptions of members secured through him. He raised in America
one half of the money needed for the preparation of over forty illus-
trated quarto volumes published by the Fund between 1883 and 1903.
The Boston Museum of Fine Arts secured through the administra-
tion of Dr. Winslow a collection of Egyptian monuments unrivaled
in any other American museum. He also secured for America one
hundred and nineteen of the historical papyri of which very valuable
specimens are in the Harvard Semetic Museum. It was through
the efforts of Dr. Winslow that the United States was honored by a
visit from Miss Edwards in 1890, and her series of lectures on
"Pharaohs, Fellahs and Explorers," proved to be of great educa-
tional value.
Dr. Winslow names the source of his first strong impulse to
succeed to "hearing my father speak and listening to such men as
Choate, Everett, Winthrop, Webster, Hillard, and others among
my father's friends. My associations in college and the example
of the eminent men I met after my graduation inspired me the
most." He considers his principal public service to be: "Arousing
public interest in archaeology as a science and particularly in pioneer
work in interesting the public in Egyptian explorations." He did
some work in the United States Christian Commission, 1865, and was
in Richmond immediately after the fall of that city. His social
affiliations are with the Delta Kappa Epsilon, Hamilton Chapter,
of which he has served as president; the University Club of Boston
and the Clerical Club, of which he was the chief founder in 1881.
He is identified with no political party. His chief recreation is out-
door exercise in walks. He was long an active member of the
Appalachian Club of Boston; camped twenty-seven seasons in the
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW
Adirondack region, 1864-92; camped on Mt. Adams, New Hamp-
shire, in mid-October, 1891, when he explored the Presidential
Range. In 1892 he and Prof. R. Pumpelly cut a new path up Mt.
Monadnock from the Dublin side, and in 1898 he spent three weeks
in the vicinity of Mt. Kearsage, recutting a path from near the
"Winslow House" to the summit. He has served as an active
officer or committeeman in the Webster Historical Society; the
Institute of Civics, the New England Historic-Genealogical Society,
the Bostonian Society, the Society for the Promotion of Good
Citizenship, which latter he helped to organize. He has read papers
before the American Historical Association, Economic Society,
Archaeological Institute of America, New York Biographical Society,
New England Historic-Genealogical Society, American Oriental
Society, and other bodies, and his papers are published in their
Proceedings. He was associate editor of "The American Anti-
quarian"; of the "American Historical Register," and down to 1906
on the staff of writers for " Biblia." He is an honorary member of
twenty-three State historical societies, including five of the New
England States, of the Oneida Historical Society, the New York
Biographical Society, the Long Island Historical Society, the New
Haven Colony Historical Society, the New York Churchman's
Association, the Anthropological Society of Washington, D. C, and
the Danvers Historical Society, Massachusetts. He holds honorary
membership in the Natural History Society of Montreal, the Nova
Scotia and Quebec Historical Societies, and is an honorary Fellow
of the Royal Archaeological Institute of Great Britain, corresponding
member of the British Archaeological association, honorary corre-
spondent of the Victoria Institute, honorary Fellow of the Society of
Arts and Sciences and a Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries at
Edinburgh. For ten years he was prelate of the St. Bernard Com-
manclery, Knights Templars, of Boston. When the German govern-
ment published the great " Book of the Dead " in three costly volumes
two copies were presented to America through Naville, their editor
(the great Egyptologist), one copy going to the American Oriental
Society and the other to Dr. Winslow.
Dr. Winslow received the honorary degree of PH.D. from Hamil-
ton College in 1886; Griswold College made him S.T.D. in 1889; St.
John's College, Annapolis, Maryland, Sc.D. at its centennial in 1889
"in recognition of the learning and ability with which he has con-
WILLIAM COPLEY WINSLOW
ducted scientific investigations." St. Andrew's University, Scotland,
gave him LL.D. in 1886 and Kings College, D.C.L. 1888, in con-
sideration of his varied services and writings, especially in archaeology
and history. In 1887 he received the degree of D.D. from Amherst
College. At the Centennial of Columbia College he received the
degree of L.H.D. His work on New England history, especially
that connected with Plymouth Colony, includes scores of articles
in book, magazine and pamphlet form, and his work in archaeology em-
braces over one thousand articles upon discoveries in Eygpt made
public through letters, magazine contributions, pamphlets and
books, the latter including "What says Egypt of Israel?" (1883);
"The Store City of Pithom" (1885); "A Greek City of Egypt" (1886);
"Egypt at Home" (1891); "Egyptian Antiquities for our Museums"
(1900); "Distributions of Papri" (1901); "The Queen of Egyptol-
ogy," a tribute to Miss Edwards; "Ushabtis in America." His his-
torical subjects include "Pilgrim Fathers in Holland" (1891);
"Governor Edward Winslow" (1895); "Winslow Memorial" (1886).
Dr. Winslow in speaking of his own success or want of success
says: "I think sometimes that I have 'covered too much ground';
yet I have always been very painstaking and careful in all data.
My father was a most versatile man as writer, speaker, preacher,
linguist, philosopher." He gives his advice to young men in these
words: "Young men should find out just what they can best do and
then push on, push on! All true and sound ideals rest on truth ?
honor, responsibility and a desire to make the world better."
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