A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. II, Part 101

Author: Hill, Everett Gleason, 1867- [from old catalog]
Publication date: 1918
Publisher: New York, Chicago, The S. J. Clarke publishing company
Number of Pages: 986


USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. II > Part 101


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position for four years. He then again began mason contracting, first as a member of the firm of Moses & Arnold and since the dissolution of that firm he has continued business alone. Various important contracts have been awarded him. He has executed these for the Bradley & Hubbard Manufacturing Company, the Meriden Electric Light Company and other important corporations, including the Charles Parker Company. He had the contract for the building of the Bradley Park homes and for various business blocks and many attractive residences. His contracting business has now reached very prosperous and profit- able conditions. He employs thirty men, with a pay roll of four hundred dollars per week. In 1904 he added to his other interests a prosperous dairy business and for a quarter of a century he has been the owner of the famous Holt Hill Farm, upon which he has placed all modern equipments and improvements. Another demand upon bis time and attention is his work as assessor, to which office he was appointed in 1908 and which he has since con- tinued to fill.


On the 17th of March, 1891, Mr. Moses was united in marriage to Miss Terese Zulke, of Meriden, their wedding being celebrated, however, at West Haven. They have become par- ents of three children: Bertha, who is now the wife of Earle Franklin Porter, of West Haven; Jessie M .; and Kenneth L. The children have been educated in the schools of Meriden and Jessie has also pursued a normal school course.


In his political views Mr. Moses has always been an earnest republican and in addition to filling the office of assessor he has served as councilman from the fourth ward, as deputy register of voters and as inspector and superintendent of sewers. His religious faith is that of the Universalist church. He is a man of broad views and of progressive ideas and inter- ests. In the business world his course has been marked by a steady advance that indicates the wise use of his time, his talents and his opportunities.


LEONARDO SUZIO.


Leonardo Suzio, the president and treasurer of the L. Suzio Construction Company, has handled many important contracts and the extent of his business is indicated in the fact that he now employs three hundred and fifty workmen. As his name indicates, he is of Italian birth. He was born in Castelfranco in the province of Benevento, March 14, 1869, a son of Frank and Mary Suzio. He had but limited educational opportunities and in his youth was largely employed at farm work, to which he gave his time and attention until he was nineteen years of age. He then came to the United States and for a year was a resident of Meriden. In 1888 he began working for John Lane, with whom he remained for about a year, and in 1889 he took up mason building on his own account. He built several residences and employed from six to eight men. After a few years devoted to the con- tracting business he accepted a position with a big New York city contracting firm, acting as foreman or superintendent of their construction work. He retained his position with the company for six or more years and during that period lived in Meriden. In 1899 he again embarked in the contracting business on his own account and has since been engaged in that way. He incorporated his interests in 1915 as the L. Suzio Construction Company and in addition to his interests in this connection he is the general manager of the York Hill Trap Rock Quarry Company. In the construction business he has employed during the summer seasons more than five hundred men. He was the second man to build a maeadam road in Connecticut and he has built more roads in the state than any other contractor. He has had some very large contracts of a most important character and his business has long since reached very extensive and gratifying proportions.


On the 21st of January, 1895, Mr. Suzio was married in Stamford, Connecticut, to Miss Frances Vocola, who is also a native of Castelfranco, Italy. They have become the parents of three children: Marjorie, now the wife of Mario Petrueeelh, of Bridgeport, Connecticut. where he owns a drug store and by whom she has one child, Laura; and Mary and Frank, who are at home. The children were all educated in the public and high schools of Meriden and Frank (III) was for two years a pupil in a military school and is now continuing his education in New Haven, Connecticut.


Mr. Suzio is an independent voter but in matters of citizenship is actuated by a pro-


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gressive spirit that seeks the best interests and welfare of the community. He belongs to Mount Carmel Roman Catholic church, is also identified with the Knights of Pythias, the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Loyal Order of Moose and the Sons of Italy. He also belongs to the Amaranth Club, to the 1711 Club and to the Colonial Club. He is truly a self-made man, for his advancement is attributable entirely to his own efforts and with notable persistency of purpose and laudable ambition he has worked his way upward. What he has undertaken he has accomplished. He has never allowed obstacles nor difficulties to bar his path if they could be overcome by persistent effort and he has never had occasion to regret his determination to come to the new world, for he here found the opportunities which he sought and in their utilization he has made for himself a most creditable place in business circles.


JULIUS KUNTZE.


Julius Kuntze, who is proprietor of the largest cigar manufacturing establishment in Meriden, was born February 14, 1858, in Wansen, Prussian Silesia, Germany, his parents being Carl and Theresa (Weiss) Kuntze. The father was a native of Strehlen, Silesia, and there engaged in the manufacture of cigars throughout his entire business life, passing away in 1869. His wife has also departed this life.


Julius Kuntze acquired a public school education in his native town and also attended a preparatory school there, after which he began learning the cigar maker's trade under the direction of his father, and following the latter's death he and his brother Herman conducted the business for their mother. Mr. Kuntze remained a resident of Germany until 1881, when he determined to try his fortune in the new world, believing that he might have better business advantages on this side of the Atlantic. Accordingly he sailed from Ham- burg and took up his abode in New York, where he remained for six years, conducting a profitable business as a cigar maker. He then removed to New Haven, where he remained for five years, after which he returned to his native land and spent several months. The year 1893 witnessed his arrival in Meriden, where he established his present business that in the intervening years has grown to extensive proportions. He is today proprietor of the largest cigar manufactory in Meriden and vicinity, and he has also developed a large wholesale business, his trade covering a wide territory, for he sells in all the neighboring counties. He employs twenty men in the manufacture of various high grade cigars. He makes the Dan O'Connell, the City Hall, the Centennial, the 77, the Daisy, the H. W. L. and fifteen other brands of cigars and the excellence of his product has insured a liberal patronage.


Mr. Kuntze was married in New Haven, in 1891, to Miss Elizabeth Schwab, a native of Darmstadt, Hesse-Darmstadt, Germany, and to them were born seven children: George, who is now in his father's factory; August, who is engaged in the butchering business in Montana; Eliza, a Normal school student; Carl and Harold, who are in school in Meriden; and Helen and Jane, who died in infancy. The wife and mother passed away in 1909.


Mr. Kuntze holds membership in the Elks lodge and club, also with the United Work- men and the Foresters, and he is a member of the Chamber of Commerce at Meriden. He belongs to the Meriden Saengerbund and is identified with various other German social and charitable organizations. As a business man he has displayed enterprise, adaptability and determination and these qualities have enabled him to develop a business of large and substantial proportions.


WILLIAM M. LUBY.


William M. Luby, an attorney of Meriden, in which city he was born September 6, 1882, is a son of John F. and Catherine (Rady) Luby, who are still residents of Meriden, the father having for many years been a valued employe of the Charles Parker Company.


William M. Luby began his education in St. Rose's parochial school and was graduated


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from the Meriden high school with the class of 1899. He was one of a family of three sons, his brothers being: Maurice H., a salesman; and Thomas J., who is a practicing phy- sician connected with the Bellevue Hospital of New York city. William M. Luby early became interested in athletics and manly outdoor sports and when still quite young was recognized as a superior ball player. Following his gradnation from the high school he entered upon a professional career as a ball player and was thus engaged, saving his money in the meantime in order to enable him to finish his education. The following years he played on the teams of Jersey City, New Jersey, of Northampton, Massachusetts, and of Springfield, Massachusetts, and later became connected with the New York team of the National League. It was while thus engaged that he took up the study of law in 1914. In that year he entered the New York University as a student in the law department and was graduated in 1917 with the LL. B. degree. While in college he was the coach of various athletic teams, especially the ball teams. He won a wide reputation as a most efficient and honorable base ball player and his name in that connection is known from coast to coast. He was admitted to the bar at Meriden in July, 1917, and has opened up attractive and splendidly equipped offices in the new Silver City Realty building on Colony street.


Mr. Luby is a member of the Young Men's T. A. B. Society and was its president in 1908. His political allegiance is given to the democratie party and his friends induced bim in 1911 to become a candidate for representative on the democratic ticket, and although he polled a good vote, he was defeated. He is now concentrating his efforts and attention upon law practice and his acquaintances, knowing his ability and the thoroughness with which be undertakes any task, predict for him a successful future.


JOHN C. COLLINS.


John C. Collins is the national secretary of The Friends of Boys, Ine., an organization which has as its basic principle the uplift of the boy, and the work that he is accomplishing represents the nature of the man. Born at Albion, New York, September 19, 1850, he is a son of Michael Collins, a native of Ireland, who in boyhood came to America about the year 1820 and settled at Albion, where he resided until his death in 1863. He was a fariner by occupation and a devout Christian, holding membership in the Roman Catholic church. He married Susan Pryme, a native of Pennsylvania and a descendant of an old Pennsylvania Dutch family.


John C. Collins was the fifth in their family of nine children, five of whom are yet living. He acquired his education in the district, publie, private and Normal schools of Brockport, New York, and in Yale University, from which he was graduated in 1875 with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He next entered the Yale School of Religion and won the Bachelor of Divinity degree upon graduation with the class of 1878. His early youth had been spent amid the environment of the home farm and during the period of the Civil war, when but thirteen years of age, he joined the Sixteenth New York Cavalry. Too young to enlist regularly, he remained with that regiment as a volunteer, rendering such services as were required of him, being stationed most of the time near Washington. He was with this regiment when they captured the assassins of President Lincoln and was an eyewitness of the execution of Payne, Atzorth, Mrs. Surratt and Harokl. Harold, who fled with Booth, the chief conspirator, after the latter had shot Mr. Lincoln, was captured when Booth was killed. Mrs. Surratt was then also taken captive. Payne tried to kill Mr. Seward and Atzorth was selected to kill Andrew Jackson. All were hanged in Washington, July 7, 1865. He also accompanied his regiment in the scouting and warfare against Colonel John S. Mosby, the famous Confederate leader, who was a great partisan soldier and friend of Stuart. Lee and Grant. He later became intimately acquainted with Colonel Mosby, of whom he became a warm friend and admirer, and in November, 1910, he wrote and published a brief history of his life and of his daring as exemplified in many extraordinary deeds accomplished in the Civil war.


From early boyhood Mr. Collins was actuated by one ambition and one only-that of assisting in the mental, moral and religious training of young boys-and with that purpose in view he started out to further this object by acquiring the needed education. After leav- ing Yale he immediately took up city mission work and he was among the first who were


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actually trained and educated for the ministry to enter upon that line of Christian activity. In fact he started upon the work before his graduation from Yale, for in 1874 he founded the New Ilaven Boys' Club, which was the first organization of its kind established in the world. In three years he had enrolled a membership of over three thousand, to whom were given guidance in moral and material things. He became the associate of Dwight L. Moody, Ira D. Sankey and others equally prominent in church work and in fact has been closely connected with some of the most distinguished workers in the field of Christianity, who have ever regarded him as a peer, recognizing the value of many of the original ideas which he has put forth to save young men and boys. He established the first city mission in New Haven and from 1877 until 1887 was city missionary. He has ever made a most close and thorough study of conditions and early came to a realization of the now uniformly ac- cepted fact that one must look to the development of the boy in his tri-fold nature, physical, mental and moral, and see to it that he is surrounded by the proper environment which will call forth and develop his best traits. From 1886 until 1896 Mr. Collins was at the head of the International Christian Workers and in the latter year went south, establishing a health and religious resort Montreat, North Carolina. This enterprise was established at first under a nominal valuation of a few dollars, but has developed into a resort today known throughout the nation and representing an investment of several millions. From 1887 to 1892 Mr. Collins was engaged in the establishment of boys' clubs throughout the New England states. He organized twenty-five clubs, having a membership of more than twenty-five thousand at that time, which has since grown to about three-quarters of a million, and in the development of these clubs several million dollars has been expended. Many of the boys who have come under his guidance were boys of the people, of the poorer, more neglected, and less privileged elass, of whom some have become men of national reputa- tion and most honored citizens.


Mr. Collins was ordained to the Congregational ministry on the 2d of June, 1886. but never served as a regular pastor in any church. On the contrary he took up a great work that had previously been neglected by the pastors of the country, becoming a pioneer in boys' work. His teachings have been along the line of ethics, honorable conduct, respect for par- ents and others in authority, and divine principles. He has traveled over all parts of the United States in company with the leading speakers and evangelists .. In 1906 be began a new movement for the welfare of boys, which he called The Friends of Boys, the object of this organization being to protect, aid and guide boys. Mr. Collins has been instru- mental in securing the passage of state and national legislation for their education, for de- termining the age of employment and also other welfare measures for the young. The or- ganization developed rapidly and grew into a national organization and it is his hope and plan to extend the work into every state of the Union. He is now devoting his best energies and efforts to that purpose and. knowing the man and the spirit which actuates him, one does not hesitate to prediet the success of the undertaking.


On the 19th of September, 1878, at Brockport, New York, Mr. Collins was married to Miss Fannie Moulton Smith, a native of that city and a daughter of the late John and Rebecca (Ingalls) Smith. Her grandfather was a soldier of the Revolutionary war and her ancestors were among the founders of Lynn, Massachusetts. Mr. and Mrs. Collins became tbe parents of six sons and four daughters, all of whom are yet living. but the wife and mother passed away in New Haven in 1905 at the age of fifty-one years.


In addition to his other interests Mr. Collins is chairman of the managing committee of the New Haven Amateur Athletes and bas done splendid work along that line, many of the members of this organization having secured trophies in various athletic contests. Mr. Collins started out in life a poor boy. At fifteen, owing to small educational facilities in his native village and his army life, he could not write his own name, but at twenty- one he had passed all the entrance examinations to Yale. Never for one moment has he deviated from his early conceived plan of assisting boys. Today the organization known as The Friends of Boys, Inc., is the visible evidence of his splendid life work. Of this organ- ization John S. Seymour is chairman of the board of directors, with Professor John W. Wetzel of Yale University as vice chairman and Mr. Collins as secretary and executive. It is most broad in its scope. One branch of this work is known as the Up-Boys Society of America. The work is conducted according to this plan: Not less than six nor more than twelve boys under seventeen years of age pay ten cents each for a bronze pin having on it


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the raised letters, U. B., making them members of the "U'p-Boys of America." There are no officers, rules. records or formal regular meetings, no promises, pledges, dues or red tape of any kind. The "Up" stands for just what that means to themselves and others so far as they understand it to begin with or learn afterward. They are boys of limited experience whose years are few and knowledge of life small, and they need to be guided, taught and shown, so that for each small group there is one "For-Boy," man or woman, who has a small pin with the letters F. B. That constitutes the organization, but the "For-Boy" is a special friend of his group and the words have a meaning all their own to each boy. He is the guiding spirit in play, in work and in character development, the close friend, the assistant or big brother or sister who is attempting to develop from each boy a useful and upright American man.


There is perhaps no man in the country who has done so much in founding boys' clubs or has had longer or more varied experience in work with boys than Mr. Collins, whose work in this field covers more than forty years. Not only does the organization known as The Friends of Boys work along individual lines, but also cooperates with existing agencies that every American youth may receive a square deal and have his opportunity for normal development. The organization cooperates with parents in inerease of parental responsi- bility, correcting the misconduct of boys in personal dealing and without an arrest and court arraignment, examining ordinances and laws affecting boys, securing the enactment of such as are helpful and opposing those which are unnecessary or harmful. The organization stimu- lates those play interests which are most worth while; in fact, there is no phase of boy ac- tivity which is not of interest to The Friends of Boys with due consideration as to its value in character development.


No one can measure the extent of the influence and efforts of John C. Collins in his work for the young, but anyone knowing of his work must feel that he should be judged by this standard expressed by a modern philosopher: "Not the good that comes to us, hut the good that comes to the world through us is the measure of our success."


AUGUST KREYKENBOHM.


August Kreykenbobm, proprietor of the Shelton Avenue bakery of New Haven, was born in Hanover, Germany, November 17, 1874, a son of August and Minnie (Bulka) Krey- kenbohm, who were also natives of Hanover. The father was a miller by trade and spent his entire life in his native land, there conducting a successful business until his death, which occurred February 26, 1889, when he was fifty-six years of age. His widow still occupies the old homestead in Hanover, Germany.


August Kreykenbohm was the second in a family of fourteen children. He pursued his education in the public schools of Hanover to the age of fourteen years and then started out to earn his living, being apprenticed to the baker's trade in Hamburg, where he worked along that line for five years. During the succeeding five years he was employed as a baker on the Hamburg-American steamship lines. In 1896 he abandoned this occupation and spent one year in New York at his trade. In 1897 he came to New Haven and during the following twelve years was employed at different periods in several of the leading bakeries of this city. In 1910 he entered business on his own account, beginning in a small way with little capital and with but one assistant. From this humble start, how- ever, he has built up a business that has steadily developed until it is the third largest in New Haven. He now employs twenty-six men and the shop has an output of from seven to eight thousand loaves of bread per day, with a full line of pastry and other bakery goods. The plant is equipped with the latest improved machinery and most modern ovens and is thoroughly sanitary in every department. The products are sold entirely to the local trade, and there is continuons demand for his goods. He also owns a one hundred acre farm at Mt. Carmel, which furnishes the needed supplies of milk, eggs, fruit, etc., for the bakery.


In 1897 Mr. Kreykenbohm was married in New Haven to Miss Minnie Schenk, a native of Nordhausen, Germany, and they have become the parents of five children: Minnie, August, Louisa, William and Rudolph. Mr. and Mrs. Kreykenbohm are members of the Taylor


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AUGUST KREYKENBOHM


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Memorial Lutheran church, in the work of which they take an active part and Mr. Krey- kenbohm is a trustee and member of its financial board. He belongs to the Germania Lodge, No. 78, I. O. O. F. of which he is a past grand, and is a member of the Master Bakers Association. He became an American citizen in 1916 and is now a member of the Home Guard. He has never had occasion to regret his determination to come to the new world for here he found the business opportunities which he songht. He landed in New York with but two cents in his pocket and on the second day after his arrival he secured work and has since been continuously active in connection with the bakery business. He eventually became the proprietor of one of the leading establishments of this character in New Haven, building his business upon the sure foundation of excellence of product and of fair dealing.


ALBERT FLATOW.


Albert Flatow, an undertaker of Meriden was born in Germany, May 7, 1877, a son of Frederick and Wilhelmina Flatow, both deceased. The mother died on August 28, 1917, at the venerable age of eighty-four years


Albert Flatow began his education in the public schools of Germany but about nine months later accompanied his parents to the United States, the family reaching Meriden on the 22d of April, 1885. He continued his studies in a school connected with St. John's Evangelical church and following his graduation therefrom went to work for the Edward Miller Company. He spent two years in the stock room and afterward was variously employed until 1898, when he accepted a position with C. W. Sturgis, an undertaker. He took a course in the United States School of Embalming of New York city and subse- quently was employed by different firms as embalmer and funeral director, being located in New York city, in New Britain and in other places. In 1913 he came to Meriden and established a business of his own at No. 82 East Main street, whence on the 1st of June, 1915. he removed to his present large quarters at No. 57 West Main street. His equip- ment is complete and thoroughly up-to-date and ineludes a commodious chapel in which funeral services may be held. He performs well the manifold duties of a funeral director and is recognized as one of the best undertakers in the city. He has been well trained in his work, having studied under Angusto Renouard. an acknowledged authority in that line.




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