USA > Connecticut > New Haven County > New Haven > A modern history of New Haven and eastern New Haven County, Vol. II > Part 15
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In politics Mr. Clark is a republican, yet in local affairs he is a strict non-partisan, selecting the man best fitted for the office. Mr. Clark holds membership in the Union League Club and the Civic Federation. Horseback riding is his favorite exercise and recre- ation. He has traveled a great deal, and for twenty years spent his summers abroad, visiting practically all the large European cities. He has many warm friends in New Haven who respect him for his true democratic manner and genuine worth.
LEVI TRACY SNOW.
Levi Tracy Snow, president and general manager of the Snow & Petrelli Manufacturing Company, possesses notable executive power combined with inventive ingenuity that has found expression in the production of various original devices that have constituted factors in the continuous growth of his business. The progressive steps in his busines career are easily discernible and indicate wise use of his time and opportunities.
He was born May 30, 1860, at Prospect Ferry, Maine, a son of Odbrey Miles and Ruth Ridley (Ginn) Snow. The ancestral line is traced haek to Nicholas Snow, who founded the family in the new world. He arrived at Plymouth, Massachusetts, on the ship Ann in 1623 and had a share in the division of the land there in 1624. He afterward resided at Eastham, on Cape Cod, and there filled several offices. He was an associate of Governor Prence and exerted a strong influence in public affairs. At Plymouth he married Constance Hopkins, a daughter of Stephen Hopkins, with whom she came to the new world on the Mayflower. Mark Snow, the son of Nicholas and Constance Snow, was born at Plymouth in 1628 and he, too, held many offices, including that of magistrate of the court. He married Jane Prence, daughter of Governor Prenee. The ancestral line is traced down through Thomas Snow I and Thomas Snow II to Thomas Snow III, who removed from Eastham, Massachusetts, with his family and settled in Gorham, Maine. He was the father of Aaron Snow, who married Eunice Philbriek and removed to Monroe, Maine. Their son, Levi Snow, represented the family in the seventh generation and was the father of Odbrey Miles Snow, who came to Connecticut from Maine and settled in Thomaston in 1869. Three years later he removed to Norfolk, where he resided until his death, when he had reached the advanced age of eighty-one years.
Levi T. Snow, the son, attended the district schools of Maine and Connecticut and in 1883 received a diploma from the Pratt & Whitney Company of Hartford as a journeyman machinist upon completing a three years' apprenticeship in their employ. This was by no means, however, his initial work, for in his boyhood he had assisted in the work on the farm and in a granite quarry and at the age of sixteen left home, after which he engaged in clerking in general stores for three years. It was then that he went to Hartford and was apprenticed to the machinist's trade, serving the regular three years' term of indenture. In 1884 he came to New Haven to accept the superintendency of the plant of the Strong Firearms Company, making shotguns, rifles and cannon. When the firm closed out that business he purchased the cannon department, which he conducted under his own name, and from time to time added other lines. In 1906 he organized the Snow & Petrelli Manu- facturing Company, of which he is the president and general manager. He has taken out several patents on inventions, the most important being known as the Universal Food Chopper. This device was patented in 1897 and since that time millions of the choppers have been made and sold by the Landers. Frary & Clark Company of New Britain, Connecti- cut, and the demand therefor still remains undiminished.
On the 29th of March, 1897, Mr. Snow was united in marriage to Miss Sila Harrison Vol. II-6
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Pierpont, a daughter of Cornelius Pierpont, a prominent merchant, manufacturer and street railway man, and a direct descendant of the Rev. James Pierpont, an early minister of Center church of New Haven and one of the founders of Yale College. After losing his first wife Mr. Snow was married June 3, 1916. to Mrs. Caroline B. Terrell. nee Skinner. a representative of an old Connecticut family. Mr. Snow has three daughters: Ruth Canfield, who became the wife of Arthur T. Nabstedt, a Yale graduate of 1910; Helen Pierpont; and Marion Pierpont, who became the wife of Clarence L. Sibley, also a Yale graduate. The two sons of the family, Cornelius and Pierpont, both died in boyhood.
Mr. Snow is a believer in republican principles and usually votes with the party, yet does not hesitate to pursue an independent course and has protested against boss rule through the Non-partisan League and the progressive party. He has held but one political office, namely that of civil service commissioner, about 1910. For two years he was president of the New Haven Business Men's Association and is now a director of the Business Men's branch of the New Haven Chamber of Commerce. For many years he held membership in the Union League and at the present time he is a member of the New Haven Country Club, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Founders and Patriots of America and the Chamber of Commerce. He is likewise a member of Center church, of the Congregational ( 'lub and the Young Men's Christian Association. His interests and activities have always been centered upon and directed through those channels which flow the greatest good to the greatest number and his cooperation and support of progressive measures have in a considerable degree furthered the public welfare.
GEORGE CLAIRE ST. JOHN.
George Claire St. John, head master of the Choate School at Wallingford, Connecticut, was born in Simsbury, Connecticut, September 29, 1877. His father, Edward Francis St. John, a native of this state, devoted his life to farming. He was a member of the Connecticut legis- lature for a number of years and a man of prominence in public affairs, exercising consider- able influence over public thought and action. He was the third in descent in a family that lived on an old estate at Simsbury which was purchased by the great-grandfather. Elijah St. John, who came to Simsbury from Norwalk.
The mother of George Claire St. John was Charlotte Cushman, a daughter of Thomas Cushman, of East Granby, Connecticut. Her father was a son of Elisha Cushman, a Bap- tist minister, who was born in Philadelphia and devoted his life to the work of the ministry, becoming pastor of the Hartford Baptist church, where he remained for thirteen years. He was, as it were, to the manner born, being a descendant of the Rev. Robert Cushman, who eame from England as a member of the Mayflower band and preached the first sermon at Plymouth. He was the first considered in the first distribution of land that was made. He later re- turned to England, where he died, leaving his son Thomas in charge of Governor Bradford, by whom he was reared. George Claire St. John was the youngest in a family of three chil- dren: Harmon St. John, who is farming the old homestead; Nellie Louisa, the wife of Lucius Seymour, a farmer of East Granby; and George Claire.
In the public schools of Hartford, George Claire St. John pursued his studies and was graduated from the Hartford high school with the class of 1898. He then entered Harvard and won his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1902. Taking up the profession of teaching, he has devoted his life to the work and has made a splendid record, contributing largely to educa- tional progress in Connecticut. He was a teacher of English in the Hill school at Pottstown, Pennsylvania, in 1902 and 1903 and a teacher in the Adirondack (Fla.) school at Rainbow Lake from 1903 until 1907. JIe was head of the English department in the Hackley school at Tarrytown, New York, in 1907 and 1908, after which he became head master in the Choate School at Wallingford. in September. 1908, remaining in this position to the present time and giving entire satisfaction by the thoroughness and efficiency of his work, which is the ex- pression of high ideals in teaching.
IJis phenomenal success in the administration of the school lias won him distinction as an educator. Since 1908 he has built up the institution from a small school with an attendance of forty to a large and magnificent establishment with an enrollment of one hundred and
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eighty boys. It is now recognized as one of the leading preparatory schools of New England. One familiar with his work has said that two things are responsible for his success-first, his power of organization and the character of the group of men with whom he has sur- rounded himself; and second, his unique influence in bringing out all that is best in the boys and in the men associated with him in his work. He is a member of the Head Masters' Association and of the National Institute of Social Sciences.
On the 23d of June, 1906, in New Haven, Mr. St. John was united in marriage to Clara Hitchcock, a daughter of the late Thomas Day Seymour, of Yale University. The marriage was celebrated by President Dwight of Yale and has been blessed with four children: Eliza- beth Seymour, born August 5, 1908; George Claire, Jr., horn December 4, 1910; Seymour; February 28, 1912; and Francis Cushman, July 31, 1916.
In the social circles of the city Mr. and Mrs. St. John occupy an enviable position and enjoy the warm regard of all with whom they have been brought in contact. Mr. St. John is recognized as one of the prominent educators not only of Wallingford but of Connecticut and in the Choate School has introduced many improved methods which are the expression of his own ideals in educational work.
THE CHOATE SCHOOL.
The Choate School of Wallingford was founded in 1896 by Hon. William G. Choate and Mark Pittman, the latter becoming its first head master.
At the beginning the school was a small preparatory school for boys, patronized by a few of the best families of the community, but it has enjoyed a steady and consistent growth until today it numbers one hundred and eighty boys and ranks as one of the foremost pre- paratory schools of New England. The school has a tract of one hundred and fifty acres of land and in the last six years there have been erected thereon buildings at an expense of about one hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The grounds and buildings constitute one of the most splendid school equipments in America. The buildings are chiefly the gifts of friends of the school who appreciate the work that is being done.
The school has reached its highest point hiring the last seven years under the capable administration of George C. St. John, who for six years previous was a successful teacher in Pennsylvania and in New York. Mr. St. John brought to his work rare enthusiasm, keen judgment and ready sympathy and has impressed on the school many of his high ideals. He has been successful in the attainment of his purpose to keep that homelike atmosphere which endears the institution to the pupils. The patronage represents no particular social set or geographical section and there is no one-college influence, the faculty representing many universities. Instead of being confined to a rigid system of form, each boy is given the work which he individually needs.
The school has become a suitable memorial to the great name it bears and to its founder, Judge William G. Choate, who still lives here at the age of eighty-five years, enjoying the gratifying development of the work he thus instituted. Judge Choate is a brother of the late Hon. Joseph H. Choate and is himself a distinguished member of the New York bar.
THOMAS PATRICK DUNNE.
Thomas Patrick Dunne, who is filling the office of police judge of Meriden, was born in Wethersfield, Connecticut, March 17, 1877, a son of Edward and Ellen Dunne. who emigrated from Ireland to the new world, settling in Wethersfield in 1854. They had a family of seven children, of whom four are still living in Meriden, namely: Thomas Patrick; Katharine J .; Elizabeth K .; and Edwin.
Judge Dunne pursued his early education in the public schools of his native city until 1884, wben the family home was established in Meriden, where he continued his studies, pass- ing through consecutive grades until he graduated from the high school with the class of 1896. He afterward attended a commercial college, pursuing a business course, and subsequently
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entered the law office of Judge Fay, being at that time about nineteen years of age. After a thorough preliminary course of reading he was admitted to the bar on the 26th of June, 1900. and at once entered upon active practice. He was assistant prosecuting attorney, has also filled the office of city attorney since 1907, save for a period of about eighteen months, and in 1917 he was elected police judge, assuming the duties of that position on the 1st of July. He has made a most excellent record in public office, fully upholding the high standards of the profession and at the same time doing splendid work for his constituents.
On the 10th of September. 1908. Judge Dunne was united in marriage to Miss Katharine A. MeKeough, of Meriden, and they have two children: Thomas, who was born in 1912; and Alice, born in 1915.
Judge and Mrs. Dunne attend St. Rose's Roman Catholic church and he holds membership with the Elks, the T. A. B. Society and is otherwise prominent socially. His political allegiance is given to the republican party and he served as councilman from the second ward of Meri- den for two terms. His public service has been characterized by marked devotion to the gen- eral good and in his profession he has made for himself a creditable place, studying closely the principles of jurisprudence, and actuated at all times by the highest professional standards. From the age of seven years he has made his home in Meriden, where high regard is enter- tained for him by reason of his possession of those qualities which in every land and elime win respect and confidence.
ROBERT BEARDSLEY GOODYEAR. M. D.
Dr. Robert Beardsley Goodyear, of North Haven, has always looked upon his pro- fession as an opportunity for service and has been in a marked degree not only the trusted physician but also the personal friend and counselor of his patients. He is quiet and unassuming but his personality is such as to make him a leader and he has twice been honored with election to the presidency of the New Haven county Medical Society.
Dr. Goodyear was born in North Haven, November 6, 1835, a son of Bela H. and Delia A. (Gill) Goodyear. The father was born in Hamden in 1798 and died in 1885, while the mother's birth occurred in North Haven in 1825 and her death in 1884. The Goodyear family has been represented in America for many generations as in 1646 one Stephen Goodyear, a London merchant, crossed the Atlantic and located in New Haven. He gained prominence in the colony, of which he became lieutenant governor. In the present day the family name is associated in the minds of most people with the manufacture of rubber products and the Goodyear who first made rubber shoes and other articles is a cousin of our subject. The father was prominent in his community and was characterized by strong patriotism and at the time of the Civil war cheerfully gave six of his seven sons for service in the army, the seventh son being too young to be accepted. One of them was General E. D. S. Goodyear. Bela H. Goodyear, the father of our subject, engaged in farming in Hamden and met with gratifying success in that connection.
Robert B. Goodyear attended the local schools and also the schools of Wallingford and in his early manhood taught for a time in Oxford, North Haven and Windsor in this state. In 1862, although he had begun to prepare for the medical profession, which he hoped to make his life work. he put aside his personal plans and ambitions and joined the Union army as a member of Company B, Twenty-seventh Regiment of Connecticut Volunteers, which he entered with the rank of sergeant. He took part in the battle of Fredericksburg, December 13, 1862, and in that of Chancellorsville, May 1-3, 1863. He was captured by the enemy and held a prisoner at Richmond for some time but in the latter part of 1863 was honorably discharged from the army by reason of expiration of his term of enlistment. The following year he entered the Yale Medical School and in 1865, while still a student. was appointed resident physician at the State Hospital at New Haven. In 1866 he became a physician at the Ilartford llospital and the following year worked under the eminent alienist, Dr. J. S. Butler, at the Retreat for the Insane at Hartford. In 1868 he received the degree of M. D. from Yale and at once began the independent practice of his profession at North llaven. lle has since remained here and for almost a hatf century has been the loved and honored family physician of almost the entire community
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Robert B. Goodyear
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and in many homes in the surrounding towns. He has conscientiously kept in touch with the change in methods of treatment and is recognized by his colleagues as an up-to-date and very successful practitioner. To his patients he stands in the relation of friend as well as physician and his life has exemplified the older ideals of the profession. To him the practice of medicine has never been a business or even a cold science but it has always been an opportunity to minister to the needs of others. For twenty-five years and more he has been medical examiner and health physician for North Haven and he has twice been elected president of the New Haven County Medical Society. He has always taken a great deal of interest in the work of that body as well as of the New Haven County Health Association of which he was a charter member and a member of the executive board since its organization. He is now retired to a great extent but still practices somewhat as many of his old patients insist on his attending them.
Dr. Goodyear was married May 19, 1869, to Miss Jane Lyman, who died in March, 1878. To them were born two children: Anna Lyman, at home; and Robert W., deceased. On the 26th of June, 1884, Dr. Goodyear was united in marriage to Miss Ellen M. Hotchkiss, a daughter of Stephen and Maria (Goodyear) Hotchkiss, of New Haven. ller father was a ship chandler and rope manufacturer, as was his father before him, and the family has heen well known and highly esteemed in eastern Connecticut for many years. Mrs. Good- year takes a prominent part in the social life of her community and is a woman of many fine qualities.
Dr. Goodyear is a republican but has never sought political office. For more than fifty years he has served on the school board of North Haven and for more than thirty years has been school visitor and secretary of the board. There is no man who has done more or as much for the advancement of the schools as he. He has also been active in the work of the Grange, believing that sound agricultural development is the basis of all other prosperity in a section, and he has filled the offices of lecturer and chaplain of the Grange. Through his membership in Admiral Foote Post, No. 17, G. A. R., in which he has served as patriotic instructor, he keeps in touch with other veterans of the Civil war. He belongs to Corinthian Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and to the Foresters, of which organization he is medical examiner. In religious faith he is a Congregationalist and the work of the church as well as of other movements calculated to upbuild the community has profited by his continued and earnest support. Throughout his life he has remained a student and his personality is the expression of the old ideal of a scholar and gentleman marked by a strength of character unmarred by ostentation.
COLONEL ISAAC MORRIS ULLMAN.
In New Haven, when it was no more than a thriving county seat of forty thousand people, just beginning to put out a few shoots of what has become its great manufacturing tree, Isaac M. Ullman was born. In that intimate community he grew up. With all his early struggles he had time to study his eity. Of its life and development and progress he has been very much a part. Of it he has been called by those who without prejudice have observed his vigorous, earnest, far-seeing efforts for its progress and true prosperity, one of its very foremost citizens. He is regarded as one of New Haven's most successful eit- izens as well, but with him success has meant some things larger than the word usually involves, which only a careful study of his career will reveal.
Mr. Ullman was born Angust 29, 1863, of Morris and Mina (Fleischner) Ullman, his father being a native of Berlin, Germany. and his mother of Marienbad, Austria. The schools of his early days were good, but not to be compared with their suecessors which he in his time has seen. He made the most of them as far as he went, but circumstances re- quired that he should enter business rather early, which he did as office boy with Mayer, Strouse & Company. He has the enviable record of having, in a service of less than forty years, risen from that position to be the head of what is practically the same firm, whose products are known in every land where women wear stays, which has offices and ware- rooms in New York, Chicago, San Francisco. Boston and Philadelphia, being, as Strouse, Adler & Company, known as one of New Haven's foremost and largest manufacturin '
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industries. Colonel Ullman's demonstrated abilitiy, not only in this but other business affairs, has earned for him by right as well as investment a directorship in the Merchants National Bank.
It is as president of New Haven's Chamber of Commerce that Colonel U'llman has best demonstrated his love for his city and his willingness to sacrifice his time and effort in its service, as well as his breadth of vision of the New Haven that was to be. When he came to its presidency in 1909, he found a fine old organization with one hundred and fifteen years of checkered history and a membership of five hundred and twenty-eight, with a long record for banquets but a short one on achievement for New Haven. He put into it a dynamie force, an intelligent direction, which in five years had given it a member- ship of one thousand two hundred, an efficient organization, a fine home and a list of deeds done for the effective progress of New Haven.
Colonel Ullman has been a force in the polities of New Haven and of his state. He has been called a "boss." If "boss" means a citizen with a keen zest for affairs of gov- ernment, a clear conception of the things that need to be done, the ability and willing- ness to go on and direct and do the things which somebody must do but often nobody is willing to do, he is a boss. But he never has sought publie office for himself, and has not held paying public office, though a man with his ability could not escape positions of honor. Ile has twice served on the staff of a governor of Connecticut, as aide to Governor George E. Lounsbury in 1899, with the rank of colonel, and as quartermaster general for his close friend, Governor Roilin S. Woodruff in 1907. He is on the retired list of the Connecticut National Guard. For some time he was a member of the New Haven Board of Education. lle is a member and director of Mishkan Israel congregation, and has a club and fraternity membership exceeded by few men in the state. In New Haven he belongs to the I'nion League, the Young Men's Republican and the Harmonie Clubs, being president of the latter. He is a member of the Second Company. Governor's Foot Guard, of the New Haven Colony Historical Society and is a director of the New Haven County Anti- Tuberculosis Association. He also belongs to Hiram Lodge, No. 1, F. & A. M .; Franklin Chapter, R. A. M .; Harmony Council, R. & S. M .; Horeb Lodge, I. O. B. B .; the Ancient Order of United Workmen and the Red Men. He is president of the National Corset Man- ufacturers' Association of the United States, and in New York his name is on the list of the Lotus, Army & Navy, Republican, Wool, City and Aldine Clubs. He belongs to the Moose- head Lake Yacht Club, the Pea Island Gunning Club and the Aero Club. He is a member of the Hartford Club, of the Norwalk Country Club, the Old Colony Club of New York, the Tuna Club and the Elks Club, and an honorary member of the Adelphi Literary Asso- ciation of New Haven.
Colonel Ullman was married in New Haven, on the 2d of February, 1892, to Miss Flora Veronica Adler. To them has been born one child, Marion B., who married S. Fred Wetzler, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1916.
MILTON W. HALL.
Milton W. Hall, who has charge of the office of the Ball & Socket Manufacturing Com- pany, Inc., of Cheshire, has been connected with that concern for many years and has worked his way up to his present important position solely on his own merits.
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