Commemorative biographical record of Hartford County, Connecticut : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families, Pt 1, Part 6

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1336

USA > Connecticut > Hartford County > Commemorative biographical record of Hartford County, Connecticut : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families, Pt 1 > Part 6

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(VII) THOMAS JEFFERSON BOARDMAN, son of William and Mary ( Francis) Boardman, was born in Wethersfield, Conn., May 27, 1832, and received his education in the district school and academy of the town, and at the Wesleyan Academy at Wilbraham, Mass. Having finished his education, he returned to Wethersfield, preferring a business to a pro- fessional life. He began as clerk in a country store in New Britain, remaining till the failure of the con- cern in 1850. He then accepted a position with his father and brother in Hartford, and later. in 1853, he was admitted to the firm. In this he remained a partner till after the death of his father, and the retirement of his brother July 9, 1888, when he, with his son, Howard F., continued the business under the old firm name until Jan. 1, 1897. It was then incorporated as The Wm. Boardman & Sons Company, of which he became, and is still Presi- dent, his son, Howard F., being Treasurer, and Ar- thur H. Bronson, Secretary. He is also President of

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COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

The Wholesale Grocers Association of Southern New England.

Mr. Boardman has often been urged to accept public office, but has always declined, preferring to give his entire time and energy to his business. He was brought up a Methodist, but in early life became a convert to the Universalist faith, uniting with that church in 1863. He was long connected with the Sunday-school, as teacher, assistant superintendent, and president of the Teachers' Association, and was for many years a worker in the church, as a member of its board of trustees and one of its chief support- ers. He was also for many years on the State Mis- sionary Board of the Universalist Church, and trustee for the State of Connecticut in the Univer- salist Publishing House in Boston. He has had an equal interest with his father and brother in the busi- ness enterprises in which they were concerned.

Thomas J. Boardman married October 14, 1858, Julia Amanda Ellis, of Hartford, who was born Jan- uary 29, 1838, and died November 24. 1858. He married (second) October 24, 1861, Mary Charlina Ellis, sister of his first wife, born September 11, 1843. She died Jan. 16, 1890. He married (third ) April 29, 1893, Mary Adah Simpson, daughter of Frederick H. Simpson, of Staten Island, New York. Mr. Boardman's children were Howard F., Emma Julia, Minnie Gertrude, William Ellis, Thomas Bradford (born March 9, 1895) and George Fran- cis (born May 31, 1896). He is a member of the Connecticut Historical Society, of the Society of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Connecticut Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America through both lines of his ancestry, and historian of the last named Society.

(VIH) WILLIAM GREENLEAF BOARDMAN, only child of William F. J. and Jane Maria ( Greenleaf ) Boardman, was born in Hartford, Conn., June 29. 1853. He married Oct. 29, 1874, Eliza Fowler Root, born May 11, 1853, the daughter of Horatio and Abi- gail Whittier ( Hussey ) Root, of Hartford, the latter a cousin of the poet John Greenleaf Whittier. Mr. Boardman was educated at Mr. Hart's preparatory school in Farmington, Mr. Hall's Classical School in Ellington, and the Hartford high school. He is a life member of the Connecticut Historical So- ciety, a member of the Sons of the American Revo- lution, and a member of The Connecticut Society of the Order of the Founders and Patriots of America. He was formerly connected with the firm of Wm. Boardman & Sons Co., but has been obliged to give up business on account of trouble with his eyes. The children born to William G. Boardman and his wife are: Francis Whittier, born April 6, 1876, died April 5, 1885 : Cedric Root, born Jan. 23, 1886, and Dorothy Root, born April 26, 1889. They reside in Hartford.

(VIHI) HOWARD FRANCIS BOARDMAN, son of Thomas J. and Mary C. ( Ellis) Boardman, was born in Hartford, Conn., Sept. 22, 1862, married Jan. 12, 1886, to Catherine Augusta Belcher, born June 16,

1866, in New York City, daughter of Charles and Katherine ( Slater ) Belcher. Howard F. was grad- uated from the Hartford high school in 1880. He is secretary of The Win. Boardman & Sons Co., and socially a member of the Connecticut Society of the- Order of the Founders and Patriots of America. Mr. and Mrs. Boardman have had two children : Harold Ellis, born Nov. 16, 1890, died the same day ; and Mariel Wildes, born May 31, 1893.

JAMES GOODWIN BATTERSON, M. A. Rugged and stable as the granites which first gave him fame, finished and polished as the marbles which added lustre to strength, complex and diverse as the industries which he promoted-James Good- win Batterson stands sans pareil in the great number of his personal and business qualities, negative to. each other, yet conspicuous in variety and mag- nitude.

Born in Wintonbury (now Bloomfield), Conn., near Hartford, Feb. 23, 1823. his early boyhood was spent at New Preston, among the Litchfield Hills, whither his parents removed when he was an infant. In the pure bracing air of the country, an active outdoor life laid the foundations in youth of a strong, vigorous constitution which sixty years of strenuous business exertions have failed to shake. Here he received a common-school education, fol- lowed by a course in the Western Academy, where he was prepared for college.

Finding it impossible, however, through lack of means, to carry out this cherished ambition, he re- solved to become self-supporting, and journeyed to Ithaca, N. Y. (a good share of the way on foot ) . where he signed for a three-years apprenticeship in the printing house of Mack, Andrus & Woodruff. The idea of a college course still remained, however. and his nights were spent in reading and study, so that he returned at the age of nineteen to Litchfield, where the family then resided, much broadened and strengthened in mind.

Fortune cast his lot. for a time at least, as a stone-cutter in his father's marble vards. But the active mind of the youth still clamored for knowl- edge, and Judge Origen S. Seymour, a friend of the elder Batterson, becoming interested, took the boy into his law office. A happy year passed, and then the family circumstances demanded that the son again take up the mallet and chisel.

Thwarted in his ambitions for a professional career, the plucky lad threw all his energies into the stone trade, determined to achieve more than a moderate success. And in this his plans did not miscarry, for five years saw the business so increased that removal to the larger field at Hartford was effected. The line of work also broadened, and to monuments and substructures were added all kinds of cemetery work, tombs, sarcophagi, etc., and the construction of the completed building. Among the earlier work in Hartford may be mentioned the brownstone building of the State Savings Bank on Pearl street, and the marble front home of the

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

Phoenix National Bank, on Main street. In 1857 Mr. Batterson was awarded the contract for the Worth monument, in New York, which stands at the junction of Fifth avenue and Broadway. From this time on the business grew rapidly until 1875, when it was thought best to organize it into a stock company.

Accordingly, under a special charter from the Legislature, The New England Granite Works was formed with a capital of $250.000. Quarries were procured under purchase or lease at Canaan, Conn., Westerly, R. I., and Concord, N. H., and the work continued to be prosecuted with great vigor. New and modern apparatus was introduced, which the inventive genius of the man devised and improved until his equipments were far in advance of any other. He perfected a turning lathe for cutting and polishing stone columns, a process previously done by hand with clumsy and inaccurate results. In this field he had much to do besides his own work, and personally wrought and polished the granite columns in the Capitol at Albany.

As a contractor and builder in granite, Mr. Bat- terson established a name second to none in the country. Covering over half a century since the business was first established, there is scarcely a cemetery of repute in the United States that has not its monuments, or a city of size that has not Bat- terson granite in some of its buildings. Represen- tative among the public monuments and statues are the National Soldiers' Monument at Gettysburg. the portrait statue of Alexander Hamilton in Cen- tral Park, New York, the monument to Brevet Brig .- Gen. Thayer, founder of the West Point Mil- itary Academy, at West Point, the monument at Antietam surmounted by a colossal granite statue of a soldier twenty-one feet in height, the great monument at Galveston. Texas, dedicated to the soldiers who fell in the Texas revolution, the montt- ment in Golden Gate Park. San Francisco, to Major-Gen. Henry W. Halleck, General-in-chief of all the armies of the United States 1863-64, and the Gen. Wool monument at Troy, N. Y., whose sixty-foot shaft is in one piece weighing nearly one hundred tons.

Among the more notable buildings which Mr. Batterson and his company have erected or fur- nished the granite used, are the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Co.'s building. Hartford, the Equit- able building (home of the Equitable Life Assur- ance Society), New York, the Masonic Temple, New York, the Mutual Life Insurance Co.'s build- ing. Philadelphia, the City Hall, Providence, and the thirty-story Park Row building. New York.

But the Congressional Library Building in Washington, that massive pile of pure gray Concord granite perfectly matched and grained, the finest granite building in the world, will ever attest to Mr. Batterson's pre-eminence as THE Man of Granites. Perhaps not less marvelous than the quar- rying of this immense quantity of stone of such even grain and coloring, was the mechanical accuracy

with which the cutting and fitting was done before leaving the shops at Concord, so that not a shilling was charged in Washington for refitting at the site.

Another building of more than National repute is the Connecticut State Capitol at Hartford, for which Mr. Batterson personally was the contractor. Prominently set upon a hill in the midst of Bush- nell Park, with its 500 trees of 150 distinct varie- ties and its rich and rare. shrubbery, this handsome building stands forth, its native white marble walls supporting from the center a perfectly proportioned golden dome, bearing aloft 250 feet from the ground a heroic bronze figure of the genius of Connecticut. With this rich setting, and great architectural beau- ty, it has been pronounced by competent critics as "unique among structures of this kind in America." And it has yet another claim to distinction in that it is the first building of the kind to be erected in the United States within the appropriation, for so thoroughly did contractor and commissioners work to their limit that $13,000 of the $2,000,000 appro- priated was returned unexpended. Mr. Batterson's contract covered the entire construction, even to the smallest details.

Fifteen years of dealing with the harder exterior stones served to show the demand for the more ornamental and decorative marbles, and in 1860 Mr. Batterson established his steam marble works in New York City. Here in this new field he achieved immediate and increasing success, until to-day these works, under the name of Batterson & Eisele, are without question the largest and best- equipped in the country, furnishing employment for from 500 to 600 men. As examples of this firm's work may be mentioned among pub- lic buildings the marble interiors of the Equita- ble building, the Manhattan Bank building and the Mutual Life building in New York, the City Hall in Providence, R. T., and the Congres- sional Library Building in Washington, D. C. Among the many hotels, noted for their magnificent marble and ornamental stone interiors, which Mr. Batterson and his company have furnished, are the "Waldorf-Astoria"; and the "Imperial." New York City, while representative among the private dwell- ings of the "mansion" type are the Cornelius Van- derbilt residence, Fifth avenue, New York. "The Marble House" built for W. K. Vanderbilt, at New- port. R. I., and "Biltmore," at Asheville. N. C., for George Vanderbilt.

But as though laurel-crowned efforts in two great lines of industry were not enough. it remained for Mr. Batterson to originate and organize a new kind of business, in which he has achieved even greater success than in the other two; for here he blazed a path where none had gone before, and set a pace which tired and made early rivals drop out of the race, and gave later competitors a hopeless task to overcome his lead. While traveling through Eng- land in 1863 Mr. Batterson's attention was attracted to the system of insurance by tickets against acci- dents occurring on railroads, then just coming into

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

vogue there. Soon after his return he succeeded in persuading a few Hartford gentlemen of means to combine with him in the formation of an accident insurance company. A charter was secured from the Legislature, which was amended in 1864 to in- clude all kinds of accident insurance, and the new company was launched on an unknown sea, with no compass to steer by, but with brains and energy at the helm. Two years saw the business increase, and in 1866 a further grant was secured, permitting the transaction of a general life insurance business.

The early years were beset with the fiercest kind of competition, accident companies springing up like mushrooms in the night, and in many cases having about the length of life of these fungi. Rail- roads ejected The Travelers to make way for their own companies, and then retired these in turn when they had met with sufficient reverses. Seventy ac- cident companies were born within two years, none of which now survive. Finally, from this chaotic condition of things, was evolved The Railway Pas- sengers Assurance Co., being a consolidation of the ticket interests of all the larger accident companies then existing. After a few years of successful struggle this was re-insured by The Travelers as sole legatee, and is now represented in its Ticket Department.

The first premium received by The Travelers was two cents, representing the charge for insur- ing a Hartford banker on his journey home from the Post Office. A recent premium in the Life De- partment exceeded $50,000, and a still further ex- ample of the growth during these thirty-eight years is in the receipt of applications for $300.000 on a single life, where originally but $10.000 would be considered. But the career of The Travelers In- surance Co. is current . history, well known, and needs no exploiting. Under Mr. Batterson's guid- ance it has grown from nothing to a company with over $30,000,000 assets, and a surplus security to policy holders of $4.500.000. The capital stock has been increased from $250,000 to $1,000,000, and during these years over $42.000.000 has been re- turned to policy holders, doing an inestimable amount of good. The same energetic but conser- vative man is at the head now as in the beginning, and, besides making it the largest accident insur- ance company in the world, he has brought it to a high rank with the leaders in the life field. Justly termed the "Father of Accident Insurance in Amer- ica." Mr. Batterson may also rightly claim the title of "Father of all Accident Insurance," for the Eng- lish idea was merely the suggestion which started him thinking, but the product of that thought in no way resembles the cause. For Yankee inge- nuity and persistence devised, enlarged and con- structed until Old England was forced to come to New England to learn about accident insurance.

Having organized and developed three great companies, of each of which he has been president since the beginning, and whose careers have been prosecuted side by side, simultaneously by this mas-

ter mind until each has achieved an extraordinary degree of success, it would seem that this man of granites, of marbles, and of insurances were solely a man of business. But lo! we have also a man of science, of art, of literature, and of public works, for the many other sides are all fully developed in proportion. A student from boyhood, he has be- come a scholar among men, but is always the stud- ent, by which one recognizes the scholar.

One year's study of law furnished the foundation on which he has builded all these years by reading and experience, until to-day he possesses a judicial mind of rare balance, and, although never admitted to practice at the bar, he knows the law thoroughly, and his opinion on all practical questions carries great weight. In no sense pugnacious, Mr. Batterson has the accurate and just powers of discrimination which enable him to fully determine the right or wrong of an issue at the start, and once convinced he has a tenacity of purpose, backed by the strength of unfaltering convictions, which often carry him to the Court of Last Resort before he obtains final justification or technical defeat.

Another of his early studies which has been of great service is that of geology, which he took up when a mere lad at the instigation of Prof. J. G. Percival, the poet-geologist of Connecticut, for whom he acted as guide during a part of the first geological survey of the State. This subject, to- gether with mineralogy and engineering, as applied to his own industries, has commanded a large share of his attention. On the knowledge gained thereby depends to a certain degree his success as a builder, for he knows not only how best to get the material into place, but also all the qualities and characteris- ties of the material itself, giving him an immense ad- vantage over the man bred as a builder solely from the mechanical standpoint. The winter of 1858-59 Mr. Batterson spent in Egypt with Brunel, the well- known engineer. The geological study of the Nile Valley, with particular attention to the unsolved problems in engineering for which Egypt is noted, became very interesting in such company. In turn the pyramids, the great ruins at Thebes, Karnak and elsewhere. the tombs, catacombs, obelisks, etc., were all studied with profitable results. Aside from the impetus given the engineering instincts under such unusual conditions. Egypt herself became a sub- ject of engrossing interest to Mr. Batterson, which has increased as the years of study have deepened his knowledge, until to-day he stands among the foremost authorities on Egyptology, and is an Hon- orary Secretary of the Egypt Exploration Fund.

Returning to the south of Europe, a geolog- ical study of the Mediterranean basin added much practical information in this line of research, and subsequent study and investigation on his many travels at home and abroad have given him a thor- ough general and technical knowledge of the sub- ject that has been an undoubted factor in his success. At his home in Hartford is a collection of choice minerals, geological specimens and curios, gath-

COMMEMORATIVE BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD.

ered in his peregrinations from Norway to the Nile, carefully classihed and arranged, to each of which is attached a concise and interesting story of its discovery and locus. The whole has a high value apart from its absorbing interest. From geology to astronomy is a natural step, and he has delved deep into the hidden mysteries of the latter and its kindred sciences.

Art is another subject which has always appealed greatly to Mr. Batterson's natural tastes, and has been fostered both by his interest as a student and as a patron. His first trip abroad was as the repre- sentative of certain philanthropically inclined men, for whom he gathered and brought home the works in various stages of completion of his promising young friend Bartholomew, the sculptor, who died at Rome. Having erected a monument over the grave of the deceased, near the historic tomb of Vir- gil, Mr. Batterson delayed his return several months that he might study the paintings, sculp- tures and language of Italy. As the direct result of this trip the masterpieces of Bartholomew (who in sculpture, with the late Frederic Church in painting, placed Hartford's name to the fore as a progenitor of art) are now among the treasured possessions of the Museum at Philadelphia, and the Wadsworth Atheneum at Hartford. But a result no less far-reaching in its influence was the foster- ing and training of the artistic temperament, in its early impressionable stage, of the agent who exe- cuted this commission, and the few bits in oil picked up on that occasion formed the nucleus of a collec- tion of rare paintings which now has a National reputation. In a large gallery connected with his residence, constructed from original design, witli special attention to light and wall-surface, hang a valuable collection of canvases covering a remark- able range of subjects and schools-including the Italian, Dutch, Flemish, Dusseldorf, French, English and Belgian. The Wadsworth Atheneum in Hart- ford has quite a number of paintings from Mr. Bat- terson's collection. Travel and study have added to his reputation as a connoisseur the discrimina- tion and artistic taste of the critic, and the value of his opinion on a canvas is unquestioned.

But yet another accomplishment of this many- sided man is his marked ability as a linguist. Here: we have two almost incompatible qualities, for we find, in the natural mathematician who laid the foun- dations and shaped the career of a great insurance company, a rare knowledge and command not only of his own language, but of the ancient classics and modern foreign tongues as well. This is a remark- able characteristic, for Greek verbs have not as a rule a fondness for the values of .r and y in the same brain. A life-study of Greek and Latin has made him one of the devoted scholars of the day in these classics, and for twenty years a member of the Greek Club of New York. A natural philologist, his love for the comparative has developed in Mr. Batterson more than a superficial knowledge of the modern languages of Europe.

Sociology and economics have also received a great deal of attention, particularly the relations of capital and labor. Many trips abroad and much travel at home have stimulated the study of general history, both in its local colorings and in relative effects. Modern English, French and American literature have been read and studied, and Mr. Bat- terson's library (one of the finest in the State) is especially rich in works of this class, as well as in the heavier tomes of text and reference. The whole atmosphere of library and den breathes the scholar and student of unusual range of thought. Nor have contemporaneous writings been neglected, so that he is fully informed on the issues of the day, and is in touch with its most advanced thought.

With his brain a vast storehouse of knowledge, and an intelleet flexible and adaptable, but with great powers of concentration and expression, it is little wonder that Mr. Batterson has earned fame as a writer, which would overshadow all his other achievements were he to devote himself to it. A lifetime of reading and study has prepared him to write exhaustively upon almost any subject. In style strong and vigorous, every sentence concise and carrying some new thought, expression direct and with but little of the qualifying, the tracings from this pen have an individual flavor character- istic of the man which greatly enhances their in- trinsic value. His many short contributions on the subject of capital and labor have always commanded attention, and the mastery in handling this complex question has won the respect of both sides by its fairness. Several brochures on taxation have served to set lawmakers to thinking, and in some cases have had a direct effect in the results. His transla- tions from the Iliad have special value in smoothness and beauty of expression, while maintaining the heroic meter and literal meaning of the original. Monetary questions have been discussed from time to time, and in 1896 Mr. Batterson wrote his book on "Gold and Silver," which was at once recognized by leading authorities as the best concise treatment of the subject ever written. The demand was im- mediate, and called for the printing of large edi- tions, which were used extensively in the sound money campaign of that election. The majority of Mr. Batterson's writing's have appeared in his com- pany paper, The Travelers Record, whose files are rich in contributions on questions of the day and in- surance economics. A number of poems attest to his versatility as a writer, ranging from the deep- est scientific subjects, treated in heavy technical prose, to the light airy verse, evenly balanced and musical. Among the latter may be mentioned "The Death of the Bison," "The Trysting Place," and "Lauda Sion," translated from the Medieval Latin of St. Thomas Aquinas.

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Commemorative biographical record of Hartford County, Connecticut : containing biographical sketches of prominent and representative citizens, and of many of the early settled families, Pt 1, Part 6

Author: J.H. Beers & Co Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co. Number of Pages: 1336

Author: J.H. Beers & Co
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Chicago : J.H. Beers & Co.
Number of Pages: 1336