USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 1 > Part 54
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Gro. R. Centro .
PUEDELIOPARY
TILDEN ICE
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concern where he was employed, so that in October, 1850, he severed his connec- tion with the Pratt people, and became teller in the Meriden Bank, where his talents won him signal recognition, and he became a valuable adjunct of the insti- tution. In the month of December, 1852, the great Meriden Britannia Company was organized, which later played so large a part in the development of indus- trial Meriden, and on January 7. 1853, Mr. Curtis entered the employ of that concern. It was but a short time before the officers of the company, recognizing his unusual qualifications elected him treasurer, an office which he continued to hold for the remainder of his life, and for a time was its secretary also. As this concern grew and became one of the most important industries in the region, Mr. Curtis' importance in the industrial and business world grew also, and to his already large interests he added many others in cognate industries. As early as 1808 the manufacture of britannia had been started in Meriden, and as time went on the manufacture of sterling and plated silverware was taken up by much the same interests, so that a process of con- solidation took place, which, though he did not see its consummation in the organization of the great International Silver Company in 1898, with a capital stock, preferred and common, amounting to twenty millions of dollars, he mater- ially assisted by his valuable efforts up to the time of his death. In the year 1888 he was elected president of the Meriden Silver Plate Company, and he became also a director of the Wilcox Silver Plate Company, Manning, Bowman & Com- pany, Rogers & Brothers, of Waterbury, and William Rogers Manufacturing Com- pany, of Hartford. All these concerns were in the same general line of business, but Mr. Curtis was interested in many
others as well. He was president of the Meriden Horse Railroad Company, the Meriden Gas Light Company, and direc- tor of the Chapman Manufacturing Com- pany, R. Wallace & Sons Manufacturing Company, besides many financial institu- tions, among which were the Home Na- tional Bank, and the Meriden Trust and Safe Deposit Company, and he was a trustee of the Meriden Savings Bank and the Curtis Home for Orphans and Old Ladies. The connection of Mr. Curtis with the industrial growth of Meriden is sufficiently apparent from the foregoing, and these activities he continued until his death.
Mr. Curtis was a man of great public spirit, taking a keen interest in all matte· connected with the welfare of the com- munity. Although a staunch member of the Republican party, he did not desire to take such a part in politics as would lead to his accepting public office of any kind, yet, when it became apparent that there was a popular demand for him, he did not allow his personal interests or inclinations to stand in the way, and at various times served his fellow citizens as councilman, alderman and mayor, the latter office for two terms, 1879 to 1881.
No account of Mr. Curtis would be complete which failed to notice the im- portant place which religion and the church played in his life. His affiliations were with the Episcopal church, and for forty-five years he was an officer of St. Andrew's Parish. His interest and ability were such that he was the choice of t' parish to represent it at the diocesan con- ventions for many years, and in 1892 he was appointed by the church in Connec- ticut as its representative in the general Protestant Episcopal Convention held in Baltimore at that time. In the year pre- ceding this, Mrs. Hallam, a sister of Mr. Curtis, died leaving most of her fortune
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for the building of All Saints' Church in a new parish in Meriden, as a memorial to her father. To this Mr. Curtis added large gifts of his own, and presented it with its parish house two days before his death.
Mr. Curtis was married, May 22, 1855, to Augusta Munson, a native of Green- field, Vermont, though the Munson fam- ily was originally old Connecticut stock. The founder of the family in this country was one Thomas Munson, who was born in England in the year 1612, and who must have come to America in one of the very early expeditions, as his name ap- pears in 1637, as a resident of Hartford who had performed military service against the Pequot Indians in that year. For this he was allotted a tract of land in a certain territory which had been set apart for reward of soldiers who had served the colony notably. Though a military man of reputation, he also held many high and responsible civil offices and made for himself an enviable reputa- tion both in Hartford and in New Haven, where he later made his home. He seems to have had much of the pioneer's blood in his veins, and was concerned with many expeditions into the wilderness, being chosen by his fellow colonists to treat with the Indians. He was also interested in the founding of New Haven and later in an attempt to found a new common- wealth on Delaware Bay, which, however, proved abortive. He commanded the New Haven forces in King Philip's War.
To Mr. and Mrs. Curtis were born three children: George Munson, Fred- erick Edgar and Agnes Deshon. The second of these, Frederick Edgar, died in childhood; the daughter, who was mar- ried May 22, 1890, to Allan Butler Squire, of Meriden, died May 20, 1900, leaving one daughter, Ruth Curtis, born April 24, 1896, now a resident of New Haven.
George Munson Curtis survived his mother only a short time.
In 1901 Mrs. Curtis, in memory of her late husband and daughter, caused a beautiful marble library building to be erected and presented it to the town of Meriden as the Curtis Memorial Library in 1903. The construction of this build- ing was supervised by her son, George Munson, who until his death, August 28, 1915, occupied much the same position with relation to business and industrial Meriden as had his father. He succeeded the elder man as treasurer of the Meriden Britannia Company and held the same office in the International Silver Com- pany in which the former company was merged with many others.
STEELE, Edward Daniel,
Financier, Business Man.
The death of Edward Daniel Steele, of Waterbury, Connecticut, on May 24, 1900, was a great loss to that city, where for many years he was a conspicuous figure both in the business and industrial world and in that of politics and public affairs. Although he was most closely identified with the life of Waterbury, and resided there for the greater part of his life, Mr. Steele was not a native of that city, nor, indeed, of Connecticut at all. His parents were Hiram and Nancy (Turner) Steele, members of a New York State family, and residents of Lima in that State.
Edward Daniel Steele was born in Lima, New York, November 20, 1838, but accompanied his parents while still a mere child to Bloomfield, where he passed the years of his childhood and early youth until he had reached the age of eighteen. He received his education in the schor of that place, but after completing his studies removed to Waterbury, Connec- ticut, beginning a residence which was to
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continue the remainder of his life. He lican party, and a keen observer of the secured a position with the Waterbury political issues agitating the country dur- ing his life. His personal popularity to- gether with the position he occupied in the city, made him an ideal candidate for some important office, a fact which the local organization of his party was not slow in perceiving. They accordingly offered him the nomination for State Senator in the year 1896, and he was tri- umphantly chosen in the election which followed, serving through the term of 1897. Brass Company, one of Waterbury's great industrial concerns, and it speaks well for the stability of character and persistence of purpose in the young man that he never, during his long career, severed that connection, which covered a period of forty-two years. His natural alertness of mind, his ability to apply practically the knowledge which he picked up, together with his great capacity for hard work, soon drew to him the favor- able attention of his employers, and he was started upon that series of promo- tions which finally placed him in the next highest office within the gift of the com- pany, and made him a power in the Con- necticut industrial world. In course of time he became the secretary and treas- urer of the concern, a double office which he held for a considerable period of years, and was then elected vice-president and treasurer, continuing in this post until his death. He was also made a director of the same company. As his prominence in the financial circles grew, Mr. Steele extended the sphere of his control and influence beyond the limits of any single institution. He became a stockholder in many industrial concerns, having an abiding faith in the development of Waterbury's industries and the general growth of the city. He served as director in many corporations both of Waterbury and of Providence, Rhode Island, notably the Waterbury Savings Bank, and the Meriden and Waterbury Railroad Com- pany, and was vice-president of the latter as well.
Prominent as was Mr. Steele in the business world, he is perhaps even better remembered as a man of affairs and a fearless exponent of the right as he saw it, in the political activities of the region. He was a staunch member of the Repub-
Mr. Steele's activities were of a varied order, and his interests embraced prac- tically all the departments of life in the city. He was a well known figure in the Waterbury social world, of which his refinement and unusual culture made him an ornament, and he was a member in a number of clubs and fraternities, notably the Sons of American Revolution, and the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he was a member of Nosahogan Lodge, of Waterbury. Mr. Steele was a strongly religious man, and was affiliated with the Episcopal church and was an active worker in its interests in Water- bury. He was one of those who organ- ized Trinity Church and parish, and was a faithful member thereof, and a consist- ent attendant at the services. The organ- ization was accomplished in the year 1892, and Mr. Steele was appointed a member of the first vestry, and in 1892 he was elected junior warden. He always took an active part in the work of the parish, and was a generous supporter of the many benevolences connected therewith.
Mr. Steele was a man in whom the public and private virtues were admir- ably balanced. He was regarded in the business world and, indeed, in all his public relations as one whose principles were above reproach, whose strict ideals of honor and justice were applied to every
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detail of his business conduct, and in no wise compromised, by his unusual saga- city as a business man. Nor was it only in his dealings with his business asso- ciates that these characteristics were dis- played. It was with his employees and subordinates in the various concerns in which he exercised control that they were perhaps most conspicuous. His courtesy and unfailing concern for their welfare made him highly popular with them and established the esteem in which he was held on the firmest kind of basis. In his private life these virtues had their analo- gies. A quiet and retiring nature made him a strong lover of home and domestic ties, and his unfailing geniality endeared him to his family and friends of whom he possessed many. His death at so early an age as sixty-two years, while his vigor remained unimpaired and he was still in the zenith of his usefulness, was felt as a loss not only by his immediate and per- sonal associates, but by the community at large.
Mr. Steele married, April 5, 1864, Sarah C. Merriman, a daughter of Joseph P. Mer- riman, of Waterbury, Connecticut. To them were born two children, who with their mother survive Mr. Steele. The elder was a daughter, Mary Elizabeth, who is now the wife of Roger Watkyns, of Troy, New York, and the mother of two children, Steele and Edward S. Mr. Steele's second child was a son, Dr. Harry Merriman Steele, who has devoted much time to the study of his profession of medicine, both at home and abroad, and especially at the Johns Hopkins Univer- sity in Baltimore ; he is now a practicing physician in New Haven. Dr. Steele married Elizabeth Kissam, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who bore him two children : Charlotte Merriman and Harry Merriman Steele.
BISHOP, Timothy Huggins, Physician, Hospital Official.
Of the great professions-arms, law and medicine-that illustrious trio which has for centuries given to the world some of its noblest leaders and benefactors, that of medicine is certainly the most gracious. Its votaries, unlike those of arms and the law, wage war not with any portion of mankind, but with the enemies of the human race at large, and in their hour of triumph they hear none but friendly voices. The warrior comes from the battlefield bearing the palm of the victor, hearing at the same time the shouts and plaudits of his triumphant followers and the groans and defiance of the vanquished ; the laurels won in intel- lectual controversy crown the brow of the advocate, while the mingled voices of applause and execration resound through the forum; but the physician's conquest is the subjugation of disease, his pæans are sung by those whom he has redeemed from suffering and possibly from death, when his weapons fail to cope with an adversary whom he can never wholly van- quish, his sympathy alleviates the pang he cannot avert. In the foremost ranks of these helpers of humanity stood the late Dr. Timothy Huggins Bishop, of national reputation as a physician and surgeon.
·
The name of Bishop is a noted one in professional lines for a number of genera- tions, and is of ancient English origin. Just how the title of a sacred office of the Catholic church came to be used for a surname is lost in the obscurity of ancient history. It is suggested that it must have been a personal name, or a nickname, of some progenitor, just as major and dea- con are sometimes given. Bishop was in common use in England as a surname many centuries ago, and no less than
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Timothy H. Dishop
IOLIE ARY
ASTOR, LIVE. LILDEN FOUND- TO NE
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eleven hundred immigrants came from there to Massachusetts prior to 1650 with their families. A number of branches of the English Bishop family bear coats-of- arms, and have had titles and dignities of various sorts.
Dr. Timothy Huggins Bishop was born in New Haven, Connecticut, March 8, 1837, and died, in that city, December 25, 1906. He was a son of Dr. E. Huggins Bishop and Hannah Maria (Lewis) Bishop, both born in Southington, Con- necticut. Seth Lewis, father of Hannah Maria (Lewis) Bishop, was on the staff of General Washington and was one of the first members of the Society of the Cincinnati. Dr. E. Huggins Bishop was a distinguished physician and philan- thropist, and not only transmitted to his son his own remarkable professional abil- ities, but fostered them by the most lib- eral training, and the inestimable advan- tage of personal advice and guidance dur- ing the years when his son was making for himself the honorable position and widespread reputation which he later attained.
Dr. Timothy Huggins Bishop received his preparatory education in the schools of his native city, and then matriculated at Yale, being graduated from the medi- cal department of this institution after he had enlisted for service in the Civil War. He served throughout the war, gaining much valuable experience, and earning great commendation for his brav- ery as well as for his skill. For some time he was connected with the hospital at Alexandria, near Washington, District of Columbia, and then with the Soldiers' Hospital of New Haven, serving at this last named hospital as long as his serv- ices were needed after the close of the war. He never entirely severed his con- nection with this hospital, serving for many years as secretary, giving his time and advice without any thought of re-
muneration, and was one of the principal factors in making it the magnificent in- stitution it has become at the present day. Later he engaged in general practice in association with his father, continuing to make a specialty of surgery, however, but retired from practice some years prior to his death. He was a member of the Order of the Cincinnati, of the Society of Colo- nial Wars, and a life member of the New Haven Colony Historical Society, in the work of which he was greatly inter- ested, especially that part of it relating to genealogy and patriotic affairs. He was a member of the Connecticut Medi- cal Society, in which he filled the office of secretary. In political matters he gave his allegiance to the Republican party, although he never cared to hold public office, and he was a devout attendant at the services of the Episcopal church.
Dr. Bishop married, at Guilford, Con- necticut, June 1, 1864, Jane Maria Ben- nett, born in New Haven, Connecticut, a daughter of the Rev. Lorenzo Thompson Bennett, D. D., and Maria (Smith) Ben- nett, the former a native of Saratoga county, New York, the latter born in Connecticut. Children: I. Dr. Louis Bennett Bishop, born June 5, 1865; was graduated from Yale University in the class of 1886, and from the Medical School of this university in 1889; he is engaged in the practice of his profession in New Haven ; he is a great admirer of the taxidermist's art, and has one of the finest collections of stuffed birds in Amer- ica ; he married, July 16, 1910, Leona Bay- liss, of Port Jefferson, Long Island, New York, and they have one child, Herbert B., born August 20, 1912. 2. Herbert Morton, born July 9, 1868; was gradu- ated from Yale University in the class of 1890, and from Yale Law School in 1892; he is engaged in the real estate business in New York City, was a member of the famous New Haven Grays, and is a mem-
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ber of the Quinnipiack Club of New Haven; he married, October 15, 1913, Marion C. Voos, of New York. 3. May Lillian, born May 31, 1873 ; married, Sep- tember 10, 1907, John Walcott Thomp- son, an attorney of Salt Lake City, a son of General J. Milton Thompson, United States army, now retired; they live in Salt Lake City, Utah; children : Walcott Bishop, born December 8, 1908; Margaret Hildegarde, September 10, 1910; Doro- thy Jane, June 3, 1912. Mrs. Timothy Huggins Bishop lives in a fine home at No. 215 Church street, New Haven.
Dr. Bishop was a man of great sagacity, quick perceptions, sound judgment, noble impulses and remarkable force. Of un- blemished reputation, he commanded the respect and confidence of the entire com- munity. He devoted his life to a noble calling and was crowned with its choicest rewards. The true physician, in the exer- cise of his beneficent calling, heeds neither nationality nor distinction of class. Alike to him are the prince and the pauper, and into both the palace and the hovel he comes as a messenger of hope and heal- ing. The acquisition was nothing to him save a means of giving a material form and practical force to his projects for the uplifting of humanity. Many there are in the ranks of this illustrious profession, to the honor of human nature be it said, to whom the above description would apply, but the voice, not of his home city alone, nor even of his native State, but of the Nation, would declare that of none could it be said with greater truthfulness than of Dr. Bishop.
DUNBAR, Edward Butler, Man of Enterprise.
Edward Butler Dunbar, in whose death on May 9, 1907, Bristol, Connecticut, lost one of its most valued citizens, and one
whose name is most closely associated with the industrial development of the place, was a member of a very ancient Scotch family, which has held a distin- guished place in the records of the two countries in which it has made its resi- dence. The Dunbar arms: Gules. A lion rampant argent. A bordure of the last charged with eight roses of the field. (Gules.)
The branch of the Dunbar family of which Mr. Dunbar is a member traces its descent from the Dunbars of Grange Hill, founded in Scotland by one Ninian Dun- bar, born in 1575, and a descendant of George, Earl Dunbar, the name being thus derived from the famous Scotch city. The descent as thus traced has one break in its continuity, but one which the great balance of probability bridges over. It appears that this Ninian Dunbar had a son Robert, born in Scotland in the year 1630, of whom trace is lost. In 1655 we find a Robert Dunbar just come to Amer- ica and settling in the colony of Hingham, Massachusetts. All the evidence points to its being the same man, though the connection has not been absolutely estab- lished. He had been married in the meantime, though where and to whom is not known, other than that the young lady's Christian name was Rose. They came to the Colonies together and sub- sequently became the parents of eight children, and were regarded as among the wealthiest people in the community where they had settled. From this worthy ancestor there were descended three Johns in as many consecutive genera- tions, the youngest being the representa- tive of the family in the Revolutionary period, and was one of the three com- missioners chosen by Waterbury, Con- necticut, to furnish supplies to the Con- tinental Army. His son, Miles Dunbar, the great-grandfather of Edward Butler
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Dunbar, was a young man at the time of the Revolution, serving in the army as a fife-major. Subsequently he removed to Oblong, New York.
Butler Dunbar, the grandfather of our subject, was a man of great enterprise and typical pioneer mold whose taste led him to make his home in new regions. He lived for a time in Springfield, Penn- sylvania, where Mr. Dunbar's father was born, later in Connecticut, and finally in Monroe township, Mahaska county, Iowa, where he spent the remainder of his life engaged in agricultural pursuits. He was an ardent worker in the cause of the Con- gregational church and gained for him- self the sobriquet of "Father Dunbar."
It was Edward Lucius Dunbar, son of the above and father of our subject, whose birth in Springville, Pennsylvania, has just been mentioned, who founded the manufacturing business of which Edward Butler Dunbar later became the head. The elder man was possessed of great ability in the line of business, a talent which his son inherited, and set himself to supply the demands of his times. It was the day of the hoop skirt and crino- line, and Mr. Dunbar, Sr., in partnership with the late Wallace Barnes, established a factory for the manufacture of the light steel frames used in those wonderful cre- ations of fashion. He also manufactured watch and clock springs and clock trim- mings, the former plant being situated in New York City, the latter in Bristol, Con- necticut, where he had made his home. The manufacture of the watch and clock springs was on a much smaller scale than the fashion requirements, but in its nature was a much more stable business. He was a man of great public spirit and gave a great deal to the town of his adop- tion, and in 1858 erected the present town hall of Bristol, which on account of the business in which its donor had made
most of his wealth was dubbed by the people of Bristol, "Crinoline Hall," a name which clung to it for many years. Mr. Dunbar, Sr., was married to Julia War- ner, a native of Farmington, Connecticut, and a daughter of Joel and Lucinda War- ner, of that place. Children: Winthrop Warner, whose sketch is found elsewhere in this work. Edward Butler, of whom further ; William A .; Mrs. W. W. Thorpe ; Mrs. L. A. Sanford, and Mrs. George W. Mitchell.
Edward Butler Dunbar, the second child and son of Edward Lucius and Julia (Warner) Dunbar, was born November I, 1842, in Bristol, Hartford county, Con- necticut, and there, with the exception of two short absences, passed his entire life. He attended the local common schools for the elementary portion of his educa- tion, and later went to Easthampton, Massachusetts, where he took a course in the well known Williston Seminary. In the spring of 1860, when he had reached the age of eighteen years, and completed his course at Williston Semi- nary, his father sent him to New York City, there to help the late William F. Tompkins in his duties as manager of Mr. Dunbar, Sr.'s, hoop-skirt factory. There were from fifty to seventy-five hands em- ployed in the establishment at the time of Mr. Dunbar's arrival, and a large busi- ness was done. He had been engaged in the place about two years, and had gained a considerable knowledge of the detail of its operation, when Mr. Tompkins died, and the young man, then twenty years old, was suddenly put in charge of the concern. It was a tremendous responsi- bility for one of his years and experience to undertake, but the young man did not falter. He quickly seized the reins of management let fall by Mr. Tompkins, and in a short time proved himself entire master of the situation. For three years
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