USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v. 4 > Part 15
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James Andrew Newlands attended the public schools of Mckeesport, Pennsyl- vania, and prepared for college at Port Byron Academy, Port Byron, Illinois. He then entered Beloit College, Beloit, Wisconsin, from which he was gradu- ated with the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1903. He then took post-graduate work in the University of Chicago, study- ing medical bacteriology, and in 1904 and 1905 completed the sanitary engi- neering courses at the Massachusetts
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Institute of Technology. During a por- tion of the year 1903 he worked in the Smith Sanitary Laboratory at Beloit under the preceptorship of Professor E. G. Smith. After completing his formal technical training, he entered the employ of The Henry Souther Engineering Company as water analyst. Later he accepted a position with the State Board of Health to install their laboratory. For two years, from 1905 to 1907, he served as State Bacteriologist, and from 1907 to 1913 served as chemist of the board. He then purchased an interest in The Henry Souther Engineering Company, was secretary of the company until July 1, 1916, when he was elected to the office of president. This company and the Newlands Sanitary Laboratory perform all kinds of chemical analysis for the city and State departments, phy- sical and bacteriological, public utilities and for large manufacturing industries. Their business comes from all over the United States and even from British, French, Belgian and Russian companies. The company employs the services of more than thirty skilled men, and it ranks high in the business industries of the community. Mr. Newlands also serves as chemist of the water department of the city of Hartford. He has written many articles for technical journals on "Water Purification," "Sewage Disposal," "Chlorine Treatment of Water and Sewage," "Disposal of Factory Wastes," "Oyster Pollution," "Typhoid Epi- demics," etc. He is a member of the American Chemical Society, American Society for the Advancement of Science, American Public Health Association, American Water Works Association, New England Water Works Association, Connecticut Society of Civil Engineers, University Club of Hartford, Hartford Golf Club, and the Phi Kappa Psi of Beloit University.
Mr. Newlands married, October 21, 1908, Alice Cary, of Florence, Massa- chusetts, daughter of James Cary, and a descendant of the old Nantucket family of that name. They are the parents of one son, James Bryant, born December 20, 1915.
GAFFNEY, John W., Contractor and Builder.
It is not always possible to record in the career of a successful man that his inter- ests and the best advantage of the com- munity coincide so nicely that the pur- suit of one involves catching, as it were, the other. Not always, not even often possible, and, indeed, the individual of whom it may be said may count himself doubly happy from well nigh every stand- point. This is truly to be said, however, of John W. Gaffney, the distinguished citizen and business man of Waterbury, Connecticut, who for fifty years has been intimately identified with the develop- ment of the city and who, during that whole period, has made his own and the city's interests accord so happily that his whole business career is marked with landmarks in the upbuilding of this flourishing community.
John W. Gaffney is not a native of Waterbury. nor, for that matter of America at all. He is a splendid example of the strong and capable Irishman who finds his way to the top of the ladder wherever his lot may happen to be cast. But though he was born in Ireland in the year 1842, even his earliest conscious associations are with this country. for he was brought hither by his parents when only two years of age, and save those first two years, has made his home in Waterbury during his entire life. Here it was that he received his schooling and here, also, that he entered business at an early age. In 1864, when Mr. Gaffney
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was but twenty-two years of age, he and John Rutherford established what is now the firm of John W. Gaffney & Son, Bridgeport, Connecticut, being the scene of its first contracting and building oper- ations. It was not long before the two partners separated, however, Mr. Ruther- ford withdrawing, and Mr. Gaffney re- moving to Waterbury, where he con- tinued the business alone. So great were his business talents and so good was the reputation that he established in this city that the business grew rapidly from year to year and eventually became the largest of its kind in the city. Mr. Gaff- ney remained alone in the enterprise until 1888, when he admitted a Mr. Daniel E. Cronan, of Waterbury, into the firm as a partner, this association lasting for about twelve years. Mr. Cronan then left to engage in business on his own account, but in 1898 Mr. Gaffney's son, Joseph T. Gaffney, had been admitted to partnership and since the withdrawal of Mr. Cronan the firm has been John W. Gaffney & Son. Thus for more than fifty years Mr. Gaffney has been engaged in building up the city of Waterbury for which he possesses the strongest kind of affection and which it is his chief ambition to see as the most important industrial center in the State. The list of important buildings and other works carried out by the Gaffney company during this long period is a truly remarkable one. It is too long to publish in its entirety, but some of the most conspicuous should certainly be noticed. Mr. Gaffney has built twenty- nine schools in the first place, four churches are credited to him, St. Patrick's and the First Baptist in Waterbury, St. Mark's at Thomaston and St. Mary's at Union City. Then there have been two convents, a hospital, the White Dental Factory, the New London State Armory;
the South Norwalk State Armory, the Litchfield County Court House, the mills of the Novelty Manufacturing Company and of the Benedict and Burnham Manu-
facturing Company, the Waterbury
Young Men's Christian Association Building, the plants of the Rogers & Hamilton Company, the Waterbury Clock Company factories, the Waterbury Postoffice, brick blocks containing thirty- two stores, and Winchester Hotel for Governor Lilly, Southern New England Telephone building, Poli's two theatres, the "Waterbury Evening Democrat" building and many others, mills, club houses, schools, public edifices scattered about in various parts of the State as their names show, for Mr. Gaffney's business is not limited to the region about Waterbury. One of his works de- serves especial attention as the largest masonry contract ever made in Connec- ticut. This was for the construction of the dam of the great Wigwam Reser- voir to furnish the water supply for the city of Waterbury and which, with the auxiliary contract of laying six of the thirteen miles of pipe line, took Mr. Gaff- ney two years to complete. Besides these great works there have been many other enterprises undertaken by Mr. Gaffney in which the desire to increase the prosperity of the city shared at least an equal place with his personal desires. It was he that purchased the land, opened up the region, erected and sold the buildings on what are now known as Easton avenue, Park place, Gaffney place and Center street, of which the last alone involved the expediture of more than two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. As late as 1895 this was a tract of unimproved and almost vacant land, yet lying very near the center of the city and adjoining some of the principal streets in the business district. Mr.
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Gaffney already owned a tract on the west side of Bank street and in 1896 he purchased an adjacent property on which stood a brick building. He then began operations under the name of the Mil- ford Land & Cottage Company and in 1897 he presented to the city a complete street, both sides of which were nearly built up with five-story business blocks, the street itself paved with brick and with sewer, water and gas pipes com- plete.
Mr. Gaffney married, February 14, 1877, Mary A. Byrnes, of Waterbury, a daughter of George and Ann Byrnes, residents of that place. To them were born six children as follows: George A .; Joseph T., who is now his father's part- ner in the great contracting business and who inherits the elder man's talents and business ability ; John L., Mary A., and two who are deceased.
SEERY, Edward St. Lawrence,
Lawyer.
It is not only the "Old World," with its system of castes, its classes and well- protected aristocracies, that presents to us the sight of families that for more than one generation have displayed un- brokenly a combination of talents and abilities, for even democratic America can show the same, presenting. as it were, a kind of aristocracy of brains whose members never seem to fall below a certain high standard of intelligence and character, and who continue to estab- lish and reestablish their high standing in the community. It is, of course, so much more to their credit that they should do so in a country like the United States, where the republican institutions remove all those artificial assistances which in other countries, in the form of aristocratic institutions, are so often re-
sponsible for the successes of the scions of great houses, irrespective of any notable virtues or abilities on their part. Such families are well typified by the Seery family of Waterbury, Connecticut, of which Edward St. Lawrence Seery, the distinguished gentleman whose name heads this brief sketch, is a typical member.
His ancestors came originally from the town of Mount Temple, County West- meath, Ireland, where his grandfather, Thomas Seery, was a miller during the latter part of the eighteenth century and the early part of the nineteenth, dying in 1839. He and his wife, who before her marriage was a Miss Clark, and the daughter of the Episcopalian clergyman in the town, were the parents of four children, all of whom are now deceased. One of these, Thomas H. Seery, was the father of Edward St. Lawrence Seery, and a man of parts, to whose enterprise it is due that his children are now citizens of the United States of America. This gentleman was born, like his ancestors, in Mount Temple, County Westmeath, October 25, 1825, and was only fourteen years of age when his father died. As he grew older, the accounts he heard of the great republic of the western hemi- sphere impelled him to try his fortunes there, and accordingly in the spring of 1844, when nineteen years of age. he set sail for this country, and upon his arrival located at once in Waterbury, which was his home for the remainder of his life. a period of fifty-two years, his death occurring in 1896. For a full half cen- tury he was a foreman in the Waterbury Brass Works, and became a well known figure in the industrial world and a man of influence among his fellow citizens. He was married in 1858 to Mary Seery, who was no relation of his, in spite of the curious coincidence that she was a
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native of the same town in Ireland as that which gave him birth. Mrs. Seery survives her husband, and still resides in Waterbury with her son, Edward St. L. Seery, having reached the age of seventy- four years. Mr. and Mrs. Seery, Sr., were the parents of six children, all of whom were born in Waterbury, and all of whom are at present living in various parts of the United States. They are as follows: Peter H., a prominent resi- dent of Newark, New Jersey, where he manufactures steel tubing on a large scale, is an unusually able mechanical engineer and the designer and builder of a number of modern mills, including several in Waterbury; Ellen E., the widow of Thomas H. Hays, of Water- bury : Maria C., the widow of Peter J. Bolan, during his life one of the leading merchants in the hardware line of Waterbury ; Edward St. Lawrence, men- tioned at length below; Kate, instructor in art in the Waterbury public schools ; Francis J., now professor of civil engi- neering at Cornell University.
Edward St. Lawrence Seery was born February 28, 1869, in Waterbury, Con- necticut, the city that has remained his home during practically his entire life up to the present. He passed his early years there in the appropriate pastimes of childhood, and there gained the prelimi- nary portion of his education, attending the excellent public schools of the city for that purpose. In the high school he prepared for the college course it was his purpose to take, and then matricu- lated at Yale University Law School. His career in this famous school was a distinguished one, and he proved himself a most intelligent and earnest student, gaining an unusual grasp of the prin- ciples of his subject. He graduated with the class of 1895, and in the same year was admitted to the Connecticut bar. At first he practiced law in partnership
with Thomas F. Lawlor, another distin- guished attorney of the city, and it was but a short time before he made a name for himself before the courts of his native county, and gained the reputation of being one of the most promising of the rising young lawyers in that region. For fifteen years the partnership with Mr. Lawlor continued, by which time Mr. Seery was recognized as one of the leaders of the bar in Waterbury. The partnership was then severed, and since that time Mr. Seery has practiced by him- self. He has always been highly suc- cessful and much important litigation is entrusted to his care.
In many ways Mr. Seery is particularly well fitted for the career he has chosen, possessing that happy combination of qualities that is required for both sides of a lawyer's task, that of the man of ac- tion and force which he needs in the court- room, before judge and jury, and that more nearly approaching the student for his own office and library. That he was the student, all those that were associated with him during his college years knew. and this he well lived up to in later years, and nowhere better exemplifying it than in the treatment of the cases that come under his charge. Upon these he ex- pends the greatest care, no detail of fact or law being too small for him to inter- est himself in or to follow up with the most consummate patience. He is thus always completely prepared in every case that goes to trial, and very difficult it is to trip him upon any matter of detail, that fertile cause of error and weakness on the part of many brilliant attorneys. But, in addition to this, he is also unusually alert to appreciate a sudden point and prompt to make up his mind and act on a decision, so that, as well may be be- lieved, he is a dangerous adversary in court.
Mr. Seery plays an important part in
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the life of the community of which he is a member, and takes a leading part in many of the more important movements undertaken for the common weal. He is a member of the Bronson Library Board, and finds a most congenial field for activ- ity there, as he is most keenly interested in the question of education and the problem of making study generally popular. He is also conspicuous in social and fraternal circles of the city, and is a member of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, and is prominent in the activities of this order. In the matter of religious belief, Mr. Seery is a Catholic, as have been his ancestors before him for unnumbered generations. He attends St. Margaret's Roman Catholic Church of Waterbury, and is prominent in the affairs of the parish. Mr. Seery is not married.
RIORDAN, Michael Davitt, Physician.
Though originally of Irish extraction, the Riordan family has lived in this country a number of generations and is entirely identified with the life and tradi- tions thereof. Dr. Michael Davitt Rior- dan is one of the most brilliant of the young physicians of Waterbury and is a credit to his profession, despite his youth. The promise of the future for him is a brilliant one and there seems to be no doubt that he will, ere long, be one of the leaders of his profession in that part of the State.
Dr. Riordan comes of a family that has been well known in New England for many years. His father, Jerimiah Thomas Riordan, was a native of Boston, Massachusetts, born May 6, 1857. As a young man of twenty-two years, he re- moved to Norwich, Connecticut, where he secured a position with the United
States Finishing Company, a concern en- gaged in the bleaching, dyeing and printing of cotton goods. He remained in Norwich a period of about thirty years and died there on December 4, 1910. He was married in Norwich to Helen Birracree, a native of that place, where she is now residing at the age of fifty- seven years. To Mr. and Mrs. Riordan ten children were born, all of whom are now living, as follows: Joseph, born May 6, 1879, and at present a resident of Willimantic, Connecticut, where he is engaged in the dry goods business ; Jeri- miah T., born December 1, 1881, and now residing in Norwich, Connecticut, where he is engaged in business as a haber- dasher; Michael Davitt, of whom fur- ther; Mary, a resident of Willimantic ; Charles, a resident of Norwich, where he is engaged in newspaper work; Helen, a resident of Norwich; Amelia, who is a trained nurse in Bridgeport, Connecticut, where she is connected with St. Vin- cent's Hospital; Rosalie, a resident of Essex, Connecticut, where she teaches school ; James, now a pupil in the Nor- wich Academy in that town ; and Made- line, also a pupil there.
Born on April 2, 1883, at Norwich, Connecticut, Michael Davitt Riordan spent the years of his childhood and early youth there. He attended the public schools for his education, and at the age of twenty-one went to the Cushing Academy at the town of Ashburnham, Massachusetts. Graduating from this institution with a fine preparation for a college course he matriculated in the University of Vermont. It had been his determination for some time past to take up medicine as a profession and he en- tered this department of the university. He proved a most capable and earnest student and graduated with the class of 1912. To supplement the theoretic
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knowledge gained at the university with the practical experience necessary, he be- came an interne in St. Mary's Hospital at Waterbury, Connecticut, remaining there for eighteen months. He then filled the same capacity in the Waterbury Hos- pital for another six months. After this experience, he began his general practice in Waterbury, where he has remained up to the present time and now has an office at No. 853 Bank street. Dr. Riordan has already gained a high reputation among his fellow practitioners as a clever diag- nostician and as his knowledge of materia medica is a profound one, he bids fair to have a brilliant future. His practice is already a large one and is growing steadily.
Dr. Riordan is necessarily very much bound by the exacting nature of his pro- fession, but such time as he can spare he gives with the greatest good will in the world to the more general affairs of the community. He is fond of social life and is a member of a number of prominent organizations there, among which should be mentioned the Benevolent and Protec- tive Order of Elks and the Catholic Order of the Knights of Columbus. In his religious faith Dr. Riordan is a stanch Catholic, and a faithful member of St. Patrick's Church in Waterbury.
O'BRIEN, Edward Morgan, Public Official.
Many years ago Morgan O'Brien came from Ireland to Waterbury, bringing wife and children. He found employment in the factories of the town, supported his family and lived an honorable life. His years were wonderfully lengthened, and in succession he bore the titles, octoge- narian, nonogenarian, and finally cente- narian. He died about 1891.
With Morgan O'Brien came his son,
Terrence O'Brien, born in Ireland. In later life he became a groceryman and then a wholesale liquor dealer. He pros- pered and for several years has lived a retired life. He married Margaret Carey, born in Southbury or Quakerstown, and is living near Waterbury. They are the parents of four children : Mamie, died in childhood; Katherine, a teacher in Waterbury public schools; Anna, a nun belonging to the Order of Notre Dame, Montreal, Canada; Edward Morgan, of further mention.
Edward Morgan O'Brien, of the third generation of his family in the United States, and of the first American born generation, son of Terrence O'Brien and grandson of Morgan O'Brien, was born at Waterbury, Connecticut, June 22, 1885. Like all the children of Terrence and Margaret O'Brien he was given all the advantages of higher education, his train- ing including the public school courses followed by extended periods of study at Mount St. Mary's College at Emmits- burg, Maryland, and at Niagara Univer- sity where his classical education was completed. Deciding upon the legal pro- fession he entered the Law School, Georgetown University, whence he was graduated Bachelor of Laws, class of 1909. Mr. O'Brien, after obtaining his degree, was admitted to the Connecticut bar and at once began practice in Water- bury. During the years intervening he established a good reputation, his clien- tele increasing with each year. He was appointed clerk of the City Court and held that office until his appointment by President Wilson to his present respon- sible office of postmaster of Waterbury. He had been an active party worker for several years, and in politics, as in his profession, is aggressive, keenly active and alive mentally as well as physically. He possessed wide influence among the
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young men of his party and is a leader trusted and capable. He is a member of St. Margaret's Catholic Church, and of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. He is unmarried.
MCGRATH, John Francis,
Lawyer.
John Francis McGrath, one of the rising attorneys of Waterbury, Connecti- cut, whose career, though it as yet is a comparatively short one, has shown an adherence to high ideals and standards well worthy of remark.
Born June 24, 1878, at Waterbury, Con- necticut, Mr. McGrath is of Irish parent- age and exhibits in himself the best traits of that brilliant race. Though his father, Edward McGrath, was born in Ireland, he is not entitled to be considered the immigrant ancestor, as he was but a lad fifteen years of age when he came to this country with his father and the lat- ter's large family. It is to Mr. McGrath's grandfather then that we must turn to learn of the coming of the family to this country. This grandfather, Thomas Mc- Grath, was born in Limerick, Ireland, where he passed his youth and young manhood and married a Miss Powell, who bore him thirteen children. Three of these died in Ireland. but with the ten remaining, he and his wife came to the United States in 1862. settling in Water- bury, seven of these children remaining alive to-day, and six still making their homes in Waterbury. The father of Mr. McGrath, as has already been remarked, was a lad of fifteen when he came to this country, and it was not long before he had closely identified himself with the new environment. He was an unusually clever and enterprising youth and rapidly worked himself into a position of promi- nence in the city's life and has held a
number of responsible positions among which should be numbered that of school inspector, which he held a number of years. He engaged in the real estate business and is still following that line with eminent success. He married Annie Fruin, like himself a native of Ireland, born at Tipperary in 1850. To them four children were born of whom Mr. Mc- Grath was the youngest. The others were Thomas F., a young physician of Waterbury who died only six months after graduation from the Baltimore Med- ical School ; William J., born January II, 1875. and now a resident of Waterbury where he is engaged with his father in business, and married Margaret Grout who has borne him four children, Ed- ward, Julia. Thomas, and William : Ed- ward H .. born December 31, 1876, died January 9. 1911.
John Francis McGrath received the rudimentary portion of his education in the excellent local schools, showing him- self an apt scholar and ambitious from the outset. He later attended Holy Cross College and from there went to St. Fran- cis College in Brooklyn. In these insti- tutions he maintained and even raised the high standard of scholarship he had set, and won for himself the favorable re- gard of the instructors and masters. For some years before completing his college course Mr. McGrath had decided on the profession of the law for his future career, and upon leaving St. Francis Col- lege he went to Yale University and there took the course in the famous Law School. He graduated therefrom with the class of 1902 and at once returned to his native city and began active prac- tice. He was successful at once and for the ensuing five years did a large and increasing business. In 1907 he received the appointment as assistant prosecuting attorney for the city and served in that
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