USA > Connecticut > Encyclopedia of Connecticut biography, genealogical-memorial; representative citizens, v.2 > Part 26
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(II) Samuel Shelton. son of Daniel and Elizabeth (Welles) Shelton, was bap- tized February 10. 1705-06. and died in Huntington. Connectict, November 12, 1772. He married. October 2, 1734. Abi- gail, daughter of Captain Joseph Nichols, of Unity. She died February 21, 1794. Children : Mary, born February 13, 1736; Daniel, of whom further ; Samuel, August 24. 1738; Elizabeth, February 13, 1740; David. June 16, 1741 ; Abigail, December 29, 1742; Joseph, February 2, 1744; An- drew, November 26, 1746: Sarah. July 19, 1748; Ann, February 7, 1750; Josiah,
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December 30, 1751; Philo, May 4, 1754; Isaac Welles, March II, 1756; Agur.
(III) Daniel (2) Shelton, son of Sam- uel and Abigail (Nichols) Shelton, was born April 26, 1737, and died on Booth's Hill, May 12, 1813. He was called "Little Daniel." He married Mehitable, daughter of Daniel Shelton. She died September 22, 1812. Children : Jane, born March 19, 1761; Elizabeth, February 5, 1768; Su- sannah, October 22, 1769; Samuel Fred- erick, of whom further; Elijah Daniel, January 5, 1773; Avis Newton and Isaac, June 13, 1779.
(IV) Samuel Frederick Shelton, son of Daniel (2) and Mehitable (Shelton) Shel- ton, was born August 4, 1771. He mar- ried, December 3, 1795, Eunice Hannah, born January 23, 1775, died June 13, 1866, daughter of Judson Curtiss. Children : Samuel Daniel, born December 28, 1796; Judson Curtiss, of whom further; Juline, September 14, 1800; Sally, October 21, 1803; Hannah Maria, December 5, 1809, married Dr. James H. Shelton, son of Dr. William Shelton, who graduated at Yale College in 1788 and practiced medicine at Huntington, Connectict, from 1789 to 1819, and was a famous doctor in his day ; Dr. James H. Shelton was succeeded by his nephew, Dr. Gould A. Shelton, of this review; Abigail Avis, born November 19, 18II.
(V) Judson Curtiss Shelton, son of Samuel Frederick and Eunice Hannah (Curtiss) Shelton, was born at Hunting- ton, Connecticut, October 17, 1798, died August 4, 1880, in the town of his birth, which was formerly part of Stratford. He was a farmer, successful in his operations. He married Hannah Lewis, born March 20, 1802, died July 13, 1883, a woman of strong personality, who radiated the best of moral and intellectual influences. Chil- dren : Harriet N., Susan H., Minor C .. Alice M., Sarah Maria, Lewis J., Frederick
S., Mary J., Sylvia A., Gould Abijah, Eliza A.
(VI) Gould Abijah Shelton, son of Jud- son Curtiss and Hannah (Lewis) Shelton, was born at Huntington, Fairfield county, Connecticut, August 19, 1841. He was reared on his father's farm, and during his youth assisted in the work thereon and attended the district schools. He pre- pared for college at the Staples Academy at Easton, Connecticut, and entered Yale with the class of 1866. He left college in his junior year and taught in private and public schools for several terms. He be- gan the study of medicine with Dr. George W. Hall, of New York City, and later entered Yale Medical School, where he took a three years' course, receiving the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1869. In June of that year he began the active practice of his profession in Shelton, Con- necticut, a borough named in honor of Edward N. Shelton, president of the Ousatonic Water Company, succeeding to the practice of his uncle, Dr. James H. Shelton, as heretofore stated, and he has practiced in Shelton and the vicinity since that date, a period of almost half a cen- tury, during which time he has built up an extensive and lucrative practice. In addition to his private practice, which is of a general character, he was appointed in 1892 a member of the consulting staff of the Bridgeport Hospital, was also simi- larly connected with the New Haven Hospital, and served as president of the medical board of the New Griffin Hospital of Derby, Connecticut. His other profes- sional services have been coroner, medical examiner of the town of Huntington, appointed in 1889, and health officer of the borough of Shelton, appointed in 1886. He keeps in touch with his professional brethren by membership in the Fairfield County Medical Society, of which he was president in 1889; the Yale Medical
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Alumni Association, of which he was president in 1894; the Connecticut Medi- cal Society, of which he was president in 1903; the American Academy of Medi- cine; the American Medical Association, and the Lower Naugatuck Valley Uni- versity Alumni Association, of which he was president in 1911. In 1891 he received the honorary degree of M. A. from Yale University.
His public offices have been many and important. He was for eighteen years a member of the local Board of Education, in which he took a keen interest. He was a member of the Board of Burgesses of Shelton from 1885 to 1889; warden of the borough of Shelton from 1890 to 1893; represented Huntington in the General Assembly in 1895 and was house chair- man of the committee on public health and safety during that session ; president of the Board of Park Commissioners of Shelton, appointed in 1893; in 1909 was again elected to the General Assembly and served as house chairman of the com- mittee of public health and safety, and in all of these offices of trust and responsibil- ity he rendered efficient service. He has also taken an active part in other enterprises, serving as president of the Shelton Water Company, appointed in 1893; director in the Shelton Savings Bank, and in the Silver Plate Cutlery Company, and secretary and treasurer of the board of directors of the Plumb Memorial Library. He is a Con- gregationalist in religion, a Republican in politics, a Mason and an Odd Fellow, be- ing affiliated with King Hiram Lodge, Hamilton Commandery and Pyramid Temple, of the former named order, and Ousatonic Lodge of the latter named order.
Dr. Shelton married, June 16, 1874, Emily Plumb Capel, of Shelton. She died November II, 1897.
BREWSTER, James H.,
Active Factor in Insurance Circles.
For nearly half a century James H. Brewster, of Hartford, has been engaged in the fire insurance business, beginning as clerk in the office of the Connecticut Fire Insurance Company, and since Janu- ary, 1900, manager of the American Branch of the Scottish Union and Na- tional Insurance Company of Edinburgh, Scotland. He is one of the ablest fire underwriters in a city distinguished as an insurance center, and has fairly won the high reputation he enjoys.
Mr. Brewster is a descendant in the ninth American generation of Elder Wil- liam Brewster, of the "Mayflower," through the Elder's son Jonathan, his son Benjamin, his son William, his son Peter, his son Jacob, his son Shuabel, his son Henry Augustus, his son James H. Brewster, of Hartford.
Henry Augustus Brewster, born at Cov- entry, Connecticut, July 23, 1817, married, December 10, 1844, Fannie S. Badger, daughter of James Badger, of Mansfield, Connecticut, born March 20, 1821, died August 22, 1915.
James H. Brewster was born at Cov- entry, Tolland county, Connecticut, De- cember 24, 1845, and obtained his educa- tion in Coventry and Hartford schools. He began business life as clerk in the store of Pease & Foster at Hartford, there continuing for two years. The possibili- ties of the fire insurance business appealed to him very strongly, and in 1867 he en- tered the clerical service of the Connecti- cut Fire Insurance Company. That busi- ness seemed one for which he possessed a natural aptitude and he bent every en- ergy to mastering every detail that came his way. His spirit of energy and the efficient manner in which he performed his allotted duty, his willingness to do
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more than his routine work called for, attracted instant attention and he was rapidly advanced in clerical rank. In 1873, but six years from the date of his entrance as clerk, he was made assistant secretary of the company, and for seven years he filled that post. As assistant secretary he had a wider scope for his undoubted talents and was given free exercise to develop his ability as an underwriter. He improved his opportunities and was ranked with the rising young men of the fire insurance company.
On November 1, 1880, his friend, Mar- tin Bennett, was appointed manager of the United States Branch of the Scottish Union and National Fire Insurance Com- pany, and needing an assistant manager he offered the position to Mr. Brewster, who accepted it. He resigned the position he was holding and for twenty years, 1880-1900, Mr. Bennett and Mr. Brewster were associated as manager and assistant. They developed a large business through their own efforts and that of a well or- ganized field force, and when Mr. Bennett passed from earthly scenes the assistant became the manager on January 1, 1900. This position Mr. Brewster yet most ably fills, the business of the American branch being most satisfactory to the officials of the company and the services of their American manager most highly appreci- ated. He is also a director of the First National Bank. He is a member of St. John's Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons ; Pythagoras Chapter, Royal Arch Masons ; Washington Commandery, Knights Tem- plar; and Sphinx Temple, Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
Mr. Brewster married in Brooklyn, New York, December 9, 1879, Mary E., daughter of George W. Folts. Their son, James H. Brewster, Jr., Yale, 1904, is a representative of the tenth American gen- eration of his family, and is a member of the firm of Rhoades & Company, bankers, New York City.
WOOSTER, Albert Mills,
Specialist in Patent Law.
A special student of patent law even be- fore receiving his LL. B., Mr. Wooster has since made that branch of the law his specialty and since 1875, when he entered the United States Patent Office at Wash- ington as a clerk, he has been involved in the workings of the Patent Office and en- gaged in unraveling the intricacies of patent law. Since 1882 he has been a resident of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and a member of the Fairfield county bar, ad- mitted to practice in all State and Federal courts of the district and in the United States Supreme Court. Not only is he known as an able and successful patent lawyer, but as an interested, valued citi- zen and lecturer. He chose his calling early in life and bent every energy to worthy preparation therefor ; the studious habits then acquired have never been dropped but all his life he has been the student. In the pursuit of knowledge he has collected a good library of reference books and any subject with which he deems himself not sufficiently familiar is there delved into until that subject is ex- hausted. His achievement in his profes- sion and upon the lecture platform has been most gratifying, and he reviews his years, sixty-seven, with the satisfaction that comes from a knowledge of duty well performed and opportunity well improved.
Mr. Wooster is a native son of New York, a descendant of ancient and honor- able New England ancestry. His pater- nal ancestor, Edward Wooster, settled in Milford in 1625, his paternal great-grand- father, Ephraim Wooster, was a soldier of the Revolution; his grandfather, Philo Mills Wooster, a soldier of the War of 1812. On maternal lines he traces to Rob- ert Treat, Governor of Connecticut, 1683- 98, to John Beard, an early Connecticut settler, to great-grandfathers, Captain Stephen Cogswell, Thomas Gilbert and
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Joel Beard, Revolutionary soldiers, and to Sergeant Samuel Beard, his great- great-grandfather, a Continental soldier. He is a son of William Cogswell and Mary Louise (Gilbert) Wooster, both born in Huntington, Connecticut.
The line of descent is from Edward Wooster, born in England in 1622, died in Milford, Connecticut, July 8, 1680, leaving an estate which in 1694 was dis- tributed. His second wife, Tabitha (Tomlinson) Wooster, whom he married in 1669, was the daughter of Henry Tom- linson. Their son, Jonas Wooster, who was the third child of his parents, was a resident of Stratford and Derby, Connec- ticut. By his wife Jane he had at least two sons, Jonas and John. John Wooster, son of Jonas and Jane Wooster, was born January 27, 1721, died in 1797; married, November 9, 1752, Abigail Blakeman, who died in 1811, aged eighty-two. The line of descent is through their second son, Ephraim Wooster, born April 8, 1755. He married, December 6, 1776, Elizabeth Ann Mills, born February 24, 1756, daughter of Philo and Betsey Mills. Ephraim Wooster was a soldier of the Revolution. His son, Philo Mills Woo- ster, was born January 6, 1786, and fought in the War of 1812. Philo Mills Wooster married Ruth Ann Cogswell and they were the parents of William Cogswell Wooster, father of Albert Mills Wooster, of Bridgeport.
Albert Mills Wooster was born in Chatham, Columbia county, New York, April 15, 1850, and until the age of fifteen attended the district schools. In 1857 the family moved to New Preston, Connecti- cut, where William Cogswell Wooster was a merchant and postmaster at the time of his death in 1864. The necessity of contributing to the family income, for his mother, a widow, had three younger sons, made it imperative that he begin
work, and three years were spent as a farm worker and clerk in a country store. In return for those years taken from his school courses, the boy not only gained lasting inspiration from his mother, but the keen satisfaction of helping to make her burdens lighter. At the age of eighteen he became a clerk in the great New York dry goods house, A. T. Stewart & Company, remaining three years. He had even then elected the law as his pro- fession, and although the next few years were spent as dry goods clerk and sew- ing machine agent, that ambition was never for a moment lost sight of. His first actual start was preparatory, through competitive examinations under civil service rules, for a government position. In October, 1874, he received his appoint- ment as clerk in the dead letter office of the Post Office Department at Washing- ton, and a year later, having decided upon the branch of law in which he would spe- cialize, obtained a transfer to the United States Patent Office as assistant-ex- aminer. For seven years he continued an examiner in the Patent Office, and during this time completed courses of study in the Law School of the National Univer- sity, receiving his degree of LL. B. in 1876. Later, although admitted to the district bar, he completed a post-graduate course at Columbian, now George Wash- ington University, receiving the degree of LL. M. in 1880. In 1882, after seven years' experience as an examiner in the Patent Office and with the degrees of two universities, he resigned and left Washington to locate in Bridgeport, Con- necticut. Thirty-five years have since intervened, but the life begun in Bridge- port in 1882 still continues along the same lines, but the skill and resource of the veteran has supplanted the timidity of self consciousness of the tyro in practice. He has confined his practice to patent law
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and has won high reputation in that branch of his profession. Two of his best known lectures are upon subjects he has made his special life study, "Patents, Trademarks and Unfair Trade."
He is a member of the various bar asso- ciations of the city, county and State, and is held in very high esteem by his pro- fessional brethren. The outlined facts give little idea of the amount of labor re- quired to compass the requirements of two law schools, while performing all the duties of a difficult position. The fact that Mr. Wooster could and did acquire so profound an education in such a man- ner gives the keynote to his entire life and his successes. He spared not himself, but so well did he conserve his energy and care for the physical man that body and mind developed on a parity and not one at the expense of the other. He is a firm believer in the gospel of work, but as firmly advocates seasonable exercise, sleep in sufficient quantity, temperance in all things and the value of a moral life. As a guide for business and social life his is the Golden Rule, and in the various civic offices he has held he has applied the same rule of morality as that which inspires his personal life.
A Republican in politics, Mr. Wooster has taken an active part in municipal affairs. In 1890 and 1892 he was a mem- ber of the Common Council, serving as president during the last term. In 1893 he was elected alderman, and was nine years a member of the Board of Educa- tion. He has labored with untiring zeal in support of movements tending to place the public schools upon a higher plane of efficiency, and to him a great deal of credit is due for what has been accomplished. While a believer in a wholesome amount of recreation, Mr. Wooster finds his in intellectual pursuits, and one of the lines of reading he has pursued has been the
life history of the Great Napoleon. So closely has a study of that most famous figure in French history drawn him, that he has prepared a lecture with Napoleon as the subject, a lecture of such interest that it has been delivered before several literary and historical bodies. In addition to his professional lectures and the one just named, that of "Pictures and How They Are Made" is the best known. He has frequently appeared as a lecturer be- fore the Scientific Society, The Board of Trade, and the Public Library, his reputa- tion resting not more upon the value of the subject matter of his lectures than upon the interesting way and manner of the lecturer. His clubs are the Contempo- rary, University and Yacht of Bridge- port, and the Alumni Association of George Washington University. He is a member of lodge, chapter, council and commandery of the York Rite of Ma- sonry, is a noble of the Mystic Shrine, and in the Scottish Rite has attained the thirty-third and highest degree which can be conferred, and one but comparatively few ever attain, as it is only conferred in recognition of distinguished services rendered to the order. In religious pref- erence he is a Congregationalist.
Mr. Wooster married (first) April 15, 1875, Fannie Brownley Bowen, of Warren county, Virginia. Mrs. Wooster died No- vember II, 1912, leaving two children: I. Julian Scott, born September 15, 1877 : a patent lawyer, with office at No. 115 Broadway, New York City; married, No- vember 17, 1909, Edith Gertrude Castle, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; they re- side at Scarsdale, New York. 2. Myra Estelle, born June 23, 1879, a painter of miniatures ; married, June 5, 1912, James Orton Buck, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, manager for R. G. Dun & Company ; children : James Orton, Jr., born July I, 1913; Beverly, born June 10, 1915, died
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July 15, 1916; Julian Randolph, born Feb- ruary 9, 1916; they reside in Bridgeport. Mr. Wooster married (second) March 18, 1914, Salonie Williams Atherton, of Bridgeport, Connecticut, who comes from a prominent New Hampshire family. Mr. Wooster resides at No. 778 Park avenue, Bridgeport.
BILLINGS, Charles Ethan,
Manufacturer, Inventor, Public Official.
One of the foremost among Connecti- cut's captains of industry, president of the Billings & Spencer Company, of Hartford, Mr. Billings, who for so long has borne great responsibilities, has now shifted to the younger shoulders of his capable son the heavier burdens of management. From apprentice boy to head of the lead- ing drop forging works in the world is a far cry, but that is the record Mr. Billings has compiled, and in addition his reputa- tion as a mechanical engineer is world- wide. Nor has fortuitous circumstance contributed to his elevation, for, possessed of natural mechanical genius, he culti- vated his talent and by close study and persistent work intelligently directed, he won his way upward. His keen mind soon acquired the power to analyze and dissect a problem, and then with clear, mechanical vision to create and construct from his deductions tangible, workable realities.
(I) Charles Ethan Billings is a de- scendant of Richard Billings, who in 1640 received a grant of six acres of land in Hartford. and in 1659 signed, with others, a contract with Governor Webster to set- tle at Hadley. In 1661 he complied with that contract, settling in that part of the town later set off as Hatfield. He died March 3, 1679. His wife Margery died December 5, 1679.
(II) Samuel Billings, son of Richard
and Margery Billings, died in Hatfield, February 1, 1678. He married, in 1661, Ursula Fellows, who survived him, mar- ried (second) Samuel Belden, and died February 5, 1713.
(III) Samuel (2) Billings, eldest son of Samuel (1) and Ursula (Fellows) Bil- lings, was born in Hatfield, January 8, 1665. He married (first) Hannah Wright, who died in 1686. He married (second) a widow, Rebecca Miller, born March 26, 1661. daughter of John and Sarah (Heald) Miller.
(IV) Joseph Billings, son of Samuel (2) Billings and his second wife, Rebecca ( Miller) Billings, was born in Hatfield, No- veinber 15, 1700, and there died about 1783. Hle was a member of the company formed to fight the Indians. He married, January 7, 1726, Elizabeth (Colton) Kellogg, daugh- ter of Thomas and Sarah Colton, of Springfield.
(V) Joseph (2) Billings, son of Joseph (1) and Elizabeth (Colton-Kellogg) Bil- lings, was with his uncles and cousin, part of the company of seventy who about 1763 petitioned Governor Wentworth, of New Hampshire, for a grant of land in that province. On August 17, 1763, a royal charter was granted by King George III. for 23,040 acres on the border of Lake Champlain to be incorporated in the town of Swanton. While the Billings grantees appear on the charter, and Joseph Billings may have been a resident of Windsor, Vermont, there is no record of his resi- dence there. He married and among his children was Rufus.
(VI) Rufus Billings, son of Joseph (2) Billings, resided in Weathersfield, Ver- mont. He married, and among his chil- dren was Ethan F.
(VII) Ethan F. Billings, son of Rufus Billings, born January 27, 1807, died Sep- tember 1I, 1848. He was a blacksmith of Windsor, Vermont, to which town he
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moved from Weathersfield. He married Clarissa M. Marsh, daughter of James Marsh, of Rockingham, Vermont, and among their children was Charles Ethan.
(VIII) Charles Ethan Billings, son of Ethan F. and Clarissa M. (Marsh) Bil- lings, was born in Windsor, Vermont, December 5, 1835. He attended the pub- lic schools of Windsor until his father's death in 1848, but before leaving school he had imbibed his first lessons in me- chanics, learning to "blow and strike" with his father, the village blacksmith. In 1852, at the age of seventeen, he was regularly apprenticed for three years to the Robbins & Lawrence Company, ma- chinists and gunsmiths of Windsor, the company agreeing to pay him fifty cents per day the first year, fifty-five cents the second year, and sixty cents the third year, the agreement stipulating that his mother should board, lodge and clothe him at her own expense. He served the full term of his apprenticeship, but soon afterward, in June, 1856, came to Hart- ford and entered the employ of the Colt Arms Company as a die sinker in the forging department. There his inventive genius began to assert itself and he be- came convinced that the complicated ex- pensive drop hammer then in use could be vastly improved; but no opportunity was given him to demonstrate his ideas until 1862 when he began working in the gun factories of E. Remington & Sons at Ilion, New York. There he advanced his ideas for drop forgings, which seemed good to the Remingtons and he was em- powered to erect a plant from his own plans. That plant proved all that he had claimed for it, showing an increased labor efficiency of four thousand per cent. in the forging of pistol parts, and with his new way of forcing the metal into the frame saved the company $50,000 on the contracts then in force. In 1865 Mr. Bil-
lings returned to Hartford, with his repu- tation greatly enhanced, to accept the po- sition of superintendent of the manufac- turing department of the Weed Sewing Machine Company. The method then employed in making shuttles was to braize the different parts together, a method which Mr. Billings threw into the discard in 1867 by patenting an inven- tion, employing four pairs of dies, and by drop forging make a shuttle from a single piece of bar steel. This method of forg- ing reduced the cost of making a shuttle more than one-half and is now in uni- versal use. At the great Billings & Spen- cer plant in Hartford, over 4,000,000 shut- tles have been made by this process, and they are still being made there, but in small quantities, as that type of shuttle is being superseded. In 1868 Mr. Billings went to Amherst, Massachusetts, and with C. M. Spencer organized the Roper Sporting Arms Company, but in 1869 re- moved his business to Hartford. The company was not a financial success, and in 1870 was abandoned, the partners each having faith in the other, however, form- ing a new organization, The Billings & Spencer Company, making drop forgings a specialty. The business proved a suc- cess from its beginning, and fully recom- pensed the partners for their losses in attempting to exploit the Roper gun. After a few years Mr. Spencer retired, and from that time forward Mr. Billings bore the burden of the management and carried the business forward to the highest point of success.
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