USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Bridgeport > History of Bridgeport and vicinity > Part 63
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MICHAEL J. JORDAN
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In 1905 he was joined by Frank Miller. under the firm style of Miller & Jordan, and their real estate business is in excess of that of almost every other firm or individual in the city. Mr. Jordan remains the active member of the firm and as such has laid out Brooklawn, covering twenty-seven acres; Pootatnek Park, thirty acres; West Harbor, nineteen acres; Sound View Heights, seventeen acres: Norland Manor, twenty aeres; Mahackemo Heights, twenty-four acres; Ingleside, seventeen acres; Valley View, twenty-five acres; Beach View, seventeen acres; Grand View Heights, twenty-four acres: Grand View Heights Extension, seven acres; High Park, nine aeres; Silver Meadow, four acres; Alvord Beach, four aeres; Chestnut Park. seven aeres; Springdale, sixteen acres: Franklin Heights, forty-six aeres; and Glenfield, forty acres. Nearly all these are subdivisions of Bridgeport and of Stratford and represent an investment of over seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars, all paid in full. In laying out. developing and improving these additions Mr. Jordan has worked with the end in view of not only attaining success but of adding really attraetive subdivisions which shall represent high types of eivie improvement and beauty. He has displayed much inventive genins and mechanical skill in connection with his work. He has also invented two mechanical advertising devices on which the United States government has granted him patents. One of these is an electrical advertising machine. while the other is controlled by a spring similar to that of a clock. These would undoubtedly prove a source of mueh profit if manufactured and placed upon the market, but Mr. Jordan prefers to concentrate his energies upon his real estate business, which has constantly grown in volume and importance, placing him in a position of leadership in his line. Mr. Jordan, through his extensive operations in improving and developing real estate in Bridgeport. has done more to increase the taxable grand list than any other individual. A business motto of Mr. Jordan's that he has always adhered to, and which is well known, is his prompt payment of bills, a rule of his office being that when a correet statement of account is sent him a cheek is sent in payment by return mail.
He has in his life record an interesting military chapter covering five years' service in the Connecticut state militia with the rank of orderly sergeant, after which he received an honorable discharge. He is an Elk and is a member of the Algonquin Club. His record is one of continuous progress, the outcome of elose application, indefatigable energy and laudable ambition. He is a man of an even and well balanced disposition, kind, courteous and gentle, but strongly resenting imposition, broad in mind and liberal. The position which he now occupies in the business circles of Bridgeport is an enviable one and reflects great credit upon himself.
HON. HENRY LEE.
Hon. Henry Lee, author and statesman, as well as prominent and resourceful business man, who in various ways has aided in shaping the history of Bridgeport, was born in Coventry, Connecticut, on the 24th of March, 1848, and at an early age entered the employ of the Union Metallie Cartridge Company, in which connection he thoroughly acquainted himself with the business. He came to Bridgeport when the plant was moved from Coventry to this eity in November, 1868, at which time he was in charge of the priming department. When he resigned his position with that company he turned his attention to the retail grocery trade, entering into partnership with George MI. Robertson, while afterward he became associated with Charles J. Ketcham, the business being continued under the firm style of Lee & Ketcham. It constituted the nucleus of a large fortune, enabling Mr. Lee to make investments which were carefully and judiciously placed and returned to him a considerable measure of wealth. In June, 1895. he retired from that business. He is manager of the E. H. H. Smith Silver Company, of which he was appointed receiver. Apply-
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ing sound business methods to the management of the business, he has brought it around to a stable financial basis and at the present time he is manager and treasurer of the com- pany.
Mr. Lee is connected with the Masonie order, being a member of the St. John's Lodge, No. 3, F. & A. M .; Jerusalem Chapter, No. 13, R. A. M .; Hamilton Commandery, No. 5, K. T .; and the Mystic Shrine, and he also belongs to Samuel H. Harrison Lodge, No. 99, 1. O. O. F., and he is an active member of both the Bridgeport and the Connecticut His- torical Societies. In fact he is considered an authority upon the history of the state and has a wonderful collection of books concerning Connecticut and Connecticut history. For many years he has figured prominently in political circles and has usually been a stanch republican. He was elected registrar from the old sixth ward in 1881 and 1882, and in 1885 and 1886 he served on the board of selectmen, while in 1887 and 1888 he represented the third ward on the board of aldermen. He also served as fire commissioner but resigned after fifteen months. On the 1st of August, 1895, he was appointed county commissioner for a term of four years and was made secretary and treasurer of the board. His fairness and business qualifications earned him the reputation of being one of the best county com- missioners the county has ever had. In 1889 he was nominated for mayor by the republican party but on that occasion was defeated. In 1908 he was again nominated, on which occa - sion he was elected, and in November, 1914, he became a candidate for the office on the citizens ticket, on which occasion he ran a close second to the republican candidate and far ahead of the democratic candidate. During his incumbency as mayor he gave to the city a progressive administration, and while he avoided useless expenditures. he also avoided that economical retrenchment which blocks public improvement. It was under his guidance that Golden Hill street was widened from Main to the railroad station and he instituted many other movements which have been of great civic worth and value, notably the establishment of harbor lines and the acquirement of Fayerweather island for park purposes. Mr. Lee is married and has one son, Henry W.
J. K. WILLIAMSON.
J. K. Williamson is widely known as the president of the Porcupine Company of Bridge- port. a business that was incorporated in 1911. although it had its inception in 1884 as The Hazelton Boiler Company with offices and works at 716 East Thirteenth street, New York city. Substantial business qualities have been manifest throughout the active career of Mr. Williamson, who though a comparatively young man has made for himself a most creditable position, basing his success upon the thoroughness which he has manifested and which is the outcome of his educational preparation and his landable ambition. He was born in Bethel, Connecticut, September 17, 1883. a son of John H. and Julia (Reid) Williamson. His father was a mechanical engineer and manufacturer who for some time was an officer of the old Hezelton Boiler Company and became one of the founders of the Porcupine Com- pany and its first president. He died in 1908 but is still survived by his widow.
J. K. Williamson attended the public schools of Bethel and afterward became a student in the preparatory department of the Norwalk University school. Later he entered Cornell and was graduated in 1906 with the degree of Mechanical Engineer. His initial step in the business world was made with the Turner Construction Company of New York, with which he advanced to superintendent, leaving their employ after three years to enter his present business. He came to Bridgeport in 1909 as president of the business in which he is now engaged. The Porcupine Company is an enlargement and reorganization of the Connecticut Construction & Supply Company which in turn was successor to the Hazelton Boiler Com. pany of New York city. Upon removing to Bridgeport in 1911 the business was established
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at 730 Wordin avenue, where the plant has eighteen thousand square feet under cover and a crane served stock yard of eight thousand square feet. The buildings are one story in height and are supplied with electric power by the United Illuminating Company. The plant is equipped throughout with individual motor drive and they have two shops, one of which is the plate shop devoted to hoiler, tank and plate work. In the same building is produced their Bagasse Burning Equipment, which is sold to the cane sugar producing companies, including boilers, furnaces, conveyors, etc. These are sold in all sugar producing countries, and they issue catalogues printed in Portuguese, Spanish and other languages for distribution in these countries. This equipment utilizes the waste cane pulp for fuel, burning it while it is moist and green. The equipment for a twenty-five hundred horse power sugar plant is sold at fifty thousand dollars or more. In the shops of the company all kinds of contract work is also done.
In the second shop structural steel is fabricated. This is the first enterprise of the kind in Bridgeport. Today the shop is fabricating two hundred and seventy-five tons of structural steel per month and carries over one thousand tons of stock in the yard. The company installs its own equipment in boilers, plate and structural work and employs one hundred men, of whom forty per cent are skilled workmen. The structural steel is sold all over New England, New York and New Jersey. Recently the company has built a fac- tory, conducted under the name of the Aero-Marine Plane & Motor Company, at Keyport, New Jersey, which is the largest of the kind in the United States, having trusses with a clear span of eighty-five feet. The business is growing rapidly and has already reached ex- tensive and gratifying proportions. The present officers of the company are: J. K. William- son, president; C. W. Brooks, vice president; James B. Reeve, secretary and treasurer; and H. H. Williamson, works manager.
On the 6th of September, 1911, Mr. Williamson was married to Miss Gladys M. Ball, of Watertown, New York, and they have two children, Gladys Barbara and Margaret. Mr. Williamson belongs to the Phi Kappa Psi fraternity and also to the University Club and is richly endowed with those qualities which make for personal popularity and which add much to the joy of life. He entered into his present business relations well equipped by college training and experience for the important and responsible duties which he assumed and through well directed ability he is constantly enlarging his interests and thereby pro- moting his success.
WILLIAM H. O'HARA.
William H. O'Hara is an active member of the Bridgeport bar and is equally well known as a democratic leader of Connecticut. He was born in Washington, this state, October 15, 1859. His father, Thomas O'Hara, a native of County Sligo, Ireland, came to the United States in 1853 and settled at Washington, Connecticut, where he married Anna Norris; who was born in this state. He devoted his life to the occupation of farming, but both he and his wife have now passed away. In Ireland this branch of the O'Hara family is very prominent, tracing its ancestry back to O'Hara, Lord of Leiney in County Sligo.
William H. O'Hara was the eldest of a large family and is the only one now living in Bridgeport. He completed bis academic education in a famous school at Washington, Connecticut, called the Gunnery, founded by Frederick W. Gunn in the '50s-a school which still flourishes. His law studies were pursued in the office of the late Hon. Edward W. Seymour of Bridgeport, who served for several terms in congress and was also a judge of the Connecticut supreme court. Mr. O'Hara was admitted to the Connecticut bar in 1881, and to the supreme court of the United States in 1890. During the intervening period
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he bas practiced in Bridgeport. For several years he was associated with Daniel Davenport in the law firm of Davenport & O'Hara. This law firm was retained by the Housatonic the New York & New England, and the Danbury & Norwalk Railroad Companies, to conduct litigation before the Interstate Commerce Commission, which originated in the rate con- troversies between these companies and the New York & New Haven, and the New York & Northern Railroad Companies. In this litigation the firm was opposed by such distin- guished counsel as William C. Whitney, Sherman Everats and William A. Day. This firm also acted as counsel for the Pennsylvania Railroad Company in several cases pending in the state and federal courts. One of these cases, which involved the construction of an amendment to the federal judiciary act, preseribing terms for the removal of causes from the state to the federal courts, was carried to the supreme court of the United States for final decision. The ability displayed by this law firm in the conduct and trial of the railroad and other leading cases, so advanced Mr. O'Hara in his professional career, that for many years he has stood among the leaders of the bar in Connecticut.
In 1896 Mr. O'Hara was married to Miss Ella Elizabeth Pearsall, of Brooklyn, New York, a daughter of Daniel Pearsall, representing a family prominent in America for many generations.
In polities Mr. O'Hara is a democrat but has always had a distaste for public' office, although frequently importuned to become a candidate for high positions of honor and trust. In his earlier career, however, he took an active part in both local and state polities and made speeches in support of the democratic ticket during many presidential campaigns. In 1888 and 1892 he delivered addresses throughout the state of Connecticut in support of Grover Cleveland in connection with George W. Wheeler, who is now one of the judges of the Connecticut supreme court. He has never consented to become an office holder, however, save on one occasion when he spent two years as president of the board of aldermen of Bridgeport. He is a very forcible public speaker and has much natural ability as an orator, so that he is often called upon to address publie gatherings. On these occasions he always speaks extemporaneously and never delivers the same speech twice. His natural eloquence is manifest in his well chosen use of words and his clear and interesting presentation of any subject which he discusses. Mr. O'Hara was also formerly prominent in club life in Bridgeport but has withdrawn from such organizations to make his home his club, finding his greatest happiness after office hours are over at his own fireside, where as a genial host he is ever ready to welcome his extensive circle of friends.
ALFRED H. CLARK.
Alfred H. Clark, founder and promoter of the real estate agency of Alfred H. Clark & Son at No. 1024 Main street in Bridgeport, was horn in Torrington, Litchfield county, Con- necticut, April 26. 1868. His father, Herman Clark, was a farmer by occupation and was a son of William Clark, who followed carpentering. The mother bore the maiden name of Ellen Holcomb. Alfred H. Clark has one brother living. George B. Clark, founder of the George B. Clark Furniture Company of Bridgeport, controlling one of the largest retail furniture houses of Connecticut. There is also one sister, Mrs. Flora L. Deckand, of Strat- ford. There is also a half brother and a half sister: Jesse B., living at Torrington, Con- necticut ; and Mrs. Lizzie Wilcox.
Alfred H. Clark was reared at Torrington and in his youthful days attended the public schools, finishing his education with a two years' course in Professor Guile's Business College of New Haven. He was eighteen years of age when he entered the factory of the Union Hardware Company at Torrington, in which he was employed for one year. Later he spent two or three years in the service of the Adams Express Company of Torrington and after-
ALFRED H. AND GEORGE A. CLARK
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ward was connected with the Excelsior Needle Company there, occupying the position of foreman for seven years. In early manhood he likewise had experience in various other lines, selling the Wheeler & Wilson sewing machines for a time and also the New Home sewing machine. He possessed pluck and energy and anything which he undertook he carried forward to successful completion. At nineteen years of age he was the owner of a double house in Torrington. At twenty-one years of age he owned two such houses-a fact which showed that he had carefully saved his earnings, of which he had made wise investment. In August, 1896, he came to Bridgeport and from that time to the present, or for twenty- one years, he has been prominently identified with the real estate business, making a specialty of handling farm property, in which connection he has won an extensive clientage throughout a large part of the country. Today he is represented by fifty-two subagents seattered over eight states, and the firm of Alfred H. Clark & Son now has two thousand farms listed in the states of New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, West Virginia, Florida and Oklahoma.
On the 1st of January. 1896, Mr. Clark was married to Mabel Naoma Parfitt, of Tor- rington, and they have become parents of three children: George A., Ethel Maud and Flora Eloise. The son is said to be the exact image of his father in personal appearance and in business enterprise and ability and has been made the junior partner in the firm.
In politics Alfred H. Clark is a democrat and was formerly very active in political eireles in Torrington, where for several years he served as deputy register of voters, while for many years he managed the democratie campaign of Litchfield county as the first assistant of Henry J. Allen. In many respects Mr. Clark is a remarkable man, being of that type who would be called to leadership in any sphere of endeavor which he might enter. Ile is vigorous and determined. readily discriminates between the essential and the nonessential and has long sinee passed from the ranks of the many to stand among the more snecessful few.
JAMES W. GRANT.
James W. Grant, a well known Bridgeport manufacturer, removed from Waterbury, Connecticut, to this city in 1886 and through the intervening period he has made steady progress along business lines. He was first connected with the Hand Sewing Machine Company and assisted in developing and improving the machine turned out by that company. After the failure of the company he spent three years with the J. S. Follensbee Machine Company, which was then engaged in developing the hook and eye machines. To that, work Mr. Grant turned his attention, bringing his inventive skill and ingenuity to play in the work, his labors being attended with excellent results, for the company turned out the first hook and eye machines built in Bridgeport and the device proved highly satisfactory. Later Mr. Grant built hook and eye machines which not only manufactured hooks and eyes but also fastened them to the cards on which they are sold. He also designed machines for the lock department of the United States government at Washington, D. C., after which he went to the capital to deliver the machine and instructed the government how to operate. He afterward took an exhibit of pin, tack and nail machines to the Atlanta exposition and there for the first time pins were made south of the Ohio river. For some time there- after his business interests connected him with the south, for he assisted in establishing a tack factory at Birmingham, Alabama.
Upon his return to Bridgeport Mr. Grant became connected with E. S. Hotchkiss, building automatie machines to replace hand machinery used in the manufacture of rat and mouse traps. The next step in his business career was the establishment of the Special Machinery Company about 1892 and since then he has conducted business under that caption, develop-
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ing all kinds of automatic wire machinery for making hooks and eyes, rat and mouse trap wires, paper clips and fasteners, necktie fasteners and corset clasps. He has designed hundreds of special machines for manufacturing these different devices and in the conduct of bis business be employs from ten to forty-five skilled mechanics. He now manufactures a large line of paper fasteners and also manufactures cable hangers, which at one time he made in large quantities. Another feature of his output is the clothespin spring machine. He has invented and placed upon the market many articles of merit, among them peelers, coin holders, paper fasteners and wire paper clips and has invented special machinery for the manufacture of all of these. A practical machinist and tool maker, he adds broad experience to natural inventive power and the results have constituted a valuable contribution to the mechanical devices of the country, adding to America's reputation as a great world center of invention.
Mr. Grant was married to Elizabeth Kenney, a native of Derby, Connecticut, and to them were born four children: Sadie May and Lucy L., both living and two sons who are deceased. Robert Johnson passed away at the age of twenty-four years, and John Washington at the age of nineteen. Both were associated in business with their father.
GEORGE W. FINN.
George W. Finn, whose public spirit is manifest in many ways, finding expression at various times in the conduct of his business interests, has for the past twenty years been connected with real estate operations in Bridgeport. He is a native of this city and a repre- sentative of a family that has lived in Bridgeport and in Fairfield county through four generations. His great-grandfather, Thomas Finn, was a farmer of Fairfield and died in 1870 at the ripe old age of one hundred and two years.
In early life George W. Finn was appointed a clerk in the Bridgeport post office by .Julius W. Knowlton, who was then postmaster, and after spending four years in the govern- ment service he entered the clothing business and was connected with the Park City Clothing Company until 1895. He afterward became an employe of the Bridgeport Post and covered the city hall assignment for three years. His principal duty was to keep in touch with politicians of all shades of opinion and separate the chaff from the wheat. That he sue- ceeded is evidenced by the fact that for twenty years after he left the newspaper business he enjoyed the friendship of George W. Hills. Robert N. Blakeslee and the late Frank W. Bolande, who were the owners of the paper at that time. As a newspaper man Mr. Finn also made many other valuable acquaintances who have been of service to him in his present business, and his varied experience in different pursuits has gained him comprehensive knowledge of human nature, together with an intimate acquaintance with Bridgeport and its inhabitants. In his present business he has specialized as an operator and developer of real estate rather than as a real estate agent. He has opened up numerous tracts of land on the outskirts of the city, selling lots on the installment plan, and he has also aided purchasers in building homes by furnishing architect's plans and specifications and also by making loans. He has erected a number of attractive residences on Laurel avenue and Elm- wood avenue and also in the north end of the city near St. Vincent's hospital. He has like- wise built a number of inexpensive homes for workingmen in the west end and in Fairfield. He is very particular in his method of doing business, and it makes no difference whether he is building a house for twelve hundred dollars or for twelve thousand dollars; he employs an architect to prepare the plans and specifications so as to insure harmony and safety in his dwellings. Mr. Finn is an expert appraiser and has been employed as a condemnation commissioner of the superior court in taking land required under the law of eminent domain.
GEORGE W. FINN
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He has also acted as an appraiser on numerons estates and in cases where partnerships were being dissolved.
Mr. Finn takes a keen interest in Bridgeport and its development. He is opposed to closing np streets for the benefit of special interests and he has repeatedly advocated open- ing up all dead end streets so that traffic and business may be accelerated. Believing that Bridgeport will always be an industrial city and that it is useless to waste enormous sums of money on artistic or aesthetic improvements, he feels that all the expenditure should be for practical, sensible projects based on the aims and needs of the population. In a word, he is a publie-spirited man who has closely studied conditions and in planning for public work looks beyond the exigencies of the moment to the possibilities of the future.
R. E. RANDALL.
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