USA > Connecticut > Fairfield County > Leading business men of Fairfield County : and a historical review of the principal cities > Part 6
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JAMES WALKER BEARDSLEY is a native of Monroe, Connecticut, and a descendant in regular line from William Beardsley one of the early settlers of Stratford. He is deeply interested in antiquarian research, in which field he has accomplished much valuable work in the way of local historical matter. He is a fitting type and repre- sentative of the progressive yet conservative New England farmers, who have done- so much for the advancement of the city and State, and his name will be gratefully remembered as long as the city exists and enjoys the beauties and health-giving. privileges of Beardsley Park.
SIDNEY B. BEARDSLEY was born in Monroe, Connecticut, August 20, 1822, being the son of Cyrus H. and Maria (Burr) Beardsley, and a descendent of one of the oldest and best families of the State. After receiving a thorough education at. Wilton Academy and Yale College, he studied law with Reuben Booth of Danbury, and was admitted to the bar at Norwalk in 1843. Since 1866 he has resided and practiced at Bridgeport. He was State Senator in 1858, and was elected Judge of the Superior Court in 1874. He ranks among the leading masters of jurisprudence in the State.
ALFRED BISHOP was born in Stamford, Connecticut, December 21, 1798, being the son of William and Susannah Bishop, and a descendant in a direct line from the Rev. John Bishop, the second minister of Stamford. After several years of exper .. ience in teaching school at Stamford and at farming in New Jersey, where he made experiments in transporting earth, etc., and educated himself for his great career as a canal and railroad contractor, he entered upon this work, and among the greatest achievements he made after that time were the Morris canal in New Jersey; the bridge over the Raritan at New Brunswick; the Housatonic, Berkshire, Washington & Saratoga, Naugatuck, and New York & New Haven railroads, for all of which he was the chief contractor. He was engaged in immense operations up to almost the- last moment of life, and his sudden death, June 11, 1849, was a great loss and bereavement to Bridgeport, where for a number of years previous he had made his- home.
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REV. ETHAN FERRIS BISHOP was born in Madison, New Jersey, March 27, 1825. He was a son of Alfred and Mary Ferris Bishop. Like his father, he early became interested in railroad matters, was president of the Naugatuck Railroad from 1851 to 1855, and held important interests in the New York & New Haven, Washington & Saratoga, Milwaukee & Chicago, Milwaukee & Watertown, Dubuque & Sioux City, and the Bridgeport Steamboat Co. He studied law and was admitted to the bar but never practiced. He was also a deep and earnest student of theology, for which his mind seemed admirably fitted. He died in Bridgeport, December 7, 1883.
HON. WILLIAM D. BISHOP, also a son of Alfred Bishop, was likewise distinguished in the railroad enterprises of the State. He was for several years at a critical time in its history, president of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad Com- pany, and has been one of the most influential directors of the road for many years. He graduated from Yale College in 1849; represented this district in the National Congress from 1859-61, where he took an active part in the important discussions of the time; was a representative of Bridgeport in the State Legislature for 1871, and a State Senator in 1877 and 1878.
DR. ISAAC BRONSON was born in Middlebury, Connecticut, March 10, 1760. He served as a surgeon to the Continental army throughout the Revolutionary War, and after a journey to Europe and India, settled in Philadelphia in 1792, where for a number of years he practiced his profession with great renown during the dreaded yellow fever epidemics, and laid the fonndation of marked financial success. Ile came to Greenfield Hill, Connecticut, in 1796, and in 1807 was elected first president of the Bridgeport Bank, which office he held with honor for twenty-one years. He died at the age of 80, May 19, 1839.
JOHN DUTTON CANDEE was born in Pompey, Onondaga County, New York, June 12, 1819. His parents removed to Connecticut about 1825, and his father having died in the year following, his mother with six children made her home in New Haven, where Mr. Candee spent a great part of his youth. Since the age of nine he has supported himself entirely, without any assistance from relative or friend. At thirteen he entered upon work in a printers' office as "roller boy," and during the next ten years gained a thorough mastery of the business. He earned his way through Yale College, graduating in the Class of 1847, and from the Law School in the Class of 1849. After a long and honorable career in the practice of his profes- sion in Iowa and New Haven, and a few months' experience in the editorial manage- ment of the New Haven Morning Journal and Courier, he came to Bridgeport and purchased a two-thirds interest in the daily and weekly Standard, September, 1863, which during the last twenty-four years he has conducted with marked ability, devoting every talent and energy to the service of the people, advocating fearlessly all movements in behalf of right and progress, and exercising a wide influence for the best welfare of the city.
MAJOR FREDERICK FRYE was born in 1824, and was the son of Daniel M. Frye, of New York city, grandson of Capt. Frederick Frye, and great-grandson of Colonel James Frye, of Andover, Massachusetts, who fought with distinguished honor at the battle of Bunker Hill, receiving wounds which eventually caused his death. Major Frye was a graduate of Columbia College, and at the time of the war was practicing law in Bridgeport. Being the last descendant of such a honorable line of warrior ancestors, he naturally enlisted among the first as a captain in the Third Connecticut
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Regiment and afterward as a captain in the Ninth, serving with valor worthy of his name and race at Bull Run, New Orleans, Port Hudson, Cedar Creek, Five Forks, and many other great battles throughout the war, receiving the promotion to Major for his gallant services. At the close of the war he settled in New Orleans as a lawyer and took an active part in the reconstruction work, being at one time Justice of the Sixth District of New Orleans. He was obliged to leave the law on account of ill health, and occupied a clerkship in the Custom House until his death, June 22, 1881.
HON. EPAPHROS BURR GOODSELL was born in 1817 at Brookfield, Connecticut. After receiving the best common school education in his native town, and an experi- ence as merchant, manufacturer and postmaster at Kent, Connecticut, he came to Bridgeport in 1848, where he was soon recognized as a prominent citizen, and was appointed to the postmastership of the city in 1852, by President Franklin Pierce. He administered the office with great success and popularity for eight years, until the election of Lincoln and change of parties. He held the mayorality of the city for 1871-2-3, beside other important offices and trusts. He was a prominent Christ- ian worker and philanthropist, and one of the founders of the Trinity Episcopal Church, of which he was Junior Warden at the time of his death, October 10, 1884. He was widely respected and admired for his noble Christian character, and the persist- ent spirit of progress which had rendered him a most successful " self-made " man.
WILLIAM B. HALL is a native of Springfield, Massachusetts, and a son of Will- iam Stewart Hall, of Wallingford. He began his successful career as a business man as a clerk in the store of T. P. Chapman of New Haven, July 15, 1846. Four years later he came to this city and engaged himself to the firm of E. Birdsey & Co., dry-goods merchants, with whom he remained until 1857, when he formed a part- nership with Mr. D. M. Read, under the firm name of Hall & Read. This company was dissolved in 1877, after twenty years of great progress, and since that time Mr. Hall has conducted the immense and growing interests of the firm of W. B. Hall & Company with such remarkable success, that the building of the company has had to be enlarged several times, and the custom and reputation of the house have attained a wide recognition throughout the United States.
SHERMAN HARTWELL was one of the most influential business men of the city during the middle part of the present century. He was elected president of the Bridgeport Bank in 1849, and for twenty years continued to overlook its affairs with wisdom, the period being one of the most progressive and prosperous in the history of the bank. In 1869 he was obliged to positively decline a reelection to the presi- dency, at which time the following resolution was passed by the board of directors: " Resolved, That the thanks of the board are due and are hereby tendered to Sher- man Hartwell for efficient and valuable services as president of this bank for the last twenty years, and as evidence of the prosperity of the bank it may be stated that it has, during the said twenty years, paid its stockholders in dividends the sum of $430,700, on a capital of $212,000, and increased its surplus $40,000." After a long and distinguished business career, Mr. Hartwell departed this life January 16, 1876.
ABIJAH HAWLEY was one of the leading merchants of Bridgeport at its first advent into prominence as a commercial center, and came of one of the oldest and wealthiest families of this vicinity. He carried on an extensive shipping trade, chiefly with Boston and the West Indies, about the beginning of the present century, and was prominent and influential in the establishment of the Bridgeport Bank.
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REV. GIDEON HAWLEY was born in Stratfield, November 5, 1727. He came of an old and honored family, his parents being Gideon and Eunice (Jackson) Hawley. He graduated at Yale College in 1749, and was licensed to preach by the Fairfield East Association in 1750. He early resolved to be a missionary to the Indians, and first at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, then among the Iroquois on the Susquehanna River, and later among the Marshpee tribe, he labored unceasingly for fifty years with an unselfish devotion and powerful love which have made him one of the most honored of the early missionaries to this persecuted race.
MUNSON HAWLEY, son of Abijah Hawley, the pioneer merchant, succeeded his father as one of the leading and successful business men of Bridgeport. In 1869 he was elected president of the Bridgeport National Bank, which office he has continued to hold during the last eighteen years, and has administered with marked ability, economy, and uninterrupted success. He was mayor of the city in 1866 and 1868, and has for many years taken a leading part in the advancement all along the line of the highest welfare of Bridgeport.
ALFRED CHARLES HOBBS was born in Boston, Massachusetts, October 7, 1812, the son of John L. Hobbs of London, England, an expert carpenter and joiner. Left an orphan by the death of his father when he was three years old, Mr. Hobbs spent most of his youth in helping his mother in the support of the family. He tried vari- ous trades in his young manhood, including those of farmer, dry-goods merchant, wood-carving, sailor, carriage painting and making, tin plating, coach trimming and harness making, none of which succeeded in satisfying his inventive mind. Finally as an accessory of glass-making he began to work upon locks, and found the field in which he was to obtain world-wide fame. He entered the partnership of Jones & Hobbs, and for five years carried on the lock business in Boston. After this firm was dissolved Mr. Hobbs went to New York, where he connected himself with Edwards & IIolman, lock and safe makers, and later with the celebrated bank lock makers, Day & Newell. During all this time he had been perfecting his knowledge of locks, and now entered upon a career as an expert in locks and demonstrator of their true character, which has probably never been equalled. He was so remarkably skillful in the opening of locks which had always been considered invulnerable that he received the commendation of the Treasury Department at Washington and many prominent business men all over the country. In a visit which he made to England in 1851 he was honored with the approbation and admiration of the Duke of Wellington, Queen Victoria, and many other prominent members of the royal family. His career at the Crystal Palace and as the opener of such celebrated locks as the " Brahma " and " Chubb " was one continued ovation, and during his residence of nine years in London he received distinguished honors as a talented scientist and operator. He established an extensive business, which grew to be so famous that on his return to America in 1860, a large premium was paid for the privilege of retain- ing his name in that of the firm. He was the chief superintendent of Elias Howe's great machine factories in Bridgeport for four years, and in 1865 became the man- ager of the manufacturing department of the Metallic Cartridge Company of this city, which has since grown rapidly and been greatly prospered under his successful supervision.
CAPTAIN GEORGE HOYT was a native and prominent citizen of Bridgeport during its early commercial history. In his youth he was a seaman, and later, at the organ-
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ization of the Bridgeport Bank he was elected its first cashier, which office he dis- charged with great honor and ability up to the time of his death, July, 1825.
CAPTAIN SALMON HUBBELL was another of our early business men, who played an important part in building up the trade of the young town. He came to Bridgeport from Wilton about 1790, and for more than twenty years successfully conducted a dry goods and grocery business here. He was a captain and paymaster in the Con- tinental Army during the Revolution, and fought with the gallant company that captured Stony Point under General "Mad Anthony " Wayne. He was elected in 1820 to be the first town clerk of Bridgeport, which duty he fulfilled with general approbation for several years, his records being still preserved, written in an unu- sually elegant penmanship and style.
PHILO HURD was born July 25, 1795, in Brookfield, Connecticut, where he ob- tained a thorough common school education and an invaluable practical knowledge upon his father's farm. At the age of fifteen, after a short period of study at a private school, he began his commercial life at the store of Oliver Warner, in New Milford, where he obtained considerable success until after the war of 1812. In company with Frank Taylor, he opened a dry goods store at Augusta, Georgia, in 1816, and after a prosperous career there spent a few years in business at Darien, Connecticut. He and his brother, Samuel Ferris Hurd, started a dry goods store in this city in 1823, under the name of P. & S. F. IIurd. He also engaged in the coast- ing and whaling interests, and was sheriff for a term of ten years. In 1838 he first became interested in railroad affairs, with which he was afterward so intimately and and successfully connected, having taken a prominent part in the inception of the Housatonic, New York & New Haven, Naugatuck, and Madison & Indianapolis railroads, and been vice-president of the Hudson River Railroad, and president of the New York & Harlem, which latter road owes a large share of its prosperity to his self-sacrificing efforts. IIe was active and prominent in the civil, religious and charitable affairs of Bridgeport. He died August 14, 1885, at the age of 90, having accomplished a work which in magnitude and influence is granted to few men in this life.
WILLIAM S. KNOWLTON was born in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts, September 27, 1810. IIe learned the occupation of a cutler in his youth but soon abandoned it for the field of music, graduating at a leading conservatory and producing many well- known and admired compositions between 1838 and 1842. After 1848 he was exten- sively engaged in railroad work and formed a copartnership which received many large contracts, including much work on the New York & New Haven. He was the contractor of the Congress Street Bridge, besides many other large works in the city, and ever took great interest in forwarding her prosperity.
COLONEL JULIUS M. KNOWLTON is the son of Wm. S. Knowlton and was born November 28, 1838, in Southbridge, Massachusetts. He received the greater part of his education in the public and private schools of Bridgeport, being particularly pro- ficient in mathematics and civil-engineering. For a year or so before the war he was engaged in the coal business here, and enlisted as a private in Co. A, Fourteenth, Connecticut Volunteers, being soon promoted to the position of commissary sergeant and within a few months to be brigade commissary under General Dwight Morris. He served with distinction and praise at Antietam, by unparallelled efforts bringing his supplies to the front and being the first to furnish provisions to a brigade on the
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field. He was promoted to the second lieutenancy of Company C of the Fourteenth, and commanded his company in the battle of Gettysburg, where he received several wounds which incapacitated him for further active service during the war. He has since been connected with the Adams Express Company in this city; was one of the three purchasers of the Standard, in 1863, and for ten years secretary, treasurer and business manager of the company; was superintendent of the Moore Car Wheel Company of Jersey City; and chief of the dead letter division of the post office department of the United States at Washington, which he administered with signal fidelity and success until 1875, when he was appointed to the postmastership of Bridgeport. This office he conducted with much more than ordinary devoted care and vigor, which were very thoroughly appreciated by the people. He was a member of Governor Jewell's staff, ranking as colonel, has served several years in the legislature and Republican State Committee, besides holding many other important positions of honor and trust in the city and Grand Army.
ROWLAND BRADLEY LACEY was born in Easton, Connecticut, April 6, 1818, an only son of Jesse and Edna (Mason) Lacey. He received his education at the district school, Mr. Eli Gilbert's select school in Redding, and the Easton Academy. Before he was sixteen years of age he was teaching school, and at the age of eighteen came to Bridgeport and for four years was assistant postmaster of the borough. In 1839, he became Bridgeport agent of the Housatonic Railroad, and continued in rail- road work with success until 1844, when he entered the establishment of Messrs. Harral & Calhoun, saddle manufacturers. He soon became a member of the firm, and at the death of Mr. Harral in 1858, the name became Calhoun, Lacey & Co., and in 1863 was changed to Lacey, Meeker & Co. He was one of the most active and successful of our self-made business men and has always been intimately connected with the best interests of the city, including the fire department, educational depart- ment, Common Council, as city auditor, in all of which and in other fields he has contributed inestimably to the advancement and well being of the city. His work in the line of local history has been particularly valuable and to no other man now living is it more due that the historical archives of Bridgeport are so unusually and richly supplied.
REV. PETER LOCKWOOD was born in Bridgeport, February 8, 1798. He was the third son of Lambert and Elizabeth Lockwood, descended from one of the oldest Puritan families. He entered Yale College in 1813, at the age of fifteen, graduating there in 1817, and at the Andover Theological Seminary in 1820. He engaged in evangelistic work in New York and Richmond, Virginia, for the next three years, after which he engaged in pastoral and educational work in Western New York State, dying at Binghamton, New York, November 16, 1882, after over sixty years of happy and successful Christian service.
HON. JAMES C. LOOMIS was born April 24, 1807, in Windsor, Connecticut. He prepared for college at the Hartford Grammar School, entering Yale in 1824 and graduating with honors in 1828. He studied law at Charlotteville, Virginia, and under Judge Clark Bissell of Norwalk, and was admitted to the bar of Fairfield County in 1832. After several years of successful practice at Saugatuck (Westport), he removed to Bridgeport in 1840 and immediately took a high rank in his profes- sion and judicial affairs of the city. He was city attorney for several years; mayor of the city in 1843; represented Bridgeport several times in both houses of the State
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Legislature; was a member of the Corporation of Yale College; and president of the Fairfield County Bar Association, Board of Education, Mountain Grove Cemetery Association and the Bridgeport Library Association, besides holding many other important trusts. His influence as first president of the Board of Education, com- missioner of Seaside Park, and many other movements for the good of the city,. endeared him to all the citizens and has placed his name among the greatest and most public spirited men of Bridgeport. He died September 16, 1877.
DANIEL NASH MORGAN was born in Newtown, Connecticut, August 18, 1844. His father was Ezra Morgan, of Redding, descended from one of the oldest families in the State, and was one of the most prominent public men of his part of the State, representing Newtown in the legislature for several years and holding many import- ant offices. Daniel Morgan commenced his mercantile career in his father's store at. the age of sixteen, and soon after attaining his majority came to Bridgeport and engaged himself as clerk to Taylor & Joyce, dry goods merchants. He has since been a member of several leading business firms of Bridgeport including those of Birdsey & Morgan, and Morgan, Hopson & Co. He has served the city as member of the Common Council for two years, member of the Board of Education, Mayor in 1880 and 1884, member of the lower house of legislature in 1883 and State Senator 1884-1886. He has held the position of President of the City National Bank since 1879, is first vice-president of the Mechanics and Farmers Savings Bank, and a. director of the Bridgeport Hospital, having led in these and many other important works for the good of the city for many years.
HENRY R. PARROTT, son of Frederick W. and Lucella (Remer) Parrott, was born in Bridgeport, January 4, 1829. His education was obtained in the private schools. of Bridgeport and the Danbury Academy. He started in business at the dry goods store of Beers & Oviatt, and for a number of years gained valuable experience in the employ of James W. Beach, E. Birdsey & Co., and the Adams Express Co. In 1869. he organized the Parrott Varnish Company, which he has since conducted with unwavering success. He has taken an active part in the civil affairs, having been for several years a member of the Board of Aldermen, Common Council, and Board of Police Commissioners. He has for many years advocated and aided in working for a parallel road between New York and Boston, and is at present the president of the New York and Connecticut Air Line Railway Company, which owes its prosperity and almost its existence to his energy and wise efforts.
HENRY SEYMOUR SANFORD was born in 1832, and was the only son of David C. Sanford, Judge of the Supreme Court of Connecticut. He graduated from Yale College with honors in the Class of 1852, and practiced law in New Milford from 1854 to 1864, since which time he has resided in Bridgeport. Notwithstanding the fact that he suffered so severe an injury in 1861 as to render him totally unable to walk, and has since suffered greatly from paralysis, Mr. Sanford by heroic efforts, has practiced his profession here successfully since 1864, and built up a prac- tice not surpassed by any other in the county. In 1863 he published a letter in the- New York Times which aroused such leading philanthropists as Henry Bergh, H. B. Claflin, and others, and was the direct cause of the organization in New York of a Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, and of similar societies all over the country. This is a work in which Mr. Sanford has been decply interested, and through which he has accomplished untold good. He was founder of the New Mil-
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JiAL
VIEW AT BLACK ROCK.
ford Society, which has become the model of more than three hundred other similar ones.
HON. PHILO CLARK CALHOUN was born December 4, 1810, in Danbury, Connect- icut, of an old and honored family, being related to the Hon. John C. Calhoun of South Carolina. He started in business at Bridgeport about 1826, entering the saddle and harness business with Lyon, Wright & Co., and soon afterward was sent by the firm to Charleston, South Carolina, where he established a store, and returning to Bridgeport about 1834, soon established himself as one of our leading business men, which position he maintained during the whole time of his residence here. He was president of the Connecticut Bank for seventeen years, a member of the Bridge- port Common Council, and Board of Aldermen; was Mayor from 1855 to 1857; a member of both houses of the Legislature, and was most influential in all public measures relating to the city from 1850 to 1864. In that year he removed to New York city where as president of the Fourth National Bank he soon established it as one of the largest deposit banks in the country. He held many other important offices and was one of the most noted and successful business men of the metropolis. He died March 14, 1882, having accomplished a great work and been an important. factor in the progress of Bridgeport.
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