USA > Connecticut > Men of mark in Connecticut; ideals of American life told in biographies and autobiographies of eminent living Americans > Part 12
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LEWIS ORSMOND BRASTOW
B RASTOW, LEWIS ORSMOND, D.D., professor of practical theology at Yale University, is a native of Maine. He was born in Brewer, Penobscot County, on March 23rd, 1834, the son of Deodat Brastow and Eliza Blake Brastow. His father's ancestors were English, his mother's maternal ancestors French, and representatives of both sides were among the settlers in Massachu- setts in the eighteenth century. Also they were to be found among the fighters for independence in the Revolutionary War, one paternal ancestor on the staff of General Washington. Deodat Brastow was a generous, frank man, of intellectual vivacity and of much forceful- ness. Following the business of a merchant, he was also deeply inter- ested in all that pertained to education and held various offices con- nected with the public school system.
Lewis Orsmond Brastow was blessed with a strong constitution- healthy, robust, and active. As a boy he was fond of boating, of natural scenery, and of mountain climbing. During his village life his work at gardening, caring for the live stock, handling carpenter's tools and the like gave him appreciation of the training of the hand and eye and of the value of attention, trustworthiness, and sentiment, whatever the task. Over his moral and spiritual upbringing, his father and mother exerted a powerful influence. While a lover of books and having a predilection for the study of foreign languages, he believes that the lines of reading which have had most effect upon his career are classical and English literature, history, philos- ophy, and standard works in theology.
Fitting himself for college under private tutors, he entered Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Me., and received his degree of B.A. in 1857. His high stand won him membership in Phi Beta Kappa and he also was a member of Alpha Delta Phi. Such had been the religious bent of his life that he went at once to Bangor Theological Seminary, where, after a full course in divinity, he was graduated in 1860. His Alma Mater conferred upon him the degree of D.D. and in 1885 Yale gave him the degree of M.A.
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His first pastorate was with the South Congregational Church at Saint Johnsbury, Vt., 1861 to 1873. During part of this time, from September, 1862, to July, 1863, he was serving in the field as chaplain of the Twelfth Regiment of Vermont Volunteer Infantry, in the Civil War. From September, 1873, to May, 1884, he was pastor of the First Congregational Church of Burlington, Vt. Then he was appointed professor of practical theology in the Yale Divinity School, a position which he has held since 1885.
His regard for the general public welfare has led him to give of his services in the interests of good civil government, and in addition to his lectures on theological topics he has delivered occasional ad- dresses on educational and political subjects. In 1880 he was chosen a member of the Vermont Constitutional Convention. In politics he is an Independent, but has voted the Democratic national ticket since James G. Blaine was nominated for the presidency by the Re- publicans in 1884. In ecclesiastical affiliations he is a Congrega- tionalist. In 1904 he published a work entitled, "Representative Modern Preachers."
For exercise the professor has indulged in long rambles, horse- back riding and boating. He is a member of a literary club in New Haven.
He married Miss Martha Brewster Ladd on May 15th, 1872. They have had three children, all of whom are living. The pro- fessor's home is at No. 146 Cottage Street, New Haven.
Asked what suggestions he would offer to young Americans as to principles, methods, and habits which he believed would contribute most to the strengthening of sound ideals in our American life and would most help young people to attain true success in life, the doctor replied : "A high conception of the value of individual manhood, con- scientious fidelity to trusts, strong moral convictions, courageous de- votion to principles, freedom from bondage to any man or set of men."
HERBERT KNOX SMITH
S MITH, HERBERT KNOX, lawyer, deputy commissioner of corporations, former member of legislature and many times a public officer, whose home is in Hartford, Connecticut, was born in Chester, Hampden County, Massachusetts, November 17th, 1869. His early ancestors in this country were Robert Smith, born in 1700 and a member of the Long Island family of St. George's Manor, and Judith Fountain, his wife, born in Greenwich, Connecti- cut, 1724. Mr. Smith's father was Edward Alfred Smith, a Con- gregational clergyman and fellow of the Yale University Corporation, a man of high character and of great modesty and unselfishness. Mr. Smith's mother was Melissa E. Knox Smith. He was brought up in the country and the love of nature and rural life was one of his strongest boyhood traits. History, law, and economics were his favorite fields of study and reading. He attended private school and then entered the Lawrenceville Preparatory School. He was an ardent devotee of baseball, tennis, shooting, camping, and all out-of-door sports, and while at Lawrenceville he played on the school nine. He entered Yale Academic Department with the class of 1891 and after his graduation entered the Yale Law School, where he received his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1895.
In October, 1895, the fall following his completion of the law course, Mr. Smith began legal practice in Hartford and he con- tinued in the general practice of law in that city until 1903, when he went to Washington to take his present government position. In addition to his practice Mr. Smith has had many business and public positions. Since 1899 he has been a director of the American School for the Deaf; from 1900 to 1903 he was chairman of the First Ecclesiastical Society (Congregational) of Hartford; from 1900 to 1903 he was chairman of the Sixth Ward Republican Committee; he served two terms, 1900-1902, on the Hartford Common Council; he represented Hartford in the State Legislature in the term 1903-1905 and was a member of the judiciary com-
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mittee of that legislature; he was chairman of the Republican Town Committee in 1903, acting solicitor of the Department of Com- merce and Labor in 1903, a member of the United States Commis- sion of Investigation upon the Slocum Disaster in 1904, and he has been a delegate to various city and state political conventions.
At present Mr. Smith is Deputy Commissioner of Corporations at Washington, to which position he was appointed in August, 1903; he is a trustee of the Hartford Theological Seminary and of the Wadsworth Atheneum, a member of the Park Board of Hartford, and a director in the Farmington Savings Bank. He is an active Yale alumnus and was for three years secretary and treasurer of the Yale Alumni Association of Hartford. He is a member of the scholarly college society of Phi Beta Kappa, of the Elihu Club of Yale, of the Yale Club of New York, the Metropolitan Club of Washington, and the Hartford Club of his home city.
Though Herbert Knox Smith is still a young man he has accom- plished a great deal more than many a man of much riper years and his advice is as forceful and adequate as though it had the weight of a long life's experience behind it. He believes that "the best and most necessary form of patriotism is active attention to civic duties, and that the basis for the most lasting success in life is honesty, the maintenance of unselfish ideals of service, and the thorough per- formance of all work, no matter how unimportant."
Fil March.
FRANCIS WANZER MARSH
M ARSH, FRANCIS WANZER, banker, of Bridgeport, Con- necticut, was born near New Milford, Litchfield County, Connecticut, December 18th, 1846. He is descended from William Marsh of Boston, a commissary in the Indian War in 1636 who was wounded in the Narragansett fight. This William was a brother of James Marsh of Kent, England, a captain in the royal army who was beheaded by Charles I. at Hedgehill, which tragedy was the cause of William leaving college and coming to America. On his mother's side Mr. Marsh is descended from Daniel and Mary Brownson Hine of Waterbury, founders of the Hine family in Amer- ica. His parents were Laura Hine and John Buckley Marsh, a far- mer, whose most pronounced characteristics were love of home and family, strict integrity, and hard, strenuous industry. The home life of this family was ideal in its simplicity, in its Christian atmosphere, and in the devotion of each member to the others. There were nine other children beside Mr. Marsh and, as the family means were most moderate, he had plenty of hard work to do in his boyhood and his education was confined to that of country schools. He helped on the farm at home and attended school until he was seventeen, when he went to work in a country store. In 1866, when he was twenty years old, Mr. Marsh took a position in a dry goods store in Bridgeport, re- maining there one year, and going from that position into the insurance business and savings bank, where he remained until 1886. Commencing as office boy he was promoted from time to time until he became treasurer of the bank.
In 1886 a partnership was formed, Marsh, Merwin & Lemmon, combining private banking with insurance and real estate. The busi- ness grew steadily along all three lines until about 1901 when the firm organized two companies, the Bridgeport Trust Company, with a charter from the State of Connecticut, which has now a capital of $200,000 with a fine surplus, and the Bridgeport Land and Title Company, also with a State charter, which has now a capital of $100,000. The building up of these com- panies has been Mr. Marsh's life work, and as president of the
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trust company he has a position of well merited prominence in the banking world. The forces which he has brought to bear in the attainment of his success have been a constant determination to labor honorably for a position in life, and pride in doing well every- thing he had to do.
Outside of his business life, and by no means secondary to it, Mr. Marsh's greatest interest has been in his church life. He is a Presbyterian in his religious affiliations, and his activity in the work of that church has taken much of his time. He has been an elder of the First Presbyterian Church, Sunday school superintendent, director and treasurer of the Young Men's Christian Association, and a member of both local and state committees on Christian Endeavor work. His church work, business interests, and home life have so fully occupied Mr. Marsh that he has never held or wished public office, though he is a consistent and loyal Republican.
On May 17th, 1871, Mr. Marsh married Emma Clifford Wilson, who is a daughter of the late Isaac Wilson, a highly respected citizen of early Bridgeport and at one time a member of the city council; he was descended from the old Wilson family of Leeds, England, upon whose land the city was built. Mrs. Marsh's mother was Miss Elizabeth Shepard, a direct descendant in the eighth generation from William Bradford, Colonial Governor of Plymouth, Massachusetts. A daughter of his son, Major William Bradford, married Samuel Shepard of Cambridge, Massachusetts. Mrs. Marsh is an active member in various literary, social, and musical clubs; a director in the Y. W. C. A., the Ladies' Auxiliary of the Y. M. C. A., and a daughter of the Mary Silliman Chapter D. A. R. and former record- ing secretary. She is an active member of the First Presbyterian Church, a teacher in the Sunday school, and a leader in philanthropic church work. Four children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Marsh, Egbert Shepard, Violet Shepard, Clifford Wanzer and Mabel Rhoades. Their home is at 852 Park Avenue, Bridgeport.
Mr. Marsh's success as a man and as a banker is plainly accounted for in the precepts he gives to others and which have undoubtedly guided his career. He advocates first of all "high ideals of purity, honesty, and industry," and says, "Abide your time while hard at work; think more of how you are doing than what you are getting. Help the other fellow. Make him work hard to get ahead of you, but if he does, tell him you are glad."
MORRIS FRANKLIN TYLER
T YLER, MORRIS FRANKLIN, lawyer, president of the Southern New England Telephone Company, was born in New Haven, Connecticut, August 12th. 1848. His father, Morris Tyler, was a wholesale manufacturer of boots and shoes in New Haven, Connecticut, a man of uprightness and directness, who served his native city as councilman, as alderman, and as mayor, and his state as lieutenant governor in 1871 and 1872. He married Mary Frisbie, daughter of Ezekiel and Elizabeth (Frisbie) Butler of West- port, New York State.
Morris Franklin Tyler was a strong and hearty child, and early showed his interest in books and study. He was brought up in the city and was afforded every advantage that could serve to train his mind and, after leaving the public grammar school, was graduated at the Hillhouse High School and at once matriculated at Yale University, where he was graduated A.B. 1870, A.M. 1873, and LL.B. 1873. Adopting the profession of law was the result of circumstances which seemed to lead up to it and he was admitted to the bar im- mediately after taking his bachelor degree at Yale University Law School. He opened a law office in New Haven, Connecticut, July 1st, 1873.
His early political affiliation was with the Republican party, but the incidents attending the campaign between the Republican candi- date for president, James G. Blaine, and Grover Cleveland, the candidate of the Democratic party, compelled him to vote with the Democrats and from that time he has remained independent in politics. His church affiliation is with the Congregational denomi- nation. In March, 1883, he was elected president of the Southern New England Telephone Company, and the growth of this enterprise has occurred under his management. He served as execu- tive secretary to Governor Hobart B. Bigelow of Connecticut in 1881 and 1882. He was instructor in jurisprudence in Yale University, 1893-94, full professor of law 1894-99, and treasurer of the corpora-
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tion 1899-1904. He is a member of the Union League, Grolier and Yale clubs of New York City and of the Quinnipiack and Graduates Clubs of New Haven, Connecticut.
Mr. Tyler is a man of strong personality and keen judgment, unique among presidents of public service corporations. He has strong views upon the subject of the obligations owed to the public by these corporations, and is the first president of one of them, the Southern New England Telephone Company, to issue new stock to stockholders at a figure considerably in advance of par, thus antici- pating legislation of that import. A lover of literature and nature, a professional man by education, and a corporation manager by position, he represents a type destined to prevail and dominate in the years to come.
He was married November 5th, 1873, to Delia Talman, daughter of Victor Gifford and Georgiana (Mallory) Audubon of New York City, and of the five children born of this marriage four are now living. The children living are Victor Morris Tyler, secretary of the Southern New England Telephone Company, Ernest Franklin Tyler, an artist in New York City, Leonard Sanford Tyler, and Audubon Tyler. His daughter, Mary Tyler, died in November, 1902, at the age of seventeen years and eleven months.
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FRANK ALBERT WALLACE
W ALLACE, FRANK ALBERT, president of the R. Wallace and Son's Manufacturing Company, of Wallingford, New Haven County, Connecticut, was born in that town Sep- tember 23rd, 1857. He is a descendant of James Wallace, who came from Scotland to Ireland and later to Blandford, Massachusetts, in early colonial days. His father was Robert Wallace, one of the most progressive and prominent manufacturers of his day, a man whose originality and persistent application left a marked influence on the history of American industry. He was the pioneer manufacturer of German silver in America, and started the largest concern devoted to the manufacture of flat silverware in the world. Mr. Wallace's mother was Harriet Moulthroup, a woman who exerted a power- ful influence upon the moral life of her son.
As a boy Mr Wallace was healthy and strong. He was brought up in the country, attended the common schools there, and always had plenty of work to do outside of school hours.
In 1873 Mr. Wallace began his life work as a manufacturer by entering his father's employ. The concern then manufactured exclusively for the Meriden Britannia Company, but in 1876 the business took on much larger proportions and began the rapid develop- ment which has made it the largest of its kind in the world. From the moment the company started to market its own productions Mr. Wallace was determined to win the utmost success as a silversmith, and the fact that he is now president of an industry that has sales- rooms in New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and London shows the full realization of this desire for success. Mr. Wallace has been workman, director, superintendent, secretary and, since 1892, president of the company, and the growth of the business has been as rapid and as just as his own rise in position. His career proves the value of a thorough mastery of one business and of a single aim in life, that of doing one thing thoroughly and well. Mr. Wallace has never held public office, though he is a staunch Republican. His business
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interests, outside of his own company, are presidency and director- ship in the First National Bank of Wallingford and directorship in the Wallingford Company. He is also a director in the New Haven County Anti-tuberculosis Society. He has been president of the Wallace Purchasing Company since 1894.
In private life Mr. Wallace has much that is of interest. In creed he is a Congregationalist. Socially he is a member of the Union League Club of New Haven. His favorite diversions are fly fishing and automobiling. In June, 1884, Mr. Wallace married Zula Custer, and in December, 1898, he married his second wife, Sarah Rose Man- ning. He has four children, Barbara Manning, Jean Atwater, Robert, and Floyd.
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HORACE DUTTON TAFT
T AFT, HORACE DUTTON, educator and head master of the Taft School at Watertown, Litchfield County, Connecticut, was born in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, on December 28th, 1861. His earliest ancestor in this country was Robert Taft, who came from England and settled in Massachusetts about 1670. Mr. Taft's father, Alphonso Taft, a lawyer, was judge of the Superior Court in Cincinnati, Secretary of War, Attorney General, United States minister to Austria and to Russia. Mr. Taft's brother, William Howard Taft, former governor of the Philippine Islands, is now Secretary of War in the Cabinet of President Roosevelt.
Mr. Taft lived in Cincinnati until he was twenty-five years old. He prepared for college in the Woodward High School and then entered Yale College, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1883. He was a member of the Skull and Bones Society and of Psi Upsilon. After a year abroad he entered the Cincinnati Law School. He did not graduate, but was admitted to the bar before the end of his course. He practiced law for a year in partnership with his father, Alphonso Taft, and Henry N. Morris, under the firm name of Taft, Morris & Taft. In 1887, however, he abandoned the practice of the law and accepted an appointment as tutor in Latin in Yale University, his purpose being to enter upon educational work and eventually to establish a school. He held the tutorship for three years and in 1890 established a school at Pelham Manor, New York. In 1893 he moved the school to Watertown, Connecticut, where it now is. The school has prospered and has now more than a hundred pupils and is ranked as among the half-dozen leading preparatory schools in the East.
Though Mr. Taft was a Cleveland Democrat, he joined the Repub- lican party when Bryan came to the front. On the 29th of June, 1892, Mr. Taft married Winifred S. Thompson, of Niagara Falls, New York. Mr. Taft is a man of strong individuality and especially fitted by temperament and in disposition to develop and inspire the young schoolboy.
CHARLES HOPKINS CLARK
P ERSONAL accomplishment is one measure of a man's life. The influencing of others to achievement is another, hardly second- ary, and if in fact less appreciated it is because it is not always furnished by those influenced and is of itself more difficult of apprehension by the world at large. Both measures are invited by the life of Charles Hopkins Clark of Hartford. And one is as readily applied by the reviewer as the other, since the result of his endeavor with and through others is as clear to the public mind as is his one "life work," the editorship of the Hartford Courant. An editor of such a journal, through a considerable period of years, he naturally would have great influence in a wide circle of most intelligent readers; that is the function of every worthy editor, and that-the public has often learned-is what Mr. Clark prizes above all other honors. But there is another source and method of his influence, as of his achievement, and that is to be found in the versatility of his genuis, his quick grasp of a situation in its entirety, his power of forecasting, his frankness and keenness as an adviser. The question put, the answer comes like a flash, sometimes convulsing one with its wit, but always unerringly straight to the point.
Men of such mold cannot be in constant agreement with all their fellows, nor yet at all times with the majority of those with whom they may most like to agree. But they conduct their contests in the open, and it is when both sides or all sides are contesting in the open, in politics, that such men become party counselors and leaders. They are the men who stand for action as against dark-room plot- ting, for having the public see everything that is done and how it is done, and then doing it, accepting full responsibility in their con- sciousness of above-board purpose.
If there is such a thing as the "old New England conscience," so often mentioned in literature, Mr. Clark should have it by inheritance, for his ancestors include Elder William Brewster, Benjamin Payne, Matthew Grant, John Hopkins, Nathaniel Whiting, John Dwight,
that Hopkins black
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John Bronson, William Clarke, John Strong, and Joseph Parsons. It is hardly necessary to mention the deeds of these builders of New England and American history; aside from their achievements it is to be noted that each was an exemplar of those sturdy qualities-"old New England conscience" or what you will-which so materially have advanced the nation and the race.
Mr. Clark's father was the Hon. Ezra Clark who, as president of the Board of Water Commissioners, did much toward establishing Hartford's splendid system of water supply, and who also served the First Connecticut District most acceptably as its representative in Congress. He was a merchant and a manufacturer. His wife was Mary Hopkins. The son, Charles Hopkins Clark, was born in Hart- ford, April 1st, 1848.
Nearly all Hartford youths preparing for college go to the Hart- ford Public High School; it was particularly fitting that Mr. Clark should receive the benefits of this institution, which was founded almost simultaneously with the founding of the town and in which his forbears had had a deep interest. Entering Yale in 1867, he found the companionship of men who were destined to take high place in the world's affairs; he formed acquaintances which have grown more precious as the years go by, and the faith his college mates had in him has been amply confirmed. He was a member of the senior society of Skull and Bones.
With the degree of M.A., in 1871, he began work at once on the staff of the Hartford Courant, the oldest newspaper of continuous. existence in America. Charles Dudley Warner and Senator Joseph R. Hawley were part owners of the paper. After he had demonstrated his ability on the various "desks," he was made editor-in-chief and to-day is president of the Hartford Courant Company, General Arthur L. Goodrich and Frank E. Carey being associated with him in the business management. The story of the Courant in these later days has been the story of his life. Stalwart in its Republicanism, it is a journal rather than an organ and never hesitates to express its views frankly. Much of its power lies in the fact that these views are also the views, at once or ultimately, of that clientele of sturdy families in which the Courant has been held as next to the family Bible through generation after generation.
Prominent in the counsels of his party and throwing himself with all his inexhaustible energy into whatever he believes makes for
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the public good, city, state, or national, he has clung closely to his ideal of an editor-one who should stand for the people in his paper, but not in public offices. It was only by the persuasion of many that he could be prevailed upon to accept the non-partisan position of delegate to the Connecticut Constitutional Convention in 1901. Pre- vious to that, his business acumen had been requisitioned by the State when the Tax Commission made its exhaustive investigation and published its valuable report. In private life, also, this acumen has been in demand as is evidenced by his directorship in the Collins Com- pany, a most successful manufacturing concern with name known around the world, and in the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of the country's best institutions. In addition he is called upon to serve as treasurer of the Wadsworth Atheneum and Hartford Public Library and as vice-president of the American School for the Deaf at Hartford, and his advice is sought also in the management of other organizations which do much to promote the welfare of his community. During his extensive travels, including the expedition to the Philippines with Secretary Taft's party in 1905, his letters have furnished information in delightful form, and he often is called upon to give others the benefit of the material he has accumulated.
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