USA > Connecticut > Men of mark in Connecticut; ideals of American life told in biographies and autobiographies of eminent living Americans > Part 15
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CHARLES SANGER MELLEN
He is a strong, capable man of long experience in every way and thoroughly equipped for the position."
For six years Mr. Mellen remained president of the Northern Pacific and, during this time, he fulfilled the most extravagant expec- tations of his friends. He converted a poorly built road into one of the best constructed systems of the country, and made its net earnings almost equal to its gross earnings at the time he took charge of the road. In 1903 he resigned from the presidency of the Northern Pacific and became president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad. This time it was the West that was sorry to lose, and New England that was proud to gain his services. "The Northern Pacific loses the best president it ever had;" and "The New Haven but honors herself in securing his services," seemed to be the consensus of opinion expressed at that time by the press throughout the country.
Natural ability, energy, determination, wide experience, and an entire devotion to his work are the chief factors in President Mel- len's success. He is faithful to his friends, easily approachable, and absolutely independent. He had the courage to tell J. Pierpont Mor- gan that he would support President Roosevelt for renomination, and that he had great respect for the President for doing his duty in attacking the Northern Securities' Merger in the courts. He recognizes worth, and despises sham, whether either quality be found in the smallest clerk or a railroad president.
President Mellen has been twice married; first in 1875 to Marion Beardsley Foster, and again in 1893 to Katharine Lloyd Livingston, He has had eight children, six of whom are living. His home in New Haven is at No. 389 Whitney Avenue. He is not a member of any religious denomination. In politics he has always voted the Republican ticket. Ambitious young men who wish to imitate his successful career should heed his laconic advice: "Work harder; spend less."
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JOHN WESLEY ALLING
A' LLING, JOHN WESLEY, one of the ablest and most promi- nent lawyers in his State, was born in the town of Orange, New Haven County, Connecticut, October 24th, 1841. His father was Charles Wyllys Alling, a New England farmer, and his mother was Lucy Booth, a women whose strong character had pow- erful influence in training her son. Charles Alling was at times selectman and grand juror, and was also a sergeant of militia in the War of 1812. He was a man of thrift, energy, and independence, a man who owed no one a debt. Roger Alling, who came from Eng- land, and was one of the first settlers of the colony of New Haven in 1638, is another and earlier ancestor; in fact the ancestor, in this country, of all who spell the name "Alling" and of some who spell the name "Allen."
Mr. Alling's boyhood was spent on a country farm, where he : led the life of a typical New England farmer's son. In the summers, "the working season," he toiled on the farm from sunrise till dark. In the winter he attended the district school. Endowed with perfect health the boy, John Alling, was diligent in his farming and in read- ing all the books that came within his reach. He learned in these early days of his life the lesson of hard work and its blessings, and it is to the labor and companionship of the vigorous, healthy farm life that Mr. Alling owes his gratitude for the strongest formative influ- ences of his life. These early influences instilled principles of per- severance and self-dependence that insured his success in his future work. He loved the busy, active farm life, but reading was his favor- ite pursuit.
After outgrowing the district school, Mr. Alling prepared at Wilbraham Academy for Yale University, and was graduated from that university with the class of 1862, of which class he was the salu- tatorian. From 1862 till 1864, he attended the Yale law school, earning the degree of Master of Arts in addition to his Bachelor degree. At the close of these two years of professional study, Mr.
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JOHN WESLEY ALLING
Alling entered immediately upon the practice of law, beginning his life work as a lawyer in New Haven in September, 1864. This choice of a career was solely personal preference.
On October 10, 1867, Mr. Alling married Constance Adelaide Parker. To them three children have been born, of whom two are now living. From 1870-72, Mr. Alling was prosecuting officer of New Haven, and this has been his only public office. He has held the responsible positions of director and counsel for the Southern New England Telephone Co., of the Security Insurance Co., of the United Illuminating Co. and of the Merchants' National Bank of New Haven for the last fifteen or twenty years, and has been counsel for many other important corporations. For fifteen years he was a vestryman of Trinity Church, New Haven, being a communicant and active mem- ber of the Prostestant Episcopal Church. In political faith Mr. Alling is a Republican, though he voted for Mr. Cleveland the last time he was elected, as he, with many others, agreed with the Democratic platform on the tariff issue.
Mr. Alling bestows advice upon young men with reluctance born of a fear of its uselessness, but it is sound and weighty, giving, as it does, the keynote of his own success. "Whatever you undertake to do, that do with all the power there is in you, and never give up until you have to. Don't mind partial failure or mistakes or blunders. Everybody makes them. But get up and go at it again. I don't be- lieve that many persons with this spirit fail."
THOMAS HOOKER
H OOKER, THOMAS, the president of the New Haven Trust Company, was born in Macon, Georgia, September 3rd, 1849, the son of Richard Hooker, a clergyman, and Aurelia Dwight Hooker. He is a lineal descendant of the historic Thomas Hooker, whose part in early American history as a divine and as a Colonial settler and the founder of Connecticut is well known to every American. On the maternal side Mr. Hooker is descended from Jonathan Edwards, the famous early theologian, metaphysician, and philosopher, and also from John Dwight, who came from England to Dedham, Massachusetts, in Colonial days, and from Timothy Dwight, the honored president of Yale College from 1795 to 1817.
The Thomas Hooker of to-day, although he was born in Georgia, came to New Haven at an early age, and has made his home in that city ever since. He prepared for college at the Hopkins Grammar School, and from there entered Yale University. He was graduated in 1869, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and has ever since kept in close touch with the venerable institution. He became con- nected with the banking interests of the city in 1895, and in 1902 was made vice-president of the First National Bank of New Haven. Later in the same year he became president of the New Haven Trust Company. For ten years from 1894 to 1904 he served on the board of education of the city of New Haven.
On the 30th of June, 1874, Mr. Hooker married Sarah A. Bowles, the oldest daughter of the distinguished Samuel Bowles, the former editor of the Springfield Republican. Three children have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Hooker, two of whom are now living; the oldest, Richard, is connected with the Springfield Republican, and is now acting as its special correspondent in Washington, while the younger, Thomas, Jr., is just completing his law studies. Mr. Hooker has devoted himself to business, and has no social or fraternal ties beyond the various clubs to which a man of his position would naturally belong. In religious views he unites with the Congregational Church.
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He has refrained from public honors and his only public service has been his membership of the school board.
Mr. Hooker was a 'varsity baseball player in college, when that sport was in its infancy, and has ever since retained his love for wholesome outdoor recreation. This has kept him young in his feelings, and as keen as formerly in his sense of humor.
HENRY CHARLES WHITE
W HITE, HENRY CHARLES, lawyer and former lecturer at Yale University, of New Haven, Connecticut, was born in Utica, New York, September 1st, 1856. His father, Thomas Broughton White, was a merchant and his mother was Catharine Lydia Stewart White, a daughter of Samuel and Catharine Barton Stewart of Utica. Henry Charles White prepared for college at Phillips Academy, Exeter, New Hampshire, and then entered Yale University. He took his Bachelor of Arts degree in 1881 and then entered the Yale Law School, where he took his Bachelor of Laws degree in 1883 and his Master of Laws in 1884. He chose New Haven for the field of his professional work and opened a law office there in 1883, immediately after taking his law degree. From 1886 to 1893 he lectured at Yale on political science. In 1892 he formed a partnership with Leonard M. Daggett for the practice of law and in 1901 John Q. Tilson became a member of the firm, which is known as White, Daggett & Tilson.
Although his practice has occupied him closely Mr. White has made a place for business and public interests and service. He served on legislative commissions in 1889, 1894-95 and from 1899 to 1902. He was a member of the Board of Finance of the city of New Haven in 1897 and he is now a director in the First National Bank and in the New Haven Trust Company. In politics he is affiliated with the Republican party. His chief social and fraternal ties are membership in the Graduates Club of New Haven and in the Yale secret society of Skull and Bones. His religious convictions attach him to the Congregational Church. On the fifth of May, 1903, Mr. White married Lucy Schwab, daughter of Gustav and Eliza von Post Schwab of New York.
Henry Charles White has been described and is generally known as "a sound lawyer, a public spirited citizen, a close reader of serious literature, and a trusted adviser and counselor."
Very Arily Grange NOE
ORANGE MERWIN
M ERWIN, ORANGE, president of the Bridgeport Land and Title Company and vice-president of the Bridgeport Trust Company, was born in New Milford, Litchfield County, Connecticut, on August 21st, 1854. He is descended from good Colonial stock. Miles Merwin came to America from Wales in 1645 and settled in Milford. John Peet, the first of his maternal ancestors to emigrate to America, reached Connecticut in 1635. His father, Horace, and his grandfather, Orange, were public spirited citizens. The former was a representative in the State House of Representatives for several terms and the latter was a member of Congress from Con- necticut from 1821 to 1825.
Young Merwin's early life was spent on a farm where, under the direction of his parents, he developed those habits of industry and attention to detail that to-day characterize his business and social life. His school training was received in the public schools in New Milford and at the Golden Hill Institute in Bridgeport. At the age of sixteen he began to earn his own livelihood as a shipping clerk in Dabney Carr's Shirt Factory in Bridgeport. Later he became clerk in the People's Savings Bank, a position which he held for thirteen years, after which he became a member of the old banking firm of Marsh, Merwin & Lemmon. Since 1897 he has been presi- dent of the Bridgeport Land and Title Company and vice-president of the Bridgeport Trust Company since its organization, in 1901. He has been fire commissioner of the city for five years and is treasurer of the local Y. M. C. A. and of the Boys' Club. In politics he has always been a Republican; in the Masonic Order he has reached the thirty-second degree ; he is a member of the Congregational Church. He was president of the Bridgeport Republican Club for three years and is a member also of the Contemporary, of the Sea- side, and of the Rooftree and Seaside Outing clubs, and also of the Sons of Colonial Wars. Driving, fishing, and hunting are his favorite sports.
In 1877 Mr. Merwin was married to Mary Clifford Beach. They have one child, Horace Beach Merwin.
EUGENE LAMB RICHARDS
P ROFESSOR of Mathematics in Yale University" is the formal title of Eugene Lamb Richards. Equations with x and y, unknown and variable quantities, are worked out of books and attested by mathematical apparatus, but there is a "personal equation" where x and y reveal themselves and are constant, attested by daily life. Such an equation is expressed when Yale students or graduates of the past thirty years and more say affectionately "Dickie Richards." The title they would give him would be "professor of physical development and manliness."
Eugene Lamb Richards comes of a sturdy race. Samuel Richards settled in Norwalk, Connecticut, during the time of Queen Anne's War, which ended in 1713. His home had been in Staffordshire, England. Anthony Lamb of London came over and took up his residence in New York City where, it is particularly worthy of note in this sketch, he was the first maker of mathematical instruments in America. Another ancestor was Robert Treat, the valiant captain whose vic- tories over the Indians at last won security for the colonists of Hart- ford and New Haven-the man who first established a military organization in Connecticut and who was made governor by the grate- ful citizens. For he was wise in council as in war. General John Lamb, a descendant of Anthony, brought honor to his name in the Revolutionary period. He was one of the founders of the Sons of Liberty in New York City. He was wounded and taken prisoner while with Montgomery in the attack on Quebec. Later he was appointed to the command of West Point after Arnold's traitorous conduct and when special care was requisite in the selection of his successor.
The professor, who was born in Brooklyn, New York, December 27th, 1838, is the son of Timothy Pickering Richards, a broker, and Agnes Treat Lamb. As a child he gave small promise of becoming the bronzed, vigorous man of to-day. Early in his "teens," the story was read to him of some great man who had mastered physical
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weakness and had become strong. The man's name vanished from memory, but the precept of his life remains through the years. The youth adopted regular hours of sleep and exercise, rose at half-past five, took a cold bath, and began at once upon his studies. Though he was decidedly of literary and scholarly tastes, like his father before him, also like his father he was fond of athletic exercises, and the "sana mens" soon began to find itself "in sano corpore." Most unfortunately, however, in his junior year at Yale he received an injury to his spine. With characteristic fortitude, he not only went on with his studies but in his senior year took a seat in the Yale crew that rowed Harvard at Lake Quinsigamond in 1860. Such mental and physical persistency after the injury carried its penalty, however, and on leaving college with the class of 1860 he was unable to take what he would deem any active part in life until the spring of 1868. With that year his career as instructor at Yale begins.
His fortitude was strengthened by the influence and teaching of his mother as well as by the counsel of his father. Mrs. Richards was a woman of intellectual tastes, of strong moral and religious sense, eminently practical, and uncommonly shrewd in her estimates of char- acter-sincere and direct. The young man also was, and always has been, a constant reader of the Bible, and he often has said that he attributes such success as he has had in life as much to the influence of that Book on his conduct and character as to heredity and environ- ment. He also drew aid from Stanley's "Thomas Arnold's Life and Correspondence"; indeed, as is evident, that volume has had a marked effect on his relations with the student world. In relative strength of influence on his life he places home first, then private study, and finally school. He prepared for college at Dwight School, in Brook- lyn.
He had been instructor in mathematics at Yale only three years when he was appointed assistant professor and then full professor in 1892. What his labors in these capacities through these years meant for the university the students and faculty know ; what they meant for him himself only his most intimate friends can know. The results of his injury in his junior year have never passed away and it has been only through his resolute will that he has risen superior to bodily pain and accomplished so successfully the tasks he set for him- self. In his intercourse with the students, honor is the only and
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highest court he knows. It may be permissible to introduce an illustration of which he himself is ignorant to-day: A sophomore in his division had committed an offense which showed gross lack of respect for himself, to say nothing of his college. The professor rebuked him strongly. Immediately the young man assumed an air of injured innocence, resented the professor's alleged "imputa- tions," declared that he took the rebuke as an insult to his mother and to his name and proclaimed himself a man of honor. Before that word the professor bowed and retracted what he had said in a most chivalric manner. The sophomore went forth to boast to his com- panions of his success in clearing his record. The companions knew "Dickie" Richards. Their friend's laughter fell on unresponsive ears. Doubtless he never knew, any more than the professor, why his popularity waned from that day and why, when he was graduated, he found he had missed most of what is best in the associations of college life. He had played the hypocrite to Professor Richards.
But, as has been said, the professor's real boon to the student world has been his espousal of physical training. He can't be partial; neither can he endure to see others unjust. It is related that on one occasion some years ago he discovered that a good athlete was do- ing well in all his studies except one. For a reason which the professor suspected, his standing in that one branch was falling lower and lower as the football season progressed. The instructor in that branch was a particular friend of the professor's-as are most of the instruct- ors. Also he was a good deal of a recluse. The professor went to him to get him to attend a football game. The tutor respectfully declined, saying he could not waste the time. The morning of the game the professor appeared again, showed the tickets he had pro- cured and said in an irresistible manner that he would come around and go out to Yale Field with the tutor. They went. Before the close of the first half the tutor was one of the most enthusiastic men on the bleachers, and if his marking of an athlete had been unconsciously biased in the past, it never was again.
It was through the professor's influence that students began to organize long walking expeditions. They were almost a fad with' the professor. By experience he knew exactly how a man should equip himself and where were the best routes, even before the days of bicycle guide-books; and he himself could out-tramp anybody.
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Moreover he studied into the finer points of intercollegiate athletics. His well known articles in the Popular Science Monthly in 1884 were the result of almost two years' investigation and thought. They were widely quoted and in large part were embodied in the federal government's report on Physical Culture in the United States. Similar articles from his pen appeared in the same magazine in 1888 and 1894, and in other magazines, doing much to elevate the stand- ard of athletics and to disabuse certain critics of their prejudices.
One valuable contribution to the discussion was the plotting of the disciplinary records of the college by which it is demonstrated that breaches of college discipline have grown steadily less with the advance of athletics.
From the old rope-walk gymnasium of the last century, Yale to- day has one of the finest and best equipped gymnasiums in the land. This important fact is due in no small measure to Professor Richards, who started the movement and who consented to serve as the first director (not active, but possessing initiative and veto power), from 1892 to 1901, or until the associate directors could conduct affairs alone.
Professor Richards has written two important mathematical books, "Plane and Spherical Trigonometry with Applications," in 1879, and "Elementary Navigation and Nautical Astronomy," in 1902. He received the degree of M.A. from his Alma Mater in 1887. He married Julia L. Bacon of New Haven on November 27th, 1861, and has four children : Eugene Lamb Richards, Jr., a lawyer; Wil- liam Martin Richards, a physician; Anna Richards, married to Pro- fessor James Locke, and Elizabeth Vernon H. Richards. His sons have emulated their father in athletics and to-day are making names for themselves. In religion the professor is affiliated with the Con- gregational Church of Yale University. He is a member of the Grad- uates Club of New Haven, but never has given much time from his study and athletic régime for social pleasures.
It is natural that the suggestions of such a leader and promoter should be of special value to young men. He says : "For true success, character comes first. Therefore, I say to a young man, cultivate character by right conduct, and by companionship with the highest ideals, whether in real life or in books. Next, I say, cultivate physical strength, not for exploits, but to acquire vitality ; take daily
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some form of regular body-developing exercise. In these days of fierce competition, no man can obtain or retain success without a basis of physical toughness of fiber, either inherited or acquired. If a young man has tastes, they will generally guide him in his prepara- tion for his life work. If he has no decided bent toward a particular line of life, then, I say, take the first opening that presents itself and having gone into it, keep steadily at work in it. Do not rely on 'pulls.' i Success depends on effort. If a man's work is good and worth a pull, 1: the man will get the pull, or, if no pull comes, he will attain success without the pull. Pull or no pull, he never will obtain success with- 1 out faithful, continuous effort. "Be steadfast. This saying, made --- thousands of years ago, is true to-day : 'Seest thou a man diligent in his business? he shall stand before kings; he shall not stand before mean men.' "
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GEORGE BARKER STEVENS
S TEVENS, PROF. GEORGE BARKER, one of the most widely known of Yale's theological writers and teachers, was born in Spencer, Tioga County, New York, on July 13th, 1854, the son of Thomas Jackson Stevens and Weltha Barker Stevens. His father, who was of Dutch descent, was a persevering, energetic, thrifty farmer. His mother, whose ancestors came from England, was a devoted helpmeet and parent, the power of whose influence on his moral life and his ambitions is gladly acknowledged by her son to-day.
The professor's early life was of the kind to stimulate physical activity and right thinking. The family lived on a farm during his school days, and, when he was not busy with his books, he employed his time in helping his father at the work. The reader of these volumes must be impressed with the great number of Men of Mark whose early experience was like this and must feel again the debt of gratitude the country owes to the "old farms." It is also notable, in speaking with these men, whatever their position in life or whatever part of America they may be living in, that, hard as the farm life might have seemed during the living of it, few of them regret it, and many of them, when it is too late, wish their sons could have had the same.
Sound, vigorous health, with a taste for outdoor life and sports, was what Professor Stevens brought from country and village to the life he was to lead in the quiet of the study. He had stored up energy against the future, and the results of it are apparent in the virility of his writings and the broad-mindedness of his teachings. He did not allow ambition to devour him in his youth; he did whatever his hand found to do as he had done his father's chores, in cheerful spirit, with zeal and with fidelity, and already he can look back upon a career rich in its products for his fellow men and not without its share of honors for himself.
When a pupil in the Ithaca (N. Y.) Academy, he displayed a fondness for the classics, for history and for philosophy, and found
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inspiration in biography. His scholarly bent attracted the attention of the principal, who immediately encouraged him to press on with his studies, and to-day the professor believes that that encouragement, along with the influence of his mother, was what led him into the successful paths he has followed since. He was graduated from the University of Rochester in 1877 and went the following year to Yale University, where he took the regular course at the Divinity School, being graduated in 1880 with the degree of B.D. His high scholarship at Rochester was evidenced by his gaining membership in Phi Beta Kappa. Also he was a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon.
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