USA > Connecticut > Men of mark in Connecticut; ideals of American life told in biographies and autobiographies of eminent living Americans > Part 26
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The boyhood and youth of this sturdy, earnest lad, fond of his books as well as of manly sports, was passed, until twenty years of age, on his father's farm amid the granite hills and pastoral slopes of his native state. The influence of both parents was strong on his intel- lectual and his spiritual life. In later years he spoke of his father as "one of the unheralded heroes, possessing great intelligence, high- mindedness, and dauntless courage."
Young Greene took advantage of every opportunity for the cul- tivation of his mind. He was a great reader, history and biography being his favorite studies. Speaking of his early education, he said : "I had to work it out." Later he enjoyed the advantages of special courses of study at the University of Michigan, and he engaged in the practice of law in that state just before the Civil War broke out. In August, 1861, he entered the service of his country as a volunteer in the Seventh Michigan Infantry, rising rapidly from a private to captain, major, and brevet lieutenant-colonel.
Colonel Greene's brevet was given for "distinguished gallantry at the battle of Trevellyan Station, and for meritorious and faithful services during the war." He was a prisoner of war at Libby Prison in Richmond, Virginia; in Macon, Georgia; in Charleston, South Carolina, and in Columbia, South Carolina. During the last part of his military career he was intimately associated with General Custer, acting as his adjutant-general and chief-of-staff. He was mustercd out of service and honorably discharged in March, 1866. Colonel Greene's brilliant army record has become a part of the history of the United States.
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His experience in life insurance began in 1866 at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in connection with the Berkshire Life Insurance Company. In 1370 he became associated with the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, and took up his residence in Hart- ford. In 1871 he was appointed secretary, and in 1878 was elected president. Under the wise counsel and masterly administration of Colonel Greene the company reached the highest state of beneficent efficiency and unquestioned strength, and it stands to-day "sui generis" among insurance companies of the country. President Greene's last word in his message to the policy holders in January, 1905, was: "How truly and steadfastly the Connecticut Mutual has held to its ideals, and in what unequaled measure it has realized for its members and for their beneficiaries their best result, is told, through its history, and each recurring year witnesses it anew." By a few strokes of the pen President Greene makes the whole history of the company strikingly luminous.
As a public speaker, and as a writer, he ranked high. He was one of the orators of the day at the Grant Memorial exercises in Hartford, and delivered a most eloquent address. His writings bore the stamp of an original mind, permeated by sound principles and lofty ideals. What he said carried with it weight, and never failed to make serious impression upon thoughtful readers. Of him it could be said that he could "lend ardor to virtue, and confidence to truth."
In 1900 he issued an able work on "Gen. Wm. B. Franklin and the battle of Fredericksburg," and in 1903 an "In Memoriam of General Franklin." He also published several pamphlets, business and pro- fessional, notably : "Bimetallism or the Double Standard," "Our Currency Problems," "What is Sound Currency," and "The Silver Question." When the latter pamphlet came from the press it aroused the bitterest ire of the so-called Silverites. One of them, a policy holder in the Connecticut Mutual, violently attacked Colonel Greene for daring to condemn what some of his policy holders be- lieved in and profited by, whereupon the fiery valor of the Colonel's heart flamed out, and he replied thus: "If telling the truth to our policy holders about their own business alienates my friends, I must bear the grief; if men must wear muzzles because they have been charged with large financial or other responsibilities, then, this is not the country my fathers fought to found, and which I fought
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to keep whole, and for which I will again fight to make free from mob rule and to cleanse of cowards." In these brave words we discover an echo of Lexington and Concord, Valley Forge and Gettys- burg. We witness again the brilliant cavalryman in the saddle, see the charging of squadrons and hear the rattle of musketry.
Colonel Greene's personality was of singular power. No person who came in contact with it failed to feel its peculiar force. His character called forth character in the lives of others. Those who came to him as carping critics, invariably departed admiring friends. To know him was to love him, and those who knew him best, loved him most. His purse was ever open to almsgiving and his heart tender to those who needed relief.
In 1897 Yale University bestowed on him the degree of A.M., and in 1904 Trinity College followed with an LL.D. He was a member of the D. K. E. Fraternity and also of the Century, Hartford, Country, and the Hartford Golf clubs. He was the leading layman in Trinity Episcopal Church, and served as vestryman and warden for many years. Colonel Greene took up his daily tasks with unwearied dili- gence, and carried them with undisturbed resolution, without stum- bling and without stain, to the last day of his life.
Of his religion, it may be briefly said, that it was the main object of his life. It brooded over him like the canopy of heaven; without it his life seemed to possess nothing, but with it the potentiality of becoming an heir of the kingdom of heaven. For years he carried in his vest pocket a well worn copy of the Psalter, and from that source, according to his own statement, he drew daily refreshment and strength.
Colonel Greene died at his home in Hartford on the twenty-ninth day of March, nineteen hundred and five. His last moments were like those of another great and good man, of whom it is written: "After a short conflict betwixt nature and death, a quiet sigh put a period to his last breath, and so he fell asleep."
In the company of the noble dead he now securely stands, fit type of the brilliant soldier, masterful underwriter, ripe scholar, faithful friend, loyal citizen, and, more than all, man of God.
Colonel Greene left a widow, Caroline S. Greene; one daughter, Mrs. H. S. Richards of Buffalo, New York, and one son, Jacob Humphrey Greene, who is an assistant secretary of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company.
JOHN METCALF TAYLOR
T AYLOR, JOHN METCALF, president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, of Hartford, was born of New England parentage, at Cortland, Cortland County, New York, February 18th, 1845. His father, Charles Culver Taylor, was a farmer, a vigorous, strong man, and was honored by offices in his town as trustee of the Cortland Academy, treasurer and trustee of the State Normal School, president of the board of village trustees, and by other offices. He was a man of integrity, generosity, courtesy, and kindness. Mr. Taylor's mother, Maria Jane Gifford, died when he was an infant, and the development of his character was chiefly due to the care and counsel of a good woman who had charge of him in his earlier years, strengthened as it was by his zcal in the tasks of the common school, by his love of out-of-door sports and recreations ; and, later, broadened and deepened by listening to the pleas and arguments of distinguished counsel at the bar, and to courses of lectures, in 1858-1860, by Henry Ward Beecher, George William Curtis, Thomas Starr King, Wendell Phillips, Samuel J. May, E. H. Chapin, Lydia Maria Child, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and to other gifted authors and lecturers of that period.
IIis earliest ancestor in this country was Stephen Goodyear of London, England,-1638; who was one of the founders of New Haven, Connecticut, a magistrate, commissioner for the United Colonies, and deputy governor of New Haven Colony. Another, John Taylor of England, was one of the settlers of Hartford, Connecticut, and of Hadley, Massachusetts.
His sound, healthy physical development is to be attributed in many ways to his early years on the farm, with its varied demands on body and mind and its excellent school of discipline, observation, and useful experience. In boyhood the study of the Bible and the reading of history and biography were potent factors in strengthening his firm and serious grasp of the basic principles for an honest, sturdy, and forceful life. Later, the Greek, Latin, and English classics, and standard fiction, served to mold his speech and writing into a correct
John Taylor
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and admirable style of expression, while his training in his profession of the law, his diligence in following court decisions and current legislation, broadened his mastery of principles and details, and lodged in a splendid memory a reserve and a strength which have manifested themselves in his life work; and have made him an acknowledged authority on insurance law, well known in the insurance, as well as in the legal profession. His education, begun in the common and academic schools, was carried on through his course at Wil- liams College, from which he was graduated with the degree of B.A. in 1867; and his Alma Mater again honored him by conferring upon him the degree of M.A. in 1888.
Mr. Taylor was married on the fourth day of October, 1871, to Edith Emerson, at Pittsfield, Massachusetts. One child was born to them, Emerson Gifford Taylor, who is now a member of the Yale University Faculty.
John M. Taylor was admitted to the Bar and began the practice of law in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in June, 1870, and he has occupied many positions of honor and trust in that community. He was influenced to his choice of a profession by his own personal leaning that way, and has always taken pleasure in pursuing his study of the law, especially in those branches relating to and connected with in- surance. At Pittsfield he held, at various times, the office of town clerk, clerk of the District Court, and clerk of St. Stephen's parish.
In 1872 Mr. Taylor went to Hartford, Connecticut, as the assist- ant secretary of The Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company. In 1878 he became secretary; in 1884, vice-president, and in 1905, upon the death of his valued friend and associate, the late Colonel Greene, he became president of the company. Among other offices held by him is that of trustee of the Connecticut Trust & Safe Deposit Company since 1884; director of the Phoenix National Bank ; director of the New York Dock Company ; vice-president and president of the Loomis Institute from 1901; and trustee and secretary of the Bishop's Fund of the diocese of Connecticut. He has been a diligent student of early Colonial history, and of the history of the era of the Civil War; and out of his studies have grown the writing and publication by him of his books entitled "Roger Ludlow, the Colonial Law-maker," in 1900, and his "Maximilian and Carlotta, a Story of Imperialism," in 1894. These books have taken high rank among the standard authorities.
Mr. Taylor is a member of the American Historical Association ;
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the Connecticut Historical Society; the Connecticut Civil Service Reform Association; the Society of Colonial Wars; Berkshire Com- mandery of Knights Templar. He has always been identified with the Republican party, but is not slow to express his mind or take action when it is necessary to make a choice of men or measures in the interests of the general good.
He has been a president, and is now a director of the Hartford Golf Club, and continues to take an active interest in its affairs, and to make very considerable use of the athletic advantages of the club. He enjoys hunting and fishing; is an excellent shot and fly fisherman ; and often takes long walks in the woods and fields, but is particularly fond of the game of golf.
He has always been an attendant of the Protestant Episcopal Church and a member of Christ Church in Hartford for many years, which has called upon him to serve as vestryman and on its various committees from time to time. He has always been kindly and sym- pathetic with young people and has truly said: "Successful men have no failures to explain. Unsuccessful men do not always attribute their failures to recognized causes. In one sense all men have suc- ceeded, and in another all have failed to do what they hoped to do in life; and I cannot see how a study of failures can be helpful to young people. A book might be written on the broad question of what will contribute most to the strengthening of sound ideals and will most help young people to obtain true success."
He feels that as to principles: "An abiding religious belief and faith; a clear conscience; honor in all things; charity towards all men; right living in the sight of God and man; loyalty to one's country ; knowledge of its origin and development, its theories and principles, and the sacrifices that have been made for them, should be chief factors in the growth of young people."
As to methods : "They should aim high ; all ideals are not attain- able, but most of them are, through study, observation, and persist- ence. Early choice should be made of a profession, business, or occupation, and a determination to succeed in it despite all obstacles."
As to habits : "Too great importance cannot be given by young people to a life of temperance, purity in act, thought, and speech, courtesy at home and abroad, punctuality and thoroughness every day in the week, with time for exercise and recreation."
Mr. Taylor himself has truly followed the course which he has thus marked out for others.
HERBERT HUMPHREY WHITE
W HITE, HERBERT HUMPHREY, secretary and director of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company of Hartford, treasurer and trustce of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy and a man of wide experience in banking and in public service, was born in Hartford, July 3rd, 1858, the son of Francis A. White, a builder, and Cornelia Humphrey White. His father was a very sociable and musical man who possessed keen mathematical faculties and his mother was a woman of great moral force and spiritual depth. Going further back in the study of Mr. White's antecedents it is found that he is descended from John White who came from England to Salem, Massachusetts, in 1639, and was an incorporator of Lancaster, Massachusetts, in 1643; from John Haynes who came from England in 1635; George Colton, a pioncer settler of Longmeadow, Massachusetts; George Wyllis, an early emigrant from Essex County, England, and from Peter Brown who came to Plymouth in the "Mayflower" in 1620. Two of these, Haynes and Wyllis, were the first and third governors of Connecti- cut, and another early ancestor, Jonathan White, was a lieutenant colonel in the French and Indian War and fought at Lake George. Another, Benjamin Colton, was the first pastor of the West Hart- ford Congregational Church and held that pastorate forty-five years.
Until Herbert White was twelve years old he was very frail and he did not have hard work to do in early boyhood, as did so many of his contemporaries. He was fond of study and was disappointed because he could not take a college course. He attended the public schools and took the classical course at the Hartford Public High School, after leaving which he studied political economy, constitu- tional history and astronomy at home. He desired to become engaged in financial work and in 1874 he entered the employ of the Hartford Trust Company, where he remained for four years, at the end of which he entered the Phoenix National Bank, where he was assist- ant cashier for nine years.
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In 1899 Mr. White became secretary and director of the Connecti- cut Mutual Life Insurance Company, one of the largest, most prosper- ous and reputable life insurance companies in the world. March 23rd, 1906, the office of treasurer was created by the company to which he was promoted, at the same time resigning the office of secretary. He is also a director of the Hartford Insane Retreat, treasurer and member of the advisory board of the Connecticut Institute for the Blind, treasurer and trustee of the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy and a member of the West Middle District School Com- mittee. In politics he is and always has been a Republican, and he was a member of the common council for six years during two of which years he was an alderman and one year the president of the Board of Councilmen. He is secretary, treasurer and director of the Hartford Golf Club Company, a member of the Twentieth Century Club, the Connecticut Historical Society, the Sons of the American Revolution, and the Hartford Club. He was president of the Colonial Club before its consolidation with the Hartford Club. In religious conviction he is a Baptist. As a boy, his most congenial outdoor exercise was rowing, which did much to build up his con- stitution. Tennis and golf have been his favorite recreations in mature life. Mrs. White was Ella F. Kinne, whom he married in 1886 and by whom he has had one child, a daughter.
The dominating purpose and impulse of Mr. White's life has been to do the duty made clear to him to do, without regard to conse- quences, and he considers such an impulse the best "investment" one can have. He gives an admirable list of the essentials of true success in life which he considers to be: "A full and abiding trust in God, a familiar knowledge of the Bible, unshirking performance of duty, doing for others rather than seeking to get from others, the exercise of self-control, proper care of the body, and abstinence from unneces- sary stimulants."
Your way truly alfred Ettammer
ALFRED EMIL HAMMER
H AMMER, ALFRED EMIL, was born in Boston, Massachu- setts, March 8th, 1858. His parents were Danes; the father emigrated from Denmark and settled in America in 1842, and his mother was born of Danish parents, who came to this country in 1832. His father, Thorvald Frederick Hammer-an inventor and mechanical engineer-was a man of industry and perseverance, with a nature hating show and shams, and cherishing an intense love for America and its institutions. He served as a member of the board of education of Branford for a number of years. Mr. Hammer's ancestors, many of them, were men of note in the fields of art and science.
In childhood Alfred Hammer was a healthy boy, living after his seventh year in the country, where his great love for nature-an ancestral trait-was developed, and where he had opportunity to in- dulge in his favorite sports of fishing, hunting, and trapping. Al- though he had his part in the regular routine work of the farm, he found time for reading, the books he cared most for in boyhood being tales of Colonial life in America, and later Emerson's Essays, Beecher's Sermons, Auerbach's Novels, and scientific works, includ- ing those of Darwin and Huxley. His early education was acquired in the Branford and New Haven high schools, and Russell's Military Academy of New Haven.
Mr. Hammer decided to follow his father's profession, and began fitting himself for a metallurgist by three years' study under a care- ful teacher. He began the real work of life in the chemical laboratory of the Malleable Iron Fittings Company of Branford, and is, at present, manager and treasurer of this business. Mr. Hammer is a trustee of the James Blackston Memorial Library Association, director of the Second National Bank of New Haven, trustee and corporator of the Connecticut Savings Bank, and trustee and cor- porator of the Branford Savings Bank.
In politics he is a Republican, and was a member of the House of Representatives of Connecticut for 1889, and is, at present, serving
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as senator for the 12th district of his state. He is a member of the American Institute of Mining Engineers, and of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Mr. Hammer is distinctly an out- of-door man, fond of athletic sports, and of fishing, botanizing, and walking. He attends the Presbyterian Church.
In 1887 he was married to Cornelia Hannah Foster (now de- ceased), and has four children. In 1905 he was married to Edith Rosamond Swan, daughter of Dr. Charles W. Swan of Brookline, Massachusetts.
Mr. Hammer believes that he owes his success in life to private study, home and school influences. Speeches by great men had a distinct effect on his character also, and inspired him to strike out boldly for himself and fellow men. He is of the opinion that young men will follow successful leaders more quickly than good advice; and that those who wish to influence them most must turn their hero worship in the right direction. He would say to young men that "the culture of the finer sides of a man's nature is to be gained by reading great books, and by the study of the lives and words of men who have ideals."
CHARLES WHITTLESEY PICKETT
P ICKETT, CHARLES WHITTLESEY, editor of the New Haven Leader, is the son of John Mason Pickett and Elizabeth L. Cogswell, and is a direct descendant of Archbishop Whittle- sey of Canterbury, England ; of John Whittlesey, who came over and settled in Saybrook in 1632, and of John Cogswell, who, on arriving from England, settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1619, a year before the landing of the Pilgrim Fathers. Both pioneers played important parts in the forming of the colonies. When the War for Independence came, William Cogswell held a major's commission in General Washington's army.
Mr. Pickett was born in Waterbury, on June 13th, 1857. His father was an honest, energetic, public-spirited farmer of high repute in the communities in which he lived. He served as selectman and while living in Sherman was three times representative to the General Assembly from that town. His wife did much by teaching and by example to develop the intellectual, moral, and spiritual life of their son. He is to be counted among the many who learned as a boy what work is, and learned in the stern school of agriculture. Early and late, he was kept busy. The farm in Sherman was fertile, but the remoteness of the location from busy centers did much to rob it of its attractiveness in the eyes of the youth as he grew older. What he may have lost by not being in actual contact with the bustling world in his early days, he appears to have made up in his reading of Shake- speare, Bunyan, and other masters, acquiring a fund of knowledge of human nature invaluable to him in later life. He craved more in book knowledge, and in experience also, than his humble means could afford him, so he set to work to provide the means.
In June, 1892, he could look back over a very successful course through Waramaug Academy and the Yale Law School. But the law was not to be his profession; it was to be an aid in the field of journalism. Having had experience as a reporter on the New Haven Palladium, he came to feel more and more the enjoyment of daily
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contact with men of affairs and to appreciate that in that contact was the greatest uplift for him. So he chose to continue in newspaper work. Just as he was graduating from the law school, and when he had been discharging reportorial duties only six years, an oppor- tunity opened for him to take the position he holds to-day, the editorship of the Leader, an evening paper then just starting upon its successful career, the only stalwart Republican paper in the city. Mr. Pickett has made a paper that pleased a rapidly increasing con- stituency, and his pungent, lucid editorials are widely copied. A special feature of his work is his close observation of the sessions of the General Assembly.
Colonel Pickett served a term of five years in the Second Infantry, C. N. G., and was aide-de-camp with rank of colonel on the staff of Governor Lorrin A. Cooke, 1897-1899. He is a Free Mason, an Elk, and a member of the Royal Arcanum, the Union League, the Young Men's Republican Club, and of the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the American Revolution. In religion he is a Congregationalist. While his duties are too exacting to allow him much time to himself, he gets into the country when he can and he is fond of the simple life there.
His wife, Marie P. Sperry of New Haven, whom he married October 8th, 1879, and whose writings over the nom de plume of "Rhea" are well remembered, died suddenly while addressing an audience in South Hampton, Connecticut, November 10th, 1904. He has one son, Walter M. His home is at No. 23 Lynwood Place, New Haven.
CHARLES HENRY LEEDS
L EEDS, CHARLES HENRY, retired manufacturer, ex-mayor, and a leading citizen of Stamford, Connecticut, was born in New York City, January 9th; 1834, the son of Samuel and Mary Warren Mellen Leeds. Through his father he is a descendant, in the eighth generation, of Richard Leeds, who emigrated from Great Yarmouth, England, in 1637, and settled in Dorchester, Massachu- setts. His mother was a granddaughter of Lieut. Col. James Mel- len, a Revolutionary officer. Another of his ancestors was Solomon Stoddard, the divine, who was graduated from Harvard in 1662, and still another was Col. Israel Williams, who participated in the French and Indian Wars
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