USA > Connecticut > Representative citizens of Connecticut, biographical memorial > Part 54
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Joseph Gage grew up on the farm in Jaffrey, New Hampshire, and attended the common school of that district. In early manhood he was a traveling salesman for a wholesale woodenware house, made trips up and down the Connecticut river, and located his young bride at the point nearest the scenes of his activities at the time. Later he was engaged in excavation work for a short time. About 1850 they came to Hartford, Connecticut, and subsequently opened a market for the sale of meat, butter, eggs, etc., their business being transacted in a room at the northwest corner of Main and High streets. This was before the days of railroads and street cars, and the young couple made the trip to New Hampshire from Hartford on a visit in a stage coach. Their place of business soon became a popular trad- ing center with the residents of Hartford as well as with the farmers of the outlying sections. Money was a scarce commodity in those days, and when Mr. Gage's landlord wanted to raise his rent to the (then) large amount of forty dollars per month, Mr. Gage decided to put up temporary quarters for his market on High street, just around the corner. This place proved more than temporary, as it is still standing in good condition. On April 17, 1884, Joseph Gage died, and although he had been a prudent and industrious man, his investments were of such a nature that at the time of his death he was ten thousand dollars in debt. Nothing daunted, Mrs. Gage at once obtained the necessary permission to carry on the business, and since then has not only paid off the debt of ten thousand dollars, but has accumulated a con- siderable amount of property, and at the same time given her children excel- lent educational advantages. She says she has never had time to affiliate with any particular church, but her friends aver that she is, in thought and deed, a truer Christian than many who never miss a church meeting. She has a very modest opinion of her own abilities, and sees nothing remarkable in what she has accomplished. She says she sees no reason why anybody could not have done as much and even far better. But it is a well established fact that in this day and this generation few would have had the courage, the energy and the ability to do as she did at the time of the death of her husband. During the winter of 1914 Mrs. Gage fell and dislocated her hip; she is now well on the road to recovery, and will soon be able to take up her business responsibilities again, if it can be said that she ever laid them aside, for her mind retained its activity, even while her body was necessarily inactive for a time. She has seen her section of the city grow from a settle- ment of a few scattered buildings to an important business center.
Mr. and Mrs. Gage had children: 1. Frank E., married Nancy Hare, and of their three children, two died young, the third, Harry, married, and lives in Philadelphia; he is a famous cartoonist. 2. Gertrude, who mar- ried F. William Jordan, and has one child, Frederick William. 3. Mary G., who married Henry W. Irving, cashier of the Connecticut River Banking Company, at Hartford, Connecticut, and has one child, Dr. William Irving, who married Dr. Emma Lootz, resides in Washington, District of Columbia, where they are both in active practice; they have children, Selma and Henry W.
William Bostwick
T HERE are few types making a stronger appeal to the imag- ination, and few that are more worthy of love and venera- tion than that of the strong yet gentle, the highly cultured yet democratic New Englander with which history makes us familiar. The type is in a great measure disappearing, and, indeed, so far as the "dreary intercourse of daily life" would show, has disappeared to all practical purposes. Nevertheless, although we meet with him rarely enough in all conscience to-day, the New Englander of history and tradition, with his virtues which seem at once of the aristocracy and the democracy, is distinct enough in the memory of most of us, where it is cherished as one of the happiest of our associations. The late William Bostwick, of New Milford, Connecticut, whose simple career forms the subject matter of this brief article, was a native of New Milford and spent practically his entire life in that town, and his death, which occurred there April 6, 1901, deprived it of one of the oldest of its citizens.
William Bostwick was born in New Milford, December 16, 1820, the youngest of the four children of Solomon and Anne (Wells) Bostwick. He was a member of a very old Connecticut family, the oldest in New Milford, indeed, an ancestor having been one of the twelve men who originally set- tled the town. The founder of the family in this country was Arthur Bost- wick, who came originally from Cheshire, England, somewhere about the year 1648, and with his son, John, settled in Stratford, Connecticut. It was a great-grandson of the founder, Benjamin Bostwick, who first came to the charming region of New Milford, where his descendants have dwelt ever since. The name of Benjamin Bostwick appears on the first petition of the plantation to the General Council, dated 1711, and his wife, Zeruia (John- son) Bostwick, was the first bride in the town. It was not alone on his father's side of the house that Mr. Bostwick inherited the splendid sterling traits of Puritan forbears. His mother also, Anne (Wells) Bostwick, was a member of a distinguished family and was descended from Governor Wells, of Connecticut. He was connected on every hand with many of the foremost families in New England.
As a child, Mr. Bostwick attended the local public schools, where he received an excellent education which his ready wit and alert mind turned to the best advantage. Upon the completion of these studies he turned directly to the business that was to engage his energies throughout his life, that of farming. He was the owner of a large property in real estate in the district which included a number of large and valuable farms. With the exception of a short period when he made his home in the nearby town of Sherman, Mr. Bostwick lived without interruption in New Milford, his last home on Elm street being inhabited by him for some thirty years. He was extremely successful in his farming operations, and enjoyed the reputation of great good judgment, as well as of unimpeachable integrity, in all his
Millian Bostwick.
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business relations. Mr. Bostwick married, January 5, 1842, Maria Sanford, of Gaylordsville, Connecticut, a daughter of Ebenezer and Eunice Abigail (Knapp) Sanford, of that place. Her grandmother was a Miss Sherman, a sister of Roger Sherman. Mrs. Bostwick survived her husband about nine years, her death occurring March 21, 1910. There were two daughters born to them: I. Cornelia, who became Mrs. John E. Northrop, of Sherman, Connecticut, and is now deceased; had one daughter Isabel, married Rev. Edward M. Chapman, Congregational minister of New London, Connecti- cut, and has two children-Edward Northrop and Lucia Tulley. 2. Ann Eliza, who now resides in the old Bostwick mansion in New Milford.
William Bostwick was a man of most retiring disposition, of great personal self-control, one who found his chief happiness in the society of his own household, and very rarely was absent from home, save when busi- ness demanded it. During the latter years of his life he was a great sufferer from ill health, but bore the pain and discomforts of which he was the victim with the greatest courage and patience, so that he left no heritage of sorrow and mourning in connection with his old age. No remarks upon his life, even the most brief, would be complete without reference to his religious life. As early as 1838 he identified himself with the Congregational church, when he was but eighteen years of age, and from that time onward until age and failing health interfered, he was an attendant upon divine service. But though he was eventually obliged to give up his attendance save when con- ditions were most favorable, yet he never lost his interest in the church, but remained to the last a generous supporter of its interests, having given largely to the improvements undertaken shortly before his death. Indeed, one of the last acts of his life was a further bequest for this purpose. Sin- cerity and conscientiousness were the keynotes of his character, and, as is universally the case, these qualities made themselves apparent in every act and. as it were, irradiated from his whole personality, so that all recognized their presence and accorded him the respect and honor due for it. His life was useful and long, extending more than ten years beyond the allotted three-score years and ten.
George Robert Steele
T HERE are times when, in the perusal of the records of promi- nent men, especially those who have won their successes early in life, we are inclined to feel that destiny has her favorites, with whom she deals with partiality, conferring upon them favors of all kinds which she withholds from other men, talents, abilities, qualities of mind and spirit, which make smooth to their feet paths, roughest to others, and which help them with comparative ease to achievements, of which the average man often entirely despairs. Yet a closer examination generally dispels this illusion. Men, indeed, are given talents above the ordinary, but none are reprieved from the necessity of using them, and we have it upon the highest authority that in proportion as we receive so we must render again in the final account. No, the man of talent is not commonly the one who works least, but rather the most, and his accomplishments are more generally the result of efforts from which we would be apt to shrink, than the spontaneous fruits of uncultured abilities, for there is a very great ele- ment of truth in the pronouncement of Carlyle that genius is merely an "infi- nite capacity for taking pains."
Such was certainly the case with the young man whose name heads this memorial, and whose untimely death on January 20, 1911, so abruptly cut short, at the age of fifty years, a career at once brilliant and full of value for those about him. Possessed, as he undoubtedly was, of many enviable capac- ities and traits of character, it was by an earnest and conscientious use of them that he rose upon the ladder of success, and won for himself the right to that title, indigenous in this country, of self-made men.
Mr. Steele was born December 15, 1860, in Westfield, Massachusetts, a son of John W. and Jeannette T. (Begg) Steele. His father died while he was a child of fourteen years, and he thereafter lived with his mother in Hartford until the age of twenty-one years. William Begg, an uncle, was a man of broad mind and sympathies, and took a great interest in the training and education of his nephew, and the latter's little sister, Mary Adella, now Mrs. William L. Linke, of Hartford. At the age of fourteen he began to learn the druggist business in Hartford. Mr. Steele was not one to neglect opportunities thus opened to him, but worked hard, so that with his natur- ally facile and apt mind he absorbed all the good that was to be found in the courses that lay open to him, winning the affection and regard of his employers under whom he worked. His first introduction to this new realm of action and experience was as apprentice in the service of the D. W. Tracey Drug Company, where he learned the retail part of the business in which he was to continue during the remainder of his life. After serving his appren- ticeship faithfully and well, he secured a position with the Sisson Drug Company, also of Hartford, with which concern he remained until he had reached the completion of his twenty-first year, this being a wholesale drug concern. At this time another uncle, George Begg, owned and operated a
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drug store at Thompsonville, Connecticut, and thither young Mr. Steele went and secured an excellent position with this relative. Not long after- wards, the other uncle, William Begg, bought the drug store, and young Mr. Steele conducted it most successfully for a number of years. Finally, he purchased the establishment from his uncle and continued to conduct it under the name of "The Corner Drug Store," George R. Steele, proprietor. He remained in the business for upwards of twenty years, during which time it flourished remarkably and made its owner a well-to-do man, so that he came to be regarded as one of the most substantial merchants in the com- munity. Mr. Steele's activities were by no means confined to his business. A man of strong, vital instincts, he was interested in almost every aspect of life, and played a prominent part in many of them. He was extremely fond of social clubs and organizations for the purpose of indulging this and allied tastes, notably the Masonic order, in which he was very active and worked his way up to the thirty-second degree. He was devoted to outdoor life and sports, especially fishing, and he was a member of the Columbus Fish and Game Club, and took annually two trips to Canada, where he might engage in these sports to his heart's content. His active mind found a congenial region for thought among the political problems that were just then vexing the State and Nation, but though interested, he treated them as purely abstract questions, save in so far as they affected the casting of his ballot on election day, keeping entirely within the limits of active politics. His opin- ions were not the less definite, however, because he chose thus to take no part in active hostilities, and he was a strong supporter of the principles and policies of the Republican party all his life.
One of the greatest and most characteristic talents of Mr. Steele was that for music, and one to which a great deal of his time and attention was devoted. He had a beautiful baritone voice which was finely cultivated, and he often accompanied Rev. Dr. Parker to the hospitals on Sunday after- noons and sang to the patients there. The first public singing engaged in by Mr. Steele was in the great choirs with which Moody made musical his famous revival meetings, at the time he being only fifteen years old. He later became well known as a vocalist of ability, and was in great demand for funerals. Indeed, he organized a quartette for this very purpose, of which he was the leader, and in which Mrs. Steele, his wife, sang the soprano part. He had estimated, shortly before his death, that he had sung at five hundred funerals. Besides this he sang with Irving Emerson in the Washington Commandery Masonic Quartette.
Mr. Steele's personal appearance was typical of his whole nature. He was large physically and gave the impression of ample power and reserved energy. Such also was his mental make-up. His body was not larger than his heart nor stronger than his will. He was one of those men who inspire confidence at first sight, and who never disappoint the good impression. Once a friend always a friend was his theory, nor was there any relation of life in which he was less trustworthy. Those who dealt with him in business were well assured that whatsoever he engaged to do would be done, and that with no necessity for insistence on their part. Notwithstanding his great fondness for the society of his fellows, he was the most domestic of men, and
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of all social intercourse preferred that of his own household. He was a devoted son, husband and father, and as there was none, high or low, rich or poor, fortunate or unfortunate, who did not hold him in sincere affection, so there are none to whom his death has not brought a sense of loss difficult indeed to forget.
Mr. Steele married, December 31, 1884, Agnes Elizabeth McCaw, a native of Thompsonville and a daughter of William and Helen (Hood) McCaw, highly respected residents of that town. To Mr. and Mrs. Steele were born two children, who, with their mother survive Mr. Steele. They are both daughters: Helen A., a student at Holyoke College and a pianist of marked ability; and Jeannette Agnes, a student in the Enfield High School.
William Begg
T HERE is something particularly instructive in the records of such men as William Begg, the energetic yet retiring citizen of Hartford, Connecticut, whose death on December 26, 1914, was felt as a severe loss by a wide circle of friends and associates, particularly instructive because it was the typifi- cation of earnest, unwearied effort, because its success was not the result of some brilliant tour de force, but of the quiet, conscientious application of the abilities with which nature had endowed him to the circumstances at hand, because the wealth, position and fortune which he wrought for himself seem almost to have been no more than an incident to, a by-product, as it were, of the consistent performance of duty which found its real end within itself. This was instinctively realized by those with whom he came in contact, for, despite the substantial fortune he was known to possess, it was not so much in the character of a man of wealth that he was regarded in the community, as that of the public-spirited citizen, a disinterested neighbor whose advice, wise and sincere, could always be had for the asking. His family on both sides of the house was Scotch in its origin, and Mr. Begg was a fine example of the best type of that strong race, thrifty, hard-working, practical, God-fearing and unafraid to speak his mind. His parents were James and Mary (Steele) Begg, both natives of that picturesque and romantic region of west Scotland, so intimately identi- fied with stories of raids and border forays, with William Wallace, the Bruce and the Black Douglass.
Mr. Begg, Sr., was a weaver of Paisley, near Glasgow, the product of his mills being the famous Scotch woven shawls, and his wife was born in Ayrshire. They were married in Scotland and lived there three years before emigrating to the United States, where they believed greater opportunities awaited them. They first made their home in New York City, but a little later removed to Tariffville, Connecticut, where he engaged in business for a considerable period. From there he went to Little Falls, New Jersey, and finally back to Tariffville, where he died about four years later, in 1845. To them were born five children, all in this country, as follows: George, born in New York; James, born in Tariffville, Connecticut; William, of whom further; Mary, born in Tariffville, Connecticut, married John Hunter; and Jeannette, born in Little Falls, New Jersey, and now the widow of John Steele, and a resident of Hartford, Connecticut. With the exception of Mrs. Steele, the children are all deceased.
William Begg, the third child and son of James and Mary (Steele) Begg, was born in Tariffville, Connecticut, and passed his childhood in that town and in Little Falls, New Jersey, attending the schools of both places for his education. Upon completing his studies in these institutions, he left his mother home and went to Holyoke, Massachusetts, where he learned the machinist's trade, and by dint of hard work and close application became an
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expert and a master of his craft. He entered the employ of the great Colt Firearm Company at Hartford, and there rapidly worked up to the position of foreman. His great skill in all mechanical work fitted him peculiarly for this work and he made himself invaluable to his employers. He earned an excellent salary at the Colt works, but was nevertheless most economical in his habits of life, saving every dollar possible in view of his desire to some day become independent in a business of his own. The opportunity to real- ize this was not a great while in coming, and he purchased a corner drug store in Thompsonville, Connecticut, from his brother George, who had already worked up a good business. Under the capable direction of Mr. Begg, and his nephew, George Robert Steele, the trade developed to much larger proportions than it had ever known before, and soon brought in a very handsome income. Mr. Begg was succeeded in this business by his nephew, George Robert Steele, a sketch of whom appears elsewhere in this work. Upon retiring from the drug business in Thompsonville, Mr. Begg removed to Hartford, Connecticut, where he made his home with his sister, Mrs. John Steele, at 1339 Broad street, during the remainder of his life. But though he did not take up any definite business in Hartford, Mr. Begg was by no means idle in that city.
William Begg took no part in local politics, but he was keenly interested in all matters pertaining to the public welfare, including political questions, and few indeed were the movements undertaken for the advancement of the community or any class thereof that he did not respond to, aiding in all ways possible such as appealed to him. But though his generosity was not limited by considerations of any kind save his ability, he was a strong believer in the truth that charity begins at home, and his kindliness of heart was most of all noticeable in his dealings with his family and those who held to him the relation of friend. To his nephews and nieces he was particularly liberal, making it his personal concern that they should receive the very best of edu- cations, so as to prepare themselves for the conflict of life, which no amount of wealth or position can save us from. Nor was Mr. Begg one of those foolish ones whose affection hopes to spare its objects the normal trials of life. He knew full well that a certain proportion of trouble and difficulty serves but to strengthen the mental thews and sharpen the apprehension needed in its overcoming, and that courses too plain, roads too completely smoothed, tend only to make incapable those that traverse them. His object was therefore, to help his young relatives to help themselves, and in this he showed great good judgment, and spared himself no trouble that might further this object. His life deserves to be held up to posterity as a model of domestic virtues, and the more retiring were his own instincts, the more he shrank from publishing his generosities and charities, the more in- cumbent is it upon others to publish for him, lest the record of them be for- gotten and the influence of so fine an example come to naught. Mr. Begg never married.
C.Walter Gaylord
C. Walter Gaylord
IN the death of the late C. Walter Gaylord, of Hartford, Con- necticut, August 17, 1912, the city sustained a loss, especially in its musical circles, which is deeply and keenly felt, and which is wellnigh irreparable. Honored and respected by all, there is no man who occupied a more enviable position. Of broad, intellectual attainments, his attention was chiefly concentrated on the art of music, and his presentation of ideas in this field was as forcible as they were beautiful and melodious. He always commanded large audiences, and has left the impress of his genius on the music of the nation.
C. Walter Gaylord, son of Hezekiah and Emily N. (Benton) Gaylord, was born in Hartford, Connecticut, February 16, 1864, and died at the sum- mer home of his brother, William A. Gaylord, at Nantucket. From his earliest years he had shown remarkable love and talent for music, and adopted this as his professional work. In his sixteenth year he played at Burnside Methodist Episcopal Church and the following year at Christ Church, Hartford. The eminent success he achieved in this career proved the wisdom of his choice. He not alone became a teacher of music, but also a composer of note, his compositions being chiefly church music. He had the touch of a master on both the piano and the violincello, and played the latter instrument in the Hartford Philharmonic Orchestra. At the time of his death he was the organist of the Wethersfield Congregational Church, and he had previously, at various times, been the organist of Christ Church, the Pearl Street Congregational Church, the South Baptist Church and the North Methodist Church. He had played both the piano and the violincello in the Beeman & Hatch Orchestra. The compositions of Mr. Gaylord are noted for the sweetness and purity of the motifs which run through them, and for the originality of their ideas.
Mr. Gaylord married, September 15, 1896, Viola H. Parent, a daughter of Mrs. H. M. Parent, of Cornwall Plains, Connecticut. Mrs. Gaylord sur- vives her husband, as do his brothers: Edward B., of Hartford, and William A., of Worcester, Massachusetts, and he is also survived by his mother. The maternal grandfather of Mr. Gaylord was Charles Benton, at one time mayor of Hartford.
On Decoration Day, 1914, at Spring Grove Cemetery, Colt's Band, under the leadership of Scott Snow, played at the grave of Mr. Gaylord an offertory in B-flat, which was written by Mr. Gaylord.
henry Mermin Baldwin
B ENEATH all other occupations in point of its essential neces- sity is agriculture, the foundation of the social structure, the farmer, the herdsman, holding upon his shoulders, meta- phorically speaking, the artisan, the merchant, the financier, the statesman, the artist, the priest. So it is that if one would learn finally of the temper and strength of a nation or people, one should turn this same basic class and note what they appear. Judged by such a criterion, the New England of our fore- fathers was a land that might have challenged the world to produce its equal in strength, virtue and practical ability. Nowhere could be found a superior farming population, for the farmers of New England were not merely well educated as a class, but possessed a distinct and characteristic culture, were amply fitted to take charge of their own worldly affairs, while from their ranks sprang some of the most capable and original among the great men of America. An excellent example of the high average of enlight- enment reached by the farmers of Connecticut is the Baldwin family, which for many years inhabited the region about the town of Long Mountain in that State.
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