USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 23
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Charles E. Gross.
Massali bectte h @fel ho De @ ett Mid ..
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
In the collateral branches of the family tree may be mentioned Gov. Richard Treat, Lieutenant-Governor Webster, the Wolcott family, and Capt. Joseph Wadsworth of charter hiding fame. It is a singular fact that, with barely one exception for ten generations or more, all of the ancestors of Mr. Charles E. Gross, and also of his wife, were born either in Old England or New England.
The early education of Charles Edward Gross was obtained in the public schools of his native city, and it was completed at Yale University, from which institution he graduated with honor in 1869. He took the oration stand, and was a leading Phi Beta Kappa man. The first year after leaving college was spent as a teacher at Hall's School in Ellington, Conn. Returning to Hartford in 1870, Mr. Gross commenced the study of the technicalities of the legal profession with the Hon. Charles J. Hoadley, and later on he entered the law office of Waldo, Hubbard & Hyde as a student. In September, 1872, he was admitted to the bar of Hartford County, and remained as a clerk with Waldo, Hubbard & Hyde, and four years afterwards, January, 1877, he was made a member of the firm, the name remain- ing the same. On the death of Judge Waldo in 1881, the title was changed to Hubbard, Hyde & Gross, and after Governor Hubbard's death in 1884, it became Hyde, Gross & Hyde, and again after the death of Hon. Alvan P. Hyde, it became Gross, Hyde & Shipman, which it still remains. The partners are Charles E. Gross, William Waldo Hyde and Arthur L. Shipman, all graduates of Yale. Mr. Gross has made a special study of insurance and corporation law, and in his chosen part of the legal world has few equals in the state. By far the larger share of this class of work transacted by the firin falls to his lot, and he has gained an enviable reputation for himself by his skillful and conscientious handling of the important cases entrusted to his care.
The services and experience of Mr. Gross are in demand by business and insurance cor- porations. He is a director in the Ætna Insurance Company, and since its re-organization in 1889, he has been a director in the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company. At the annual meeting in 1893, he was chosen a director of the New York & New England Rail- road Company. He is one of the trustees of the Society for Savings, the largest institu- tion of the kind in Connecticut. Of manufacturing companies he holds a directorship in the Western Automatic Machine Screw Company, and of the Smythe Manufacturing Com- pany, both of them successful Hartford corporations. He is also a trustee of the Wadsworth Atheneumn.
By persistent declination, Mr. Gross has contrived to keep outside the whirl of political life, although it is merely stating an open secret to say that various official honors have been placed before him for acceptance. Always interested in the material prosperity of the city of his birth, he was one of the organizers of the Hartford Board of Trade, which is a moving force for good in the community, and is now serving on the board of directors. As a result of a public meeting held in 1885, a committee of twenty gentlemen, known to be interested in moral and philanthropic movements, was selected, who were to use their utmost endeavors to arouse the minds of the citizens to the importance of action on the license and other public questions. This committee has done yeoman service before the legislature and board of County Commissioners. During the entire time Mr. Gross has held the laboring oar as secretary of the committee, and by precept and example has greatly furthered the work.
He is also a director of the Charity Organization Society, the object of which is to simplify and harmonize the charitable work of the city, which had previously been sadly mismanaged, or rather had suffered from lack of concerted management. In 1891, he was one of a special committee of five, appointed by the town, Prof. John J. McCook being the chairman, on out-door alms. It was found that the United States led the world as to
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expense per capita in out-door alins giving, etc. Connecticut led the rest of the states, and Hartford led Connecticut. All of the committee gave much time to the consideration of the intricate questions before them and though the report was largely tlic work of thic chairman, Mr. Gross attended to thic legal bearings of thic case and thic effects of his experience could be seen on numerous pages. The report created a profound sensation in the city and state, and was thic direct means of stopping many abuses which had grown up. It has since been introduced into several colleges as a text-book on charitable work, the statistical value being simply incalculable. A municipal reform club has recently been formed in Hartford, called the City Club, having over four hundred members, and Mr. Gross is president of the club.
The Hartford Courant thus briefly alludes to an important service Mr. Gross rendered to the medical practitioners of Connecticut :
The active struggle before the last legislature over the Medical Practice Act is still reineinbered all over the state as is the fact brought out at the hearing, that Charles E. Gross, who so ably managed the case for the Connecticut Medical Society, declined to accept any fee for his service. The doctors, however, have taken another way to testify their appreciation of his assistance and yesterday the society, through its officers, presented him with a unique and very choice testimonial. It is in the shape of a beautiful hand-made volume, bound in white morocco, and enclosed in a rich silk case. The book on opening it is found to consist of a number of parchment pages on which are exquisitely engrossed the resolutions of thanks passed by the society. The illuminated lettering in colors is worthy of the old monks, and the whole work is noticeably beautiful .* * * * The resolutions which were printed in the volume of "Proceedings," are as follows :
In recognition of the distinguished service rendered to the people of Connecticut by Charles E. Gross, Esq., in connection with the recent passage of the Medical Practice Bill by the legislature ; and in view of the fact that this service has included many scores of conferences with the members of the committee which represented this society in securing such legislation ; the drafting of the bill and subsequent modifications of it; the pre- sentation of the most cogent of arguments in favor of its enactment; which latter has covered some years and all of which has been done without compensation, and often with great personal inconvenience and sacrifice of business interests, and with such devotion to the welfare of all concerned as to render it almost if not quite unique in character ; therefore
Resolved : That the Connecticut Medical Society hereby expresses its high appreciation of these services of Mr. Gross, and begs to extend to him in behalf of its members and its constituency its thanks and con- gratulations, that this resolution be spread upon the records of this society, and that a copy be suitably en- grossed for presentation to him.
Though Mr. Gross is of a legal turn of mind, and stands in the front rank among the lawyers of the state, it will be seen that he has not confined hinself wholly to the technicalities of his profession. Everything that affects the welfare of the capital city finds in him a ready champion and active worker. In the Board of Trade, in financial and insurance corpora- tions, in manufacturing companies, in philanthropic work, his influence is felt, and always for the upbuilding and development of the city along right lines. Now in the prime of his inanhood, there are yet many years of continued usefulness stretching out before him.
On the fifth of October, 1875, Mr. Gross was married to Ellen C., daughter of the late Calvin Spencer of Hartford. Three children have been born to them: Charles Welles, who has passed his examination and enters the next class in Yale University; William Spencer, who died at the age of two years, and Helen Clarissa, now ten years of age.
Sulear.
Massachusetts Publishing Co. Everett, Mass,
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
S EARS, EDWARD HALE, president of the Collins Company of Collinsville (and Hartford), was born in Williamsburg, Mass., Feb. 23, 1846, a lineal descendant of Richard Sears, who was a member of Plymouth Colony Court in 1662. Mr. Sears is the son of Benjamin F. Sears, who was a manufacturer of edge tools at Williamsburg, and who removed to Collinsville to engage in the same work with the Collins Company, of which, as it has proved, his son, who was then but a boy, was eventually to be the president and manager. The young man graduated at the Collinsville high school, and prepared to take a scientific course at Yale in order to become a civil engineer, but at the solicitation of Samuel W. Collins, then president and one of the founders of the Collins Company, he entered the office of that corporation in 1863, and undertook the mastery of the business in all its branches and details. He has remained there continuously, advancing from one position of responsibility to another. He was agent, then vice-president, and, since the death of Maj. W. J. Wood in 1886, he has been president and general manager.
With his long experience, his thorough knowledge of the business, and his natural gift of organization, he has been singularly successful in systematizing the details of manufacture, and, under his management, the Collins Company has become the largest axe and edge tool works in the world, employing, as it does, about seven hundred men. The product of the factory has been so increased, its high standard of excellence so well maintained, and the cost of production so restricted by skill and economy, that the company stands at the head in its inany lines of work, and is known all over the world wherever people cut wood or break the ground. Civilization, as it advances, carries the Collins Company's tools in its hands, and, as it develops, finds more and more uses for them.
Mr. Sears is the head of the great company, which has a capital of one million dollars, and whose extensive works at Collinsville cover seventeen acres of ground. With his long service there, he knows every detail of the business, and to a large degree it is now of liis own planning and arrangement. He has made a special study of the art of iron and steel making and the conditions of treatment necessary to prepare such materials for use, and has studied both at home and abroad the industry which he has in charge. He possesses the fullest confidence of his board of directors, who in various ways have indicated their high esteem of his personal worth and executive ability; and the growth and prosperity of the company, in the close times since he took the management of its affairs, have amply justified the trust that they have put in him. He is quiet and unassuming in his manner, but clear and positive in his views,-a man of few words but inany resources; and the success of tlie company under his administration assures lim a place among the leading manufacturers of New England.
This great concern, now the largest of its kind in the world, was established in 1826 by the firm of Collins & Company. Before that time all axes were made by hand by blacksmithis, and were crude, unfinished tools that required grinding by the purchaser before he could 11se them. Samuel W. Collins, founder of the establishment, conceived the idea of inaking axes ready for use, to be furnished to and sold by the hardware trade. He and his associates, David C. Collins and William Wells, bought a mill privilege on the Farmington river, where Collinsville has since grown up, and began manufacture. The partnership became a corporation in 1834 with a capital of $150,000, which has since been increased by cash pay- ments to $1,000,000.
The mechanical skill of the late E. K. Root, a former superintendent (subsequently president of the Colt Company of Hartford) had much to do with the introduction of improved
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machinery in the company's early history, and hence with its progress and development. During recent years the inventions of others and thic systematizing of the departments of labor, with the maintenance of the high quality of its products, have enabled the company to compete successfully with both domestic and foreign manufacturers. In its works, axes in alinost every conceivable variety of style and size are made for all the countries of the world. From the small axes used in Burmalı and Ceylon, weighing from one-half to two pounds, the range of weiglit extends to seven pounds for Australia and New Zealand. Strange and peculiar patterns are made for trade with Mexico, Central and South America. In all over eight hundred patterns of axes, hatchets and picks, adzes and inachetes are manufactured. Machetes, which are used for wood and cane cutting in Spanish American countries, are a considerable item of manufacture.
The annual consumption of coal in all departments is eleven thousand tons. Power is obtained by the use of twelve large water wheels and eight steam boilers. The product is five thousand edge tools per day besides a large output of steel plows. The company also inakes and consumes two thousand tons of bar iron and nine hundred tons of steel per annum. Although the business has passed through some years of depression the company has made a dividend every year for nearly sixty years, and its business is much larger and more extensive now than at any previous time in its history. Its recent extensive growth, and its present satisfactory condition, are attributable in very large degree to the intelligent management and the unremitting attention of its efficient president.
Mr. Sears married Miss Elizabeth Prince Ames, a native of Princeton, Ind. Of their three sons, David Lloyd Sears is the only child surviving. Mr. and Mr. Sears live in Hart- ford, where the company has an office, but spend a part of the year in a summer home near Collinsville, where are the factories of the company. C. H. C.
ERWIN, SAMUEL EDWIN, of New Haven, ex-lieutenant-governor of Con- necticut, and president of the Yale National Bank, was born in Brookfield, Fairfield County, Aug. 23, 1831. The year 1831 was noted as one in which a brilliant array of men distinguished in their several spheres of action first saw the light. An enumeration would include a long list of statesmen, which should be headed by President James A. Garfield, Redfield Proctor, secretary of war, and John W. Noble, secretary of the interior, and a dozen other senators and cabinet officers. A roll of an equal number of Union generals would have Phil Sheridan as leader, while the list of business and professional men of eminence would reach into the scores. Emperor Frederick William of Germany was born in 1831, and a limited class of female celebrities would have in it Mrs. Lucy Webb Hayes, Mrs. David Croly, "Jennie June, " Helen Jackson, "H. H.," and Mary Louise Booth.
Governor Merwin is a lineal descendant of Miles Merwin, one of the early prominent settlers of Milford, whose name is still perpetuated in Merwin's Point, in the southwestern part of the county. The oldest memorial of the dead in the ancient burial ground at Milford is a sandstone slab of elaborate ornamentation in arabesque design which has been defaced by the hand of time. It bears an inscription to the memory of Miles Merwin, after whom Merwin's Point was named. His son, Samuel Merwin, born Ang. 21, 1656, was one of the first settlers of New Milford, and his name appears as one of the proprietors having a large allotment of land in that part of the town which was subsequently incorporated as Brookfield. Four successive Samuels followed in the family line. Samuel E. Merwin, son of the last Samuel, married Ruby Nearing, and became the father of the subject of this sketch.
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
The education of the future governor was simply that afforded by the district school of his native town, supplemented by a year's instruction in the high school of the adjoining town of Newtown. At the age of sixteen, the family moved to New Haven, where another year was passed at school. Before he reached his majority, he associated himself with his father under the firin name of S. E. Merwin & Son, a connection which lasted until 1880.
Outside of his active and successful business life, Governor Merwin has been identified with a number of important public and private trusts. He served as commissioner of police for two years, and for nine years he was an industrious and efficient member of the board of education. In 1872, he was induced to accept the nomination for senator in the fourth district, and received the compliment of being elected by a majority of five hundred in a district heavily Democratic. As candidate of the Republicans for mayor of the city, and also for member of congress for the second district, his great popularity in both cases nearly resulted in overcoming heavy Democratic majorities.
In the military circles of the state, Governor Merwin has been even more conspicuous than in private life. He was in command of New Haven Grays during the war, and by successive promotions became lieutenant-colonel and colonel of the Second Regiment. No man in Connecticut not engaged in actual service, performed more efficient labors than he. In response to a call from Governor Buckingham in 1863, the Grays, under his command, volunteered to go to Gettysburg. For thirty days during the draft riots in New York, his company remained under arms, in hourly expectation of being called upon to aid in averting that appalling danger. Guarding conscripted men, consigning to their last resting place with appropriate honors numerous officers and men who had fallen in battle, or died in hospitals, and receiving with proper military display the returning veterans of the war, became part of his official duties while in command of the regiment. Just in closing his terin as a soldier he rendered a most important service, for which he deserves to be gratefully remembered by the citizens of Connecticut. Through his efforts, a gang of prize fighters and their associates were captured at Charles Island, opposite Milford, and the whole party were taken to New Haven and turned over to the civil authorities. The prompt and efficient action at that time has since saved the state from similar scenes of brutal character. His great admiration and friendship for the soldiers led to his appointment as chairman of the committee to build the soldiers' monument erected by the town of New Haven, and it is largely due to his untiring zeal and energy that a most beautiful tribute has been dedicated to the memory of those who lost their lives in the cause of the Union.
Mr. Merwin rendered some very valuable service to his state when he was filling the office of adjutant-general for the years 1869, 1870 and 1872. It was through his efforts that the military systemin of the state was re-organized on its present efficient basis. The entire National Guard was grouped into one brigade with a regiment located in each congressional district. The change was very favorably considered, and the new system has been copied in other states.
There was no choice by the people at the state election in 1888, and on the assembling of the legislature he was chosen lieutenant-governor for two years, on the ticket with Hon. Morgan G. Bulkeley. In 1890, Lieutenant-Governor Merwin was given a unanimous nomination as the Republican candidate for governor. On being presented to the convention, he received a most enthusiastic reception. After speaking of the work of the Republican party and the issues of the day, he thus voiced his sentiments regarding himself :
Gentlemen, I am a thorough-bred Connecticut man, born and brought up on a Connecticut farm. I love her hills and valleys, and honor those who till her soil. I rejoice in the prosperity of her cities and villages and sincerely hope the wage-earner and employer may continue in harmonious relations for all time to come, thereby
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insuring to honest labor and industry just reward. I most fully appreciate her schools and institutions for learning. May they continue to teach the young the great principle of patriotismn, love of country and justice between man and man. I have faith in the future prosperity of our state, faith in our people, because I believe their faith with inine is pinned to the motto of Commecticut: "Qui transtulit, sustinet." My life has been devoted to business, and I trust you will not call me egotistical if I say it has been my endeavor to deal fairly and honorably by my fellowinen. My politics will be conducted on the same broad principle, and in victory or defeat I hope to retain the confidence, goodwill and friendship of my fellow-citizens, and, above all, my own self-respect and honor.
You have placed me before the people as a candidate for governor, feeling that claim of the people, and that they through you have nominated me. If elected, as I hope to be, I have but one promise to make thein. It will be my earnest endeavor to serve the interests of Connecticut faithfully and well, thereby serving the interests of all hier people, trying to remember at all times that I am their servant and not their master. With this promise I go before them for their suffrages, and, whether elected or defeated, they will find me loyal to Connecticut and all of those interests that have placed her among the first in the great sisterhood of states.
Again there was no election by the people at the polls in November. When the legis- lature assembled in January, 1891, a series of technical differences arose, and as a consequence, 10 legal election or inauguration of officers was effected by that body, except in the case of comptroller, who was declared elected by the people. The narrative of the next two years forms an unpleasant page in the history of Connecticut. During the trying and embarassing scenes which followed, Lieutenant-Governor Merwin bore himself in a manner which called forth the highest encomiums, both from his friends and those politically opposed to him.
In 1892, for the second time, he received the Republican nomination for governor with great unanimity. His speech of acceptance was a splendid summary of the Republican side of the controversy which had existed, as well as of the issues which divided the two great parties. In opening, he said :
Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Convention: Two years ago, the Republicans of Connecticut, through their representatives assembled in convention in this hall, nominated me as their candidate for governor. Your committee have advised me that this convention has seen fit to again houor me with the nomination, and I am here to accept the same, and to return my sincere thanks for this renewed expression of confidence. We have been witnessing a strange condition of affairs in Connecticut. Twenty months have passed since the general assembly should have elected some one governor of this commonwealth. Every intelligent citizen knows that our constitu- tion requires that a majority of all the votes cast are requisite to the election of a state officer, and if no candidate receives a majority, it devolves upon the legislature to elect one of the two receiving the highest number of votes. At the last election no candidate for governor received a majority of the legal votes east, and under all the prece- dents the people had a right to expect the general assembly would proceed under the constitution and make its choice. That body being Republican on joint ballot, no fair-minded man can doubt for one moment that I would have been its choice. If any citizen ever doubted the loyalty of the majority of that legislature to me, that doubt must long since have been dispelled. It was not only loyalty to me that kept them in one solid phalanx, but there was a principle involved that was far above the question of the governorship, a principle which the constitution guarantees and which every citizen of Connecticut should hold dear, to wit .: The right to cast one vote and to have that vote counted as cast. The importance of this principle has been recognized by our national convention, and, for one, I am glad that our party stands pledged by its platform to secure the rights guaranteed by the consti- tution of the United States to every voter throughout the land.
Speaking of the result of the convention, the Waterbury American, a leading inde- pendent paper, said : "The Republican state ticket, nominated at New Haven on Wednesday, with substantial harmony and yet with opposition enough to give life and interest to the proceedings of the convention, is a strong and clean one. General Merwin is known by everybody, and known as a gentleman, an honorable business man, and a worthy candidate for the highest state office."
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