USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 34
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At the age of seventeen he established a newspaper in An Arbor in the interest of the Whig party. It was published one-half in the German language and one-half in English. He entered ardently into frontier politics, and while still a minor was appointed clerk of one of the branches of the legislature and hield the position for two terms. His clear vision and well defined opinions brought him into the councils of much older leaders, while his trenchiant pen gave him an influence far beyond his ycars.
At the age of twenty-six he was appointed local agent at Ai11 Arbor for the Protection Insurance Company of Hartford. His services in a narrow field were so valuable that, in 1846, he was appointed special agent of the company with authority to supervise existing and to establish new agencies at the West, and at that time he removed to Hartford. He was the first person in the United States to be employed by any company for this exclusive work. He travelled from the Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico by stage coach and steamer, experiencing his full share of hardships and adventitres.
The Protection, the Hartford and the Atna suffered heavily in the great St. Louis fire of 1849. The management of the Protection seriously contemplated permitting the concern to die then and there, having lost heart from repeated disasters. Mr. Howard protested against the proposed step as unnecessary and cowardly, begging permission to go in person and settle the losses. The cholera was then raging in the city, residents were fleeing for their lives, and of those who remained scores were dying daily. Mr. Howard having carried his point walked into the pestilence and paying with ready cash the losses, inspired a confidence in Hartford institutions which gave them a long push forward toward supremacy. Mr. Howard quickly built up a large and profitable business for the Protection at the West. But the gains in that quarter were more than off-set by losses incurred at sea and on our inland waters. He protested earnestly but in vain against the continuance of a policy which had proved persistently disastrous. The directory, however, refused to heed his warnings. Accordingly he severed his connection with the concern rather than be held even remotely responsible for its errors. His predictions were verified by its failure in 1854.
An extract from an address delivered at Niagara Falls, June 9, 1885, by Mr. Charles B. Whiting, then secretary of the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and later president of the Orient, touches upon some of the contributions of Mr. Howard to the science of insurance :
I will only mention one more instruction book, when I am done. It is the issue of the "Protection " of about 1848, which was inspired by Mark Howard. It was much the most elaborate of any before issued, and is the basis for all our modern books. Here appear for the first time the definitions of insurance terms. It treats of the "Moral Hazard," the "Local and Internal Hazard," and gives full instruction for the inspection of risks. Here, also, appear standards for the rating of a large number of risks; forins of policy for a great many hazards ; and for the first time, the three-quarter value clause. This book was the greatest contribution to insurance literature that had been issued up to that time, and very far in advance of any of the others. The definitions are those in vogue to-day, and there has been but little, if any, improvement on the forms there put forth. Subsequent books are but an enlargement of this. The text for them all is found within its covers.
In 1857, the Merchants' Insurance Company was chartered with a capital of $200,000, and with permission to begin business when ten per centum had been paid in, the balance of the stock to be represented by notes. Mr. Howard was elected president, July 7, 1857, but refused to accept unless the entire capital was paid in cash. The condition was com- plied with, the Merchants' being the first insurance company in the city to start on a fully paid capital. From the beginning it was phenomenally successful, and so continued till overwhelmed by the great Chicago fire of . October, 1871. No attempt was inade to com- promise with the sufferers, or to save a single penny from the wreck. On this point "Hartford in 1889 " says :
Every dollar was turned over to the policy holders, to be distributed pro rata among creditors. While an institution of splendid promise was thus engulfed in the fiery tempest, the managers emerged with a record many times more valuable commercially than any salvage which the sharpest settlements could have secured.
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Under a charter granted in May, 1869, but till then unused, the parties interested in the Merchants' pro- ceeded to form the National Fire Insurance Company, deeming it better to give up the old organization, with its honorable history and good name, than to contend with the complications liable to arise from the unpaid balances at Chicago. Oct. 18, 1871, ten days after the outbreak of the great fire, the books were opened, and $608,000 were subscribed on a call for $200,000, a notable proof both of the unconquerable resolution of the community and of confidence in the men who were to conduct the affairs of the new company. At the first meeting of the stockholders, Nov. 27, the directors of the Merchants', with few changes, were inade directors of the National, and it was voted to increase the capital to $500,000. On the same day the board unanimously elected Mark Howard president, and James Nichols secretary.
In 1881, the capital was increased to $1,000,000 and Mr. Howard held the presidency till he passed from earth, Jan. 24, 1887.
Mr. Howard was one of the founders of the Republican party, and for years one of its mnost vigorous and efficient leaders. The Union League of Connecticut was started in his private parlors. Gen. Joseph R. Hawley, United States senator from Connecticut, who knew the man and his work intimately, thus writes of him, "Mr. Mark Howard was high in the list of those who were ready at any hour, day or night, to work or to give in the cause of the Union. His zeal was unbounded. His moral courage was of the very highiest. He always insisted upon obeying the very highest mnotives and impulses. He had illimitable confidence in the patriotisin of the great mass of the people and in an ultimate victory even in the darkest hour. In all the political movements that preceded and followed the organiza- tion of the Republican party, Mr. Howard was one of the foremost. He was among the first five or ten that actually inet and organized and corresponded and talked to get together a nucleus of the young party." *
* " Mr. Howard was delightfully impulsive, inspiring, hopeful and brave. Some people said he was too impulsive and not practical, just as they said of Israel Putnam, Ethan Allen, General Sherman, Phil. Sheridan, etc. Those of us who were active thirty or forty years ago will remember him with the greatest affection so long as we remember anything."
He was appointed by President Lincoln the first internal revenue collector in Connecticut. The system was new and in the absence of decisions on questionable points of law, wide latitude in interpretation was left to collectors. Mr. Howard brought to the position rare powers as an organizer, keen perceptions and a sturdy sense of justice. He was so fair that appeals were seldom taken from his rulings, not a few of which became incorporated in the general system of the country. Intensity of conviction renders some people self-assertive and disagreeable. Not so with Mr. Howard. He was always the courteous and charming gentle- inan and was beloved by a large circle of friends.
Mr. Howard married, Oct. 14, 1852, Miss Angeline Lee of New Britain, Conn., youngest daughter of Judge Thomas Lee, and the eighth generation from John Lee, who settled at Hartford in 1634.
Mrs. Howard's great-grandfather was Col. Isaac Lee of Farmington (New Britain) a patriot of the Revolution. This branch of the American family traces its descent from John Lee of Essex County, England, and inferentially from the ancient and noble family of the same name in Shropshire. Her father died when she was sixteen years of age. She was educated in part in the celebrated school of her aunt, Mrs. Lincoln Phelps. In her character are combined energy, resolution and courage with feminine gentleness and benignity. She has travelled extensively at home and abroad. Amid pressing calls of society and charity she has found time for a wide range of study, embracing literature and philosophy. For years their beautiful home in Hartford was a center of attraction.
The children of this union are Angeline Lee Howard, married to Morgan W. Beach ; Amy Lee Howard, inarried to Louis Bertrand Graves ; Dr. William Lee Howard, married to Clara A. Oatman; Myra Lee Howard, married to Kirk H. Field.
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S EARLS, CHARLES EDWIN, of Thompson, lawyer and ex-secretary of state, was born in Pomfret, Com., March 25, 1846.
The branch of the Scarls family from which he is descended was originally located at Dorchester, England, and the first cmigrants to this country settled in and assisted in building up Dorchester, Mass. Salter Searls was the first of the name to transfer his residence to Connecticut, and he found a home in Windham County, where he engaged in agricultural pursuits. Of his eight sons, Bela married Hannah Walcott, and was the father of Edwin C., who was born in 1815, and died in 1857. In early life he was a inerchant, but later hc went to New York and establishcd himself as a broker. He married Caroline, daughter of Darius Mathewson of Pomfret. The subject of this sketch was their only son.
Though born in Pomfret, young Searls's life until he was twelve was nearly all passed in Brooklyn, N. Y. ; at that age he returned to Thompson and has since made his home in that town. Private schools in the city of Brooklyn furnished the foundation of his educa- tion, Thompson Academy gave the preparation for college, and, entering Yale University, he was graduated from that institution in the class of 1868. The intricacies of Blackstone being in accordance with his tastes, he began the study of law in the office of Gilbert W. Phillips, Esq., of Putnam, and was formally admitted to the bar of Connecticut in 1870. Though retaining his residence in Thompson, Mr. Searls at once opened an office in Putnam, and is still in the active practice of his profession. Without making a specialty of any branch of legal research, he has secured a large and increasing list of clients, including nearly all the extensive corporations of the vicinity, and at the present time he stands in the very front rank of the Windham County Bar.
Everything which affects the welfare of his adopted town, finds in Mr. Searls a zealous advocate, and his influence has been felt in numerous beneficent ways. In 1869, lie was elected town clerk of Thompson on the Republican ticket, and has served for many years as justice of the peace. He was called upon by his fellow-citizens to serve as their representative in the lower branch of the state legislature in 1871, and was chairman of the committees on new towns and probate districts. For the years 1881 and 1882, he filled the office of secretary of state, having been elected on the ticket with Gov- ernor Bigelow. In 1886, he was again sent to the House of Representatives, and at this session was a prominent candidate for the office of speaker, and was chairman of the committee on appropriations, and chairman of the committee on constitutional amendments.
Mr. Searls received a complimentary vote from his county in the Republican congres- sional convention assembled to put in nomination a candidate for Congress from the third district in 1884. In whatever station Mr. Searls has been called upon to fill he has acquitted himself with credit and to the satisfaction of his constituents. . His record as a lawyer is clean and free from trickery, and, as he is still on the under side of the half- century mark, it may be safely predicted that the future has other and higher honors in waiting for his acceptance.
Massachusetts Publishing Co Everett, Mass.
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
AY, GEORGE HERBERT, of Hartford, vice-president of the Pope Manu- facturing Company, was born in Brooklyn, Conn., April 3, 1851. On the paternal side, four generations had lived in the fruitful valley of Quinnebaug, the village of Dayville taking its name from his great-grandfather. On the maternal line, he is the fifth in descent from Gen. Israel Putnamn, through his son, Col. Daniel, and granddaughter, Emily Putnam, Another ancestor, whose fame is minore local than that of General Putnam, was Godfrey Malbone of Newport, R. I. He was an eminent merchant of that old city, and was active in fitting out privateers in the French and Spanish wars. At the request of Governor Shirley, he was commissioned to raise a regiment of three hundred and fifty men in Rhode Island, to join the expedition against Louisburg. Captain Malbone's residence, in the suburbs of Newport, was called "the most splendid in all the colonies." Years were spent in its construction, and it was burned soon after completion. He died in 1768. His granddaughter, Catherine, daughter of Shrimpton Hutchinson and Elizabeth (Malbone) Hutchinson, married Col. Daniel Putnam, son of the general.
The son of Captain Malbone and brother of Mrs. Hutchinson, Col. Godfrey Malbone, Jr., after the financial reverses that befell his father in his declining years, removed, in 1766, to the estate of three thousand acres in the Brooklyn Society of Pomfret, bought by the Malbones of Gov. Jonathan Belcher. Soon after his settlement there, the people of the village began to agitate the question of replacing the Congregational church which had done service for thirty years, by a new edifice better suited to the more ambitious tastes of the time. A potent argument used by the advocates of the measure was that under the laws of Connecticut a large share of the expense would fall on this new comer. Educated in England at the University of Oxford, an ardent loyalist and churchman, he at once roused himself to beat the attempt on the part of the chosen people to "despoil the Egyptian." The fight was long and vigorous. By an amendment to the early colonial law, extorted by growing complaints against its injustice, Episcopalians, where they supported a church and ministry of their own, were relieved from the tax for the "standing order." Beginning alone, Malbone rallied increasing numbers till, in 1771, Trinity Church, Brooklyn, emerged from the smoke of conflict, an established and enduring fact. Mr. Day's family have been inem- bers of this historic church since its foundation.
Having duly improved the advantages offered by the common schools of his native town, Mr. Day entered Hobart College, Geneva, N. Y., in 1869, but left toward the end of the first year on account of trouble with his sight. In October, 1870, he moved to Hartford, taking a clerkship in the Charter Oak Life Insurance Company, and remaining with that institution seven years. He then resigned to enter the employ of the Weed Sewing Machine Company, Oct. 1, 1877. The enterprise was struggling against adverse conditions. At one time the business had been highly prosperous, but profits had faded with growing intensity of competition. The plant was well equipped and the skill of its mechanics was unexcelled. It was this reputation that attracted to Hartford, in the spring of 1878, Col. Albert A. Pope, ' whose name has since become a household word. He camne not only to place an order for a small lot of bicycles, but with a view to their future manufacture here as a stand- ard business. Colonel Pope argued with a confidence which no objections could shake, that the machine was destined to come into general use. Even the contagion of enthusiasm failed to produce general conviction that the ingenious toy could ever find a wide market. Mr. Day earnestly favored taking up the bicycle. In this, as in many other cases, results have fully proved the correctness of his intuitions. The rapid growth of the business,
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the prosperity of the company following upon the new departure, its leading place in the transition which is bringing to the front the industrial forces of the city, may be said to mark an epoch in local development.
'Tlic services of Mr. Day were rewarded by rapid promotions. March 17, 1879, he was made secretary ; Fcb. 1, 1883, secretary and assistant treasurer ; April 17, 1884, secretary and treasurer ; Feb. 5, 1885, treasurer and general manager ; and March 25, 1887, president and treasurer. In 1890, the Pope Manufacturing Company became sole owner of the property through the purchase of the Weed stock. In the re-organization which followed the transfer Mr. Day remained in charge of the manufacturing department in Hartford, as vice-president and general manager.
Perhaps a few figures will mnost clearly exhibit the late growth of the company. From the reports of the Board of Trade we learn that, including the rubber works, the number of employees increased from 283 in 1888 to 1,022 in 1893, a gain of 261 per cent. in five years, and that during the same period the square feet of floor surface increased from1 108,342 to 338,654, a gain of 212 per cent. At tlie close of the year 1893, it had under roof seven and three-fourths acres of flooring. Within that time it absorbed the Hartford Rubber Works, multiplying the productive capacity of the plant by six. It also built an elegant factory of three stories, the inain structure 266 x 50 feet, aside from boiler-house and other accessories, for steel tube drawing.
While attentive to profits, the company has been regardful of the comfort, health and education of employees. In the winter of 1887-88, it opened a large and sunny reading-room for use at noon. The tables are strewn with papers and magazines, while fresh treasures are added year by year to the library shelves. Soup, coffee and other light refreshments of the best quality are served at cost. Each man has a separate locker for clothing. All the arrangements tend to cultivate habits of cleanliness and self-respect. Mr. Day believes that expenditures thus made with sole reference to the well-being of the men, by heightening their zeal, alertness and efficiency, incidentally yield excellent returns as an investment.
In 1889, Mr. Day persuaded the directors of the Weed Company to adopt a long-nurtured scheme of his for supplying in the vicinity of the works high-grade tenements at moderate rentals. Columbia street was opened on vacant property of the company, and twenty-four houses were built at a cost of about $70,000. Althoughi in block, each, containing nine rooms and fitted to meet the mnost exacting demands of convenience and health, is planned for a single family. When the Weed people sold their shares to Colonel Pope, this interest was detached and separately incorporated. The investment not only attracted a very desirable colony but has proved highly remunerative. On similar lines of development Mr. Day and his associates have other schemes in view of a far more comprehensive character. Under the title of "Good News for Hartford " the Courant said, editorially, in May, 1894: "The article elsewhere, on the removal of the offices of the Pope Manufacturing Company from Boston to this city, deserves a careful reading. It conveys good news, mighty good news, too, for Hartford. Already Colonel Pope and Mr. Day have done a deal for this city. This new move identifies the great interests Colonel Pope controls still closer with Hartford, and gives promise of benefit alike to city and factory. And the suggestions of how the whole city can be improved and of what more public spirit can do for the community inay reason- ably be lioped to lead to further progress. Whatever Colonel Pope and Mr. Day liave touched here they have made better. Their factories are inodels, and the various improve- ments that tlicy have undertaken have had a public as well as a private value. The pres- ence of such men is worth a great deal to a city, and we congratulate all Hartford on the added prosperity and the further awakening of public spirit of which this new and impor- tant step gives promise."
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In1 1888, Mr. Day took a leading part in organizing the Board of Trade, in which he has been a director from the start. In 1890, this association decided that the welfare of the city would be advanced by the erection of an industrial building. Accordingly, a company with a paid capital of $100,000 was formed, which proceeded to put up a massive, elegant, well-lighted factory of four floors, 360 feet long. Mr. Day was director and vice-president. As the structure neared completion the directors became convinced that the interests of the shareholders would be promoted by a sale of the property. Mr. Day was requested to find a purchaser. He conducted negotiations with such celerity and success that in a short time the subscribers to the stock received back their money with interest. The present owners occupy about one-half of the floor space, renting the rest in accordance with the plans of the projectors.
Owing to the deadlock in the legislature of Connecticut, no appropriation was inade to aid the people of the state in presenting a suitable display of their arts and industries at the Columbian Exposition in 1893. To meet the exigency $50,000 was raised by private subscriptions. Governor Bulkeley appointed a board of inanagers for the commonwealth, of which Mr. Day was a member, and also treasurer of the above fund, and of the further appropriation afterwards added by the legislature. Beginning late on account of the deadlock, the board was compelled to repair the evils of lost time by the energy of its movements. Mr. Day repeatedly visited Chicago in the discharge of his duties. The success accomplished by the united action of the members is too recent and too widely known to need comment.
Mr. Day is a trustee in the Society for Savings and the Dime Savings Bank, a director in the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company, the American National Bank, in many manufacturing companies, and in educational and charitable institutions.
Though deeply interested in public affairs, and always ready to contribute freely both time and money to promote the public welfare, he lias manifested intense distaste for public office.
As would be inferred from the success of the enterprises with which he has been con- nected, and in the management of which he has been largely responsible, Mr. Day possesses keen perceptions and sound judgment united with a broad grasp of affairs. To a marked degree he commands the confidence, esteem and affection of the people with whom he is brought into personal relations. Thoughtful of others and forgetful of self, he has unconsciously won the good will of all, not by seeking popularity but by deserving it.
Mr. Day married Oct. 13, 1877, Katharine Beach, daughter of J. Watson Beach, a member of the firm of Beach & Company, one of the prominent importing houses of the country. He was director, and at one time president, of the Mercantile National Bank, president of the Weed Sewing Machine Company, and a director in several other corpora- tions. He was a man of wide information, great intelligence and genial nature, sharing the burdens of business and lending a helping hand to every public interest. He was the ninth child of George Beach, for many years the president of the Phoenix Bank, who had a family of thirteen sons and four daughters. J. Watson Beach died March 17, 1887. The family has long been prominent in the business and social affairs of Hartford.
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PRATT, FRANCIS ASBURY, of Hartford, president of the Pratt & Whitney Company, was born in Woodstock, Vt., Feb. 15, 1827.
Among the earliest of English surnames occurs the name of Pratt. Many of its branches have held stations of influence and power in the British Empire. The first American ancestor of the Connecticut family was John Pratt, who came from the southern part of England and settled in Dorchester, Mass., where he was made a freeman May 4, 1632. Of his son John's children, the third John in the family line located at Reading, Mass., from which place the family ultimately removed to Reading, Vt. Charles Pratt, a native of Reading, Vt., was a man of great mental and physical strength. Transferring his residence to Michigan in 1834, he died there at the advanced age of ninety-four. His son, Nathaniel M. Pratt, was born in Reading, Vt., in the opening year of this century. He carried on business as a leather dealer, and was a noted speaker in the temperance cause at a time when such agitation was the reverse of popular. Francis A. was the son of Nathaniel M. and Frances M. (Nutting) Pratt.
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