USA > Connecticut > Representative men of Connecticut, 1861-1894 > Part 37
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In 1838, he removed to Rockville, and for half a dozen years worked in the Rock and New England mills. Failing health caused his return to Monson, where he purchased a farm, and lived an out-door farmer's life for two years. Having regained his health, he made an engagement with the Enfield Stockinet inill at Thompsonville, of which W. G. Medlicott was agent. Here, besides the buying of wool, he continued his old trade of wool sorting. In 1863, Mr. Mcdlicott bought a little shoddy mill in Windsor Locks, on the site of the present mill, and the erection of the principal part of the main building was begun. Mr. Chaffee went with Mr. Medlicott in the new venture, and later was selected for the responsible task of going to Nottingham, England, to purchase the full fashioned machinery for the new mill. Financial troubles came upon Mr. Medlicott in 1867, and, a company being formned to assume the business, Mr. Chaffee made an investment in the stock. The same year he gave up active work for the company, and purchased a tinware business, which he enlarged and developed materially, his energy and good management bringing prosperity in their train.
The Medlicott Company failed in the Centennial year, and the failure gave Mr. Chaffee an opportunity which he has most wisely improved. Being a director, he was appointed assignee, and in that capacity carried on the inill for half a year. At this time a new com- pany was formed with a capital of $125,000, and Mr. Watson Beach of Hartford was chosen president. A year passed and Mr. Chaffee decided upon a new course of action. He deter- mined to secure control of the stock and take the management in his own hands, and accord- ingly bought out a Boston stockholder who owned a two-fifths interest. Then caine a marked change in the running of the inill. Minor details of the manufacturing received as careful attention as those which show more on the surface. Mr. Chaffee was indefatigable and unceasing in his labors, beginning with the starting of the mill and never stopping till the last spindle had ceased to hum. Nor did his work always end then, correspondence and other duties often carrying labors far into the night. His early experience in wool sort- ing stood him in good stead here, and the principle of using only the best wool has always been closely adhered to. Since Mr. Chaffce's management began he lias largely improved the mill and increased its capacity, two four-storied ells, together with a box and
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machine shop, having been added. Two hundred hands are employed, and the pay-roll amounts to $100,000 annually. The goods produced stand in the very front rank in their class, and the sale extends from Maine to California. The wages paid are the largest of any mill in this country, the employees are prosperous, many owning homes of their own, and their intelligent, industrious appearance is noticed by all visitors.
Windsor Locks owes Mr. Chaffee a heavy debt of gratitude. Taking a bankrupt concern, he placed the business on a firm foundation, thereby affording employment to a goodly number of its citizens. The story of his life shows how that by years of hard work and honesty of purpose, seeming adversity may be turned to a real success. While he has been striving to accumulate a fortune for himself, he has never been forgetful of the necessities of those around him. His good deeds, though numerous, are largely unknown to the townspeople at large, but inany of the town's unfortunates have a tender spot in their hearts for both him and his family.
Mr. Chaffee's energy and business activity have not been wholly confined to the com- pany of which he is the head. In financial institutions, lie is vice-president of the Wind- sor Locks Bank, and a director in the Mercantile Bank of Hartford. He is president of the' Windsor Locks and Warehouse Point Bridge & Ferry Company, and is a director in that enterprising manufacturing concern, the J. R. Montgomery Company. For four terins, he held the office of first selectman of Windsor Locks, and for. five years was a member of the board of assessors. A member of the Congregational church since his early manliood, Mr. Chaffee has been honored by places of great trust and responsibility, having been a member of the church committee for eighteen years, and of the society's committee for a period six years longer. When a young man in Monson, he was associated with the old state inilitia service.
Besides its indebtedness for rebuilding a defunct industry, Windsor Locks has another deep cause to cherish the memory of Mr. Chaffee. To quote from the opening address of Mr. J. R. Montgomery : "Fortunately, however, the town had one citizen whose patriotic soul had always burned with love for country, and love for its sturdy defenders, and was blessed with a generous heart and a purse to match." The combination in the last line does not always exist in the same person. The occasion of the remark was the gift of all elegant Memorial Hall made by Mr. Chaffee to the local Post of the Grand Ariny. It is one of the finest memorial structures devoted exclusively to Grand Army purposes to be found in the United States. The building is entirely of Monson granite, two stories high, with basement and attic, the external beauty being fully equalled by convenience of arrange- ment within, the total cost being approximately $28,000. Wednesday, June 10, 1891, the date of dedication, was made a gala day by the citizens of the town, and business was practically suspended. The town was filled with visiting Posts and soldiery, together with a brilliant array of civil and military dignitaries, and the procession formed was worthy of the occasion. On the front of the building is a polished marble slab, bearing the following inscription :
1890. SOLDIERS' MEMORIAL HALL, built by CHARLES E. CHAFFEE, and presented by him to J. H. CONVERSE POST, No. 67, G. A. R. In memory of those who went from Windsor Locks and lost their lives in the ser- vice of Our Country in the late Civil War.
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Many pleasant and complimentary allusions were made to Mr. Chaffce during the orations of the day, but perhaps the justest mention of all was by his old friend, Mr. J. L. Houston, who made tlic presentation address. In the course of his remarks, he said :
His is one of those transparent characters, always shining with a elear, steady light, known and read and respected by all who live within the circle of its influence. Let me inake a brief allusion to the public spirit of the man ; to his genuine altruistic feeling ; to his generous conceptions of duty towards circles lying out- side his own domestie hearth, and the group of his own immediate personal friends and associates; to his attitude toward all movements and causes which "make for righteousness " and for the interests of the community as a whole. During all his busy life he has yet found time to think of these things, and has acted fully up to the high standard of his consciousness. Shakespeare has described a man as a type of a class of good men, one "Who loves all, trusts a few, and does harm to none." My friend is all this, but I think he is something more. He has always been a personal force operating for the good of the community in which he was east. We all know that he has been a model husband and father and head of a household, a faithful member and officer of his church, but he never let his conception of duty stop there, as so many of us do. His hand has always been held out generously in promoting the general good and in appreciation of everything pure and noble. And so it has been, as we see to-day, in the manner of his showing his patriotic love of country, and his admiration and appreciation of those who, during the giant struggle of our civil war, sprang to the front and formed themselves into a living wall in defence of an imperilled Republie. During those days of fiery trial he felt an obligation stamped upon his very soul, and he has never ceased to remember that obligation.
In erecting a memorial building to the soldiers, Mr. Chaffee left a tangible remembrance of his own generosity. Truly did Hon. James T. Coogan say : "In years to come when the son or grandson of some old soldier shall bring his children to this shrine to show them where their grandsire's memory is honored, and when he tells them of the great war of the Rebellion and the noble deeds of their ancestors, I know he will not forget to tell them of the soldiers' friend, Charles E. Chaffee."
In a lengthy description of the events of the day, the Hartford Post said: "The life of Mr. Chaffee has been one of superb consecration to duty, and no greater treasure could be left with the community in which he has lived so long, than the example which he has impressed npon all classes of men. It is a legacy of priceless value. As a Christian in the community, and the manager of great industrial and financial interests, his career has been in every way an honor to American manhood."
Charles E. Chaffee was married May 15, 1839, to Abilena, daughter of Cyrus and Chloe (Richmond) Dunbar. Three children have been born to them, but they all died in infancy, or early youth. One adopted daughter, Etta C. Chaffee, in a large ineastire fills the vacant place in their hearts.
REENE, JACOB LYMAN, president of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, Hartford, was born at Waterford, Me., Aug. 9, 1837. He comes of an excellent family, well known in the Pine Tree State, being the son of Jacob H. and Sarah Walker (Frye) Greene. Speaking of his parents, it has been said that his father was a man of staunch character, distinguished for physical vigor, positive convictions and strong religious views. His mother was a lady of the most affable character, winning and graceful in manner, thoroughly enlightened and earnestly devoted to the welfare and advancement of her children. One of his great-grandfathers was Thomas Greene of Rowley, Mass., who was a non-commissioned officer of the minute-men at Lexington, and served throughout the Revolutionary War, being promoted to the rank of first lieutenant for distinguished bravery and efficiency. At the close of the war lie moved to Waterford, Me. Another great-grandfather was Major-Gen. Joseph Frye of Andover, Mass., who held impor-
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tant commissions and rendered valuable services at the siege of Louisburg in the French and Indian wars, during which he had some thrilling experiences. He received a grant of land in which a portion of the present town of Fryeburg was included and removed thither with his family.
Young Greene manifested a strong disposition for study at an early age, and sought cvery opportunity within his reach for intellectual improvement. His first steps along the hill of knowledge were taken at Fryeburg and Bethel academies. At that time the Michigan Uni- versity opened its doors to students without cost, so far as tuition was concerned. Turning his steps thitherward he drank still deeper of the Pierian spring. After completing his studies, he chose the legal profession in which to exert the future activities of life, and began the practice of law in the town of Lapeer, Mich.
The paint had hardly become dry on the "traditional shingle," when the first gun was fired at Fort Sumter, and the call inade for troops to suppress the Rebellion. Enlisting as a private in the Seventh Michigan Infantry, he was soon afterwards advanced to the rank of a commissioned officer. His regiment was ordered to the School of Instruction at Fort Wayne, and when its full complement was reached in August, 1861, it was sent to the front. Lieu- tenant Greene served in all the campaigns of his command until the spring of 1862, having been promoted to the first lieutenantcy of his company in the meantime. A long and exhaustive sickness intervened, which incapacitated him for active service for an entire year. Recovering his health in the summer of 1863, he returned to the front and accepted an appointment as assistant adjutant-general on the staff of General Custer. This position he retained until the battle of Trevelyan Station, where he was captured in June, 1864. Colonel Greene became familiar with the interior of Libby, Macon and Charleston prisons, and his experiences in them were exactly the opposite of pleasant. While at Charleston, he was selected as one of the officers to be placed under Union fire. Being removed to Columbia, he was parolled, transferred to the Federal lines and placed on duty at Annapolis. It was not until April 8, 1865, that he secured exchange, and immediately afterwards he returned to Virginia, joining General Custer at Burksville Junction, April 10. After participating in the grand review at Washington of the Army of the Potomac, General Custer was ordered to New Orleans. Colonel Greene accompanied him to the new field of action, and went with him up the Red river to Alexandria, where a division of cavalry was organized. Having been made commander of the central division of Texas and of the cavalry in the department, Custer advanced into the state, making his headquarters at Austin. Colonel Greene, who had been promoted to the full rank of major and brevetted lieutenant-colonel for distinguished gallantry, was made chief of staff of both commands. His connection with General Custer had been of such an intimate nature, when the latter was inustered out as major-general of volunteers, Colonel Greene applied for his discharge and received it in April, 1866, one year after the surrender of Lee at Appomattox. While he was exceedingly unfortunate in regard to his ill-health and the time spent in Southern prisons, still Colonel Greene rendered valuable service; and General Custer ever gave his abilities the highest appreciation. His military title is fully deserved by five years' participation in the War of the Rebellion.
Returning to civil life, he spent the next four years at Pittsfield, Mass. Becoming inter- ested in a new sphere of action, he began his insurance career as agent of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, but his executive ability soon made itself manifest, and he was invited to take a position in the office of the company. His reputation extended beyond the town and state in which he lived. In June, 1870, he was called to Hartford as assistant secretary of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, and in April of the following year he was
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elevated to the post of secretary. On the death of President Goodwin, who had filled the place for so many years, he was elected to the presidency, and is now filling that responsible position.
As President Greene's connection with the company covers more than a score of years, and during that time it has made vast advances in all directions, it is fitting that a paragraph be devoted to the history of the company. The Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company is one of the original five whose story goes back to the beginning of the business in this country. Chartered in May, 1846, it was organized and issued its first policies in December of the same year, with Eliphalet A. Bulkeley as president and Guy R. Phelps as secretary. James Goodwin, a man of rare financial abilities, succeeded Mr. Bulkeley as president in 1848, and, with an interruption of three years from 1866 to 1869, during the incumbency of Dr. Phelps, held the position until his death in 1878. Since 1878, Mr. Greene has been the official head of the company.
To President Greene's mind, the stability of his company has ever been his chief care. Long before others had begin to realize the possibilities of a change in the interest rates of the country, he commenced to bring the finances under his charge into shape to meet the coming reduction. The idea was laughed at in some quarters, sneered at by others, and only the most far-sighted could see any possible danger. Subsequent events, however, proved his action most wise. From an excellent publication, issued by the Hartford Board of Trade in 1889, the following truthful sentiments are taken :
The Connecticut Mutual is peculiarly strong, not only in solid assets, but in a conservatism of policy, the wisdom of which will become more and more apparent with the lapse of time. Its premiums and reserves upon risks taken since April, 1882, are computed on the assumption that before the liabilities mature, safe investments cannot with certainty be depended upon to yield a yearly net income of over three per cent. instead of four per cent., the basis heretofore required in prudent legislation and estimates. When taken, the step, quite at variance with the prevalent tendency, provoked, in certain quarters, acrid criticism, but its justification is com- ing more quickly, perhaps, than its advocates foresaw. Within a decade, able economists have written elaborate papers to prove that for a generation, at least, the annual rate of interest in the United States, except for short and transient intervals, could not fall below six per cent. The arguments were based upon the extent of our unde- veloped and partially developed territory, the tireless energy of our people, and the enormous sum certain to be required both for the enlargement of old and the initiation of new enterprises. In reality, capital increases much more rapidly than the demand for it in safe investments. For many months at a time, call loans on the best security have ranged from one per cent. to a fraction above, the best state bonds yield barely three per cent., and government bonds still less. Nothing but a long and destructive war can arrest even temporarily the downward movement. In view of the further fact that life insurance contracts, in many instances, will run forty, fifty or sixty years, and that every one kept in force inust ultimately be paid in full on penalty of bankruptcy, it is easy to see that all similar institutions, to meet remote obligations, must follow in practice, if not avowedly, the example first set by the Connecticut Mutual.
Not all of President Greene's executive ability and business energy have been confined to the insurance company of which he is the head. He has been called to act in an official capacity in connection with financial institutions. At the present time he holds a directorship in the Connecticut Trust and Safe Deposit Company, in the Society for Savings, in the Hartford Fire Insurance Company, and the Phoenix National Bank. In all these different boards he is valued as a safe counsellor, and his long experience gives his advice a special significance.
In church affairs, President Greene affiliates with the Protestant Episcopal body, and he is senior warden of Trinity church. He is also a leading member of the Church Temperance Society, and treasurer and a trustee of the Bishop's Fund. As a citizen of Connecticut, President Greene takes a zealous interest in all that affects the welfare of the commonwealth. His abilities and habits of industry lead him into various useful activities. He is a frequent and popular speaker at meetings of religious and scholastic bodies, and has been selected as orator of the day on several important occasions. His social connections include membership in the Connecticut Society of the Sons of the Revolution, trusteeships in the Wadsworth Athenæum, Watkinson Library, Church Home, and other local organizations.
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OF CONNECTICUT, 1861-1894.
A man of superior endowments, President Greene stands before the community, not only an able business manager, but a thoroughly useful and greatly valued citizen. Official life has had no charm for him. The prestige of station has been brought to his notice, but he has ever chosen to remain in the circle of business activity. It has been tersely said of President Greene: "He is at the head of one of the largest insurance organizations in the United States, to which honorable position he brings the qualifications of undoubted ability, the most absolute fidelity, a clear conception of duty, and a loyalty of principle which under no circumstances either surrenders or compromises."
B
IGELOW, HOBART BALDWIN, of New Haven, ex-governor of Connecticut and president of the Bigelow Company, was born in the adjoining town, North Haven, May 16, 1834. His death occurred Oct. 12, 1891, passing on to his reward in the very prime of his later inanhood.
From both sides of the family line, Governor Bigelow came of excellent ancestry, and the combination of the two strains of blood made a rare specimen of New England's best type of inan. Of the ancestry of John Biglo of Watertown, Mass., the progenitor of the American Bigelows, practically nothing is known. Presumably he was of English descent, but neither history nor tradition establish this as a fact. The first mention of his name is found in the Watertown records, where his marriage appears inder date of Aug. 30, 1642, being the first recorded in that town. By trade he was a black- smith, and was an energetic, public spirited inan, having served as an officer of the town in various capacities, and he is also spoken of as a soldier. From him the family line comes down through (2) Samuel, and (3). Samuel, Jr., to (4) Cornelius, and in this generation the present spelling of the name appcars for the first time. Cornelius Bigelow served as a non-commissioned officer in the French and Indian wars. His son (5) Paul was at Cambridge, April 19, 1775, as drummer of the Westborough company of minute men, and tradition says he served throughout the Revolutionary War, being present at the taking of Quebec by General Wolfe. Elisha (6), son of Paul Bigelow, was associated with his brothers in the manufacture of cut nails, and being a very ingenious man he did much to invent and perfect machinery for that purpose.
In the seventh generation, Levi Lewis, son of Elisha Bigelow, was born Dec. 13, 1802. He married Belinda Pierpont, a lineal descendant of Rev. James Pierpont, the second minister in New Haven, and one of the founders of Yale College. Until new methods of manufacturing cloth and the concentration of capital made it unprofitable, he followed the business of a clothier. Subsequently he engaged in the manufacture of chain pumps with bright prospects of pecuniary success, but the enterprise was wrecked by the perfidy of a trusted agent. During all the years he was engaged in manufacturing he never surrendered his title of farmer, and was in every way an honor to the tillers of the soil. A man of strict integrity, Mr. Bigelow faithfully and fearlessly performed the duties required of him, being often honored by his townspeople in the distribution of offices.
The education that was common to the sons of fariners at the time was all that Mr. Bigelow received. During his boyhood, business reverses overtook his father, who was then a manufacturer of chain pumps in Berkshire County, Mass. Thrown on his own resources at the age of seventeen, his native endowments were at once called into positive exercise. Like many eminently successful men, his youthful imagination had often dwelt upon the
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city, as the theatre best fitted for the display of his powers, and the field most likely to yield the largest harvest in repayment of toil. To the city he went and found employment with the New Haven Manufacturing Company, then under the management of his uncle, Asahel Pierpont, and here lie served a regular apprenticeship as a machinist. Entering the foundry and machine shop of Ives & Smithi, by successive stages lic ascended from a lowly position first to the management and finally to the proprietorship of the factory.
With his immense force of character, cularged by practical experience and acquaintance with the world, Mr. Bigclow found himself at the beginning of the road leading to assured competence and corresponding social distinction. He wisely seized and used his opportunity. Others sought business relations with him, among thiem being Mr. Henry Bushnell, inventor of the compressed air motor. Together they contracted with the national government in 1861 for the supply of "gun parts " for 300,000 Springfield rifles. Nearly three years were required to fill the contract, during which time Mr. Bigelow gave employment to about two hundred inen. When the war closed the demand for his manufactured products increased, necessitating a similar increase in the facilities, and the works were removed to Grape Vine Point, where they are now situated. Two years prior to removal Mr. Bigelow had added the manufacture of boilers to his previous business, and this department has since become famous throughout the country. The superior quality and workmanship of the boilers and thic remarkable excellence of the engines are as well known in St. John, N. B., and in California as in New Haven and vicinity. In the new location all the departments expanded greatly, and, under his fostering care, the total output increased to magnificent proportions. In1 1883, the business was incorporated as the Bigelow Company, minder a special charter granted by the legislature of that year.
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