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Gc 974.4 M51 1258943
M. L.
GENEALOGY COLLECTION
ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY 3 1833 01100 3834
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MEMORIAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
of the
State of Massachusetts
Under the Editorial Supervision of WILLIAM RICHARD CUTTER, A.M. Librarian Emeritus of Woburn Public Library; Historian of New England Historic- Genealogical Society; Author of "History of Arlington," "Bibliography of Woburn," etc., etc.
ILLUSTRATED
BOSTON
THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY INCORPORATED NEW YORK 1918
CHICAGO
Both justice and decency require that we should bestow on our forefathers an honorable remembrance .- Thucydides.
new England - 20.00 +19-02-x
1258943 Foreword
T HE historic spirit faithful to the record, the discerning judg- ment, unmoved by prejudice and uncolored by undue enthu- siasm, are as essential in giving the life of the individual person as in writing the history of a people. The world to- day is what the leading men of the last generation have made it. From the past has come the legacy of the present. Art, science, statesmanship, government, as well as advanced in- dustrial and commercial prosperity, are accumulations. They constitute an inheritance upon which the present generation has entered, and the advan- tages secured from so vast a bequeathment depend entirely upon the fidelity with which is conducted the study of the lives of those who have transmitted the legacy.
In every community there have been found men who were leaders in thought and action and who have marked the passing years with large and worthy achievement. They have left definite impress in public, professional, industrial, commercial, and other lines of endeavor that touch the general welfare. They have wrought well, and have left a valuable heritage to pos- terity.
The State of Massachusetts affords a peculiarly interesting field for such research. Her soil has been the scene of events of the utmost impor- tance, and the home of many of the most illustrious men of the nation. Her sons have shed luster upon her name in every profession, and wherever they have dispersed they have been a power for ideal citizenship and good government. The present "Memorial Encyclopedia of the State of Massa- chusetts" presents, from the foundation of the State to the immediate past, a large amount and variety of information of her representative people whose character and standing in their various stations have molded the State and added to its importance. It is confidently believed that this work will prove a real addition to the mass of annals concerning important people of Massachusetts; and that, without it, much valuable information would be inaccessible to the general reader, or irretrievably lost, owing to the passing away of custodians of family records, and the consequent disappearance of material in their possession.
-THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
James Russell Lowell
AMES RUSSELL LOWELL, one of America's most distin-
J guished authors, and who has left an enduring mark upon American literature and thought, and who also proved himself an accomplished diplomatist, was born in Cambridge, Massa- chusetts, February 22, 1819.
He came of an excellent ancestry, descended from Perci- val Lowell, who came from Bristol, England, in 1639, and set- tled in Newbury. His father, Rev. Charles Lowell, was born in Boston, Au- gust 15, 1782, son of Judge John and Rebecca (Russell) (Tyng) Lowell, and grandson of Rev. John and Sarah (Champney) Lowell and of Judge James and Katherine (Graves) Russell, these generations numbering many distin- guised clergymen, lawyers and jurists. Rev. Charles Lowell was graduated from Harvard College, Bachelor of Arts, 1800, Master of Arts, 1803; studied the- ology in Edinburgh, Scotland, 1802-04; was made a fellow of Harvard, 1818; and received from the same institution the degree of S. T. D. in 1823. He was installed pastor of the West Congregational Church, Boston, January I, 1806, and served fifty-five years. His health failing in 1837, Dr. Lowell traveled for three years in Europe and the Holy Land. He was married, October 2, 1806, to Harriet Bracket, daughter of Keith and Mary (Traill) Spence, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and sister of Captain Robert Traill Spence, United States Navy. The Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell died in Cambridge, January 20, 1861.
James Russell Lowell prepared for college at the boarding school of Wil- liam Wells, Cambridge, and graduated from Harvard College, Bachelor of Arts, 1838, Bachelor of Laws, 1840, and Master of Arts, 1841. He received later in life the following honorary degrees: From Oxford University, Doctor of Civil Law, 1873; from the University of Cambridge, Doctor of Laws, 1874; and the latter degree also from St. Andrews, Edinburgh, and Harvard, 1884; and Bologna, 1888. On January 2, 1884, he was elected L'ord Rector of the University of St. Andrews, Scotland. He was an overseer of Harvard, 1887- 91 ; a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences; a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the American Philosophical Society and the Royal Academy of Spain; and a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh and the Royal Society of Literature of London. In all these bodies he enjoyed a unique distinction, and in Europe his talents commanded the highest admiration.
Mr. Lowell was devoted to letters from the first, and while in college edited "Harvardiana." After his admission to the bar, he opened a law office in Bos- ton. However, he had no inclination for the legal profession, and gave his time to literature, writing numerous pieces of verse which were published in MASS .- 3-I I
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James Russell Lowell
magazines, and 1841 were put into book form, his first published volume. In 1842 he brought out the "Pioneer" magazine, which was short-lived. A pro- nounced Abolitionist, he was a regular contributor to the "Liberty Bell," and afterward became corresponding editor of the "Anti-Slavery Standard." In 1846 his "Bigelow Papers" became famous, and exerted a powerful influence upon the political thought of the day. These were satirical poems in the Yankee dialect, and were eagerly read, not only for their peculiarity of expression, but for their underlying philosophy. He had now become a somewhat prolific writ- er, principally upon political topics, and through the columns of "The Dial," the "Democratic Review," and the "Massachusetts Quarterly." He spent about a year in Europe in 1851-52. In 1855 he succeeded Henry W. Longfellow as Smith Professor of French and Spanish Languages, Literature and Belles Let- tres, at Harvard University, serving until 1886, and was university lecturer, 1863-64. He was editor of the "Atlantic Monthly" from 1857 to 1862, and joint editor with Charles Eliot Norton of the "North American Review," 1863- 72.
He was active in the organization of the Republican party in 1856. In 1876 he was a presidential elector from Massachusetts. In 1877 he was ap- pointed Minister to Spain by President Rutherford B. Hayes, and in 1880 was made Minister to the Court of St. James, England, serving until 1885. Dur- ing his residence in England he was highly honored, delivering many address- es, and being orator at the unveiling of the bust of Coleridge in Westminster Abbey in May, 1885. In these efforts he displayed a breadth of scholarship, originality of thought, elegance of expression and depth of feeling, which proved a revelation to Old World litterateurs. He was a devoted student dur- ing all his absences from this country, and in 1887 delivered before the Lowell Institute, Boston, a course of lectures on the English dramatists. On his return he retired to his country seat, "Elmwood," Cambridge, and devoted himself to study and literature, continuing his lectures at Harvard University. He edit- ed the poetical works of Marvell, Donne, Keats, Wordsworth and Shelley, for the "Collection of British Poets," by Professor Francis J. Childs, of Harvard. His published works were numerous. At the time of his death he was engaged on a "Life of Hawthorne." His last published poem, "My Book," appeared in the "New York Ledger," in December, 1890.
He was married, in 1844, to Maria White, of Watertown, Massachusetts, who died in 1853. In 1857 he was married to Frances Dunlap, a niece of Gov- ernor Robert P. Dunlap, of Maine. He died at Cambridge, August 12, 1891. His life work was commemorated in "James Russell Lowell: a Biography," by Horace E. Scudder, two volumes, 1901. In 1898 a part of his estate, “Elm- wood," was purchased by the Lowell Memorial Park Fund, nearly forty thou- sand dollars of the purchase price being obtained by popular subscription.
Oliver Wendell Homes
Bliver Talendell Holmes
O LIVER WENDELL HOLMES, one of America's favorite au- thors, was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, August 29, 1809, son of the Rev. Abiel and Sarah (Wendell) Holmes; grandson of Dr. David and Temperance (Bishop) Holmes, and of Oliver and Mary (Jackson) Wendell; and a descend- ant of John Holmes, who settled at Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1686, and of Evert Jansen Wendell, who emigrated from Holland and settled in Albany, New York, about 1640. His paternal grand- father was a captain in the British colonial army in the French and Indian War, and later served as surgeon in the Revolutionary army. His father, a graduate in theology from Yale and an earnest Calvinist, was pastor for forty years over the First Church, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
The early religious training of Oliver Wendell Holmes made a deep im- pression upon his sensitive and poetic nature, and from early manhood he was an aggressive Unitarian, in direct opposition to the Calvinism of his father. He first attended a "dame school" kept by Mrs. Prentiss, and from his tenth to his fifteenth year continued his education at a school in Cambridgeport, un- der Winslow Bigelow, where he had as classmates Richard Henry Dana, Mar- garet Fuller, and Alfred Lee, afterward Bishop of Delaware. From Cambridge he was sent to Phillips Academy at Andover, Massachusetts, with the hope that he might incline to the ministry, and there he made his first attempt at rhyme in the translation of the first book of Virgil's "ÆEneid." He was grad- uated from Harvard College in 1829, with William H. Channing, Professor Benjamin Pierce, James Freeman Clarke, the Rev. S. F. Smith, and Benjamin R. Curtis. He roomed in Stoughton Hall; was a frequent contributor to col- lege publications; wrote and delivered the poem at commencement, and was one of sixteen of that class whose scholarship admitted them to the Phi Beta Kappa society. His cousin, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sumner, and John Lo- throp Motley, were in attendance at Harvard, although not his classmates. He attended the Dane Law School in 1829, remaining one year, and in that year devoted more time to verse writing than he did to Blackstone. In 1830, on reading a newspaper paragraph to the effect that the frigate "Constitution" was condemned by the Navy Department to be destroyed, he wrote on the impulse of the moment, "Old Ironsides," which appeared first in the "Boston Daily Advertiser," and quickly traveled through the newspapers of the United States, saving the vessel from destruction and bringing fame to the au- thor. The following year he studied medicine at a private school under Dr. James Jackson, and in 1833 studied in the hospitals of Paris and London, spending his vacations in travel. He returned to Cambridge in December,
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Dliver dalendell Holmes
1835, received the Doctor of Medicine degree from Harvard in 1836, and at once commenced his professional career. The same year he published his first volume of poems, which contained forty-five pieces, among them "The Last Leaf," of which the great Lincoln said, "for pure pathos, in my judgment, there is nothing finer in the English language" than the following stanza :
"The mossy marbles rest On the lips that he has pressed In their bloom; And the names he loved to hear Have been carved for many a year On their tomb."
He received three of the Boylston prizes for medical dissertations, and the three essays were published in 1838. He was Professor of Anatomy and Physi- ology in Dartmouth College, 1838-40.
In 1843 Dr. Holmes published an essay on the "Contagiousness of Puer- peral Fever," and on this rests his honor of having made an original and valu- able discovery for medical science, and which called forth at the time a most hostile argument from the two leading American professors of obstetrics, Pro- fessors H. L. Hodge and C. D. Meigs, of Philadelphia. He was appointed Park- ham Professor of Anatomy and Physiology at Harvard University Medical School in 1847, and occasionally overstepped the strict boundaries of these de- partments to give instruction in microscopy, psychology and kindred subjects He relinquished his medical practice, and was dean of the Medical School, 1847- 53. In 1849 he built a house in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, upon the old family place on the road to Lenox, in a township that had belonged to one of his Dutch ancestors in 1735, and there spent his summers until 1856, having as neighbors and associates Nathaniel Hawthorne, G. P. R. James, Herman Melville, Miss Sedgwick, and Fanny Kemble.
In 1852 he delivered in several cities a course of lectures on the "English Poets of the Nineteenth Century," twelve of which were given before the Low- ell Institute. Dr. Holmes was a favorite with lecture bureaus, and had no lack of engagements; and in his medical lectures at Harvard the last period was assigned to him, because he alone could hold the attention of his exhausted audience, listening to the fifth consecutive lecture. As a lecturer he was inter- esting, stimulating and original. He was wont to speak of occupying not a "chair," but a "settee" of medicine. He invented the arrangement of the stere- oscope, afterward universally used, but obtained no patent for an article from which he might have made a fortune, "not caring," as he expressed it, "to be known as the patentee of a pill or a peeping contrivance." He was one of the founders of the "Atlantic Monthly" in 1857, and gave the magazine its name, contributing to it a series of conversational papers entitled "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table" (1858), and which contained some of his best poems.
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Dliver Wendell Holmes
This was followed by a second series, "The Professor at the Breakfast Table" (1859), and after a long interval appeared "The Poet at the Breakfast Table" (1872). He contributed to "The Atlantic" the serial novels: "Elsie Venner" (1861); "The Guardian Angel" (1867) ; "A Mortal Antipathy" (1885) ; "Our Hundred Days in Europe" (1887) ; "Over the Teacups" (1890). He was iden- tified with "The Atlantic" magazine more closely than any other person, and for a longer period. On December 3, 1879, the editors gave a breakfast in his honor, he having passed his seventieth birthday, and Dr. Holmes read "The Iron Gate," which he wrote for the occasion. He removed from Montgomery Place to a house on Charles street, on the riverside, in 1867, and in 1870 to Beacon street, where he lived the remainder of his days, making Beverly Farms his summer home. He resigned his professorship at Harvard in 1882, and was immediately made Professor Emeritus, a rare distinction for Harvard to confer.
From that time he lived a retired life in Boston, but continued his writ- ings, "full of the same shrewd sense, wise comment and tender thought" that characterized them from the outset. He made a second visit to Europe with his daughter in 1886, and was everywhere warmly welcomed. He spent most of the time in England and Scotland, and received the degree of Doctor of Civil Law from Oxford University, and that of Doctor of Laws from Edin- burgh. He was often called "Our Poet of Occasion," because always ready when called upon to contribute a poem or an essay giving the best his genius afforded. His writing never wholly weaned him from the medical profession, which he loved strongly because he loved human nature. Besides the works already mentioned, he prepared, with Dr. Jacob Bigelow, Marshall Hall's "The- ory and Practice of Medicine" ( 1839) ; and was the author of "Lectures on Homeopathy and its Kindred Delusions" (1842) ; "Report on Medical Litera- ture" (1848) ; "Currents and Counter-currents in Medical Science" (1861) ; "Borderland in Some Provinces of Medical Science" (1862); "Sounding's from the Atlantic" (1864) ; "Mechanism in Thoughts and Morals" (1871) ; "Memoir of John Lothrop Motley" (1879) ; "Memoir of Ralph Waldo Emer- son" (1884) ; "Before the Curfew" ( 1888) ; poetry: "Urania" (1846); "As- trea" (1850) ; "Songs in Many Keys" (1861); "Songs of Many Seasons" (1875); "The Iron Gate and Other Poems" ( 1880). His poems were subse- quently collected into three volumes under the title: "The Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes." See "Life and Letters of Oliver Wendell Holmes," by John Torrey Morse, Jr. (1896), and "Life of Holmes," by Emma E. Brown (rev. ed., 1895).
On June 15, 1840, he was married to Amelia Lee, third daughter of Charles Jackson, of Boston, Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court. They settled in Boston, Massachusetts, where Dr. Holmes engaged in general practice. He bought a house in Montgomery Place, which afterward became Bosworth street, and there his three children were born: Oliver Wendell,
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Dliver Wendell Dolmes
March 8, 18441 ; Amelia Lee, who died in 1889; and Edward Jackson, who died in 1884. His wife died at their Beacon street home in 1888.
Dr. Holmes died at 296 Beacon street, Boston, Massachusetts, October 7, 1894. The burial service, held at King's Chapel, was conducted by the Rev. Ev- erett E. Hale, and he was buried at Mount Auburn.
William Taletmore Story
W ILLIAM WETMORE STORY, author and sculptor, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, February 12, 1819, son of Joseph and Sarah Waldo (Wetmore) Story, grandson of Elisha and Me- hitable (Pedrick) Story, and the great-grandson of William Story.
After graduating from Harvard College in 1838, where he was the poet of the class, and from the Law Department in 1840, he studied under his father and in due time was admitted to the bar. His first work was the preparation of the "Report of Cases argued and determined in the Circuit Court of the United States for the First Circuit," which was published in three volumes in Boston in 1842. He also prepared a "Treatise on the Law of Contracts not under Seal" ( 1844), and in 1847 issued a Treatise on the Law of Sales of Personal Property." He developed a great love for lit- erature, and during this time contributed various articles in prose and verse to the "Boston Miscellany" and other periodicals. In 1844 he was called upon for the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Harvard, and delivered a remarkable poem entitled "Nature and Art," which was a revelation of the artistic ideals of his soul. In 1847 he collected his poems into a bound volume, which met with ap- preciative consideration.
His artistic taste led him to efforts in modeling, and finally drew him to Italy in 1848, where he spent the remainder of his life devoting his genius to literature and sculpture. Upon the dedication of the statue of Beethoven at the Boston Music Hall in 1856, Mr. Story delivered a poem of great artistic merit. He produced some exquisite pieces of statuary, and it is difficult to decide in which branch of art he excelled. He was also an accomplished mu- sician. He modeled a statue of his father for the chapel of Mount Vernon cemetery ; also a statue of Edward Everett for the Boston public garden, and busts of James Russell Lowell, Theodore Parker and Joseph Quincey, which are examples of the delicacy and correctness of his chisel. The bronze statue of George Peabody, erected in London in 1869, was modeled by him, a replica of which Robert Garrett presented in 1888 to the city of Baltimore. He was appointed United States Commissioner of Fine Arts to the World's Fair in Paris in 1879, and was decorated by the governments of France and Italy. He was made a professor in the Academia d'egli Arcadi Sta. Celicia. Oxford Uni- versity gave him the degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and the University of Bo- logna, on its eight hundredth anniversary, conferred upon him a degree. Among his famous pieces of statuary were: "Sappho," "Saul," "Deli- lah," "Helen," "Judith," "Sardanapalus." In 1887 he executed a monument to Francis Scott Key, which was placed in Golden Gate Park, San Francisco,
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William Wetmore Storp
California, the gift of Janes Lick, who bequeathed $60,000 for this purpose. It is fifty-one feet high, and consists of a double arch, under which the figure of Key is seated. A figure of America with an unfolded flag surmounts the arch. The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City owns his "Cleo- patra" and "Semiramis," which are fine examples of his art.
His literary work was no less prolific and meritorious. In 1851 he pub- lished the "Life and Letters of Joseph Story"; a volume of "Poems" in 1856; "The American Question" in 1862; "Roba di Roma; or Walks and Talks about Rome," in 1862; "Proportions of the Human Figure, According to a New Can- on, for Practical Use," in 1866; "Graffiti d'Italia," in 1869; "The Roman Law- yer in Jerusalem," in 1870; "Tragedy of Nero in 1876; "Castle St. Angelo," in 1877; "He and She; or a Poet's Portfolio," in 1883; "Fiammetta," in 1885; two volumes of poems in 1886; "Conversations in a Studio," in 1890; "A Poet's Portfolio-Second Readings," in 1893. Of the "Tragedy of Nero," the "Sat- urday Review" says, "there is little room for detailed criticism; there is only the general consciousness that this is the laudable work of a good, and even excellent, ability." The "Nation" thus characterizes the "Poems" published in 1886: "Restrained as it is, it is not less beautiful, not less impressive, because of its quiet tones."
Mr. Story was married in October, 1843, to Emeline Eldredge, of Boston. His son Julian, an artist of note, married the celebrated singer, Emma Eames. Another son, Waldo, became a well known sculptor. Mr. Story died in Rome, Italy, October 7, 1895.
Fre by D & Williams 2 5. i.
Charles Clinton Goodwin
C HARLES CLINTON GOODWIN was in the broadest sense a man of affairs, and was for many years a well known business man of the city of Boston, Massachusetts, enjoying the respect and confidence of the community-at-large, and the friendship of all those whom he met socially. He made for himself an enviable reputation as a man of business, straightforward and reliable under all circumstances, courteous and affable to his patrons whom he always endeavored to please. He was extremely honest and sincere in all his transactions, always conducting his affairs along the strict- est lines of commercial integrity. He was very temperate in his habits, believ- ing in moderation in all things, and possessed much business tact as well as executive force and unfaltering enterprise. His own labors constituted the secure foundation upon which he built his success, making him one of the sub- stantial manufacturers of the State of Massachusetts. That a man with the many-sided mental equipment which his record implies must needs bring to the discharge of his duties an exceptional measure of capacity and ability is a fact which he demonstrated. At the foundation of the prosperity of every great city lies the work of the manufacturer. He it is, who in seeking a market for his products, attracts commerce to his community, causes factories and business houses to arise, and gives employment to many. Few men have filled a larger place in the manufacturing world than did the late Charles Clinton Goodwin, whose death occurred at Lexington, Massachusetts, November 27, 1905, caus- ing a deep sense of loss to be felt by all who had come in contact with him. The general feeling was that death had removed from their midst a man of fine natural endowments, and an influence of inestimable value.
Charles Clinton Goodwin was born in Methuen, Massachusetts, February I, 1839, the son of George Clinton and Jane (Pearson) Goodwin. He inherited his sterling qualities from a long line of distinguished ancestors. The surname Goodwin was derived from the ancient personal name Godwin, meaning good friend, common in Northern Europe and in England, as early as the fifth cen- tury. Its use as a surname dates from the adoption of surnames in England. The Goodwin coat-of-arms is as follows: Or two lions passant guardant sable on a canton of the last three bezants. Crest: A demi-lion rampant guardant sable holding in the paws a bezant. A Robert Goodwin lived in Norwich in 1238.
Ozias Goodwin was the immigrant ancestor, and was born in England, in 1596, according to his deposition in Court in 1674, when he stated that his age was seventy-eight years. Elder William Goodwin, his brother, and he, came to this country about the same time, and both settled in Hartford, Connecticut.
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