USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Athol > Athol, Massachusetts, past and present > Part 24
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As Chairman of Committees of the Massachusetts State Board of Trade, having the work so far as that body was concerned, in charge, Mr. Sprague in the years of 1893-7 was an influential factor in securing the Anti-Stock Watering Legislation, which has placed Massachusetts far ahead of any other state in enactments which serve to place public service corporations upon a sound and equitable basis. Much of the "literature" upon this sub- ject has come from his pen. He was one of the founders
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of the Boston Civil Service Reform Association, the second if not the first Civil Service Association formed in this country, and has always been one of its officers. He is also a Director of the Massachusetts Civil Service Reform League. of the Municipal League of Boston, and the New England Shoe and Leather Association ; a trustee of the permanent fund of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union, a Vice President of the Massachusetts State Board of Trade, and since its formation has been President of the Election Laws League of Massachusetts. He was married April 18, 1881 to Miss Elizabeth Searle Davis, daughter of Brevet Brigadier General Hasbrouche Davis, a son of Governor John Davis. They have had five children, Edwin Loring, Jr .. Ruth Davis, Henry Bancroft, John Davis and Richard Warren, of whom all but John Davis are now living.
HENRY HARRISON SPRAGUE. youngest son of George and Nancy (Knight) Sprague, was born in Athol, Aug. 1, 1841. He received bis preparatory education in the public and high schools of Athol and at the Chauncey Hall school of Boston, and was graduated from Harvard College in 1864. He spent one year in Champlain, New York, as a private tutor, and in 1865 entered the Harvard Law School and also became a proctor of the college. In the fall of 1866 he became a student in the law office of the late Henry W. Paine and Robert D Smith in Boston. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar, Feb. 25, 1868, and at once began the general practice of his profession in . Boston, where he has come into prominence as an able,
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and industrious lawyer. Mr. Sprague very early devel- oped an interest in public affairs, and has for many years filled important positions of trust and responsibility. He was a member of the Boston Common Council for the municipal years of 1874, 1875 and 1876, and served during his second and third terms as a trustee of the Bos- ton City Hospital on the part of the city council. In 1878 he was elected one of the trustees at large of that hospital, and continued to act as such until the establishment of the board as a corporation in 1880, when he was appointed a trustee by the mayor. He has held this office by succes- sive reappointments down to the present time, a period of more than twenty years, and for eighteen years also served the board of trustees as secretary. In 1880 Mr. Sprague was elected to the lower house of the Legislature, and was twice re-elected, serving through the sessions of 1881. 1882 and 1884. He was a member of important commit- tees, and his service was marked by untiring fidelity, not only to his constituents, but to the best interests of the entire Commonwealth, and won for him the reputation of an able, honest and conscientious legislator. In 1884 he was a member of the Municipal Reform Association, and as its senior counsel was largely instrumental in securing the passage by the Legislature of 1885 of the important amendments to the Boston city charter by which the executive authority was vested in the mayor.
Mr. Spragne was a member of the Massachusetts Senate in 1888, 1889, 1890 and 1891, representing the Fifth Suffolk district, and during his first term served on the
HENRY H. SPRAGUE.
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committee on rules, on the judiciary, on cities, and on election laws. As chairman of the last named committee he drafted and introduced the new ballot act, the passage of which accomplished ballot reform. He was elected President of the Senate in 1890, and was re-elected to that office in 1891. He made an excellent presiding offi- cer. displaying great parliamentary ability, and winning the respect and confidence of both opponents and friends for his strict impartiality and firm, yet courteous rulings. In 1862 Mr. Sprague was appointed by Governor Russell as chairman of a commission to revise the election laws of the Commonwealth and the revision recommended was adopted by the Legislature of the following year. He was appointed by Governor Greenhalge a member of the Metropolitan Water Board upon its organization in 1895 aud made chairman of the board which position he still holds. He has served as President of the Boston Civil Service Reform Association since 1889, and has been a prominent member of the board of government of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union since 1867. He was for many years a manager of the Temporary Home for the Destitute, or Gwynne Home, and was one of the "Com- mittee of Fifty" on the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. He has been secretary of the Massachusetts Charitable Fire Society since 1883, and is a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, of the Bostonian Society, the Harvard Law School Association, the Union and Uni- tarian Clubs and St Botolph Club. He is also one of the trustees appointed to hold the buildings of the Woman's
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Educational and Industrial Union on Boylston Street, Bos- ton, and is treasurer of the board, and was a member of the board of overseers of Harvard College from 1890 to 1896. In 1884 he published a treatise entitled "Women Under the Law of Massachusetts, their Rights, Privileges and Dis- abilities," and in 1890 another treatise on "City Govern- ment; Its Rise and Development," and he compiled for its one hundredth anniversary, "A Brief History of the Massa- chusetts Charitable Fire Society." Mr. Sprague was mar- ried in 1897 to Charlotte Sprague Ward, a daughter of the late George Lee Ward, of Boston. He resides in Bos- ton, and in the practice of law as well as in various capac- ities in which he has served, has worthily and honorably represented the sterling characteristics of those who have so long borne the family name in New England.
LUCIUS KNIGHT SPRAGUE, the oldest of the children now living of George and Nancy (Knight) Sprague, was born in Athol, Aug. 7, 1836. His education was obtained in the Athol schools, and his first business experience as clerk in the dry goods store of Thorpe & Parmenter, where he remained two years. In 1857 he went to Iowa, then a frontier state, where he was with his brother, Leander M., for two and a half years, when he returned to Athol, tak- ing his former position with Thorpe & Parmenter. In 1861 he went to Boston, into the employ of Farley, Ams- den & Co., returning to Athol again in 1862 to succeed his father in the hardware business, which he conducted with marked success for two years, when, because of im- paired health by reason of close attention to business, he
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sold out to Frank Hutchinson. He spent part of the vear 1873 travelling in the West, and on his return to Athol was made secretary and treasurer of the Athol Ma- chine Co .. which position he held till 1875. On the ill- ness and consequent long absence of his brother, Edwin L., in 1876 he went to Boston to take the personal man- agement of his brother's business and has maintained his connection with it to the present time. He is engaged in the shoe machinery business, being treasurer of the Steam Heated Horn Co., of Boston. In 1862 he married Electa L. Roberts of Norwalk, Ohio. They have one child, Rufus Bates, a graduate of Harvard College in the class of 1897, and now a member of the Harvard Law School. Mr. Sprague, with his son, has recently returned from an extended tour in Europe intended mainly for health and recreation, but resulting in establishing extensive business connections for the machinery company of which he is the treasurer.
JEROME JONES, youngest son of Theodore and Marcia (Estabrook) Jones, and grandson of Rev. Joseph Estabrook, the second minister of Athol, was born in Athol, Oct. 13, 1837. He was educated in the common schools of the town, and when a boy began his commercial life in a country store and post office. He was for a time a boy of all work in the store of Goddard & Ward of Orange. In June 1853 he began an apprenticeship with Otis Norcross & Co., of Boston then the leading crockery merchants in the United States. After serving in this position for sev- eral years he was in 1861 admitted as partner, being then
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twenty-four years of age. For fifteen years he was the foreign buyer for the firm, going to Europe every year, where he selected the goods from the potteries and glass factories of England, France and Austria. After a long career of honor and success, the firm of Otis Norcross & Co. disappears from the list of Boston's great business houses, and is succeeded by that of Jones, McDuffee & Stratton, the largest establishment of its kind in the United States, and of which Mr. Jones is the head. Possessed of a keen judgment, innate tact, and an executive ability of the highest order, Mr. Jones has been called upon by various organizations to assist in their management, and especially is the high esteem in which he is held by his fellow citizens of Boston shown by the positions of trust and honor to which they called him. No Bostonian is more active in everything tending to promote the commercial interests of Boston than Mr. Jones, and when Mayor Quincy requested the leading commercial organizations of the city to choose representatives to form the Merchants Municipal Committee, Mr. Jones was chosen by the Boston Board of Trade to represent that organization in the Mayor's cabinet. Among the various positions of honor and trust that he has been called upon to fill are the following: President of the Boston Commercial Club, trustee of Mt. Auburn Cemetery, vice president of the Home Savings Bank; president of the Boston Board of Trade, director of the Third National Bank and of the Mas- sachusetts Loan and Trust Co. He is a member of several clubs, also of the Sons of the Revolution, the Bostonian
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JEROME JONES.
FREDERICK E. PROCTOR.
WILSON H. LEE.
ROLAND T. OAKES.
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Society, the Bunker Hill Monument Association, the Young Men's Christian Union, and other organizations. He served the Worcester Northwest Agricultural Society several years as its president. He married Elizabeth R. Wait of Greenfield, Mass. She died July 10, 1878, leav- ing four children, Theodore, Elizabeth W., Marcia Esta- brook and Helen Reed Jones. He was married the second time Feb. 16, 1881 to Mrs. Marcia E. Dutton of Boston. Their home is at Corey Hill in Brookline.
FREDERICK E. PROCTOR, son of Joseph H. Proctor, was born in Athol. Jan. 4, 1855. He attended school until the age of fifteen. when he went to Boston and entered the employ of Jones, McDuffee & Stratton. After spend- ing a number of years in the office, he travelled extensively through the western and southern states and went abroad twice in the interest of the firm. He was given an interest in the business in 1884, and became a partner in the firm in 1887, in which he has continued to the present time. He was married in 1877 to Sarah Pierce Fenno of Revere. She died Feb. 5. 1882, and he married for his second wife Martha Cunningham of Newtonville, June 1, 1887. He has six children, two daughters and four sons. One of the daughters is a member of the senior class of the Newton- ville High School and the eldest son is a student at Cornell University.
WILSON HORATIO LEE, son of Joseph Lee was born in , Hardwick, May 3, 1852. His mother died when he was two years of age, and he came to live with his grandmother in Athol, which was his home until nineteen years old,
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when he left Athol to take a position as canvasser for a directory publisher. His education was received in the Athol Schools and one term at New Salem Academy. He was so successful in his work as a canvasser that in two years, in 1873, he formed a partnership with Wm. H. Price and purchased the directory rights in Bridgeport Conn., where they opened a publishing office. A year later they purchased the New Haven directory and moved their office to that city. The business has grown until the Price & Lee Co. publish more directories than any other firm in the United States. The firm do their own printing and binding, and employ about one hundred and twenty-five hands. This extensive business has been built up by energy, accuracy and fair dealing, and Mr. Lee has been a
prominent factor in its success. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, the Quinnipiac and Pequot Clubs of New Haven, Poquaig Club of Athol, New Haven Typothetae and New Haven Chamber of Commerce and is actively associated with other social and business societies. He is serving on his second term as Police Commissioner of New Haven, and was for two years presi- dent of the Worcester Northwest Agricultural Society, which he has rendered valuable assistance. He married Orianna Lewis, daughter of Henry Lewis of Athol, Feb. 10, 1875. They have one daughter, Miss Prudence.
ROLAND T. OAKES was born in Athol in 1835. At the age of eighteen years he commenced to learn the mercan- tile business as clerk for Thorpe & Parmenter. After serving as clerk he was engaged in business in Athol for
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several years with the late D. A. Newton, under the firm name of Oakes & Newton, their store being in a block that occupied the site of the present Starr Hall building. He was actively interested in the affairs of the lower village, and conferred the names upon the streets of the village then existing. In the fall of 1861 he removed to Chicopee, where he continued in the mercantile business under the firm names of Oakes. Bragg & Co., and Roland T. Oakes & Co. He remained in business in Chicopee, with the exception of eight years when he was purchasing agent for the Ames Manufacturing Co., until 1885 when he removed to Holyoke to engage in the electrical business. This has grown to a large and successful business, occupying one of the best stores in Holyoke and carrying the largest stock of electrical supplies at wholesale and retail in the state outside of Boston. In 1893 the firm became a cor- poration under the state laws as The Roland T. Oakes Co., with Mr. Oakes as president and treasurer. The company has been extensively engaged in constructing electrical plants in various places, and employ a large force of men for the purpose. Mr Oakes has been a member of the city council of Holyoke. serving for 1889 and 1890. He has been for many years deeply interested in Sunday School work, and was superintendent of the Sunday School of the Third Congregational church of Chicopee from 1867 to 1885 with the exception of one year. He is now super- intendent of the First Congregational Sunday School of Holyoke, having served in that position nine years, making twenty-six years that he has officiated as superintendent of
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Sunday Schools. He married Ellen E. Baker of Athol, Nov. 30, 1854. She died May 5, 1857, and he was mar- ried the second time to Mrs. Betsey Snow of Hardwick, Mass. in 1859.
CHARLES W. CHENEY, only son of C. Warren Cheney, was born in Boston, Nov. 7, 1857. The first five or six years of his life were passed in Boston, and from that time his childhood and youth was spent in Athol where he re- ceived his education. He went to Boston, May 1, 1876, and began his career as apprentice with Joseph T. Brown & Co., apothecaries on Washington and Bedford Streets, his salary the first year being fifty dollars. He remained there three years, and then entered the store of J. P. T. Percival apothecary, then located in the front of of Young's Hotel, where he remained a year, and in June, 1880 en- gaged with T. Metcalf & Co., apothecaries at 39 Tremont Street. In 1883 Mr. Cheney accepted a position with the company engaged in the manufacture of Mellin's Food. In order to acquire a more complete knowledge of chemistry he attended the lectures of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, and graduated in the spring of 1883, with the degree of Ph. G.
The works of the Doliber-Goodale Company, of which Mr. Cheney is vice president and a director, occupy seven large buildings on Central Wharf, while the offices of the company are in a fine structure on Atlantic Avenue and India Street He is superintendent of the works, which employ over one hundred men, and also has the general management of the advertising department. In 1890 he
CHARLES W. CHENEY.
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was sent to London for the company which resulted in largely increased business for the company in foreign lands. He is a member of the Algonquin Club of Boston, the Boston Druggists' Association, Riverdale Casino, Brook- line, and the Boston Commandery and St. Paul's Chapter of Masons. He was married June 15, 1887 to Miss Flora Hutchinson of Cambridge. They have three children, two sons and a daughter. Their home is in Brookline.
HENRY M. PHILLIPS, son of Alonzo D. and Mary A. (Robinson ) Phillips, was born in Athol, Aug. 11, 1845, his father being at that time landlord of the Pequoig House. He is descended from the Rev. George Phillips, who came to America in 1630. and was the first minister of Water- town. Mass. His education aside from the public schools, was received at Deerfield Academy and the Military Uni- versity of Norwich. Vt. He was but a lad of sixteen when the war broke out, but his ardor led him to enlist in the Seventh Squadron of Rhode Island Cavalry, and later he served in the Fourth Massachusetts Cavalry. His ready capacity and efficiency soon won for him a lieutenant's commission, and gave him constant staff duty during his term of service. He served as Assistant Provost Marshal of the Tenth Army Corps, and was at several times on the staffs of Generals Birney, A. H. Terry and Weitzel. He began business life as private secretary to Hon. Henry Alexander, Jr., then Mayor of Springfield, immediately after his discharge from the army. In 1871 he was ap- pointed deputy collector in the United States internal revenue service and assistant assessor of the Tenth Massa-
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chusetts District. The same year he organized the firm of Phillips, Mowry & Co., for the manufacture of steam-heat- ing apparatus, in which he has been engaged since, his firm being succeeded in 1876 by a corporation under the title of the Phillips Manufacturing Co., of which he is the President. He is also a director of the Second National Bank of Springfield, of the Springfield Five Cents Savings Bank, the Hampden Loan and Trust Company, and has been a director of the Springfield Board of Trade since its organization. He served on the staff of Gov. William Washburn, and also on that of Governor Talbot. Probably no native of Athol ever filled more positions of public honor and trust than Mr. Phillips. He commenced his public career as a member of the Springfield City Council, in which he served two years. In 1880 and 1881, he rep- resented Springfield in the lower house of the Legislature ; in 1883, '84 and '85 he was mayor of Springfield ; in 1886 and 1887 a member of the State Senate for the First Hampden District, and in 1894 he was elected as treasurer and receiver-general of the State, and was re-elected in 1895. but resigned the office in April of that year to accept the secretaryship of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insur- ance Company.
JOEL D. MILLER was born in Athol, October 10, 1837 the son of Isaac and Asenath Miller. His early education was received in the public schools of Athol and at Powers Academy in Bernardston. From the Academy he entered Williams College and graduated with high hon- ors in the class of 1864. He taught school for a year in
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Jewett. N. Y., and then for nearly two years was principal of the Athol High school, which position he left to assume charge of the Field High school in Leominster, and was its principal for twenty-five years. He was or- dained to the ministry in 1866, but was never a candidate for settlement. He has been editor and proprietor of the Leominster Enterprise upwards of ten years, was a mem- ber of the Leominster School Committee for six years, and has been a member of the public library committee over twenty-five years. Mr. Miller has been an active worker in the Republican party all his life, and although not am- bitious for political distinction his popularity was so gen- eral that in 1893 he was induced to be a candidate for State Senator from his district. He was elected and re- elected the two succeeding years serving, in the Senate for the years 1894, '95 and '96. He was soon recognized as the most interesting speaker of that body, and one of its most important members, serving as chairman of the most important Senate committees. It was mainly through his efforts that Fitchburg secured one of the new normal schools. In 1895 he was appointed a member of the state board of education, which position he now holds. Mr. Miller was married July 18, 1865 to Miss Maria Sanderson of Athol.
FREDERIC E. STRATTON, son of Joseph and Alice W. (Mann) Stratton, was born in Athol, July 5, 1847, and attended the public schools of the town until sixteen years of age, when, with the reluctant consent of his parents he went West, stopping for a while in the oil regions of
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Pennsylvania, and continuing his trip into Illinois. After a little more than two years he returned to Athol and pre- pared for college at the High School and Shelburne Falls Academy and entered Williams College in 1867. He maintained a good standing in his class during the course, carrying off the first prize in mathematics during the soph- omore year, and graduated in 1871. While at Williams he was chosen one of a party of six who went to Central America on a scientific expedition, the experiences and discoveries of which are recorded in "Life and Nature under the Tropics," published by D. Appleton & Co. After graduating he taught a private school in Warwick, Mass., where he became acquainted with Miss Mary T. Goddard, step-daughter of the late Rev. John Goldsbury, whom he married March 14, 1874. In 1872 he accepted the position of principal of the Orange High School, was principal of New Salem Academy from 1874 to 1877, and of Powers Institute at Bernardston for the two succeeding years. In 1879 he went to Boston and passed the super- visors examination, after which he substituted in various schools in the city and suburban High schools for nearly four years, when he accepted the principalship of Daven- port, Iowa, High School in 1883, then the largest High school in the state of Iowa, where he remained until 1892. While in Davenport many of the educational associations and other organizations of his city and state called upon him to occupy positions of honor and influence. He was for five years president of the Davenport Y. M. C. A., was the first president of the Secondary Section of the
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SETH TWICHELL.
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State Teachers' Association. and a member of the Educa- tional Council. In 1891 he received the degree of Doctor of Philosophy from the Illinois Wesleyan University of Bloomington Ill. In 1892 he accepted the principalship of the academy connected with Carleton College in North- field, Minn .. where he now resides. He is deacon and trustee of the First Congregational Church, and is promi- nent in other organizations of the town of which he is a worthy and honored citizen. Mr. Stratton's picture appears in the educational chapter.
SETH TWICHELL son of William and Susanna Twichell was born in Athol, July 10, 1822. During his early life he worked on a farm and run a saw mill at South Athol. In 1846 he moved to Fitchburg and worked at the car- penter's trade for two years, after which, in 1848, he com- menced moving buildings, which business he has continued for half a century, and in which he attained such a reputa- tion that his services were sought in all parts of the coun- try. One of his first ventures was the moving of the Fitchburg hotel a large brick structure. He remained in Fitchburg five years, and then went to Worcester, where he carried on business for seventeen years. Among the important buildings that he has moved are the State House at Columbia, S. C., which was done in 1854. The building, one hundred and thirty-seven fect long and sixty- two feet wide, was removed a distance of one hundred and sixty feet, and was done without any injury to the struct- ure and with the chimnies standing. Another large build- ing was the Fort William Henry hotel at Lake George.
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New York, three hundred and twenty-five feet long, over forty feet wide and four stories in height, with a dining hall extending at right angles one hundred and thirty-five feet, three stories high; the whole structure was raised fourteen and one-half feet. Other places in which he has success- fully moved large and important buildings, many of them of brick, are Worcester, Boston, New Bedford, Philadel- phia, Pa., Chester, Pa., New London, Conn., Fitchburg, Leominster, Keene, N. H., and many other places.
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