USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 12
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Relinquishing the governorship in 1882, Mr. Long, in 1883, entered the National House of Representatives in Washington, and
JOHN DAVIS LONG
remained through three terms. He was as successful in that broader field as he had been in Massachusetts. He was recog- nized in Washington as an ideal representative of the old Common- wealth, and he came at once into a position of leadership and of close friendship with the great men of the House. He was a polished and effective debater, and in the routine business of Congress, exceed- ingly important though not spectacular, he performed with skill and thoroughness every task assigned to him. His fame as an orator had preceded Mr. Long to Washington, and it was broadened and confirmed by many a scholarly and eloquent utterance. The Na- tional House is often a turbulent and seldom an attentive body, but it was always glad and eager to listen to the silver tongue of the ex-governor of Massachusetts.
To the keen regret of his constitutents and of all of the people of the State, Mr. Long withdrew in 1889 from what had become a brilliant career in Congress, and, returning to Massachusetts, resumed actively the practice of the law which his public life had so seriously interrupted. He came at once to the forefront of his profession, renewed old associations here and greatly widened his acquaintance. His practice is and has been of the very best and highest character, and the most important business interests of the State have been proud of his counsel and assistance.
But there could be no such thing as complete retirement from public duties for a man so eminently qualified to meet them. When the growing demands of the state government compelled the build- ing of a large addition to the historic State House, Governor Long was sought for commissioner to control this work, and everybody was assured of what the result proved-that the undertaking would be efficiently carried out within the bounds of estimates and appro- priations.
But a far greater honor and responsibility was in store for Mr. Long. President McKinley, who had known and admired him in Congress, offered to him the post of Secretary of the Navy in his first Cabinet. This was a distinction well deserved both by Governor Long himself and by the State of Massachusetts, which has always been foremost in encouraging and upholding our sea defenses. Entering the Navy Department on March 5, 1897, Secretary Long remained there for an unusual period, or until May 1, 1902. Though he knew it not when he accepted this service, his was to be the great
JOHN DAVIS LONG
task and privilege of general direction of the war fleets of the country through a brief though brilliant naval war. Mr. Long, a lover of peace, did not hail this conflict but he did not shrink when it became inevitable. The splendid efficiency of the American navy in Manila Bay and off the coast of Cuba was due in very large degree to the administrative talents, the high civic ideals and the fine, practical judgment of the Massachusetts Secretary of the Navy, who gave the best work of a perfectly ripened life and noble character to the ser- vice of his country in that war year of 1898.
When Spain surrendered and peace came there were left great and manifold problems for the government in Washington, and in all of these Secretary Long was one of the lieutenants on whom Presi- dent McKinley most securely relied. The secretary felt as few other men the shock of the tragic death of the President, with so much of his greatest work unfinished, but he stood to the post in which he was indispensable until he felt that he could be spared from the Cabinet of President Roosevelt, on May 1, 1902. Then relinquishing the Secretaryship of the Navy to another Massachusetts man, Hon. William H. Moody, Mr. Long came home to receive the acclamations of his beloved Massachusetts.
Here, once more after long absence Mr. Long resumed his pro- fessional work, which has since fully commanded his activities. He has been honored by election as president of the board of over- seers of Harvard University and by many other tokens of the con- fidence and affection of his people. Harvard and Tufts have both bestowed upon him the degree of LL.D. He is the president of the old and famous Massachusetts Club and a member of the Union Club, the Middlesex Club, the Mayflower Society, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and many other organizations. Mr. Long is one of the most distinguished of Unitarian laymen and a leader in the great, far-reaching work of the American Unitarian Association.
No citizen of Massachusetts has more friends; none has fewer enemies. His is a busy and a fruitful life between his Boston law office and his hospitable home in quaint old Hingham. Walking is Mr. Long's favorite exercise, but his great delight is a return to the Maine woods or to the farm in Buckfield which was his grandfather's, a mile from the village on its high hill, with its barn and fields and woods and river, and the renewal of old associations with the towns- people and his boyhood mates.
JOHN DAVIS LONG
In 1903 an important historical work, "The New American Navy," from the pen of Mr. Long was published by the Outlook Company. He had previously written a translation of the Æneid, published in 1879 by the Lockwood Book Company, and "After Dinner and Other Speeches," published by Houghton, Mifflin & Company in 1895. From time to time he has also written notable magazine articles.
Mr. Long was married first to Mary Woodward Glover on Sep- tember 13, 1870, and after her death to Agnes Peirce, on May 22, 1886. Four children, three from the first and one from the second marriage, have been born to him, and there are two now living.
Always Governor Long has been a noble example and inspiration to the young people of Massachusetts. His present message to them is to value above all things " clean hands, a pure heart, industry, courtesy always, courage, good associations with men and books, elevated ideals, self-respect." Governor Long would emphasize especially the need of a young man's "at once putting himself into contact with the best personalities." "He starts with a modest notion that men in upper station are beyond him. He should feel that they quickly appreciate and respond to any who worthily (but not bumptiously) seek them. It is just as easy to get in with the best and the highest as the meanest and lowest, and the failure to know this often keeps a young man down on low levels."
Thoutank. Lothrop
THORNTON KIRKLAND LOTHROP
T HORNTON KIRKLAND LOTHROP was born in Dover, New Hampshire, on the 30th day of June, 1830. His father, Samuel Kirkland Lothrop, was born October 13, 1804, and died June, 1886. His mother's maiden name was Mary Lyman Buckminister. The names of his grandparents were John Hiram Lothrop and Rev. Joseph Buckminister, Jerusha Kirkland and Mary Lyman. The vocation of Mr. Lothrop's father was that of the ministry, being an able, sympathetic and helpful clergyman, es- pecially known for his ardent sympathy for all sorts and conditions of men. On the side of his paternal ancestry the Rev. John Lothrop, an Englishman, came to this country and settled in Scituate in 1634. It is thus seen that the choice of the ministry was rather deep seated in this distinguished family. The mother of Thornton K. Lothrop was endowed with spiritual insight and profound moral principles. In these qualities she exerted a deep impression upon her son whose life became largely molded through her noble influence. In matters of education Mr. Lothrop was fortunate beyond many of his fellows in that he found few if any difficulties in gaining the training of the best schools. Born and bred in a family of education and refine- ment, it was natural that he should have both opportunity and in- centive in the direction of liberal culture. He graduated first from the Boston Latin School, and then from Harvard in 1849. Continu- ing his education by teaching in Philadelphia for two years, he then entered the Harvard Law School for a two years' further course, being admitted to the bar in 1853, and prior to this receiving the degree of A.M. in 1852.
Mr. Lothrop's professional career was entered upon because of his own choice and predilection and not through the influence of family or friends. He felt that in this field of effort he could do his best work, and therefore entered upon his work with zeal and determination to succeed. While his professional career has taken time and energy without abatement through many years, Mr. Lothrop
THORNTON KIRKLAND LOTHROP
has not left uncultivated the social side of his nature. He is a mem- ber of the Somerset, Union, St. Botolph, Technology, University (N. Y.), University (Boston), Essex County Clubs; Massachusetts Historical Society; Massachusetts Society of Cincinnati, holding the position of vice-president in the latter. In 1859-60 he was also a member of the Massachusetts Legislature, and from April 18, 1861 to July, 1865, was assistant United States Attorney for Massachusetts.
In 1896 Mr. Lothrop finished his " Life of Seward " and it was pub- lished during that year; a book worthy of its great subject, reflecting more than usual credit upon its author. At a glance it is easy to perceive that Mr. Lothrop has been a very industrious man, endowed with marked versatility, a worthy representative of the distinguished family whose name he bears. In politics he has always been a Re- publican, finding in that party the best available means by which to give expression to his political opinions and desires.
In the year 1866, on the thirtieth day of April, Mr. Lothrop was united in marriage with Anne Marie, daughter of the Honorable Samuel and Anne (Sturgis) Hooper, granddaughter of Honorable Will- iam and Elizabeth (Davis) Sturgis. Of this union there have been four children, three now living in 1908, viz .: Miss Mary B. Lothrop, Mrs. Algernon Coolidge, and Thornton K. Lothrop, Jr., a well-known attorney. Mr. Lothrop resides on Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, and his home is marked by the hospitality of refined generosity, the atmosphere of culture and kindliness which have ever distinguished the homes of the best type of New Englanders.
In the life of this successful and high-minded man we have both example and inspiration for the youth of America who seek the best ways to attain success and gain the best possible in their daily activities. "Industry, a high sense of honor, cultivation of mind and heart," these are the distinguishing graces which mark the life of this man who has developed the art of true and noble living.
F
Gro. it. Marden
GEORGE AUGUSTUS MARDEN
I N the little town of Mount Vernon, New Hampshire, on the ninth of August, 1839, Mr. Marden was born. His father was Ben- jamin Franklin Marden, of English descent, whose forefather, Richard Marden, took the oath of fidelity at New Haven, Connect- icut, in 1644. It is presumed he came directly from England or Wales. Mr. Marden's great-great-grandfather, David Marden, was born in Rye, New Hampshire, and died in Bradford, Massachusetts, August 30, 1745. Nathan Marden, grandfather of George A., of New Boston, married Susannah Stevens, daughter of Calvin Stevens and descendant of Colonel Thomas Stevens, of Devonshire, England, a signer of instructions to Governor Endicott, who contributed fifty pounds and sent three sons and one daughter to Massachusetts Bay Colony. Calvin Stevens fought at Concord and Bunker Hill, enlist- ing as a private April 23, 1775, in Captain Abasha Brown's Com- pany, and Colonel Thomas Nixon's regiment, serving from April 1, 1776 to March, 1777. The mother of George A. Marden was Betsey Buss, daughter of Stephen Buss, who was a grandson of Stephen and Eunice Buss. Her mother was Sarah Abbot, a descendant of the tenth generation from George Abbot, one of the first settlers and promoters of Andover, Massachusetts. From George the ancestral line comes through four generations of John Abbots, of whom the last was commissioned captain in the French and Indian War, was chosen member of the committee of safety of Andover, November 14, 1774, and held a captain's commission on an "Alarm" company just preceding the American Revolution.
It was Mr. Marden's good fortune to receive his preliminary education in Appleton Academy, Mount Vernon, and later to gradu- ate from Dartmouth College in the class of 1861, being the eleventh member in a class of 58. He became president of the trustees of the Academy and he was the commencement poet of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1875, and delivered the commencement poem before the Dartmouth Alumni in 1877.
GEORGE AUGUSTUS MARDEN
At an early period of his career Mr. Marden was taught the shoe- maker's trade by his father, working at this trade at intervals while he was fitting for college and during college vacations. At the out- break of the Civil War, Mr. Marden enlisted in November, 1861, as a private in Company G, second regiment of the United States Sharp- shooters. Subsequently transferred to the first regiment of Sharp- shooters, April, 1862, he was made second sergeant and continued with this regiment during the Peninsula Campaign. On July 10 of the same year he was made first lieutenant and regimental quarter- master and served in that capacity until June 1, 1863, when he became acting assistant adjutant-general of the third brigade, third division of the third corps. He served in this position through Chancellorsville, Gettysburg and Wapping Heights, and was then ordered to Rikers' Island, New York, on detached service. Soon after, at his own request, he was sent back to his regiment remain- ing there until mustered out in 1864.
Returning to New Hampshire Mr. Marden entered a law office at Concord to study law. He also wrote for the Concord Daily Monitor. In November, 1865, he located in Charleston, West Virginia, and purchased a weekly paper, the Kanawha Republican, editing it dur- ing 1866, when he again returned to New Hampshire to engage in editing and compiling a history of each of the military organizations of the State during the Civil War. Meanwhile he wrote for the Concord Monitor and was the Concord correspondent of the Boston Advertiser. On January 1, 1867, he became the assistant editor of the Boston paper, and in September, conjointly with his classmate, Major E. T. Rowell, he purchased the Lowell Daily Courier, and the Lowell Weekly Journal, both of which he conducted the remainder of his life. In 1892 the partnership of twenty-five years was superseded by a stock corporation known as the Lowell Courier Publishing Com- pany, the two proprietors retaining their interest. Since 1895 the Courier Company has been united with the Citizen Company, under the caption, the Courier-Citizen Company. The Citizen was made a one cent morning paper, and Mr. Marden edited both publications.
Mr. Marden cast his first vote for President Lincoln. After 1867 there was no election, state or national, that he did not serve his party by public speech. In 1896, with several notable men, he campaigned in the Middle West, traveling some eight thousand miles through fifteen States and addressed upwards of a million people. On
GEORGE AUGUSTUS MARDEN
great occasions of patriotism he has been in constant demand as an orator. He has been prominent in Massachusetts public life since entering the Legislature in 1873. He was elected speaker, 1883 and 1884, making a notable record as a presiding officer. In 1885 he was a member of the State Senate. In 1888 he was elected treasurer and receiver general of the Commonwealth and for five consecutive years, the constitutional limit of right to this office, he was enthusi- astically elected by his fellow citizens. He was a delegate to the Republican Convention held in Chicago in 1880 and supported General Grant with enthusiasm. In 1899 President McKinley ap- pointed him Assistant United States Treasurer at Boston, and Presi- dent Roosevelt subsequently appointed him for a second term of four years.
Mr. Marden was married in Nashua, New Hampshire, December 10, 1867, to Mary Porter Fiske, daughter of Deacon David Fiske, of Nashua, of English descent, and Harriet Nourse, of Merrimack, also of English lineage, stretching back through many generations. Mrs. Marden's ancestry contains many notable names of men and women who have made substantial impress on their times. There were born of this union two sons, Philip Sanford, born in Lowell, January 12, 1874, who graduated from Dartmouth College in 1894, and from Harvard Law School in 1898; and Robert Fiske, born at Lowell, June 14, 1876, who graduated at Dartmouth in 1898.
Mr. Marden was an unusual man, versatile, strong, able. He filled the many positions he was called to occupy with credit to himself, and honor to others. He was a citizen of the higher order; keenly intelligent and profoundly patriotic. He was a maker of friends, and multitudes loved and trusted him. His eventful life closed December 19, 1906, and his memory is cherished by all who knew him.
WINTHROP LIPPITT MARVIN
W INTHROP LIPPITT MARVIN, of Boston, journalist and author, formerly Civil Service Commissioner of Massachu- setts and secretary of the Merchant Marine Commission, was born on May 15, 1863, in the island town of Newcastle that walls Portsmouth Harbor and its naval station from the sea, and forms the eastward end of the brief and rugged coast of New Hampshire. The Marvin family had been one of sea-loving and sea-faring stock for many generations. The first of the race in New England came from his island home of Guernsey in the English Channel and sailed from Newcastle and Portsmouth in the deep sea fisheries and in the carrying trade to Virginia, the West Indies and South America. These voyages in the fishing craft to Newfoundland and Labrador and in the freighting ships far southward continued to be pursued in the Marvin name so long as the industry remained active and prosperous beneath the American flag. Captain William Marvin, succeeding to the business of his uncle, Captain Thomas Ellison Oliver, whose career as sailor, ship owner and merchant reads like a romance, had a considerable fleet engaged in this characteristic New England commerce down to and during the Civil War.
Winthrop Lippitt Marvin is the grandson of Captain William Marvin, and the oldest son of Colonel Thomas Ellison Oliver Marvin and Anna Lippitt Marvin. His boyhood was passed at his parent's home in Portsmouth, where his father, Colonel Marvin, was long an active man of affairs and mayor of the city in 1872 and 1873. Ports- mouth in those years was still a ship-building and ship-owning com- munity, launching and sailing not only coast craft but swift and stately East Indiamen, and Winthrop Marvin in childhood was more keenly interested in the sea and its life than in anything else, though he was an attentive student in the Portsmouth schools and an eager reader of the books in his father's library and the old Portsmouth Athenæum. His mother, a native of New York, and a member of the Lippitt family that came from England in the early settlement of
WINTHROP LIPPITT MARVIN
Rhode Island, encouraged the scholarly ambitions of her son, and persuaded him to turn from the sea to college.
After a careful preparation in the Portsmouth High School and the Roxbury Latin School, Mr. Marvin entered Tufts College, and graduated with the degree of A.B. in 1884. Resolved to write, he had directed his college course to that end, pursuing especially economics, history and literature. His first journalistic work was done while still an undergraduate, for the Boston Transcript and the Boston Advertiser, and throughout his senior year he served as a regular city reporter on the Advertiser, then edited by Mr. Edwin M. Bacon. A few weeks after graduation Mr. Marvin became the night city editor of the Advertiser, and in a few months assistant night editor. In March, 1886, he resigned from the Advertiser to join the staff of the Boston Journal, as New England news editor.
In 1887 Colonel William W. Clapp, editor and publisher of the Journal, appointed Mr. Marvin an editorial writer. For sixteen years thereafter Mr. Marvin gave his main attention to the editorial department of the Journal, in which he became in 1895 chief editorial writer and associate editor. As an editor Mr. Marvin has always believed in leading rather than in following public opinion. His first active and aggressive editorial work, in 1887 and the years following, was the advocacy of a strong navy, in which New England has a vital interest. A thoroughgoing civil service reformer, an earnest protectionist - maintaining that a prosperous home trade is the best possible basis for a great foreign trade - and a champion of a resolute and just foreign policy, an efficient army and stout coast defenses, he gave positive expression to these views year after year in the columns of the Journal, and had the satisfaction of seeing these ideas more and more completely accepted by New England and the Nation and embodied in the laws and practice of the govern- ment.
Not only as an editorial writer but as a contributor to magazines, Mr. Marvin has dealt constantly with large public questions, especially with those relating to the ocean and its ships of war and ships of commerce. In 1902 Charles Scribner's Sons, of New York, published an important work written by Mr. Marvin, "The American Mer- chant Marine: Its History and Romance," which has been com- mended as the most authoritative book upon this subject, and a graphic and stirring narrative.
WINTHROP LIPPITT MARVIN
While busily engaged in his editorial duties Mr. Marvin was honored in 1901 by Governor (now Senator) Winthrop Murray Crane, with appointment as the Boston member of the Massachusetts Civil Service Commission. Two years later when the Boston Journal passed to a new ownership and the editor and publisher, Mr. Stephen O'Meara, and those long associated with him retired from control, Mr. Marvin resigned the editorial chair which he had held since 1887, to take up more directly the advocacy of the interests of the mer- chant marine. As secretary of the Merchant Marine Commission, established by Congress on the recommendation of President Roose- velt, Mr. Marvin was engaged in 1904 and 1905 in the thorough and impartial inquiry which this commission made into the decline of our ocean shipping, and the best methods of upbuilding it, and he has since been active in keeping this great and urgent question, involving not only our commerce but our defense, before the attention of Congress and the country.
In 1903 Tufts College, his alma mater, gave to Mr. Marvin the honorary degree of Litt.D. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa; Theta Delta Chi; National Geographic Society; Massachusetts Club; Home Market Club; Republican Club of Massachusetts and Ports- mouth Yacht Club.
Mr. Marvin was married in 1885 to Miss Nellie Meloon, of Ports- mouth, New Hampshire, and he has two sons, David Patterson and Theodore Winthrop, and one daughter, Anna Barbara. His resi- dence is at Newtonville and his office at 131 State Street, Boston.
Mohut M. Morze
ROBERT McNEIL MORSE
R OBERT McNEIL MORSE, lawyer, was born in Boston, August 11, 1837. His father, Robert McNeil Morse, was a son of Ebeneza and Henrietta H. (Sciverly) Morse, grand- son of Rev. Ebeneza and Perses (Bush) Morse and a descendant from Samuel Morse who came from England to New England in 1635 and settled soon after in Dedham, where he was treasurer and select- man, 1640-42. Robert NcMeil Morse, Sr., was a respected merchant in Boston. He married Sarah Maria, daughter of Fessenden and Nabby (Nyo) Clark, of Boston, a descendant from Thomas Clark, who came to Plymouth about 1630.
Robert McNeil Morse, Jr., was prepared for college in private schools and the Jamaica Plain High School and was graduated at Harvard, A.B., 1857. He began the study of law in the office of Hutchins & Wheeler in Boston in 1857-58; was teacher in the Eliot High School, Jamaica Plain, 1858-59 and in March, 1859, entered the Harvard Law School where he was a student for two terms. He was admitted to the Suffolk Bar upon examination in February, 1860. He and his classmate, the late John C. Ropes, began practice together, but later he formed a partnership with Charles P. Greenough, which continued for several years. Mr. Morse early took a leading position in the State and United States courts and there have been few im- portant trials in Massachusetts for the last forty years in which he has not been engaged, while the record of his arguments before the Supreme Court extends from the third volume of Allen's Reports, published in 1862, to the present time, one hundred and nine vol- umes in all, and includes a large proportion of the most important cases.
Among the famous causes which he has conducted are Wilson v. Moen, the Armstrong, Codman, Hayes, Wentworth, Houghton and Crocker will cases, suits involving the value of water supplies for Braintree, Quincy, Brookline, Lynn, Newburyport, Gloucester, Fra- mingham, Falmouth, Hyde Park and other cities and towns and of
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