USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 15
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Mr. Russell remarks from his own experience that "honesty and fairness " are the best methods to a successful life, with the added counsel that "industry and above all the willingness and earnest desire to do always a little more than is expected. The faculty of not seeing that you are doing a little more than your part; the willingness to care for other's interests without thought of recom- pense, in my opinion always brings large rewards as well as much satisfaction."
HARVEY NEWTON SHEPARD
H ARVEY NEWTON SHEPARD, lawyer, was born in the North End of Boston, Massachusetts, July 8, 1850. His father, William Shepard, was a blacksmith by trade and occupation, a man noted for kindness, industry and honesty. He married Eliza Crowell, and both husband and wife traced their ancestry to emigrants from Boston, England. Harvey Newton Shepard was brought up in the city, and early displayed a fondness for reading history. The influence of his mother was particularly important in developing a love for books and strong moral instincts, and his choice of profession was from personal preference. He was a pupil in the Eliot Grammar School, prepared for college at Wesleyan Academy, Wilbraham, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard College, A.B. 1871. He then studied in the Harvard Law School, but was not graduated, becoming a law student in the office of Hillard, Hyde & Dickinson, of Boston in 1873. He paid his own way through college and the law school by private tutoring and the winning of scholarships. He opened an office for himself in 1875. He was president of the Boston Common Council, 1880, having served previously as a councilman, 1878 and 1879; Repre- sentative in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, 1881 and 1882; first assistant attorney general of Massachusetts, 1883-86, and represented the Commonwealth in several law suits, and was Fourth of July orator in 1885. He was examiner for the East Boston Savings Bank, 1873-80; legislative counsel of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company; and counsel of the Trustees of Boston University, Boston Wesleyan Association, and other corporations. He was admitted to practice in the United States Supreme Court in 1881. He was appointed lecturer in the School of Law of Boston University upon Extraordinary Remedies and Admiralty in 1904. In 1905 he gave an address before the American Bar Association upon Trial by Jury. He served the Republican party as a member of the state central committee, 1875-
Harvey NO . Shepard
HARVEY NEWTON SHEPARD
77, and as president of the Young Men's State Committee, 1879- 1880. The question of the tariff led him into the Democratic party at the time of the candidacy of James G. Blaine and Grover Cleve- land and he remained an Independent Democrat and was made chair- man of the executive committee of the American Free Trade League.
His religious affiliation is with the Methodist Episcopal denomi- nation. His exercise is walking and mountain climbing. His club membership includes the Appalachian Mountain, Union, Boston Athletic, Boston Art, and the New England. He has served as president of the New England Club, president of the Appalachian Mountain Club, chairman of its Trustees of Real Estate, district deputy grand master of the first Masonic district, 1883-85; com- missioner of trials of the Grand Lodge, 1889-90; deputy grand master, counsel to the Boston Athletic Association, and chairman of the entertainment committee of the Boston Art Club. He was trustee of the Boston Public Library, 1878-79; a member of the ex- amining committee, 1888-89; trustee of the Old South Association; president of the Eliot school Association, and an officer of many other societies and oganizations. He was married November 23, 1873, to Fanny May, daughter of Azor and Temperance Woodman, of Everett, Massachusetts; and of the five children born of this mar- riage four were living in 1908, viz: Grace Florence, Marion, Alice Mabel, and Edith May.
Mr. Shepard offers suggestions to young Americans in these words: "That the rule of the people through their elected represen- tatives in city, state and nation is the basis of stable and success- ful government. To acquire convictions by study and observation and to maintain them with courage."
JOHN SHEPARD
J OHN SHEPARD, merchant and bank director, was born in Canton, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, March 26, 1834. His father, John Shepard, 1800-1843, was a son of John and Lucy Shepard. Mr. Shepard, in speaking of his childhood and youth, says: "I had hard work to get a living, picked berries to sell between school hours at nine years old, when father died, and have not been out of active work since I was ten years old except through sickness. Never went to school after I was ten years old except to evening school and earned the money and paid for that myself." Mr. Shepard received his rudimentary education by attending the Church Hill School at Pawtucket, Rhode Island, where his mother resided, and to her he owes much for early moral training and ex- ample.
When ten years of age he came to Boston, and found his first regu- lar employment in the drug-store of J. W. Snow, at fifty cents a week, where he remained a faithful and progressive clerk for one year. Meantime, he attended the Comers evening school and rapidly ad- vanced in his studies. His associates at this early age were much older than himself, and he had few companions of his own age. In 1847 he engaged in the dry goods business as a clerk in the store of J. A. Jones, at three dollars a week, and paid a dollar and seventy- five cents for board. Here his ambition met its reward by repeated promotions. Each year he had his salary advanced one dollar per week, and at nineteen years of age he was made partner with J. A. Jones in the store next to the one where he was clerk. One year later he bought out Mr. Jones, paying him $1000 bonus for his lease, and giving his notes for the stock of $3000 on three, six and nine months, which were paid before they were due, and at the end of that year he had a profit of $3300. In 1861 he bought out the old estab- lished concern of Bell, Thwing & Company, on Tremont Row, and with his partner, Mr. Farley, established the firm of Farley & Shep- ard. In 1865 the firm dissolved, and Mr. Shepard, with unusual
John Shepard
JOHN SHEPARD
foresight, determined to change his location to Winter Street, then an outlying district, but destined to be a business thoroughfare. In making this change he determined to secure as partners the most experienced men in the trade, and to that end he invited Henry Norwell, salesman of Hogg, Brown & Taylor, and T. C. Brown, sales- man of Jordan, Marsh & Company, and opened one of the finest dry goods stores in Boston. When Mr. Brown withdrew from the firm, Mr. Shepard secured Robert Ferguson, an expert salesman of A. T. Stewart & Company, of New York City, to take his place, and the house of Shepard, Norwell & Company went on its successful career with no further change except a continuous increase in the working force and floor space necessary to carry on the volume of business that came to them.
Mr. Shepard was twice married; first, January 1, 1856, to Susan Ann, daughter of Perkins H. and Charlotte (White) Bagley, of Boston, and they established a home on North Russell Street, Boston. Six children were born of this marriage, a son and a daughter only living in 1908. The son, John Shepard, Jr., married Flora E., daughter of General A. P. Martin, subsequently mayor of Boston; and he became the head of the dry goods corporation of The Shepard Company, Providence, Rhode Island; and the daughter, Jessie Wat- son Shepard, married William G. Titcomb, son of ex-mayor A. C. Titcomb, of Newburyport. Mr. Shepard was married secondly, September 11, 1890, to Mary J., daughter of Hannah Herbert (Tit- comb) Ingraham, of Newburyport. He is a Republican in politics and has never deserted the party. He is affiliated with the Protes- tant Episcopal Church.
His summer home "Edgewater" is a picturesque estate, with ample grounds and commodious stables on Phillips Beach, Swamp- scott, Massachusetts, where Mr. Shepard has accumulated a string of fast trotting horses. His chief relaxation from the care of business is driving in the summer over the fine roads of Essex County, and in the winter over the superior boulevard drives of the suburbs of Bos- ton, where he is a familiar figure on the road and the recognized dean of the fraternity of owners and drivers of fast-stepping trotting horses. His stables turned out many horses whose names became familiar in trotting records. "Old Trot" was well known to all horsemen. Aldine became the property of W. H. Vanderbilt in exchange for a check for $15,000, and as a mate of Maud S. made
JOHN SHEPARD
a mile in 2.15}. He sold Dick Swiveller to Frank Work for $12,000. His team Mill Boy and Blondine made in 1881 a mile in 2.22, the world's record for a team.
Mr. Shepard is a director of the Boston Chamber of Commerce; of the American Pneumatic Service Company; of the Boston Pneumatic Transit Company; of the Commercial National Bank of Boston; of the New York Mail and Newspaper Transportation Company; of the Lampson Store Service Company; of the Boston Club and of the Brigham Hospital for Incurables; and a mem- ber of the Beacon Society; the Algonquin Club and the Tedesco Country Club of Swampscott, of which he is a trustee. He is a director of the Association for the Promotion of the Adult Blind, and director and chairman of the finance committee of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association. He is also a member of the Boston Merchants' Association and of other business men's organizations. On June 21, 1905, Tufts College conferred on him the honorary degree of Master of Arts. To young men Mr. Shepard says: "Be temperate in all your habits. Be honest, truthful, thrifty, full of energy, ambition and determination to succeed and you certainly will. My advice to young people is never to do anything that they cannot talk over with their father or mother. If they keep this in mind they will never do anything wrong."
Ù¡ PA. D. Sheppard .
SAMUEL A. D. SHEPPARD
T HE above-named man, widely known in the drug-trade of New England as S. A. D. Sheppard, was born in Manchester, Massachusetts, July 16, 1842. He was the son of Samuel Sheppard and Anna M. Marchbank, and his grandfathers were David Sheppard and Robert Marchbank. They were descendants from well-known families in the north of Ireland. The grandfather was at one time captain of an Orangemen's band.
The father of Mr. Sheppard was an upholsterer by trade and a man of fine repute. He was known far and near as a gentle, even- tempered and consistent Christian, held in high respect in the com- munity and warmest affection by his family, and exerting upon them by his life a most powerful influence for good.
Mr. Sheppard was exceedingly fond of books, especially those treating of mathematics, chemistry and botany. Schools and teachers were to him a constant delight. His mother was a very energetic woman, and she taught her children to love good, hard, effective work. Success in life, Mr. Sheppard thinks, for him, has largely come from his mother's indomitable energy, and his father's goodness. His education was not beset with very great difficulties. He was able to pass through the ordinary schools, and graduate from the High and Classical Schools of Salem, Massachusetts, at the age of sixteen. In 1874 he successfully completed his course of study in the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. Later he became an honorary member of the California College of Pharmacy, and the Ohio State Pharmaceutical Association.
In 1858 Mr. Sheppard entered the drug-store of Browne and Price, Salem, and remained with them ten years. In 1868 he went into business for himself, and is still in the harness in the same loca- tion where he started his personal business career.
He has held the responsible positions of president, secretary, treasurer and trustee of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, and is now chairman of the trustees of the funds of the college. He
SAMUEL A. D. SHEPPARD
was the first president of the Massachusetts State Pharmaceutical Association, and bears the unusual distinction of being the only person elected to this office a second term. He was six years mem- ber of Council, and chairman of Finance Committee, and twenty- one years treasurer of the American Pharmaceutical Association. He was also trustee of Boston Penny Saving Bank, director of South End National Bank, and Trustee of the United States Pharmacopœ- ical Convention. He served two years as alderman and two years on the Board of Health, of the city of Newton, Massachusetts, and was appointed to Board of Pharmacy when the board was estab- lished by Governor Robinson.
Mr. Sheppard is a Mason, and has held a number of offices in the Blue Lodge and Royal Arch Chapter. In politics, he is a Re- publican. His religious affiliations are with the Baptist denomina- tion, and in early years he was an active worker in the Young Men's Christian Association, and in Sunday school affairs.
Boating and golf are favorite pastimes for Mr. Sheppard, and he commends the latter as the best of out-of-door sports for young and old.
In 1869, September 2, Mr. Sheppard was married to Emma J., daughter of Oliver D. and Emeline S. Kimball, of Boston, who died in 1888; and on September 18, 1890, he married Helen M. Pettingell, Salem, daughter of Charles C. and Fannie B. Pettingell. Of the first union three children were born, all of whom are living: Clara S., wife of E. E. Blake, Saco, Maine; Robert K., of the American Steel and Wire Company, Philadelphia; Harwood A., a clerk in San Fran- cisco, California.
Added to all the busy years of official and private enterprise, Mr. Sheppard was the one who alone secured for the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy the Mary Jane Aldrich fund, now of about $10,000, and the Warren B. Potter fund of $200,000.
To the youth of America, Mr. Sheppard gives the following most excellent advice: "Learn to work in early life. Get into the habit of work during the formative period. Select some one course and stick to it, make it your specialty, love it .. Get yourself into right conditions, physically, mentally, morally, spiritually, and other good things will follow. Be an optimist every time. He who spends less than he earns and is content has found the ' philosopher's stone.'"
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Thomas Sherwin
THOMAS SHERWIN
T HOMAS SHERWIN, president of the New England Tele- phone and Telegraph Company, was born in Boston, Massa- chusetts, July 11, 1839. His father, Thomas Sherwin, was a son of David Sherwin, of Westmoreland, New Hampshire, who served in Stark's brigade during the Revolution, and took part in the Battle of Bennington.
Thomas Sherwin, Sr., was graduated at Harvard College in 1825. A distinguished scholar and instructor, he was long and widely known as the principal of the English High School, of Boston, which, under his direction during more than thirty years, became one of the leading educational institutions of the country. He was one of the originators and a president of both the American Institute of Instruction, and the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association; one of the original editors of the Massachusett's Teacher; a prominent member of the government of the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the author of two valuable text-books on algebra. He mar- ried Mary King, daughter of Colonel Daniel L. and Mary (King) Gib- bens, of Boston. Their sons, Henry and Thomas Sherwin, are still living. Edward died in September, 1907.
Thomas Sherwin, the subject of this sketch, was prepared for college at the Dedham High and Boston Latin Schools, and gradu- ated at Harvard in 1860. During his college course he taught a winter school at Medfield, and for the year after graduation was master of the Houghton High School in the town of Bolton, Massa- chusetts.
Upon the breaking out of the Civil War he enlisted with other young men of Bolton and the adjoining towns, and was elected captain of the company, which for a time formed part of the Fifteenth Massachusetts Regiment. He was later commissioned adjutant of the Twenty-second Massachusetts Regiment, and took part in most of the battles of the Army of the Potomac, with his regiment, until
THOMAS SHERWIN
the expiration of its term of service in October, 1864, being severely wounded in the battle of Gaines' Mill, Virginia, June 27, 1862.
On the following day he was promoted to be major, and on October 17, 1862, to be lieutenant-colonel of his regiment. He commanded the regiment during most of the campaign of 1863-64, and for a short time acted as division inspector of the First Division, Fifth Army Corps.
He received the commissions of colonel and brigadier-general of United States Volunteers, by brevet, for gallant services at Gettys- burg, and at Peebles' Farm, Virginia, and for meritorious service during the war.
He resumed for a time the profession of teaching, and was for one year an instructor in the English High School. In June, 1866, he was appointed Deputy Surveyor of Customs at Boston, and held that position till 1875, when he was elected to the newly established office of City Collector of Boston.
In March, 1883, he became auditor of the American Bell Tele- phone Company. In 1885 he was elected president of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, which position he now holds.
General Sherwin is a member of the Union, St. Botolph and other clubs in Boston, and the University Club, of New York.
He was commander of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States, 1892-93. He was the first commander of the Charles W. Carroll Post, Grand Army of the Republic, in Dedham, and for some years assistant adjutant-general, department of Massachusetts, G. A. R.
He was married, January 18, 1870, to Isabel Fiske, daughter of Hon. Thomas McKee and Mary H. (Fiske) Edwards, of Keene, New Hampshire.
Their children are Eleanor, born February 14, 1871; Thomas Edwards, May 15, 1872; Mary King, September 16, 1874; Robert Waterston, March 3, 1878; Anne Isabel, September 9, 1880, and Edward Vassall, February 4, 1885.
Eleanor (Sherwin) Goodwin, is the widow of the late William Hobbs Goodwin, of Dedham. Their children are William H., Isabel and Eleanor Goodwin. Mary King Sherwin was married in June, 1907, to Philip H. Lee Warner, of London, England.
Charles F. Smith
CHARLES FRANCIS SMITH
C HARLES FRANCIS SMITH, the son of Charles Augustus and Eliza Abigail (Jennerson) Smith, was born at Charles- town, now a part of Boston, Massachusetts, July 3, 1832. His immediate ancestors possessed the strong characteristics of strict integrity, unflinching adherence to duty and deep respect for law, and these qualities they transmitted to the subject of this sketch. Moses Jennerson, his maternal great-grandfather was a soldier in the Continental Army and rendered very efficient service.
Mr. Smith was educated in the local public schools until, at the age of fourteen, he decided to make his own way in life. He secured a position as boy in a store in Boston, and immediately began to show those admirable qualities which have been characteristic of him throughout his life. Honest, faithful and industrious, he was early marked for promotion. He soon found employment in a bank- ing interest, and from that time his rise was steady and notable.
For four years he was teller of the Eagle National Bank; for thirty-eight years he served successively as teller, cashier and manag- ing director of the Continental National Bank of Boston; and for five years he was vice-president of the Colonial National Bank. For the past four years he has been treasurer of the Commonwealth Trust Company, and at present holds the same position with the Oliver Ditson Company. Having acquired a reputation as a care- ful manager of financial institutions, he has been selected in a num- ber of instances to serve as trustee for large estates.
The public service is always open to men of the character and the ability of Mr. Smith. Therefore, in spite of his modest depre- cation of political ambition and the numerous and serious calls on his time and energy, we find him often serving his native city. He was for fifteen years a member of the school board, for three years president of the Common Council, and for three years a member of the board of aldermen. The good-will which he won and the emi- nent success which followed his efforts in these responsible offices
CHARLES FRANCIS SMITH
naturally brought him into prominence as a candidate for the mayoralty of Charlestown, but he found that its duties would inter- fere too seriously with his business engagements, and he declined further political honors. He had never identified himself particu- larly with any political party but held himself rather in an attitude of independence.
Following the example of his mother, a devout Unitarian, whose influence was paramount with him, Mr. Smith has been a consistent member of that denomination. He has membership also in the Bunker Hill Monument Association; the Bostonian Society; the Boston Art Club; and the Oliver Ditson Society for the Relief of Needy Musicians. In Masonry he has served as trustee in King Solomon's Lodge.
The beauty of Mr. Smith's home life was - and still is, though his children have grown up and gone out to make homes of their own - very charming and inspiring. His marriage to Lois B. (daughter of Samuel and Nancy) Emery, of Bangor, Maine, in June, 1859, was blessed by a family of eight children. Of the seven sur- viving children, five are now happily married and many grand- children rise up to call Mr. and Mrs. Smith "blessed." Of Mr. Smith's sons, one is, like his father, in banking, and another in the boot and shoe interest.
By sound judgment and signal business success he has achieved the highest standing in Boston's business and financial world. Finally, by a long and consistently upright life, he has shown him- self to be one of Boston's best men. Such men, modest, full of the characteristic quiet American humor, affectionate in domestic relations, faithful to all trusts, and advanced and liberal in thought, make the prosperity of their localities and insure the stability of the Commonwealth.
pleu . Stores
JOHN HUMPHREYS STORER
I N the year 1629 the Reverend Thomas Storer was vicar of the small Lincolnshire parish of Bilsby. His sympathies were with the Puritan party in the Established Church, and this was a season of sore trial and discomfort to those of the Puritan way of thinking. Archbishop Land was at this time zealously endeavoring to enforce uniformity in the church, and to stamp out Puritanism. It was becoming very evident that if the Puritans wished to enjoy their faith without molestation they must leave England in order to do so. Accordingly all over England, but more especially in the eastern counties from Lincolnshire to Kent, the Puritans were considering if they should not cast their lot with those of their brethren who had already immigrated to the New World. The great migration that continued from 1630 till the Civil War in 1642 had not yet begun, but here and there persons were quitting their ancestral homes for the bleak shores of Massachusetts Bay. Among those was the son of the vicar of Bilsby, Augustine Storer, who arrived in the New World with his wife and his brother-in-law, Rev. John Wheelwright, in 1629, the first of his name to cross the Atlantic.
Among his descendants were Woodbury Storer, Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas at Portland, Maine, in the early part of the nineteenth century, and his son, David Humphrey Storer, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, a Boston physician of note, born March 26, 1804, and died September 10, 1891. From 1854 to 1868 he was dean of the Harvard Medical School, and was at one time president of the American Medical Association. He was also a distinguished naturalist and the author of several works on Ichthy- ology. He married Abby Jane Brewer (born October 18, 1810; died April 27, 1885). Two of their sons rose to distinction in their respec- tive lines of research. Francis Humphreys Storer became a chemist, and was a professor of agricultural chemistry at Harvard University and dean of the Bussey Institute, and the elder, the father of the subject of this sketch, was Horatio Robinson Storer, a physician
JOHN HUMPHREYS STORER
and surgeon of note. He was born February 27, 1830, and married Emily Elvira Gilmore, born November 2, 1833 and died February 27, 1872. She was a person of much strength of character as well as sweetness of disposition, and although at her death her son John was but a boy of eleven years her influence over his moral and religious nature had already made itself deeply felt.
Research amid the annals of the Storer family will reveal many names of men who rose to importance in the Colonial period; not a few of them were clergymen, several were members of the Great and General Court, others served in the early Colonial Wars or in the war of the American Revolution, and one was the famous Governor Thomas Dudley. A few among the many individuals more or less closely connected with the Storer ancestry and who were among the earliest of New England settlers, were Edward Starbuck, who came to the Bay Colony from Derbyshire in 1629; Tristram Coffin who came in 1642; William Woodbury who settled in Salem in 1626; Rev. William Walton who came to Hingham in 1635; William Patten who settled in Cambridge in 1635; Richard Dodge who established him- self in Salem in 1629; Edward Spalding who came to Braintree in 1630; Francis Littlefield, who settled in Woburn in 1635; and John Spofford who came to Rowley in 1638; Roger Conant, Plymouth, 1623; John Thorndike, Boston, 1632.
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