USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 16
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Dr. Horatio Storer was the owner of a fine country place at Milton, Massachusetts, and his son John, as a boy, liked nothing better than to engage in various kinds of farm work. Nor were his activities confined wholly to the out-door life of the farm, for carpentry was a favorite amusement of his and he spent long hours with saw and plane amid the fragrant shavings of the carpenter shop connected with the country establishment. Sports of various character de- lighted his boyhood, as the games of golf has its charm for him in later life, while his reading of history and the study of numismatics were other cherished pursuits of his youth.
Naturally, from the prominence of his family in the community and their ample means, the boy John experienced no difficulties in the way of acquiring an education other than those incident to the pursuit of knowledge everywhere. He was sent to Saint Mark's School at Southborough, Massachusetts, passed a year in study at Frankfort-on-the-Main in Germany, and graduated from Harvard University with the degree of A.B. in 1882. At the bidding of his
JOHN HUMPHREYS STORER
own preference, he decided upon the law as his profession in life and after three years of study at the Harvard Law School received its degree of LL.B. in 1885. His entrance into active life may be said to have begun even before his graduation, for while in the Law School he was accustomed to spend his summer vacation studying law in the offices of Ropes, Gray & Loring. Since then he has devoted himself principally to real estate and the management of trust property, and for ten years, from 1885 to 1895, he was in part- nership with Richard M. Bradley, under the firm name of Bradley & Storer.
His political allegiance has been given to the Republican party ever since he became interested in politics at all, but he has never held any political office. He is a loyal member of the Episcopal Church and has been for seven years the senior warden of Christ Church, Waltham, in which pleasant city he makes his home.
A man of many clubs Mr. Storer is president of the Episcopalian Club of Massachusetts; a member of the Union, Exchange, St. Botolph, Boston City; Essex County, and Oakley Country Clubs; as well as the Boston Athletic Association, and the New York Athletic Club; the Massachusetts State Automobile Association and the Ameri- can Automobile Association; the National Geographical Society; the American Academy of Political and Social Science; the Ameri- can Institute of Civics; the Bostonian Society; the Economic Club; the Society of Colonial Wars and the University Club of New York; the Harvard Club of New York, the Harvard Club of Boston. In former years he was also secretary of the Harvard Club of Rhode Island, and treasurer of the Puritan Club of Boston.
The list of Mr. Storer's positions of trust and responsibility is a long one, including directorships in the Boston Cooperative Building Company; Boston Water Power Company; Brooklyn Associates; Brooklyn Development Company; Greater New York Development Company; Harwood Construction Company; Kingsboro Realty Company; Montague Builders Supply Company; New England Watch and Ward Society; New York Suburbs Company; Point Shirley Company; Tuckahoe Associates; Realty Company; State Street Trust Company; Wood Harmon Bond Company; Wood Harmon Richmond Realty Company; Workingmen's Building Associ- ation and Workingmen's Loan Association, as well as trusteeship in the Boston Suburban Development Trust; Church Avenue Real
JOHN HUMPHREYS STORER
Estate Association; Merchants Real Estate Trust; Staten Island Associates; Winthrop Development Trust; Wood Harmon Associ- ates; Wood Harmon Real Estate Association and. Wood Harmon Real Estate Trustees. It should be added that Mr. Storer is also the treasurer of six of these corporations, and secretary of three more. He likewise holds trusteeship in the Peoples Institute; the Robert Treat Paine Association and the Wells Memorial Institute; and is a director of the Episcopal City Mission and of the New Eng- land Watch and Ward Society.
On the eighteenth of November, 1885, Mr. Storer married Miss Edith Paine, a daughter of the widely-known Boston philanthropist, Robert Treat Paine, and his wife, Lydia (Lyman) Paine. Mrs. Storer is a descendant of Thomas Paine who came to Salem from England in 1634, her paternal grandparents being Charles Jackson Paine and Fanny Cabot Jackson Paine, while on the maternal side she was a granddaughter of George W. Lyman, of Waltham, Massa- chusetts, and Anne Pratt Lyman. Six children, three sons and three daughters, have been born to Mr. and Mrs. Storer, the eldest of them, Emily Storer, being a student at Bryn Mawr College and the next oldest, John Humphreys Storer, Jr., a student at Harvard College. The other children are Edith, Robert Treat Paine, Theo- dore Lyman and Lydia Lyman.
So far as success in his life-work is concerned, Mr. Storer is in- clined to consider that constant association from his earliest youth with men of high ideals has been the strongest influence in forming his character, and next after this the various influences of home and school and study in private. Absolute integrity, energy, self restraint and a serene but intelligent optimism he considers the basis of suc- cess, and he believes that every man should perform whatever tasks demand his attention to the best of his ability, and that one who lives nobly and realizes that all things are ordered for the best, can never fall short of what constitutes real and lasting success.
Edward A Saft a
EDWARD AUGUSTINE TAFT
E DWARD AUGUSTINE TAFT was born at Uxbridge, Massa- chusetts, April 8, 1845. His father, Augustine C. Taft, was a physician, whose early death, at the age of forty, was an in- estimable loss. His mother was Dora Millett Taylor, daughter of the famous Rev. Edward T. Taylor the "Father Taylor" of the Seaman's Bethel, whose originality, eloquence and wit amounted to positive genius. He received an education first at a school at Framingham and afterwards at boarding school at Hopedale. In 1861, at the age of sixteen, he enlisted in the United States Navy, and was appointed paymaster's clerk and, attracting attention by his quickness and accuracy, was promoted as captain's clerk. He served on the United States Gunboat Cambridge and the United States Sloop of War Tuscarora. The Cambridge arrived at Hampton Roads on the eighth of March, 1862, when the famous Merrimac appeared and destroyed the Cumberland and Congress. The Cambridge proceeded under orders from the commanding offi- cer to tow the sailing frigate St. Lawrence to its position for action against the Merrimac off Newport News. They found the Cum- berland and Congress sunk and the Minnesota aground as a result of the first day's encounter. On the next day he, with the other members of the crew, witnessed the tremendous and epoch-making encounter between the Monitor and the Merrimac.
At the end of the war, in 1865, he entered the express business with the Merchants' Union Express Company until it was absorbed by the American Express Company. In 1872 he undertook the organization of the New York and Boston Despatch Company in which at various periods he has been manager, vice-president and president until the end of 1905, when he removed to New York. During that third of a century he was indefatigable in organizing and incorporating various other companies for the purpose of engag- ing in the carrying business, all of which have been notably success- ful. In 1878 he was one of the incorporators of the Kinsley Express
EDWARD AUGUSTINE TAFT
Company, of which he was director and president. In 1882 he was the organizer and one of the incorporators of the Armstrong Trans- fer Express Company of Boston, and was a director and its general manager until 1889 when he resigned. In 1886 he was the organ- izer and one of the incorporators of the Boston Cab Company, which eight years later was reorganized and incorporated as the Charles S. Brown Company, and in this he is director and president. This same year he became one of the board of managers of the Erie Ex- press Company, a joint stock association, the business of which was afterwards merged in the Wells-Fargo & Company's Express. He is a director in the Rand-Avery Supply Company.
In 1887 he was one of the incorporators of the Boston Parcel Delivery Company and has since been director and president. In 1905 he resigned his position as director-president and general manager of the New York and Boston Despatch Express Company in order to accept an appointment of assistant to the president of the Adams Express Company. On April 23, 1908, effective May 1, 1908, Mr. Taft was appointed manager of express departments of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, Central New England Railway Company, the New England Navigation Company, the Hartford and New York Transportation Company, the Connecticut Company, the New York and Stamford Railway Company, the Rhode Island Company, with offices in South Station, Boston.
The exigencies of such wide-spread and yet concentrated inter- ests have not prevented him from taking a part in social life. He is a member of the New England Society of New York; the Merchants' Club in New York City; of the Algonquin Club of Boston; the Country Club of Brookline; the Beverly Yacht Club, and the Old Colony Club. He was married in May, 1870, to Adelaide Larrabbee, and has three children, two daughters, Mrs. Alice Taft Herrick, Mrs. Cora Taft Bryan and a son Edward Augustine, Jr., who is now engaged in the practice of the law.
Mr. Taft is a conspicuous example of a successful specialist. When the history of the express business in this country comes to be written, Mr. Taft's share in its organization will be found to be one of its factors.
WATERMAN ALLEN TAFT
W ATERMAN ALLEN TAFT was born at Crown Point, Essex County, New York, on August 11, 1849. His father, Albert Taft, was a farmer, and carpenter and builder, and later in life active as a manufacturer of doors, sashes, blinds and general house finish. His mother was Mary Ann (Cum- mings) Taft. The Taft family in this country runs back to the pioneers of New England, and Albert Taft and his son are descended from Robert Taft, who came from England to Uxbridge, Massachu- setts, about 1650.
Waterman Allen Taft lived as a boy on the farm of his father, who was an active, aggressive, persevering man - a man who be- lieved in incessant industry and practised it. This farm life was a good schooling. The experience was good for character and habits. The associations brought a knowledge of human nature, and the regular daily tasks, though they seemed irksome sometimes to a lively boy, were the best foundations for a business career.
Young Taft had to struggle for his education and appreciated it none the less on that account. He was helped and encouraged by his mother, who taught him, too, that though learning was a valu- able thing it was, after all, not so indispensable as sound and whole- some character. The boy attended the Hudson River Institute at Claverack, New York, and Castleton Seminary at Castleton, Vermont, but he did not graduate. He left school at fifteen years of age and began his business life. From the time he was fifteen until he was eighteen young Taft remained in the country store at Crown Point. Then a new field attracted him, and he went to Whitehall, New York, and worked as a telegraph operator, first there and then at Platts- burg, New York, and subsequently at 145 Broadway, New York City. From the age of twenty to twenty-three he was engaged in a general house finish factory at Burlington, Vermont.
At twenty-three Mr. Taft connected himself with the large house of Bronsons, Weston, Dunham & Company, of Burlington, Vermont,
WATERMAN ALLEN TAFT
and Ottawa, Canada, to learn the general lumber business. He remained with this large house for seventeen years, serving in various capacities and finally undertaking the management of the Boston office of the house and the general direction of their sales. In 1889 Mr. Taft resigned and took an interest with the Export Lumber Company, of New York, Boston, Montreal and Ottawa, Canada - an extensive concern whose operations covered a wide area.
In later years this company became interested, through some of the wealthy principals, in business foreign to the lumber industry, which, through unforeseen circumstances, necessitated a general re- organization of the interests involved, which resulted in receivership proceedings in 1902, at which time Mr. Taft, who for many years had been a leading figure in the operations of the company, was appointed receiver for the purpose of liquidation. The affairs of the Export Lumber Company under his able management have been conducted in such an efficient manner that with the approach of a final adjust- ment of its affairs the creditors of that company express themselves as extremely gratified at the prospect of receiving their entire claims in full. Mr. Taft and his associates have now organized a new Export Lumber Company, of which he is the president.
Mr. Taft holds a commanding position in the lumber trade and has a wide acquaintance among the strong business men of Boston. He is a member of the Algonquin Club and of the Exchange Club of Boston. Mr Taft is also a member of the Oakley Country Club of Watertown, of the Hermitage Country Club of Worcester, and the Down Town Club of New York City. He is a Republican in politics and is affiliated with the Congregational Church. He is particularly fond of horesback riding, golf and automobiling.
Mr. Taft was married on December 5, 1878, to Sarah E., daughter of James and Clara J. Doughty, a descendant of Edward Doughty, one of the famous company of the Mayflower, who came from Plymouth in the Old World to Plymouth in the New, in 1620. Mr. and Mrs. Taft have three children, Clara Cummings Taft, now Mrs. R. S. Farr, Helen Taft and W. Allen Taft, Jr. The son has followed his father in the lumber business.
Like most men of deeds, Mr. Taft is not a man of many words. His counsel to the young is summed up vividly in this: "The price of success is natural ability, character, health, system, economy and eternal vigilance."
George a. Joney
GEORGE ARNOLD TORREY
G EORGE ARNOLD TORREY, lawyer, corporation counsel, State Senator, was born in Fitchburg, Worcester County, Massachusetts, May 14, 1838. His father, Ebenezer Torrey, son of John and Sally Torrey, was a lawyer, bank president, State Representative and Senator, member of the governor's council, treasurer of the City of Fitchburg, a man of integrity, ability and industry. His first American ancestor, Captain William Torrey, came from Weymouth, England, in 1640, with his wife, Jane (Havi- land) Torrey and settled in Wessugausett, Plymouth Colony, Massa- chusetts, being among the earlier settlers. He was a prominent man in the colony, serving as representative and as commissioner of the peace. Ebenezer Torrey married Sarah, daughter of William and Hannah Arnold, of Smithfield, Rhode Island.
George Arnold Torrey was brought up in the village of Fitchburg. He was largely influenced for good by the excellent example of his mother, as well as by her precepts and superior wisdom. He at- tended the public schools and Leicester Academy, where he was prepared for college; and he was graduated at Harvard University, A.B. 1859; LL.B., 1861; A.M., 1862; delivering an oration at Com- mencement; and being elected, by virtue of his standing in the class, a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He was married June 21, 1861, to Ellen M. Shirley, daughter of Daniel H. and Charlotte E. Shirley, of Boston. They had no children.
Mr. Torrey took the place of his father as a partner with Nathaniel Wood, at that time one of the leading lawyers in Worcester County. The firm of Wood and Torrey had a large and successful practice, and continued until 1873 when Mr. Torrey removed to Boston where he has since practised alone. The general practice of the firm soon developed into the more specific channels of corporation and railroad law, to which Mr. Torrey has successfully devoted himself since the dissolution of the firm. In 1887 he was elected general counsel of the Fitchburg Railroad Company, and had the exclusive manage-
GEORGE ARNOLD TORREY
ment of the legal business of that corporation until the lease of the road to the Boston and Maine Railroad in 1900, since which period he has served as consulting counsel for the latter corporation. He has been counsel in many of the leading railroad cases in Massa- chusetts, and has gained an enviable reputation and high standing at the bar.
He was a member of the Massachusetts Senate from Worcester County in 1872-73, serving as a member of the committee on judici- ary and towns in the former year, and as chairman of the committee on judiciary and federal relations in 1873. He took a prominent part in the enactment of the general railroad law in 1872, and at a special session which was convened on account of the great Boston fire in the same year.
He was one of the directors of the Boston, Clinton and Fitchburg Railroad, now a part of the Old Colony system.
His religious affiliation is with the Unitarian denomination and his social affiliation with the Algonquin Club of Boston.
EDGAR VAN ETTEN
E DGAR VAN ETTEN, president of the Cuba Eastern Railroad, and also president of the Long Acre Electric Light and Power Company, of New York, is a descendant of early colonists who left their ancient homesteads in Etten, Holland, about 1650, to cross the seas, landing at Esopus, New York.
Edgar Van Etten, born at Milford, Pike County, Pennsylvania, April 15, 1843, was the son of Amos and Lydia (Thrall) Van Etten. Hisfather was a merchant of the old school, "Live and let live; give and for- give," was his favorite saying, and to a great extent his rule of living.
His son enjoyed a home life in which physical comfort and refine- ment went hand in hand with a sincere religious sentiment and love of practical knowledge. A certain amount of work was expected and willingly given, and athletic sports and fishing were his favorite out-of-door diversions. He was an omnivorous reader, with per- haps an especial liking for the works of Dickens. He found the study of the Bible both interesting and instructive. In his opinion it is "the best book that a young man can read."
At an early age he took up the duties of a clerk in a general store and served thus until the great Civil War broke out, when he at once became a soldier of the Union. Before he had reached the age of eighteen he was commissioned lieutenant and was engaged, or with the troops held in reserve, in most of the great battles of the Army of the Potomac.
At the close of his service, circumstances and a personal prefer- ence for railroad life impelled him to engage as a brakeman on the old Erie Railroad. From this position Mr. Van Etten rose, by his ability and ambition, his conscientious service and personal and prompt performance of duty, his uniform consideration for the feel- ings and rights of others during forty years of railroading, to his present prominence. Nearly twenty years of his railroad life has been with the New York Central and Hudson River Railroad, which he served as general superintendent and vice-president, resigning the latter position January 1, 1908, to become president of an Electric
EDGAR VAN ETTEN
Lighting and Power Plant in New York City. In the long period so utterly devoted to one great specialty, it is natural that Mr. Van Etten's inventive powers should concentrate on contrivances to improve or expedite railroad transportation. Several patents for improvements of this kind have been taken out by Mr. Van Etten. His literary tastes have, for the most part, been rather those of a reader than a writer, but Mr. Van Etten is now engaged upon an autobiographical work "Reminiscences of a Railroad Man," which will have a general interest outside of the army of trained and intelligent men who manage the great transportation systems.
Mr. Van Etten is a member of the Holland Society of New York, and holds in reverence the memories of those devoted Hollanders who dared and suffered so much for a free kirk and the rights of free men. He is also affiliated with the Colonial, Transportation, and Ardsley Country Clubs. He is a member of the Algonquin, Eastern Yacht, and Brookline Country Clubs, of Boston, Massachusetts.
Mr. Van Etten is never happier than when enjoying manly sport; such things have kept him young, fearless, self-reliant and ready for aught that may befall.
Mr. Van Etten is a Democrat in politics, but is ever ready to ignore an unworthy candidate or oppose a mischievous policy. In religion his family traditions and affiliations are naturally with the Reformed Dutch Church, but Mr. Van Etten himself leans toward the Uni- tarian belief.
He married, in 1864, Miss Emma Laurence, of Port Jervis, New York, who died in 1895, leaving two daughters, now Mrs. Charles Riselay, of Somerville, and Mrs. Charles Slanson, of Chicago. On June 30, 1897, he married Frances, daughter of Rev. and Mrs. Ezra Cramblett. There are no living children born of this union.
Mr. Van Etten gratefully bears testimony to the influence of his mother, Lydia (Thrall) Van Etten, in directing and inspiring his intellectual acquirements, and the formation of his moral and spiritual tendencies. Her love, ambition, and encouragement not only founded all that made for sterling character, but implanted mem- ories which were a tower of defense against temptation.
Mr. Van Etten's words of advice to the young are: "Live by the Golden Rule and let your success stand upon this, together with ability and ambition; be just, conscientious, and interested in your work; 'Always taking the message to Garcia yourself instead of sending it.'"
GEORGE WASHINGTON WELLS
G EORGE WASHINGTON WELLS is descended from English stock. Both his paternal and maternal ancestors came from England less than a score of years after the historic landing of the Mayflower. The doings of the generations of the Wells and Cheney families are chronicled with all detail in the pub- lished genealogical records. Mr. Wells's grandfather, Henry Wells, was a captain in the Continental Army and his great-grandfather, Batchelder, on his mother's side, was also a Revolutionary soldier. His father, John Ward Wells, who died in 1872, at the age of seventy-eight, was a carpenter, surveyor and farmer, a man of strong, active and decided mind, extremely fond of mathematics and a great reader. He lived in Woodstock, Connecticut, where his son, George Washington, was born April 15, 1846, the youngest of nine children. At the age of four years, a severely sprained ankle, followed by a fever sore, confined him to the house for a year, and compelled him to go on crutches for nearly eight years more. Dur- ing this period his mother, Maria Cheney Wells, died, leaving him to the charge of his sister Lizzie, who was a mother to him ever after. Her later life was spent at his home in Southbridge, where she died October 13, 1905, aged seventy-two years. At the age of thirteen he had a severe run of typhoid fever, which held him for three months.
His education consisted substantially of six terms in the district school and one term at Woodstock Academy. His youth was largely employed in farm work; and when he was sixteen, his father being disabled, the responsibility of carrying on the farm rested wholly on his shoulders for two seasons. At the age of seventeen he started out for the first time to earn his own living, having eight dollars in cash, and fifty dollars left him by his mother, in the savings bank. He taught school for twelve weeks at Navesink Highlands, New Jersey, for which he received one hundred dollars. He returned to Woodstock in March, 1864, and the next month went to Southbridge,
GEORGE WASHINGTON WELLS
where he accepted a position as one of the eleven employees in the optical works of R. H. Cole & Company. This mechanical business proved the key to his subsequent success.
Under the instruction of his brother, Hiram, Mr. Wells began immediately the making of silver spectacles, without the usual three years' apprenticeship. There being no work at the shop the follow- ing summer he worked at haying for Daniel Perry, of Charleton, about seventeen days, for which he received thirty-five dollars and his board. Mr. Perry then secured him a position in the machine- shop of the Hamilton Woolen Company, at Globe Village, at one dollar per day.
In April, 1865, he came back to the optical works of R. H. Cole & Company, where he soon learned the trade of steel spectacle-mak- ing. In the fall and winter he worked with E. Edmonds & Son, but in February, 1866, returned to the old company, by whom he was employed principally in the making of dies, tools and machinery.
About a year later he decided to visit his sister, Lizzie, then in California. He sailed January 10, 1867, by the way of Panama, there being then no railroad across the plains, arriving at San Fran- cisco, February 2. Before leaving Southbridge, he had invested what small funds he had in gold and steel spectacles, which he sold in San Francisco at the same nominal prices he had paid for them in Southbridge. But as California was then on a gold basis, the profit was about thirty-three per cent., enough to pay his entire traveling expenses. He made his home there with his uncle, the late David B. Cheney, D.D. He obtained employment in a large machine-shop, at four dollars a day in silver. His uncle's family having decided to return East, he concluded to come with them, but before leaving took a hurried trip to see the big trees, and the geyser at Hot Springs. He arrived again at Southbridge in August, 1867, and resumed his old position with R. H. Cole & Company.
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