USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 2
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Edward & Able 1
Abil J. Ablol
ABIEL JACOB ABBOT
A BIEL JACOB ABBOT, treasurer of the Abbot Worsted Company of Westford, Massachusetts, and a member of the executive committee of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers - the powerful organization which guards the interests of this great textile industry - is a business man of envi- able standing in his part of Massachusetts. He was born in Westford in 1850, on January 8, the anniversary of Jackson's memo- rable victory at New Orleans, and has lived in Westford nearly all of his business life. Mr. Abbot's father was a lawyer, John W. P. Abbot, distinguished not only for his professional knowledge but for his business sagacity and public spirit. The mother of Abiel Jacob Abbot was Catharine Abbot. The family name in Massa- chusetts was first borne by George Abbot, who emigrated from England about the year 1636, and settled in Andover. It is one of the sterling families of the country - a race of devout, thrifty, energetic New Englanders. They have been successful in material affairs, but not so much engrossed by them as to be unmindful of the duties of citizenship. Public spirit has always characterized the line to which Mr. Abbot belongs. His family, too, has always been possessed of more than average intellectual strength, and has con- tributed to the State more than its quota of scholars and profes- sional men.
Mr. Abbot's father believed in teaching his son the importance of business methods and the value of economy. He did not wait until the youth was about to enter life on his own account, but inculcated these principles at home, and their effect upon the busi- ness success which Mr. Abbot has since won is great and manifest. The influence of his mother in shaping his character andstimulating wholesome ambitions in the youth was also very strong. He went for the finishing of his education to the academy at Exeter, New Hampshire, to Westford Academy and to the Highland Military School at Worcester, Massachusetts. At eighteen years of age, by
ABIEL JACOB ABBOT
his own wish - not desiring to undertake the profession of his father - he entered the office of the Robey Manufacturing Company of Chelmsford, Massachusetts. His training at home and at school, his private reading and study and the acquaintance which he had already gained with men in active life gave him a good equipment for the exacting business of manufacturing.
Until 1873 Mr. Abbot remained with the Robey Manufacturing Company at Chelmsford. Then he returned to Westford and went into business there in the house of Abbot & Company. In 1876 he became a partner in the firm of Abbot & Company, and held this partnership until 1900, when he became treasurer of the Abbot Worsted Company, the post he holds at the present time. From 1892 to 1898 Mr. Abbot served as chairman of the school committee of Westford, and from 1892 to the present time he has been a mem- ber, as has been said, of the executive committee of the National Association of Wool Manufacturers.
Mr. Abbot is a Unitarian in his religious faith, and for twenty- seven years has served the First Parish Church of Westford as its clerk and a member of the executive committee, He is a Republi- can in politics, but has contented himself with upholding by his vote and influence the principles of the party to which he is devoted, and has not desired to secure political office.
A gentleman of scholarly tastes, Mr. Abbot is particularly well informed in English history, the plays of Shakespeare and the biog- raphies of eminent men, and he has broadened his mind through unusual opportunities of observation as a traveler. He has visited every State in the Union east of the Mississippi, and most of the Western States, Canada, Mexico, and the islands of the Atlantic. He has journeyed extensively also in Europe and in Egypt, and for a number of years has made it his practice to go abroad every second year.
At his home Mr. Abbot finds pleasure in many out-of-door sports. He is fond of sailing, canoeing, baseball, riding and tennis, and for the sake of health and the all-around development which these pastimes give he devotes to them no small share of his time outside of the exactions of business.
Mr. Abbot was married on April 22, 1880, to Mary Alice Moseley, daughter of Edward S. and Charlotte Moseley, who is descended from John Maudesley, or Moseley, who came from England with the first
ABIEL JACOB ABBOT
pioneers to Dorchester in 1630. Mr. and Mrs. Abbot have three children - Edward M. Abbot, who is engaged in manufacturing, John M. Abbot, who is in the banking business, and a daughter.
Mr. Abbot's sons have their father's success in business as an example and encouragement to them. His advice to the young men of his community is " to be diligent in all things, upright in business, scrupulous in speech and habits, and unselfish, thinking not always of themselves but of their obligations to their fellow- men and their duty to be helpful to the community about them." This is not only Mr. Abbot's counsel to others, but the substance of the principles on which he has sought to order a life which has proved to be one of beneficence to his native town and State.
HOMER ALBERS
F OMER ALBERS, a Boston lawyer with a reputation for handling cases of large importance, formerly a member of the Faculty of the Boston University Law School, and lecturer on Business Law at the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, was born at Warsaw, Illinois, February 28, 1863. His father, Claus Albers, who was born November 25, 1817, and died January 23, 1892, was the son of John Dietrich and Sophia (Lange) Albers, and in 1836 came from Zeven, in the Kingdom of Hanover. On March 5, 1839, he married Rebecca Knoop, who was born Decem- ber 26, 1818, immigrated to America from Zeven in 1838, and died July 9, 1896.
For many years Claus Albers was a prominent flour manufacturer at Warsaw. He was a man of great uprightness and exactness in his life and his dealings with others, and of thoroughness in his work. The training of his sons, which received first the strong moral and spiritual influence of their mother, had also his own earnest atten- tion. To teach them the value of money and that no honest work is degrading, he gave them no allowance until they went to college, but paid them for manual labor at his country place, house and flour mill. To gain something they had to do something - a practical schooling, the value and importance of which they were able to appreciate in later years.
In due time Homer Albers attended the public schools - inclu- ding the High School of Warsaw. He then entered the Central Wesleyan College at Warrenton, Missouri, and after the usual course he graduated in 1882 with the A.B. degree, receiving the honorary A.M. degree in 1885. From the age of six years he had expressed a determination to become a lawyer. With this purpose still in view, he went from college to the Boston University Law School, and graduated from this institution in 1885, receiving the LL.B. degree. It was while at the Law School that he encountered his first real difficulties. His father failed in business, and from that
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HOMER ALBERS
time he was obliged to pay his own expenses, which he did by work as evening librarian of the Social Law Library of Boston and by tutoring in law.
He was admitted to the Suffolk County Bar in 1885, when his work began as attorney-at-law in Boston. At the autumn term of that year he was engaged as instructor in the Boston University Law School, and soon thereafter was made a member of the Faculty and a lecturer in the same institution. His marked success in teaching and in practice soon gained him distinction. In 1900, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology having established a Depart- ment of Business Law, Mr. Albers was selected as eminently fitted to conduct the course, which he has continued to do from that time to the present. He has declined offered professorships in law in Michi- gan University at Ann Arbor and in the Northwestern University.
He was appointed a member of the State Ballot Law Commission in 1899, and reappointed by successive governors until the expira- tion of the term in 1905. When the Massachusetts Legislature created two additional justices of the Superior Court in 1903, there was a lively contest for the new places. The appointment of Mr. Albers was strongly urged by Judge James R. Dunbar and other prominent men of the bench and bar, and he was named in the first appointment of a justice ever made by Governor Bates. Mr. Albers, however, felt obliged to decline this unsought honor.
As attorney for Thomas W. Lawson, Mr. Albers has had a varied experience with many intricate and perplexing affairs; and he has also acted as attorney for C. I. Hood & Company, the Wells & Richard- son Company, and other houses having important legal business. He conducted the celebrated gas cases in the Legislature. He has had numerous trade-mark cases in different parts of the United States, and a great variety of other business calling for legal acumen, ability and discretion of the highest order.
Mr. Albers is a steadfast Republican in politics. He is well known in professional and social life, and is a member of the Uni- versity Club of Boston and of the Boston Art Club, the old Massa- chusetts Club, and the Brae Burn Country Club. He attends the Episcopal Church. He is fond of travel, from which he gets his most delightful relaxation, but also finds enjoyment in such sports as golf. His residence is now in Brookline; his office in Boston.
He was married June 26, 1889, to Minnie M. Martin, daughter
HOMER ALBERS
of Charles H. and Sarah (Goodell) Martin, granddaughter of Hiram and Salome (Dunham) Martin, and of Harry and Lucinda (Weaver) Goodell.
One so successful as a teacher and a practical business man is unusually well qualified to offer suggestions for the strengthening of sound ideals in our American life. To young people Mr. Albers would advise: "First, good character; second, work; third, more work." And he adds: "Don't merely do enough work to fill your position; if that is all you do, you are not entitled to a better position."
Ang but GU ams 2 6-
EDWIN FARNSWORTH ATKINS
E DWIN FARNSWORTH ATKINS, merchant, sugar planter and manufacturer, capitalist, was born in Boston, Massa- chusetts, January 13, 1850. His father, Elisha Atkins, was a son of Joshua and Sally (Snow) Atkins, grandson of Samuel and Ruth (Lombard) Atkins and a descendant from Henry Atkins, the Pilgrim, who came from England to New England in 1639 and settled in Plymouth; of Edmund Freeman, the Pilgrim, who came from England about 1650 and located in Sandwich, Plymouth Colony. Elisha Atkins was a merchant in Boston and married Mary E. Free- man, daughter of William and Elizabeth (Shepherd) Freeman, granddaughter of Elkana and Mary (Myrick) Freeman, and a descendant from Elder William Brewster of the Mayflower, the Pilgrim father of the English settlement in Leyden, Holland, 1608, and of the Plymouth settlement in America in 1620.
Edwin Farnsworth Atkins was brought up largely in the country, instructed in private schools in Boston and became a clerk in his father's office, in Boston, in 1867. He adopted the business of his father through personal preference and he spent much of his life in Cuba devoted to the development of sugar planting and manu- facturing. He became the owner of the Soledad Estate at Cienfuegas, Cuba, and personally managed its large interests, both as a producer on Cuban soil and as a shipper. As a sugar refiner he was for ten years the president of the Bay State Sugar Refinery Company of Boston, and later a director of the Boston Sugar Refining Company; after the death of his father in 1888, he succeeded him as a direc- tor and vice-president of the Union Pacific Railway system, which position he held up to the time of its reorganization. He is president of the Soledad Sugar Company; the Trinidad Sugar Company, Cuba; the Boston Wharf Company (real estate); the Aetna Mills (woolen); and a director of the Eliot National Bank, the American Trust Company, the Guarantee Company of North America, and the West End Street Railway Company. He is a director of the Boston
EDWIN FARNSWORTH ATKINS
Merchants' Association. The Degree of Master of Arts was con- ferred upon him June 24, 1903, by Harvard University.
He was married October 11, 1882, to Katharine, daughter of Frank and Helen (Hartshorn) Wrisley, of Boston, and the three chil- dren born of this marriage are Robert Wrisley, June 2, 1889, Edwin Farnsworth, Jr., April 21, 1891, and Helen Atkins, June 28, 1893. Mr. Atkins's home is at Belmont, Massachusetts. He generally spends the winter months on his plantation in Cuba. His political affiliation is with the Republican party, in the counsels of which he is an aggressive champion of tariff reform. His religious faith is that of the Unitarian denomination. He is a member of many of the social, business and political clubs of Boston, New York and Cuba.
Frederick Clyer
FREDERICK AYER
F REDERICK AYER was the son of Frederick Ayer, a com- missioned officer in the War of 1812, a man highly esteemed by his fellow citizens on account of his fine character and integrity. On his father's side he descends from John Ayer, who came from England and settled in Haverhill in 1632, removing to Saybrook early in the eighteenth century. His mother, Persis (Cook) Ayer, was a descendant of the Cook family which came from England and settled at Cambridge, later moving to Preston, Con- necticut, where she was born.
Mr. Ayer was born on the eighth day of December, 1822, and at an early age was sent to the public schools in Ledyard, Connecticut, and completed his education at a private academy in Baldwinsville, New York. He then entered the store of John H. Tomlinson & Company, of the latter place, as a clerk. Soon, however, he was sent to Syracuse, New York, as manager of a store belonging to the same firm, which later took him into partnership. Three years later he formed a partnership with Hon. Dennis McCarthy, under the firm name of McCarthy & Ayer, which continued about eleven years, Mr. Ayer withdrawing from this firm in the spring of 1855 for the purpose of joining his brother, Dr. James C. Ayer, in the manage- ment of the business of Ayer's Proprietary Medicines, the firm being J. C. Ayer & Company; later, on the death of Dr. Ayer, incorporated as the J. C. Ayer Company. Mr. Frederick Ayer was elected the first treasurer of this corporation, holding this office until 1893, when the pressure of other interests forced him to resign. In 1871 with his brother, James C. Ayer, Frederick Ayer bought a controlling interest in the stock of the Tremont Mills and Suffolk Manufacturing Company of Lowell, consolidating the two companies under the name of the Tremont and Suffolk Mills.
In June, 1885, Mr. Ayer purchased at auction the entire property of the Washington Mills at Lawrence, Massachusetts, and subse- quently formed a corporation known as the Washington Mills Com- pany, and became its treasurer.
FREDERICK AYER
The American Woolen Company was organized by Mr. Ayer on March 29, 1899, he being the first president of this corporation and continuing in that office until 1905.
Mr. Ayer has had many diversified interests and has assisted largely in the development of new enterprises, for which his advice and cooperation are much valued. He was one of the organizers of the New England Telephone and Telegraph Company, and served as one of its directors until 1896, when he resigned from the board and was succeeded by his son.
Mr. Ayer was one of the organizers and for several years treasurer of the Lake Superior Ship Canal Railway and Iron Company, which owned upwards of four hundred thousand acres of timber and mineral lands in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and was one of its direc- tors until its property was taken over by the Keweenaw Associa- tion, on whose board of managers he remained for some years when he resigned and was succeeded by his son. He was also one of the builders of the Portage Lake Canal, which runs from Keweenaw Bay across Keweenaw Point, Michigan, connecting Keweenaw Bay with Lake Superior. This canal was afterwards sold to the United States Government.
To-day Mr. Ayer is vice-president and director of the American Woolen Company (New Jersey); president and director American Woolen Company, of New York. Director Boston Elevated Railroad Company; vice-president and trustee Central Savings Bank, of Lowell, Massachusetts; director Columbian National Life Insurance Com- pany; director and vice-president of the International Trust Com- pany; director American Loan and Trust Company; president and director J. C. Ayer Company; president and director Lowell & An- dover Railroad; director Tremont and Suffolk Mills; director United States Mining Company. He was one of the organizers of the Lowell and Andover Railroad, and has ever since been its president.
He is a member of the Algonquin Club, Beacon Society and Country Clubs of Boston. His favorite exercise is horseback riding.
In 1858 Mr. Ayer was married to Miss Cornelia Wheaton at Syracuse, New York. She died in 1878. There were four children of this marriage, Ellen W., James C., Charles F. and Louise R. Mr. Ayer was married again to Miss Ellen Banning at St. Paul, Minnesota. The children of this marriage are Beatrice B., Katharine and Frederick, Jr.
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Hollis R. Bailey
HOLLIS RUSSELL BAILEY
H OLLIS RUSSELL BAILEY, lawyer, chairman of the board of bar examiners of Massachusetts, was born in North Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts, February 24, 1852. His father, Otis Bailey, lived in the old Governor Bradstreet house, once the home of Anne Bradstreet, the first female poet of America. He was a farmer and butcher, a deacon in the Unitarian Church, held several town offices and was a man of public spirit, integrity and frugality. He married Lucinda Alden, daughter of Alden Loring and Lucinda (Briggs) Loring, of Duxbury, Massachusetts, and a descendant of Thomas Loring, of Axminster, England, who came to Hingham about 1635, and of John Alden of the Mayflower, 1620. James Bailey, the progenitor of the family to which Hollis Russell Bailey belongs was born in England about 1612 and came to Rowley about 1640 and his descendant, Samuel Bailey, Jr., was killed in the battle of Bunker Hill, June 19, 1775.
Hollis Russell Bailey was a strong and active child, fond of out-door life, including fishing and hunting, and from his earliest years was constantly engaged on the farm in strenuous manual labor when not in school. He claims that this mode of life had the effect to make him strong, self-reliant, industrious and persistent. His mother's influence in these early days also made for truth, sobriety and willingness to work. His models and ideals of great men were derived from reading biographies and autobiographies and his study of Goodwin's Greek Moods and Tenses helped him in writing clear English. He was obliged to earn money while in college to meet his expenses. He attended Punchard Free School, Andover; John- son High School, North Andover; Phillips Academy, Andover, where he was graduated in 1873, and Harvard University, where he gained his A.B. degree in 1877, LL.B. 1878, and A.M. 1879, the latter degree being given after a post-graduate year at the Harvard Law School. He also studied law with Hyde, Dickinson and Howe. Speaking of his choice of a profession he says: "I had no strong
HOLLIS RUSSELL BAILEY
bent for the law. I could have pursued medicine or engineering with equal pleasure. The influence of my oldest sister, Miss Sarah Loring Bailey, largely determined my choice and first roused my ambition to seek for success in the legal profession. Outside my own fam- ily, my college associates were possibly the most helpful factors in stimulating and shaping my life."
He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1880 and began a general practice throughout New England, with an office in Boston at No. 30 Court Street. He served for a short time as private secre- tary to Chief Justice Horace Gray of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. He was married February 12, 1885, to Mary Persis, daughter of the Hon. Charles H. Bell and Sarah A. (Gilman) Bell, of Exeter, N. H. Her father was at one time governor of New Hamp- shire and United States Senator. One child was born of this mar- riage, Gladys Loring Bailey. They lived in Boston up to 1890 when they removed to Cambridge. He served as chairman of the City Committee of the Non-Partisan Municipal party of Cambridge, for one year, 1902; is conveyancer for the Cambridge Savings Bank; clerk of the First Church in Cambridge (Unitarian); in 1900 became a member of the board of bar examiners of Massachusetts, and in 1903 became chairman of the board. While in Harvard he was elected one of the "first eight " to the Phi Beta Kappa in 1876, and was second marshal in 1877. He was also elected to membership in the Cambridge Club; the Colonial Club of Cambridge, where he served for a time as a member of the committee on admission; the American Free Trade League; the Bailey-Bayley Family Associa- tion, serving as its president; the Bostonian Society; the American Bar Association. He left the Republican party when James G. Blaine was nominated for president in 1882, and from that time has acted with the Democratic party. His youthful athletic exercise was playing baseball and his recreation fishing and hunting. At college he was a track athlete, entering the three-mile walking race and earning second place. He failed to pass the bar examination in June, 1879, but was successful in January, 1880. He says: "Every lawyer loses some cases. I have always tried to be what is called a 'good loser.'" To young men he says: "Be honest; be truthful; be public-spirited; be tolerant; be industrious."
John Bascom
JOHN BASCOM
T HOMAS BOSCOMBE emigrated from England and settled in 1635 in Roxbury. As the population of the State in- creased his descendants went, by slow stages, farther west. In the sixth generation, Aaron Bascom, a graduate of Harvard College, was called as the first pastor to the Congregational Church in Chester, Hampshire County. Here he spent his entire life, a forceful man of the Puritanical type. He had a family of eight children. Three sons, Samuel, John and Reynolds, graduated at Williams College. John Bascom graduated in 1807, and at Andover Theological Seminary in 1811. He married Laura Woodbridge, the daughter of Major Theodore Woodbridge, of the Revolutionary Army. The Woodbridges were a distinguished family of Connecti- cut, of long standing and especially associated with the ministry. He became a home missionary, first in Northern Pennsylvania and later in Central New York. He was located during the later years of his life at Genoa, Cayuga County. He died early, leaving a family of small children in straitened circumstances. After a little, the family left its country home and removed to the adjoining village of Ludlowville. The daughters were Harriet, Mary and Cornelia. The son, the subject of this sketch, was John. Mary was unusually ambitious and pushing. She secured admission to the Willard Seminary, Troy, paying expenses, according to the custom of the school, by the proceeds of instruction given later. She secured the admission of her two sisters, and all three taught for a series of years in the South. They made the way open and easy for the education of their younger brother.
John was born in Genoa, May 1, 1827. He prepared for college at Homer Academy, of which his sister Mary was at that time the woman principal. The widowhood of his mother and the limited resources of the family gave him, in all his earlier years, an abundance of work at home. The local libraries of New York, just being estab- lished by the State, served him an excellent turn. He graduated
JOHN BASCOM
at Williams in 1849, in a large class, which has produced able men. He spent the first year after graduation in Hoosick Falls as princi- pal of Ball Seminary. The second year was spent in the study of law at Rochester; and the third in Auburn Theological Seminary. He was then called to a tutorship at Williams, which he occupied one year and part of the succeeding year. His eyes then failed him, and it re- quired a half dozen years before he gained even a partial use of them. He completed his theological course at Andover, and was invited to the professorship of rhetoric at Williams in 1855. This position he held for nineteen years, and was then called to the presidency of the University of Wisconsin, where he remained between thirteen and fourteen years. Finding the duties more burdensome than he could bear, he resigned in 1887 and returned to Williams, where he has since given instruction in political and social subjects.
He married Abbie, the daughter of Rev. Sylvester Burt, of Great Barrington, in 1853. She dying shortly after, he was married to Emma Curtiss, daughter of Orren Curtiss, of Sheffield, a woman especially resourceful and aidful, and who had achieved a position as a successful teacher. They have celebrated their golden wedding. There are three living children, George, Jean and Florence, all gradu- ates of the University of Wisconsin. Florence was the first woman to receive the degree of Ph.D. from the Johns Hopkins University, and the first to be appointed on the United States Geological Survey. She is professor of geology at Bryn Mawr College.
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