USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 5
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18
him as a friend. His interests, business and political, take him frequently to Boston, but during the sessions of Congress he is con- stant in his attendance to his public duties. Although young in years and service among the senators, he is a member of some of the most important committees of the Senate. In 1908 he was elected a delegate-at-large to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, which nominated Taft and Sherman.
Williams College honored Mr. Crane with the degree of A.M. in 1899, and Harvard University with the degree of LL.D. in 1903. He is a Congregationalist in his religious affiliations.
Mr. Crane was married on February 5, 1880, to Miss Mary Benner, daughter of Robert and Mary Benner, who died February 16, 1884, leaving one son, Winthrop Murray Crane, Jr., now engaged in the ancestral industry of paper manufacturing. Senator Crane was remarried on July 10, 1906, to Miss Josephine Porter Boardman, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. William J. Boardman, of Cleveland and Washington, descended on the one side from Elizur Boardman, United States Senator from Connecticut, and on the other from Joseph Earl Sheffield, the founder of the Sheffield Scientific School, of Yale University. A son has recently been born to Mr. and Mrs. Crane.
STEPHEN MOODY CROSBY
S TEPHEN MOODY CROSBY was born in Salisbury, Massa- chusetts, August 14, 1827. His father was Nathan Crosby, of Sandwich, New Hampshire, born February 12, 1798; his mother was Rebecca Moody, born June 18, 1798; the grandfathers were Asa Crosby (July 6, 1765-April 12, 1836) and Stephen Moody (July 21, 1767-April 21, 1842). The grandmothers were Betsey Hoit (1776-April 2, 1804) and Frances Coffin (February 5, 1773- March 22, 1858). The father was a lawyer with a judicial mind, clearness of thought, integrity of purpose and unfailing good temper. He was the descendant of Simon and Ann Crosby who, with their son Thomas, came in the Susan and Ellen in 1635 from Lancashire, England, and settled in Cambridge.
In boyhood Stephen Moody Crosby spent a few months in a news- paper office, and in a bookstore. This gave him an opportunity to indulge his taste for reading. His moral nature was strengthened by his mother's influence. He had the range of his grandfather's old-fashioned library and access to the works of Scott, James, Marryat and Cooper. He prepared for college in the Boston Latin School and the Lowell High School, and received the degree of A.B. with the class of 1849, at Dartmouth College. He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1852.
Personal tastes and early surroundings united to determine his profession, in which he was supported by his contact with men. He has been associated in business with the Manchester (N. H.) Print Works (1854), Hayden Manufacturing Company (1857), and Massa- chusetts Trust Company (1873).
He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1869, and of the Senate in 1870-71. He has been State director of the Boston and Albany Railroad, and was commissioner of the Hoosac Tunnel. He was major-paymaster in the United States Army, and Brevet-Lieutenant-Colonel (1862-66).
He is a member of the Boston Art Club; of the military order
STEPHEN MOODY CROSBY
United States Legion of Honor; Cincinnati Society; University Club and Unitarian Club. Of these organizations he has been president in turn, and of the Boston Art Club, ten years. His political rela- tions have been with the Whig and Republican parties in an unbroken line. He is connected with the Second Church, Boston (Unitarian). In early life he found hunting and fishing profitable amusements.
He was married October 12, 1855, to Anna, daughter of Joel Hayden and Matella Weir Smith, granddaughter of Josiah Hayden and Ester (Halleck) Hayden, and a descendant of John Haidon, who came from England to Braintree in the Mary and John, 1630. There are no children.
His counsel to young men is: "Do well each day's duties and take each day's pleasures as fully as you can, and wait patiently for results. Be temperate in all things."
Dsbrowley
JOHN GIFFORD CROWLEY
J OHN GIFFORD CROWLEY, son of Thomas and Mary Ann (Gifford) Crowley, was born in Plymouth, Massachusetts, February 19, 1856. His father was a sea captain, and look- ing out on the blue waves it was no wonder that all his dreams were of the sea, and what was beyond where the sky closed down. He had but a limited opportunity for education. There were seven children, and John the oldest must work hard. It was work, he says, that was all he knew in early life. His grand- father and grandmother on both paternal and maternal sides had come from that stormy land, Newfoundland, and he, the scion of hardy stock, would show his grit in life's battle. At the tender age of eleven, frail of hand but firm of heart, he bravely began his part. Stepping on board the vessel of which he was later captain, he began in the cook's galley. Rising from there, and staying on the same ship, he passed the successive grades of ordinary, able seaman, mate, and at last at the age of twenty was captain.
Deprived as he had been in all these years of all that school gives the mind, yet he had not been idle. The remembrance of the in- tellectual strength and moral rectitude shown by his parents were his inspiration in all his way upward. His principal reading had been that which related to his calling. He felt that that American inven- tion, the fore-and aft-vessel, the schooner, had not yet come to its true place in the world's commercial activity, but with his guidance it should. When his young eyes looked out on the Gurnet and the white sails passing by it, he saw only "two stickers," as the utmost that progress had given in the way of a fore-and-aft ship, since when, in 1713, down the ways went the first fore and after, and an enthusiast cried, thus giving forever after the name to that type of craft, "There she scoons." From the time that vessel slid into the water at Gloucester, for fifty years the farthest reach in the progress of the fore-and-aft craft toward carrying the coastwise commerce of our country had been a vessel which, at the utmost, carried per-
JOHN GIFFORD CROWLEY
haps two hundred and fifty tons. There were very few three masted schooners on the coast the day he entered the galley of his first vessel. Under his guidance, however, and directed by his courage, mast after mast was added, each the seamen said "to be the last." But he said each time, "One more stick." And one more it has been until now we see the seven-master under her 14,000 feet of canvas, instead of the paltry 500 feet spread by the largest schooner on the coast when, in 1867, young Crowley began life on the sea. The development of the coastwise trade, its success, as competitor with the railroads in carrying coal from the ports nearest the mines to the seaboard of New England, has been accomplished through the wise and far-seeing guidance of this man.
Captain Crowley has been twice married: first, October 28, 1879, second, September 8, 1902. Of the four children born to him, a son and daughter are now living. The son is in college at Dartmouth and the daughter at home.
He is in religious faith a Baptist, and while not being active politically, has always voted the Republican ticket. Fraternally, he is a Mason.
He is now, at the age of fifty-one, treasurer, secretary, director and member of the executive committee of the Coastwise Transporta- tion Company, director of the Eastern Fishing Company, general manager of all vessels owned by the Coastwise Transportation Com- pany. This company owns many vessels that up and down our coast set on their six and seven masts their monstrous spread of canvas, and all because of the genius of John Gifford Crowley, the boy who at eleven, friendless and unaided, stepped into the galley as cook.
Captain Crowley's words of advice to young men are to be "in- dustrious, honest and upright in all their dealings."
FAYETTE SAMUEL CURTIS
F AYETTE SAMUEL CURTIS, vice-president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, was born on a farm near Owego, New York, December 16, 1843. His par- ents were Allen and Catharine (Steel) Curtis. His father was a farmer, esteemed for his industry, patriotism and purity of purpose, who emigrated from Massachusetts to the southern tier section of the Empire State which was then but sparsely settled. His mother was a woman of fine mind and character, who exerted a strong influ- ence for good upon the intellectual and moral life of her family. His earliest known ancestor in America was Henry Curtis, one of the Puritan settlers in Massachusetts Bay Colony. The original emigrant of that name with his wife arrived in Massachusetts from Stratford-on-Avon in 1643, removing to Windsor, Connecticut, and later to Northampton, Massachusetts, where he died in 1661.
When Fayette Samuel Curtis was old enough to work he had tasks that were common to boys on a farm. His health was good and conditions for its maintainance were favorable. While indus- trious in his work on the farm he was inclined to be studious. The school terms were short, but such opportunities as they afforded were carefully improved. He was anxious to secure a liberal education, but before he was ready for college he decided to become an engineer. After receiving his early education at the public and private schools of Owego and taking a course of civil engineering at the Owego Academy, he became a practical student of engineering, starting in 1863 at small pay as flagman with a surveying party for the Albany and Susquehanna Railroad. Later, as transit man, he demonstrated such skill and ability that he was soon promoted to the head of that branch of the service. Soon after his services were sought as leveler for the Southern Central Railroad of New York in the Lehigh Valley section. Changing his location to New York City he was for two years associated with Gen. George S. Green, a prominent member of the engineering corps then engaged in the work of surveying and
FAYETTE SAMUEL CURTIS
laying out the roads, streets and avenues of what is now the important section of the Borough of the Bronx.
Mr. Curtis entered the service of the New York and Harlem Rail- road in 1870 as assistant engineer. He held the position but a short time being promoted to that of chief engineer of the New York and Harlem Railroad, afterwards division engineer of the New York Central Railroad, then chief engineer of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company up to May 1, 1900. Since that date he has held the position of second vice-president of that Company with headquarters at Boston. Mr. Curtis' career has been one of steady advancement. Besides being vice-president of the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company, he is trustee of the Boston Terminal Company; a director in the New Bedford, Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket Steam Boat Company; New England Rail- road Company; New Haven and Northampton Railroad Company; New York Connecting Railroad; Old Colony Railroad Company; Providence Terminal Company; also president and director Union Freight Railroad Company. His club affiliations include the En- gineering Club of New York City; Country Club of New Haven; Union Club of Boston; Tioga Club of Owego and Quinipiac Club of New Haven. Mr. Curtis is affiliated with the Masonic fraternity, being a member of the Friendship Lodge of Owego, New York; Jerusalem Chapter of Owego, New York, and Constantine Com- mandery Knights Templars of New York City.
Chicharito Java.
RICHARD HENRY DANA
R ICHARD HENRY DANA, lawyer, philanthropist, political reformer, was born in Cambridge, Middlesex County, Massa- chusetts, January 3, 1851. His father, Richard Henry Dana (1815-1882), was a son of Richard Henry (1787-1879) and Ruth Charlotte (Smith) Dana; grandson of Francis (1743-1811) and Elizabeth (Ellery) Dana, and John Wilson and Susanna (Tillinghast) Smith of Taunton, Massachusetts, great-grandson of Richard (1700- 1772) and Lydia (Trowbridge) Dana, and of William Ellery, the signer, and a descendant from Richard and Ann (Bullard) Dana through Daniel their youngest son and Naomi (Croswell) Dana, his wife. Richard Dana, the emigrant and progenitor of the Dana family in America, was probably of French descent. Richard settled in Cam- bridge by or before 1640 and died in 1690. Richard (1700-1772) of the third generation was graduated at Harvard 1718, was a Son of Liberty, and subjected himself to the penalties of treason by taking the oath of Andrew Oliver not to enforce the Stamp Act (1765). He was Representative to the General Court and was at the head of the Boston bar. He married Lydia, daughter of Thomas, and sister of Judge Edmund Trowbridge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts, one of the first to wear the scarlet robe and powdered wig. Francis Dana (1743-1811), Harvard 1762, was a Son of Liberty, delegate to Con- tinental Congress from November 1776 to 1780 and 1784-85, signer of the Articles of Confederation; U. S. minister to Russia 1781-83; judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts 1785-91 and chief justice of Massachusetts 1791-1806; a founder and vice-president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, LL.D, Harvard 1792. Richard Henry (1787-1879) was the author, poet and essayist. He was one of the founders of the "North American Review." Richard H. Dana (1815-1882) was the defender of Sims and Anthony Burns, fugitive slaves; counsel of United States government before the International Conference at Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1877, growing out of the Geneva Award of 1872; author of "Two Years before the
RICHARD HENRY DANA
Mast" (1840) (1869); "To Cuba and Back" (1859); "Annotations to Wheaton's International Law" (1886), etc.
Richard Henry Dana (born January 3, 1851) was prepared for college in public and private schools of Cambridge and St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and was graduated at Harvard University, class orator and A.B., 1874, and at the law school of the University LL.B., 1877. He was stroke oar of the Freshman crew 1870; for three years stroke oar and for two years captain of the University crew, and during his law course at the University he had the advantage of extended travel in Europe where he carried letters of introduction that brought him into contact with persons of dis- tinction in society and statesmanship in every city he visited. He continued the study of law in the office of Brooks, Ball & Storey and in 1879 made the trip in a sailing vessel from New York to San Fran- cisco, in which voyage he visited many of the scenes so graphically described in his father's "Two Years before the Mast." He declined the position of secretary of legation at London, proffered by President Hayes in 1877, and on January 6, 1878, he was married to Edith, daughter of Henry Wadsworth and Frances (Appleton) Longfellow and one of the "blue-eyed banditti" of the poet's "Children's Hour." Six children, four sons and two daughters, blessed this union.
Mr. Dana's law practice soon became extensive and his service in behalf of various religious, charitable and civil service reform organizations was freely given. He became a regular contributor to the "Civil Service Record," which he edited 1889-92, and he was an uncompromising advocate of tariff and political reform. He was for many years secretary of the Massachusetts Civil Service Reform League. In 1884 he drafted the act which became the Massachusetts Civil Service law; in 1888 he drew up the act which resulted in the adoption of the Australian Ballot by the Commonwealth of Massa- chusetts, the pioneer movement in the United States in that direction. He planned the scheme of work of the Associated Charities of Boston, 1878-79 and was chairman of its committee of organization. He served as president of the board of trustees of the New England Conservatory of Music 1891-98, and during that time raised $165,000 for the institution. He has been president of the Cambridge Humane Society; president of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association (1890-91) and he was active in trying to introduce into Massachusetts the Norwegian system of regulating the sale of liquors. He served as
RICHARD HENRY DANA
president of the Cambridge Civil Service Reform Association 1897- 1901. He was a member of the Standing Committee of the diocese of Massachusetts and was elected a substitute delegate to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church in America held in Boston in 1904, serving as chairman of the General Convention com- mittee. He was made trustee and treasurer of the Episcopal The- ological School of Cambridge in 1894, and he has held the office of president of the Alumni Association of St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire. In 1901 Governor Crane of Massachusetts ap- pointed him one of three commissioners to inquire into the question of constructing a dam at the mouth of the Charles River, and the favorable report of the Commission made in 1903, which led to the accomplishment of the great project, was written largely by Mr. Dana. In 1901 he was appointed by the board of overseers of Harvard University on the visiting committee in the department of philosophy, and organized the movement for raising funds for building Emerson Hall which resulted in procuring about $165,000.
He is a member of the executive committee of the Cambridge Good Government Club and the Massachustets Election Laws League, was president of the Massachusetts Civil Service Reform Association, and is chairman of the Council of the United States Civil Service Reform League. He is a vice-president of the Massachusetts Reform Club; a member of the New York Reform Club; president of the Library Hall Association, organized for the improvement of the municipal government in Cambridge. His social club affiliations in- clude the Union and Exchange Clubs of Boston; the Essex County Club; the Oakley Country Club of Watertown, of which he was presi- dent, and the Harvard Club of New York. His trusteeships have included the New England Conservatory of Music; the Oliver Building Trust; the Washington Building Trust; the Delta Building Trust; the Bromfield Building Trust and the Congress Street Building Trust. He is the author of "Double Taxation Unjust and Inexpedient" (1892); "Double Taxation in Massachusetts" (1895); "Substitutes for the Caucus" (Forum, 1886); "Workings of the Australian Ballot Act in Massachusetts" (Annals of American Academy, 1892); "Ad- dress on the One Hundreth Anniversary of the town of Dana" (1901); and other papers and addresses on civil service reform, taxation, ballot reform, election expenses and better houses for working men.
EDMUND DOWSE
I N the midst of the second war for independence, on September 17, 1813, there was born in the village of Sherborn, Massa- chusetts, a child who was destined to live on as an old man into the succeeding century and to bear an active and conspicuous part in its affairs. Edmund Dowse was the son of Benjamin Dowse, a leather dresser, manufacturer and farmer of Sherborn, and of Thankful (Chamberlain) Dowse, his wife. The family was one of stalwart old New England stock, tracing its origin back to the year when Winthrop brought his pioneers over seas and the town of Boston was founded in 1630. Lawrence Dowse, who came from Broughton in Hampshire County, England, made his home not in Boston proper, but in the village of Charlestown, on the opposite riverside. Here he and his descendants lived until the stirring events of the Lexington fight and the siege of Boston. Their home was burned by the British in the battle of Bunker Hill, where three of the family fought side by side with the men of Prescott and Stark. The family home was then removed to Sherborn.
The Dowses of Sherborn were men of scholarly tastes. Thomas Dowse, especially, is remembered for the gift of his valuable library to the Massachusetts Historical Society. This hereditary love of learning drew young Edmund Dowse, after he had filled the measure of the schools of his native town, to the broader curriculum of Wrentham Academy and then to the doors of Amherst College. He graduated at Amherst in 1836 with the degree of A.B., and, choosing the honorable profession of the clergyman, he studied theology with Rev. Dr. Jacob Ide, of West Medway, Massachusetts, and with a famous teacher of his day, Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Em- mons.
Two years after his graduation, in 1838, the pastorate of his own home church, the Pilgrim Church of Sherborn, became vacant. He was called to the church as its minister, and that same post in his own town he retained for sixty-seven years thereafter, an unbroken
EDMUND DOWSE
single charge almost, if not quite, without a parallel in the eccle- siastical annals of Massachusetts.
In these times when the clergymen of most denominations are practically itinerants, always on the move, restless and yearning for a change after a service of three or four or half a dozen years - and with their flock sometimes yearning for a change also - it is not easy to understand how one pastor could preach from the same pulpit, and preach, moreover, in the town where he was born and lived as a child, for well-nigh the threescore and ten years of allotted existence. But Edmund Dowse did this, and he did more, too. He was a patriot, alert to the interests of government, a man who did his duty at the ballot box and town meeting as well as at the prayer meeting. His activity in public affairs and aptitude for public service led to his election, in 1869 and 1870, as a member of the Massachusetts Senate. And when his term had finished as a Senator, his fellow Senators paid him the distinguished honor of electing him as their chaplain. That post of chaplain in the Massachusetts Senate Mr. Dowse retained unbrokenly for twenty-five years - the longest period during which one minister has acted as chaplain of the Senate in the history of the Commonwealth.
Early in his life the young minister had become interested in the educational work of Sherborn, and for sixty-five years he was chair- man of the school committee of the town. He saw old educational methods change to new and an army of children pass through the Sherborn schools in those sixty-five years. And all the time his was the controlling power that molded the training of this host of youth for after life.
Now if it be asked, how a minister could serve his people so long and acceptably, the public schools so long, and the Massachusetts Senate for a quarter of a century, the answer is in the manner of the man that Edmund Dowse was and the kind of life he lived. He was a fervent Christian, an earnest, interesting and convincing preacher, a most faithful pastor of his people, benignant, sympathetic, devoted in an extraordinary degree. He had a great brain and a great heart with it, and he threw himself with all his energy into every associa- tion of life and everything he had to do. The joys of his people and his friends were his joys; their sorrows and anxieties were his also. He saw the little children of his flock, when he began his pastorate, grow up through youth and manhood and womanhood to old age,
EDMUND DOWSE
while he still ministered in the Pilgrim pulpit. This unusual experi- ence, the warmth of his heart, his tactfulness, his power of discern- ment, his fine, strong New England common sense, and, above all, his enrapt devotion to his calling as a teacher of religion and a minister of Christ, enabled him to live his long life among familiar scenes and to do an amount of good work which can be credited to few men of any land, in any century.
In 1886, on the fiftieth anniversary of his class of 1836, Amherst College, his alma mater, bestowed upon Mr. Dowse the honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity, in recognition of his life of rich achieve- ment. The New England parish minister of the years through which he had lived belonged to what has well been described as a genuine peerage, our one American nobility. The fiftieth anni- versary of the pastorate of Dr. Dowse over the Pilgrim Church of Sherborn was celebrated on October 10, 1888, by a great and notable gathering, not only of leaders of the Congregational denomination, but of chief public men of the State. Ex-Governor Long, ex-Gover- nor Claflin, Governor Brackett and several Congressmen sent their congratulations.
At this anniversary meeting Dr. Dowse said of himself in modest reply to the many fervent felicitations: "My early inclinations were toward some form of literary and professional life. Before I became interested in religion, so far as to regard myself a Christian, I secretly formed the purpose to obtain an education in the schools and enter the profession of the law. This feeling was so strong that I was willing to sacrifice the ordinary amusements and sports of the young that I might have the means of pursuing a course of study, and acquiring a knowledge of men and the world. But when in the good providence of God I decided to become a follower of Christ my mind was turned toward the work of the Christian ministry. This was in the way of my literary taste and at the same time promised me a field for the exercise of that love of God and man which seems now to possess my soul."
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.