USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 8
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
While in college his eyes failed him and his health broke down. The professors urged him to drop out for a year but he objected,
EDWIN GINN
saying that if he left his class he should never return. His class- mates lent a helping hand by reading his lessons to him and he suc- ceeded in graduating even above the middle of his class.
Mr. Ginn had hoped to devote himself to purely literary work but, physically handicapped as he was, he abandoned this purpose and determined to enter the publishing business. In coming to this decision he was actuated largely by a desire to influence the world for good by putting the best books into the hands of school children.
On leaving college he engaged in a small way in a school-book agency, buying his books outright, and thus was under obligation to no one. His first independent venture was the publishing of Craik's English of Shakespeare, which he obtained from the house of Crosby and Ainsworth. The study of Shakespeare had just begun to be taken up in colleges and secondary schools, and the young publisher realized that it was an opportune time to put out this book. A little later he secured the services of the Rev. Henry N. Hudson, who edited for him twenty-one plays for the use of the schools and the Harvard edition of Shakespeare for libraries.
His second work of importance was Allen's Latin Grammar, a book which was very well received. The success of this book led the young publisher to apply to Professor Goodwin of Harvard for a Greek Grammar. He called upon the professor and made known his errand, who at once said to him, "The manuscript you wish is in my desk at this moment, well-nigh finished." Professor Good- win's "Moods and Tenses " had already established his name among Greek scholars, and almost immediately upon its publication his Greek Grammar found an entrance into nearly all the leading classi- cal schools and colleges in the country.
The popularity of Allen's Latin Grammar, however, was of short duration. It was soon found that the brief course was not sufficient for the schools, that a fuller treatise was necessary for the intelligent study of the texts. Therefore Professor J. B. Greenough was called in to revise and enlarge this book, and to prepare editions of the Latin texts, Cæsar, Cicero and Virgil. Professor Goodwin also en- larged and revised his Greek Grammar, and he and Professor John Williams White began the editing of the Greek texts. These Latin and Greek books laid the foundation for the success of the house of Ginn and Company.
Among other early publications of special importance might be
EDWIN GINN
mentioned Luther Whiting Mason's National Music Course, the first successful attempt to introduce music into the public schools; the series of mathematics by Professor George A. Wentworth of Exeter, New Hampshire, which for nearly a quarter of a century has been the most popular and extensively used series of books ever published in America; Alexis E. Frye's series of geographies, which have revolu- tionized the study of that subject; and Myers', Montgomery's and Allen's histories, which for years have led all other text-books on these subjects in this country.
The limited space reserved for this sketch forbids a detailed account of the many valuable publications on Ginn and Company's list, which numbers over one thousand volumes. We would mention in passing, however, Collar and Daniell's Latin books, Whitney's Essentials of English Grammar, Young's Astronomies, Bergen's Botanies, Blaisdell's Physiologies, Kittredge and Arnold's Language Series, Lockwood and Emerson's Composition and Rhetoric, the Stickney, Jones and Cyr Readers and Smith's Arithmetics.
One of the most important works of Ginn and Company along educational lines is the editing and publishing of the Classics for Children, the first volume of which, an edition of The Lady of the Lake, was issued nearly a quarter of a century ago. This series of books now consists of fifty-seven volumes, the masterpieces of standard authors like Scott, Lamb, Irving, Dickens, Kingsley and Ruskin issued as nearly as possible in complete form. The volumes are specially annotated and adapted for the use of children of the grammar-school grades. They have supplemented the work of the ordinary school readers, which are composed of brief selections, taken largely from the writers of the day and which for generations were the only source of literary culture open to the grammar-school pupil. The part which these classics play in the development of youthful minds is important beyond measure, since about nineteen out of every twenty school children complete their education in the grammar school.
Ginn and Company are also the publishers of a large number of interesting nature books, prominent among which are Mr. Long's studies of animals.
Among the books and authors that have been most helpful to him in his life-work Mr. Ginn counts the following: Plato, Marcus Aurelius, Plutarch's Lives and Morals, Epictetus, Shakespeare,
EDWIN GINN
Bacon, Combe's Essay on the Constitution of Man, Pope, Swift, Burke's Speeches, Scott, Thackeray, Goldsmith, Ruskin, Words- worth, Theodore Parker, Sumner, Wendell Phillips, Beecher, Brown- ing, Whittier, Gladstone, and the historical works of Guizot, Prescott and Motley.
Philanthropy of all kinds has always appealed to Mr. Ginn. He has given especial attention to the housing of the poor in model tenements and to the cause of peace and arbitration looking toward the disarmament of the world's great armies. This last he counts as his greatest effort for the good of mankind and to this work he is giving a large amount of time and money. He is now bringing out a series of books which it is hoped may prove the foundation stone for " An International School of Peace," to be organized on broad lines for the education of the peoples of all nations to nobler and wiser methods of settling disputes.
Mr. Ginn's political affiliations have always been with the Repub- lican party, but of late years he has differed with his party, especially with regard to the tariff, voting independently on several occasions. His family were Universalists, but his connections are now with the Unitarian Church.
He was married in 1869 to Clara, daughter of Jesse and Martha (Bartlett) Glover; and again in 1893 to Francesca, daughter of Carl Christian and Maria Christina (Vitriarius) Grebé, of Germany. By his first wife he had four children, Jessie, Maurice, Herbert and Clara; and by his second wife two, Edwin, Jr., and Marguerita Christina.
John In Herlords
JOHN M. HARLOW
J OHN M. HARLOW was born in Whitehall, New York, Novem- ber 25, 1819, and died at his home in Woburn, Massachusetts, May 13, 1907. In boyhood he attended the common schools of his native town, and later he fitted for college in West Poultney, Vermont, and in Ashby, Massachusetts. He engaged for a while in teaching and took up the study of medicine in 1840. He pursued a special course in a School of Anatomy in Philadelphia, and graduated at the Jefferson Medical College in the same city in 1844. He was patient, accurate and conscientious in the endeavor to learn all that can be known about the human constitution and the best means of relieving the many ills that human flesh is heir to. His first out- look upon the world was in a country of hills and lakes and streams of living water. He caught the sunshine of the hills and carried it with him through a long life, shedding brightness and good cheer upon the paths of all who traveled with him to the end of the journey. The early lessons learned in the great school of nature did much to give him serenity of mind and constancy of hope amid all the changes that awaited him.
He began the practice of his profession in Cavendish, Vermont, in 1845, and there he continued for fourteen years, carrying health and good cheer to the homes of the people living along the Black River and under the shadow of Ascutney Mountain. The villagers in the workshops along the river and the farmers in the fields learned to look upon the coming of his carriage, as he flew along the winding and wooded roads, as a harbinger of help to the suffering and of hope to the afflicted in their scattered homes.
While engaged in the practice of his profession at Cavendish, Dr. Harlow had one case of extraordinary interest to all persons who knew of it at the time, and indeed of world-wide repute among medical men to this day. A young man was engaged in blasting rocks on the Rutland and Burlington Railroad. By some mistake in tamping the charge of powder, it took fire while he was sitting
JOHN M. HARLOW
on the rock, and the force of the explosion drove the tamping iron, a bar three feet and a half long and an inch and a quarter in diameter, through his head, just in front of the angle of the jaw on the left side. The bar pierced the brain in the middle of the head, carried away a portion of the bony case at the back of the left eye, and landed several rods away from the seat of the wounded man who still re- mained upright on the rock. He spoke lightly and jocosely to his fellow workmen immediately after the shock, and with a little help from them he walked to an ox cart that stood near by, mounted and rode in that rude ambulance to Hyde's tavern where he was board- ing, a distance of half a mile. Leaving the cart, he walked up the long stairway to his chamber and deliberately removed his blood- stained garments and prepared himself for the bed. There Dr. Harlow found him. He immediately applied all the resources of medical skill known at the time, although he had little hope of secur- ing a recovery for the young man from such a desperate condition. The patient himself, however, was so sure of rising to his feet again that he sent word to his fellow workmen that he would be back with them again in a few days.
Dr. Harlow gradually grew into the hope which animated the patient and joined with him in cherishing the expectation of re- covery, although he had never heard an instance of a man coming again to the full use of his faculties of body and mind after such a rude missile had been shot through his brain. Two months after the accident the wounded man was walking again on the street. In another month he drove thirty miles to his own home in Lebanon, and was none the worse for the journey. The dreadful wound in the head had closed, and he was able to pursue his ordinary occupa- tion. With a slight change in character and disposition he seemed as well as he was before the accident.
The recovered man went about the country for a few years, ex- hibiting the iron bar which had passed through his brain, and telling the story of the terrible accident to crowds of people who came to hear and who were slow to believe what they heard. At his death the bar of iron and the skull of the man whose brain had been pierced were placed in the Warren Museum of Harvard Medical School, and there they may be seen at this day. Dr. Harlow modestly ascribed the wonderful recovery to the extraordinary vitality and the uncon- querable will and endurance of the patient. Dr. Harlow's narrative
JOHN M. HARLOW
of the case was received with great applause when he read it to a large gathering of physicians and surgeons at the Massachusetts General Hospital, twenty years after the occurrence.
After fourteen years of hard and exacting service in Cavendish, Dr. Harlow was so much reduced in health that he was obliged to leave the field which he had learned to love, and to spend three years in rest and quiet study and travel, occupying most of the time in Minnesota and in Philadelphia. In 1861 he resumed practice in Woburn, Massachusetts, and there he continued to hold a foremost position both in his profession and in business and social life till the close, forty-six years afterwards.
In the discharge of the duties of his profession, Dr. Harlow was prompt and untiring, accurate and conscientious, his extensive experience and close observation and thorough knowledge of the human constitution made him a welcome and trusted visitor where- ever the sick and the suffering needed his aid. He was honored and trusted alike by his associates in medical practice and by the common people, who looked upon him as the beloved physician in sickness and the sympathizing and helping friend in time of need. Both in professional and in every-day life he showed himself to be a man of large heart, high purpose and very unusual practical sagacity in meeting all the demands of individual service for the welfare of the community about him and for the world at large. He held many important posts as senator, councilor, director, trustee, president of bank corporations and medical societies and in them all he was found to be a man wise, suggestive, discriminating and conscientious in things least and greatest. He knew how to accu- mulate property for himself and to use it well for the good of many others. He received by descent the great and good inheritance of character, and he made it better by the best use of the enlarged knowledge and opportunities of his time. The best blood of the New England fathers was in his veins, and it made him firm in pur- pose and opinion, energetic in action and expression, generous and self-denying in spirit and untiring in devotion to the public welfare. His memory will stand as an extraordinary record in medical prac- tice, an example of high and honorable citizenship in the State, a precious treasure in the hearts of all who knew him.
JOHN CUMMINGS HAYNES
J OHN CUMMINGS HAYNES, head of the house of Oliver Ditson Company of Boston, was born in Brighton, Massachusetts, September 9, 1829 and died in Boston May 3, 1907. His father, John Dearborn Haynes, son of Elisha and Betsy (Bartlett) Haynes, grandson of John and Olive (Weeks) Haynes, and great grandson of Matthias and Hannah (Johnson) Haynes, and a descendant from Samuel Haynes, a farmer who resided in Shropshire, England, and emigrated with a colony of his neighbors to New England in 1635. He was a prominent dissenter and helped to organize the First Church at Strawberry Bank (afterwards Portsmouth) New Hampshire, of which church he was made a deacon. John Dearborn Haynes married Eliza Walker, daughter of Joseph Stevens and a descendant from the Gilpatricks who went from Scotland to the North of Ireland and thence to America. John Cummings Haynes was a pupil in the public and English High Schools of Boston, but his parents needing his assistance as a bread winner he was forced to leave school when fifteen years of age. In 1845 he entered the employ of Oliver Ditson, music publisher, as an errand boy. He learned the business and be- came so valuable to his employer that on January 1, 1851, Mr. Ditson gave him an interest in the business and on January 1, 1857, he was made a full partner, the firm name being changed to Oliver Ditson & Company. The death of Oliver Ditson, the founder of the house, in December, 1888, led to further change in the business which was incorporated as The Oliver Ditson Company with Mr. Haynes as president and Mr. Ditson's son, Charles H. Ditson, as treasurer. Several of the young men who had grown up in the business were admitted to the corporation as stockholders. Besides the house established in Boston of The Oliver Ditson Company, music publishers, and John C. Haynes & Company, musical instrument manufacturers, branch houses were established in New York and Philadelphia; the New York concern being known as Charles H. Ditson & Company, and the Philadelphia house as J. E. Ditson & Company.
John C. Haynes
JOHN CUMMINGS HAYNES
The business of the corporation showed a remarkable growth from its formation and in the line of publishers of music outclassed all its competitors and called for great executive talent in managing its business. Mr. Haynes supervised the erection of an immense build- ing in New York City on the corner of Broadway and Eighteenth Street, and their Philadelphia store was located at 1632 Chestnut Street. In 1864 he assisted in the organization of the house of Lyon & Healy of Chicago, music dealers and manufacturers of musical instruments, and the houses were closely allied from that time.
Mr. Haynes was married in 1855 to Fanny, daughter of the Rev. Charles and Frances (Seabury) Spear, of Massachusetts, and their children were: Alice Fanny Haynes, who married Marcus Morton Holmes; Theodore Parker Haynes, deceased; Lizzie Gray Haynes, who married O. Gordon Rankine; Jennie Eliza Haynes, deceased, who married Fred O. Hurd; Cora Marie Haynes, who married Isaac Wellington Crosby; Mabel Stevens Haynes who became a physician, afterward marrying Konrad Heissig, Captain in the Austrian Army, and Edith Margaret Haynes, who married Frederick H. Pratt.
Few men have carried larger business responsibilities than has Mr. Haynes. Yet busy as he has been, at times apparently fairly absorbed by his vast responsibilities, few men of affairs have found more time for interests which concerned the larger life of the com- munity. He was an original member of the Franklin Library Asso- ciation, a life member of the Mercantile Library Association, of the Young Men's Christian Union, of the Woman's Industrial Union, of the Aged Couples' Home, a director and vice-president in the Massachusetts Homeopathic Hospital, president of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Dispensary, a director and treasurer of the Free Re- ligious Association of the United States, and a trustee and vice- president of the Franklin Square House, the great home for working girls and student girls in Boston.
Here seemed, to the casual observer, to be a man who was pre- eminently a money-maker. But John C. Haynes was also a money- spender, both in large and small ways. Simple in his tastes to the verge of austerity, he had little interest in spending money for osten- tation and never for himself. But there was scarcely one of the many charitable and religious societies with which he was connected, to which he was not a liberal contributor, while to some of them he was literally a benefactor. For example, his gifts to the Homeopathic
JOHN CUMMINGS HAYNES
Hospital and Dispensary probably aggregated considerably more than $100,000, while he gave to the Franklin Square House alone $130,000, and it is not too much to say that to his benefactions in the beginning this great philanthropy owed its existence. But generous as he was to these two institutions, he was not less generous toward the institutions associated with the name of Theodore Parker. One of the latest of his larger gifts, amounting to many thousands of dollars, had for its object the publication of a complete edition of Theodore Parker's works. The benefactions of Mr. Haynes were not limited to his splendid gifts to institutions. His private charities were numberless. Originally associated with Theodore Parker in the anti-slavery movement, he was particularly generous toward the colored race. Many of their schools of the South knew his kind- ness, and many a colored man and woman in the North was helped over a difficult place by his generosity.
His relations to Theodore Parker alone would make a romantic story. Originally a pupil in a Baptist Sunday school, in 1848 he became interested in the preaching of Parker, who had formed an independent church, known as the Twenty-eighth Congregational Society. Mr. Haynes joined this society and for many years served as chairman of its standing committee. After the death of Mr. Parker, Mr. Haynes was an active factor in erecting the Parker Memorial Building in Boston, and was also instrumental in transfer- ring the building to the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches in Boston in order to perpetuate the memory of Theodore Parker and his chari- table, educational and religious work. He was likewise one of the organizers of the Parker Fraternity of Boston and of the Parker Fraternity course of lectures which was sustained for nearly twenty years.
Mr. Haynes' financial affiliations included trusteeship in the Franklin Savings Bank and directorship in the Massachusetts Title Insurance Company. His political affiliations were first with the Free Soil party, he voting in 1852 for the candidacy of John P. Hale for president and George W. Julian for vice-president. In 1856 he followed the Free Soil party into the ranks of the Republican party and remained a faithful adherent to the policy of that party during his entire life. In the days when the city of Boston thought it worth while to call responsible men to its service, Mr. Haynes was chosen to serve on the Common Council for three terms. He served
JOHN CUMMINGS HAYNES
the city of Boston as a member of the Common Council 1862-65, and helped to advance the cause of the Union by firing the patriotic spirit of the members to a prompt filling up of the quota of volun- teers apportioned to the city. While a councilman he also strenu- ously advocated the opening of the Public Library on Sunday, a radical departure at the time and one which was adopted soon after the close of his term of service as a member of the City Council.
Mr. Haynes was never a club man in the ordinary sense of the term. If he was a member of certain associations, it was on account of something beside mere social intercourse that they stood for. For example, he was a member of the Unitarian Club, the Home Market Club, the Massachusetts Club, the Boston Merchants' Asso- ciation, and the Music Publishers Association of the United States, but in every case he had at heart, not his own amusement, but the promotion of some great interest which he regarded as vital.
DANIEL COLLAMORE HEATH
D ANIEL COLLAMORE HEATH, long and widely known as a leading educational publisher, was president of the D. C. Heath & Company publishing house from its foundation in 1885 to his death. Mr. Heath was always a most loyal son of his native State of Maine, but from the time he began his college course at Amherst, in 1864, his activities and his interests were largely centered in Massachusetts.
He was born in Salem, Franklin County, Maine, October 26, 1843, and died in Newtonville, Massachusetts, January 29, 1908. He was the second son of Daniel Heath (1814-1902) and Mila Ann Record (1816-1907); and grandson of Benjamin Heath (1788-1870) and Ruth Hinkley Heath (1790-1859) on the father's side, and Henry Record (born 1785) and Mercy Bradley Record (born 1778) on the mother's side. His ancestors were among the early settlers of Massa- chusetts, coming from England in 1632 and in succeeding years.
Mr. Heath's boyhood was passed at Salem and Farmington, Maine. His father was a man of rugged qualities, both physical and mental, full of energy, courage, humor and sterling common sense. He was a farmer and blacksmith, was active in his community as postmaster, town clerk, and selectman, and was colonel in the State militia. After some years in the local schools and in Farmington Academy, Mr. Heath went to the Nichols Latin School at Lewiston, Maine, and to the Maine State Seminary (now Bates College), where he finished his college preparatory work. He was graduated at Amherst in 1868 and received the degree of A.M. in 1871.
Of his early interests and occupations Mr. Heath wrote: "I did such work as my father's occupation demanded. I have done all kinds of farm work, have helped in making horseshoes and ox-shoes, and have shod oxen. This work was clearly wholesome in its influ- ence on my character and habits. Application to tasks of suitable responsibility I count one of the best things for any boy. I read fiction very little, finding books suggested by my text-books and
Eny sy E . Wilhams & Bro .YY
Very truly yours Detteatt
DANIEL COLLAMORE HEATH
courses of study far more interesting and presumably of more use to me than others. Therefore, they were the ones I tried to like, and more often did like. I finally got into the habit of reading only books out of which I could get some definite and sure information. I began active life at the age of sixteen as a school teacher in Farm- ington, teaching in the district schools before and after I went to college, through which I had to work my way. In those days we had a long winter vacation of six weeks, and we took six weeks out of the spring term and taught a 'three months' school,' making up lost time and subjects on our return to college. Thus, and in similar ways, I earned my tuition and board."
After graduation from college Mr. Heath was for two years prin- cipal of the high school at Southboro, Massachusetts. In 1870-72 he was a student at the Bangor Theological School, but on account of ill health was obliged to leave before graduating. After a year of travel in Europe, spent largely in tramping through Switzerland, he became superintendent of schools at Farmington, Maine. His energetic efforts to introduce there new methods and new text- books indirectly brought him into touch with Edwin Ginn, the Boston school-book publisher. In 1874 he became the representative of the Ginn Brothers with an office at Rochester, New York. In 1875 he opened their branch office in New York and in 1876 he became a member of the firm. For the next nine years the business was conducted under the name of Ginn & Heath. Mr. Heath then dis- posed of his interest in that firm, and on August 1, 1885, established in Boston the publishing house of D. C. Heath & Company. In extent of business D. C. Heath & Company ranks among the lead- ing school-book publishing houses of America, with offices at Boston, New York, Chicago, San Francisco; Austin, Texas; Atlanta, Georgia; and London, England.
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.