USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 1 > Part 9
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Mr. Heath was married January 6, 1881, to Mrs. Nelly Lloyd Knox, of Colorado Springs. They made their home at "The Heath- cote" on Highland Avenue, Newtonville, Massachusetts. Three sons are living (1908): Arnold C., Daniel Collamore and Warren Heath. In Newton Mr. Heath's local interests were innumerable. He was a member of the Central Congregational Church, Newton- ville; and of the Newton Club, the Tuesday Club, the Every Satur- day Club and the Brae Burn Golf Club; and president of the Newton Education Association. He always made time for out-door recrea-
DANIEL COLLAMORE HEATH
tion - chiefly horseback riding, driving, and golf. He especially enjoyed ocean travel and visited often the Old World, the West Indies, and Hawaii, as well as distant parts of the United States.
Mr. Heath's varied interests, his boundless energy, and breadth of outlook are evidenced by the many organizations with which he was actively allied. He served as president of the Amherst Alumni Association, and of the Pine Tree State Club of Boston, and the Katahdin Club of Newton. He was one of the founders of the Twentieth Century Club; a trustee of the People's Palace; a mem- ber of the Boston Atheneum, of the Boston City Club; the Univer- sity Club; the Congregational Club; the Massachusetts Schoolmasters' Club, and the Aldine Club of New York City. He identified him- self also with the Municipal Reform League; the Massachusetts Civic League; two Forestry Associations; the American Free Trade League; the National Society for Promoting Industrial Education; the National Educational Association, and the Religious Educa- tional Association.
Of his qualities as a man the Boston Transcript, January 29, 1908, said:
"His name has stood preeminently for the best scholarship, the best taste, the most progressive spirit and the highest honor in the educational publishing field. It has stood equally for good citizen- ship, public spirit and the most faithful social service . .. His indus- try and organizing power were notable, and his natural qualities of leadership were recognized and utilized in every circle where he touched. ... A frequent visitor to Europe, few American publishers were more highly esteemed or more warmly welcomed in London and Leipsic. Abroad, as at home, he carried with him ever and everywhere that rare geniality, sympathy and quick human interest that made him so beloved and so central a magnet in his home, business and social life. An ardent reader of books, an earnest stu- dent, and a genuine reformer, the educational movements and the politics of England and Germany commanded his interest almost as warmly as American affairs."
Charles 8. Hellier.
CHARLES EDWARD HELLIER
I T is not every professional man who, in addition to the active practice of his profession, undertakes the conduct of exten- sive commercial interests and makes a distinct success in both directions. Especially is this true when the profession to be con- sidered is that of the law. From time immemorial the lawyer has been considered the type of conservatism, all his movements being supposedly safe-guarded by precedents, and all his decisions given with the maximum of deliberation. The business man, however, is constantly being called upon to strike out in new lines for which there can be no precedent, and to decide matters on the instant and where long deliberation would be fatal to his success. Op- portunity must be grasped boldly on her first appearance for she does not often let her advent depend upon the leisurely operation of precedent. Mr. Hellier furnishes an instructive example of one who has been eminently successful in the most lesiurely-moving of professions as well as in the unprofessional speed and rush of com- mercial life. A memberof the Massachusetts Bar for sixteen years, and an active official of a widely-known Kentucky coal mining corporation for nearly as long a period, he has proved himself abundantly capable of carrying on with no apparent friction the direction of two seem- ingly most incompatible occupations. He was born in Bangor, Maine, July 8, 1864, a son of Walter Schermerhorn Hellier and his wife, Eunice Blanchard (Bixby) Hellier, of Norridgewood, Maine. The elder Hellier was a merchant and manufacturer of Bangor, a man distinguished alike for firm integrity of character, devotion to his family and application to business. He was born October 27, 1835 and died in his seventieth year on May 29, 1895 The paternal grandfather of Charles E. Hellier was a native of Devonshire, Eng- land, where he was born March 6, 1802, but leaving there in 1824, he settled in Bangor, married Elizabeth Daggett and died on September 3, 1866.
Mr. Hellier's mother was a daughter of Rufus Bixby (born Novem-
CHARLES EDWARD HELLIER
ber 5, 1798, died March 20, 1882), and his wife, Betsy Weston Bixby. John Daggett, the first of his name in New England, was one of the little band of Puritans who in 1630 accompanied Governor John Winthrop to this country in the good ship Arabella, and his birth- place had been somewhere in the west of England. He settled in Watertown as one of a company led by Sir Richard Saltonstall, but presently removed to Martha's Vineyard, where he became the progenitor of the various Daggett or Doggett families of New Eng- land. The earliest of the Bixby's to appear in Massachusetts Bay Colony was Joseph Bixby who emigrated from Suffolk in 1637, and after first settling in Ipswich removed to the neighboring town of Boxford. John Weston, from whom Mr. Hellier's maternal grand- mother, Betsy Weston, was descended, was a native of Buckingham- shire, England, who crossed the Atlantic in 1644 and made his home in Reading, Massachusetts. The Daggetts, Westons and Bixbys were all well known Puritan families in the seventeenth century, and their descendants were persons much respected in the communities in which they lived. Joseph Weston, a great-grandfather of Mr. Hellier, served as a volunteer in Arnold's expedition against Quebec in the war of the American Revolution, and died from the effect of the hardships endured by him on that occasion.
As a boy Charles E. Hellier was almost equally fond of reading and out-door sports, and a fortunate youthful inclination toward the perusal of the English classics proved very helpful in preparing him for certain phases of his life-work. He graduated in 1882 from the Bangor High School at the age of eighteen, and four years later from Yale University, with the degree of Bachelor of Arts. He matriculated at the University of Berlin in the winter semester of 1886-87, and after taking a course in the study of law at the Boston University, received the degree of LL.B. in 1887. His admission to the Massachusetts bar followed in December of that year and not long after he was so fortunate as to become associated with one of the most eminent of Massachusett's attorneys, Robert M. Morse, Esquire, and his naturally keen, analytical perceptions were intensified by this legal connection. No home or other influence was brought to bear upon his choice of a career. In adopting the legal profession he followed the current of his personal preferences, and his decision has been amply justified by results.
Mr. Hellier had scarcely entered upon a legal career when he
CHARLES EDWARD HELLIER
became interested in the development of a corporation then known as the Elkhorn Coal and Coke Company, of Kentucky, but since 1902 as the Big Sandy Company. Mr. Hellier was chiefly responsible for the construction of a hundred-mile extension of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad, from Whitehouse, Kentucky, the line passing through a hitherto isolated district rich both in timber and mineral resources.
Other important business concerns with which Mr. Hellier has been identified are the Metropolitan Coal Company, which he organized in 1898; the Massachusetts Breweries Company, formed by him in 1902; the Dedham and Hyde Park Gas and Electric Light Company.
On his twenty-second birthday, July 8, 1886, with an interval of scarcely a fortnight succeeding his graduation from Yale, Mr. Hellier was married to Mary Lavinia Harmon, a daughter of George and Mary (Baldwin) Harmon, and a descendant of the famous founder of Rhode Island, Roger Williams. They are the parents of four children, Mary Louise, Walter Harmon, Edward Whittier and John, all of whom are now living.
The various clubs and societies to which Mr. Hellier belongs are the University Club of New York; the University Club of Boston; the Graduates Club of New Haven; the Massachusetts Natural His- tory Society; and the Beverly Yacht Club.
Mr. Hellier has always adhered to the Republican party, but since his interests in politics began he has never held any political office or sought to do so. His religious affiliations are with the Congre- gationalists. So far as influences bearing upon his own success are concerned he places that of home as the first, and, succeeding this, of intelligent contact with older men in active life, of private study, of education and of early associates.
To young men contemplating a business career he suggests as powerful factors in securing success, "steadfast application to the especial task in hand, but with mind quick to detect opportunities for personal advancement as well as courage to profit by them; while to such as are looking forward to a professional life he urges the follow- ing requisites: the choice of a high ideal, a liberal preliminary edu- cation, ability to rise above the mere craving for money getting, integrity and temperate habits, and continual hard work."
WILLIAM HENRY HILL
W ILLIAM HENRY HILL, one of the leading financiers of Boston, was born in that city, July 14, 1838.
Mr. Hill traces his ancestry on the paternal side to Peter Hill, planter, who came from Plymouth, England, in 1632, and settled at Richmond Island, near Cape Elizabeth, Maine. In 1644 he leased land at Winter Harbor (now known as Biddeford, Pool), and in 1648 was a member of the Court of Lygonia. From Peter Hill (1) was descended Roger (2) who came from England with his father and lived in Saco, Maine. The eldest son of Roger was Captain John Hill (3) born in 1666. He commanded the fort at Saco, Maine, during King Philip's War. His second son, Elisha Hill (4) was educated as a physician, and had a large practice not only in Saco, but in all the surrounding country. James Hill (5) son of Dr. Elisha, is named in the records of Portsmouth, New Hamp- shire as "one of the twelve citizens elected to receive General George Washington when he visited Portsmouth." At two different times he took part in the American Revolution.
On December 13, 1774, Paul Revere was sent by the Committee of Safety from Boston to Portsmouth to report that the export from England to America of powder and military stores had been for- bidden, and on the night of December 14, Capt. James Hill was one of the party who went with Col. John Langdon, Major John Sullivan and Captain Pickering, to Fort William and Mary, now Fort Con- stitution, and captured one hundred barrels of powder and carried it to Durham, New Hampshire. Seventeen barrels were carted to Boston in ox teams, arriving just in season to be distributed to the soldiers the day before the battle of Bunker Hill.
The Revolutionary records of the adjutant-general's office at New Hampshire make the following mention: "The Fourth Con- gress voted on the first day of September, 1775, to raise four regi- ments of Minute Men by the enlistment of men from the several regiments of militia. The men were to be enlisted for four months,
WILLIAM HENRY HILL
and then others were to take their places. The troops were stationed in Portsmouth, New Castle, Kittery and vicinity, to defend the har- bor from any attack that might be made upon it by the enemy from seaward. Captain James Hill commanded one of the companies on Pierce's Island, November 5, 1775." In a pay-roll of a company of volunteers commanded by Col. John Langdon, from September 29, 1777 to October 31, following, and which joined the Continental Army under General Gates at Saratoga, James Hill appears as an ensign.
James Hill (6) (the second of that name) was born in Portsmouth and married Abigail Hill, a descendant of the Connecticut branch of that family. His son, William H. Hill (7), was a man of marked character. From a rare and quaint old volume, published more than a half a century ago, entitled: "Names and Sketches of the Richest Men in Massachusetts," the following mention appears of Mr. Hill: "A native of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. When about nineteen years of age, he set up in business for himself and labored with such indefatigable application that he soon acquired sufficient capital to greatly extend his business, making large importations from Eng- land, and dealing extensively in Russia leather. From this beginning he built a fortune. The most prominent characteristics of Mr. Hill as a business man, are clear perception, energy and untiring per- severance, based upon an inflexible integrity. In his social inter- course he is high minded and honorable." He married Abbie F. Remich, and the future financier was their only son.
It will be seen by the perusal of the Hill ancestry that it is filled with men and women of strong personality, possessed of marked integrity and uprightness. These characteristics find full exemplifi- cation in the subject of this sketch.
William H. Hill (eighth generation in America) attended the public and private schools of Roxbury and Boston, and graduated from the Roxbury High School. Some years before he attained his majority he entered business life, taking a position as clerk in the publishing house of Sanborn, Carter & Bazin, and continued with their successors, Brown, Taggard & Chase. At the age of twenty-one Mr. Hill became a partner in the firm of Chase, Nicol & Hill, who were engaged in the publishing business. Two years later he retired from this firm and continued in the business of book sell- ing and publishing on his own account until the spring of 1869. On
WILLIAM HENRY HILL
the first of November, in the year named, the present banking-house of Richardson, Hill & Company was established, and for nearly a half a century it has occupied a place in the foremost rank of Boston's private banking institutions. All the present partners were con- nected with the firm at its beginning either as members or as clerks.
Besides attending to the duties of his extensive and constantly widening business, Mr. Hill is also a trustee of several large estates, and is interested as president or director in numerous corporations. He was connected with the Boston & Bangor Steamship Company for twenty-five years, first as treasurer, then as general manager and president until the foundation of the Eastern Steamship Company which is an aggregation of the steamship lines plying between Boston and Maine, and is now a director in that company and also in the Metropolitan Steamship Company.
He is a director in the First National Bank, the Boston Insurance Company, president of the Renfrew Manufacturing Company of Adams, Massachusetts, and a director in many other corporations.
He is a member of the Archaeological Institute of America; the Bostonian Society; the Bunker Hill Monument Association; the Bos- ton Stock Exchange; Chamber of Commerce; the Real Estate Exchange and other Societies and Associations.
He does not allow his active business career to interfere with the amenities of social and family life. He is a member of numerous clubs, including the Algonquin, Art, Athletic, Country and others of similar character. In all his business ventures, Mr. Hill's success is due to his ability and hard work. He is an excellent specimen of a successful Boston financier, and fully deserves a place among the representative men of his State.
He was married on January 8, 1863, to Sarah E., daughter of William B. and Susan J. (Warren) May. Eleven children were born to them, of whom seven are living. Mrs. Hill died in 1894. His second marriage was on April 26, 1906, to Caroline Wright Rogers, of Wellesley, a graduate of Wellesley College.
JOHN HOPEWELL
J
OHN HOPEWELL was born in Greenfield, Franklin County, Massachusetts, February 2, 1845. His father, also John Hope- well, was a native of London, England, and came to the United States when he was but fourteen years of age. He decided to learn the cutler's trade, and after serving as apprentice for the full term of seven years, he became a manufacturer of cutlery. He was, to quote the language of his son, "a good mechanic, a great lover of books and a well-read man." In 1843 he married Catherine Mahoney, of Greenfield, a woman who combined great strength of will and moral purpose with a vigorous and engaging personality.
Six sons were born of this marriage, of whom John Hopewell was the oldest. After his twelfth year he worked in the cutlery shop six months of the year, and attended school the other six months. When he was fourteen he left school and devoted his whole time to work. For three years he worked for Lamson & Goodnow, table cutlery manufacturers, in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts, and then went to Springfield, Massachusetts, where he secured a position in the machine-shops of the United States Arsenal.
It was while he was in Shelburne Falls that Mr. Hopewell, then a lad of fifteen, chanced to read the "Life of Gen. Nathaniel P. Banks," who was Representative from Massachusetts in the United States Congress and Speaker of the House. The success of the "Bobbin Boy," achieved under similar circumstances, and with no greater advantages than those which he enjoyed, presented to young Hopewell's mind the ideal of an honored and respected citizen, and convinced him there were other and higher objects in life than a man's daily wage. He determined to fit himself for a larger career, and devoted himself assiduously to the reading of books upon history, travel, political economy, and especially the biographies of great men.
When he went to Springfield he continued to make good use of his leisure hours. He attended night school, and also joined a
JOHN HOPEWELL
debating society. He was a ready speaker, a trait which he inherited from both parents. By the time he was twenty-two years of age, he had become convinced that he could find something to do more in accord with his tastes than working at the bench. He announced his decision to his parents, and one day walked out of the shops at noon, and went forth, like Abraham of old, not knowing whither he was going. He spent a portion of the following year at a busi- ness college in Springfield, where he came in contact with a different class of men, all intent upon a business career. From the business college he went to Albany, where he obtained a position as selling agent for a publishing house. Misfortune, however, overwhelmed his employers, and so he returned to Springfield and secured a position with Josiah Cummings, a manufacturer of saddlery and a jobber of blankets and robes, manufactured by L. C. Chase & Company, of Boston, with which firm Mr. Hopewell later connected himself. In a few years he was admitted to partnership, and in 1885 bought out the interest of L. C. Chase & Company, and became the head of the house, admitting to partnership his brother, Frank Hopewell, and Mr. O. F. Kendall, and at the same time became treasurer of San- ford Mills, the large manufacturing enterprise resulting from the business alliance of L. C. Chase & Company, and Thomas Goodall, of Sanford, manufacturers of mohair plush robes and blankets.
Mr. Hopewell has been identified with many interests outside of his business, and has held many positions of responsibility and trust, being president of the Reading Rubber Manufacturing Com- pany, president of the Electric Goods Manufacturing Company, a large electrical manufacturing corporation of Boston and Canton, Massachusetts, director in the National Bank of Redemption, and First National Bank, and he has served as director and officer in many other industrial corporations. He has always been interested in political questions, especially in subjects connected with the manufacturing interests of New England. He was one of the or- ganizers of the Home Market Club, of Boston, and has been a member of the executive committee or a director ever since its organi- zation, also a director of the Boston Merchants' Association. He represented his district in the General Court of Massachusetts in 1892; declined to be a candidate for the Republican nomination as Representative to the Fifty-third Congress; was a delegate to the Republican National Convention, which met in St. Louis in 1896,
JOHN HOPEWELL
and has traveled extensively in this country and Europe. His club membership has included, besides the Home Market Club, the Cam- bridge Club and the Cambridge Republican Club, of both of which he was president; the Algonquin Club, of Boston; the Boston Art Club; the Boston Athletic Association and the Colonial Club. He was also president of the Cambridge Citizens' Trade Association. His church affiliation is with the Universalist denomination.
Mr. Hopewell has a beautiful home in Cambridge, where he delights to entertain his many friends. He was married in October, 1870, to Sarah W. Blake, daughter of Charles Blake, of Springfield, and the five children born of the marriage were all living in 1907. Mr. Hopewell cultivates a farm at Natick, Massachusetts, where he gratifies his taste for agriculture and stock-raising, breeds high- grade Guernsey cattle and indulges in his favorite exercise of horse- back riding.
Mr. Hopewell's message to young men is indicative of his own experience. He says: "If a young man selects a profession or occu- pation which he likes, enters into it with his whole heart, and is willing to make some sacrifice of his own personal pleasure, and acquire a love of work, as well as a habit of making friends instead of enemies, he will never fail to succeed, for work will be a pleasure and lead to success; whatever he does, he will do well, and true success is the consciousness of work well done."
The life of Mr. Hopewell is typical of that of thousands of young men who, without influence or friends to push them forward, have made a place for themselves and won recognition in the business world, - not through any special talent or genius, but by pains- taking, persistent hard work, never counting the hours, whether working for themselves or their employers.
ANDREW HOWARTH
A NDREW HOWARTH, one of the pioneers among the woolen manufacturers of the United States, was born at Rochdale England, September 14, 1820. When he was six years of age his parents came to America, choosing Andover, Massachusetts, as their home. Andrew was educated in the common schools of Andover and at Phillips Academy, but that part of his education which contributed most largely to his success as a manufacturer was obtained in his father's mill, where he worked in all the various departments for some years. His father had begun at Andover the manufacture of fine dressed flannels, and the training in attention to details and the knowledge of the different aspects of the business, had much to do in his success in rising from a humble position at the beginning of his career to large ownership and great responsibility later in life.
In 1844, at the age of twenty-four, he began his first work inde- pendently of his family by taking charge of weaving in a mill at Keesville, New York. During the next few years, in his determina- tion to perfect himself in the industry which he had chosen as his life-work, he held positions in various establishments. In each of these positions he showed himself energetic, alert to utilize every opportunity to increase his skill and knowledge of his business, and faithful to every duty assigned to him. It was in these early years that he acquired those habits of industry, persistency and inde- pendence which won for him not only success in his business but the confidence and respect of the business world. In 1847 he was asked to go to Richmond, Virginia, as an overseer for the Virginia Woolen Manufacturing Company. Shortly after this he was made superin- tendent there, remaining until 1854, when he returned to Oxford, Massachusetts, a town which his product was later to make famous. A promising situation at Little Falls, New York, was soon offered him, and by 1859 he had risen to the responsible position of agent in the establishment of the Saxony Woolen Company. He managed
Andrew Howarth
ANDREW HOWARTH
the affairs of the company for thirteen years with signal ability. At his retirement from the Little Falls position in 1879, Mr. Howarth found himself, as the result of prudence and economy, able to buy for himself a mill of two sets at Northfield, Vermont. From this time on an ever increasing success rewarded his labors. In ten years from his purchase of the Northfield Mill he is again at Oxford, Massachu- setts, not as the overseer of weaving, but as the purchaser of the mill, formerly owned by George Hodges, in which he had in earlier years been an employee. For two years Mr. Howarth operated both mills, the one in Vermont and the one in Massachusetts; but in 1884 he sold the Northfield concern and removed to Oxford, where he con- tinued to live on a beautiful estate among the trees, which is one of the landmarks of the town.
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