USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 9 > Part 23
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Rufus Adamo Sibly
RUFUS ADAMS SIBLEY
R UFUS ADAMS SIBLEY was born in Spencer, Massachu- setts, December 3, 1841. His father was Brigham Sibley, who was born in 1807 and died in 1891. His family was one of the earliest of the English immigration coming to Massa- chusetts, as his ancestor, John Sibley, came to Salem with Capt. John Endicott in 1628, two years before Governor Winthrop came and settled at Boston. His mother was Adaline Adams. Her ancestor was Henry Adams, who came from England and settled in Braintree. The line of descent is direct from Henry Adams, through Edward, John, Obadiah, David born in 1716 and David born in 1744, to Rufus Adams, the grandfather of the subject of this sketch, who inherited the homestead.
The grandparents were respectively Paul Sibley, Jr., 1769 to 1851, and Abagail Livermore; and on his mother's side, Rufus Adams, 1784 to 1864, and Susanna Guilford. Rufus Adams was representative to the General Court three or four terms and was Selectman and Assessor for many years.
Rufus Adams Sibley attended the public schools of Spencer and completed his education at the High School. He taught school for two periods when he was sixteen and seventeen years of age. As a boy he was interested in works on mathematics, including sur- veying and engineering.
At the age of seventeen he entered business life by taking a situation in a country store as salesman and bookkeeper, though his preference was to become a Civil Engineer. At the age of twenty-two he took the position of bookkeeper and cashier in a Boston Dry Goods house. Three years later, in 1868, he organized the firm of Sibley, Lindsay, and Curr, of Rochester, New York, to conduct a department store, which was afterwards turned into a corporation of the same name, and has been the President of this corporation since its organization. He is also Vice-President of the Minneapolis Dry Goods Company and of the Erie Dry Goods Company. He has been a Trustee of the Rochester Savings Bank and the Security Trust Company. He was elected Trustee Emeri- tus of the University of Rochester, having been a member of the Executive Committee, Treasurer, and President of the Board of Trustees.
RUFUS ADAMS SIBLEY
He has been much interested in hospital work and in institutions for the amelioration of the sufferings of mankind. He was an honorary trustee of the Hahnemann Hospital and of the Institu- tion for the Deaf and Chairman of the Board of Directors of Rochester City Hospital. He contributed liberally to the fund for the erection of St. Paul's Church, Rochester, New York, and the Hahnemann Hospital at Rochester. He was Vice-President of the Reynolds Library; President of the Chamber of Commerce of Rochester; and was one of the Committee of five to prepare a constitution and by-laws for the latter institution.
He owns the Moose Hill Farms and a summer residence in Spencer, Massachusetts, and takes a great interest in the im- provement of farm lands and live stock.
Mr. Sibley was never active in politics, though affiliated with the Republican party.
He is a member of the Protestant Episcopal Church. He has been Vestryman of St. Andrew's, and St. Paul's Episcopal Churches of Rochester, New York, and has been Deputy to the General Convention of the Protestant Episcopal Church six times.
He is a member of the Genesee Valley Club, the Country Club of Rochester, and the American Jersey Cattle Club.
Mr. Sibley was married November 21, 1885, to Elizabeth Conkey, daughter of Eleazer and Sarah Munger Conkey, and granddaughter of Perley Munger and Zerviah Chapin, and of David Conkey and Eunice Thompson. She is a descendant from Robert Abercrombie who came from England to Pelham, Massachusetts, about 1718. He has two sons and one daughter: Dr. Edward R. Sibley of Philadelphia, Elizabeth Sibley Robins, and John R. Sibley.
Lidemal J. Smith.
FREDERICK GLAZIER SMITH
D R. FREDERICK GLAZIER SMITH was born in Wilton, New Hampshire, December 12, 1867. His father, Samuel W. Smith (1830-1905) son of Samuel Smith (1787-1852) and Rebecca (Spaulding) Smith, was a furniture manufacturer, a man of sound judgment, social and business integrity, even tem- perament, charity, sense of humor, and loyalty to friends and to duty. His mother, still living, is Frances C. (Jones) Smith, daugh- ter of the Reverend Nelson Bishop Jones (1806-1890) and Lucy Keyes (Glazier) Jones. Among the well-known ancestors of Frederick Glazier Smith are Uriah Smith, builder and manufacturer in colonial New Hampshire; Samuel Smith, well-known road builder in the same state during the administration of Jackson, Van Buren, Tyler, and Polk; Rebecca Spaulding Smith, writer and poet of local fame; Uriah Smith, distinguished historian and journalist of Michigan; and Nelson Bishop Jones, eloquent clergy- man and at one time member of the Massachusetts Legislature.
Frederick Glazier Smith received his early education in the public schools of Wilton, New Hampshire. He prepared for col- lege at Cushing Academy. He took his medical course in the University of Michigan, graduating with the degree of M.D. in 1893. Since graduation he has pursued post-graduate courses in the New York Post-Graduate Medical School, the New York Polyclinic, and the Harvard Medical School, and also abroad in the hospitals of Vienna and Berlin.
Doctor Smith commenced his professional career in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1893, as resident physician of one of the large hospitals there. In 1894 he began practice in the City of Somerville, Mas- sachusetts, where he has an extensive clientele. In 1895 he was appointed visiting physician to the Somerville Hospital, a posi- tion he still fills with skill and ability.
Doctor Smith is a member of the American Medical Association. He has been a Councillor and Censor of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and is Ex-President of the Somerville Medical Society. He belongs to the Central Club of Somerville, the Boston City Club, and has been President of the Michigan University Club of New England. He is affiliated with the Soley Lodge Ancient Free
FREDERICK GLAZIER SMITH
and Accepted Masons; with the Somerville Royal Arch Chapter, the Orient Council of Royal and Select Masters, the Paul Revere Lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and the Franklin Lodge of the Knights of Pythias. He is a Republican.
Doctor Smith was married October 21, 1896, to Mabel, daughter of the late Judge Edward F. Johnson and Belle G. (Carlton) John- son, granddaughter of Noah and Letitia (Clagget) Johnson, and Stephen and Jane Elizabeth (Kneeland) Carlton, a descendant of John Alden, who came from England to Plymouth in the May- flower. Doctor and Mrs. Smith have two children, Irene Ivers and Frederick Wilton.
Doctor Smith is a man who has attained success through early acquired habits of industry and accuracy. In view of Doctor Smith's own career these suggestions of his to his younger fellow- citizens are of value: "True success may be attained by safe- guarding one's health, by the early inculcation of the doctrine of a sound mind in a sound body, the belief in a power above money, the ultimate worth of invincible honesty, an appreciation of the essential dignity of individual life, self-reliance, willingness to work, respect for all honest labor, whatever its name, and lastly, a com- mon-sense genuine resolution, whether one's day be dark or bright, to add something to the sum total of human comfort."
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John Burles Smith
JOHN BUTLER SMITH
J OHN BUTLER SMITH was born in the town of Saxton's River, Vermont, April 12, 1838, and died at his home in Hillsborough, New Hampshire, August 10, 1914. His father, Ammi, and his mother, Lydia (Butler) Smith, were typical New England people. The original Smith of this line, Thomas by name, came to this country from the North of Ireland in 1719, as a part of the famous Londonderry colony which settled in New Hamp- shire and Vermont.
John Butler Smith's father was a native of Acworth, New Hamp- shire, and in early life he operated a saw mill; later, a woolen mill at Saxton's River and in 1847 he retired from business and came to Hillsborough to reside, dying there in 1887 at the age of eighty- seven years.
At the age of twenty-five John Butler Smith began the manu- facturing of knit goods in Washington, New Hampshire. He moved in about a year to Weare, and a year later to Hillsborough, the home of his childhood, and there built a mill for himself. From that small beginning has grown the splendid corporation known as the Contoocook Mills.
Here for more than half a century Mr. Smith developed a great manufacturing business with a skill, and a loyalty to high ideals that resulted in a success which placed him among the great cap- tains of industry.
Mr. Smith was a Republican of the old school. In 1884 he was chosen alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention at Chicago, and in the fall of that same year was chosen one of the presidential electors from New Hampshire. In 1887 he was elected a member of Governor Sawyer's Executive Council, and from then on, without his seeking, he was continually in the minds of his constituents as one worthy and able to fill the Governor's chair, and in 1892 he was nominated by acclamation, and by an overwhelming vote, elected, and re-elected the following year.
Dartmouth College conferred upon him its honorary degree.
He knew much because he was receptive; some one has said that he was a great listener. With his development there came natur-
JOHN BUTLER SMITH
ally social position and its obligations, to which he proved himself entirely equal, whether in his own beautiful home, or at the func- tions connected with the office of the Governor of the state. And yet through all stages of his growth, he remained a man of the people; a democrat, to whom nothing human was foreign. Especi- ally did he feel an interest in, and exert a profound influence over the young men of the community.
Mr. Smith was a member of the Congregational Church. He took a personal interest, and gave most generously to its support in money, time, and work. He had strong convictions but they were held with great tolerance, and his helping hand was extended to all good causes.
On November 1, 1883, Mr. Smith was married to Miss Emma E. Lavender of Boston, a woman of culture and refinement. She was a descendant from the ancient Lavender family of Kent, England. In the heartiest sympathy she worked with her distinguished husband in the charitable work of the community in which they lived.
Three children were born to them. Butler Lavender, born March 4, 1886, died two years later in Florida; Archibald Lavender, born February 1, 1889, graduated from Harvard in 1911; and Norman, born May 8,1892, now in the Insurance business in Boston. The home life of Mr. and Mrs. Smith and their children is said to have been ideal; there was genuine happiness in the simplicity and nobility of Christian manhood and womanhood.
Mr. Smith was a Thirty-Second degree Mason. He was a man, whom to know was to respect, and among the achievements which place him among the men of mark of the world, his greatest achieve- ment was the noble manhood which made all others possible.
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Willein Paraley.
WILLIAM STANLEY
W TILLIAM STANLEY, electrical engineer and inventor, was born in Brooklyn, New York, November 22, 1858, and died at his home in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, May 14, 1915. He was the son of William and Elizabeth A. (Parsons) Stanley, and a descendant of Captain John Stanley who came from England in 1635 to Hartford, Connecticut, and there, at Farmington, founded the family of Stanley in America. His father was a prom- inent lawyer, and entertained the hope that his son would follow in his footsteps. The early education of William Stanley was under private tuition until he was able to enter Williston Seminary to fit for college. At seventeen years of age he entered Yale University, class of 1881. With a yearning for a more active occupation, he left college to enter a business career in New York City. His first business venture was in Nickel Plating, and owing to his energy he made it a success; but Nickel Plating was not in accordance with his desire, and he turned to the establishment of Hiram Maxim, the creator of many marvels in armament. His progress was rapid, promotions came rapidly and it was not long before he was recog- nized as an electrical inventor and engineer of remarkable promise, and commanded the esteem and confidence of his employer.
There was no such word as fail in the lexicon of such a young man. With the continued unfolding of his mind, Maxim's great place became too small, and he turned to various electric estab- lishments in Newark, New Jersey, and Boston, Massachusetts, where he could find scope for his talent. In the latter place he took out one of the most important of his earlier patents, a device for exhausting incandescent lamps by machinery, which has con- tinued in use until the present day.
In 1883 he returned to Englewood, his father's home, to devote himself in his own laboratory to experimental work. In 1885 he be- came chief engineer for the Westinghouse Electric Company, where he continued for three years. In the same year he began experi- menting with what was to prove his greatest contribution to elec- trical science, the alternating current system of long distance light and power transmission. At first, he received but little encourage- ment. He was not to be deterred in his plans, however, but went to Great Barrington, Massachusetts, the home of his forebears, and there worked out his idea by practical demonstration.
Mr. Stanley's fruitful mind was not exhausted with a single great achievement. Together with two other electricians, a plant was established in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1890, known as the Stanley Electrical Manufacturing Company. This company was engaged in manufacturing electrical apparatus, combining to form what was known as the S. K. C. system, of such importance that
WILLIAM STANLEY
it was later taken over by the General Electric Company. From 1898 to 1903 he was identified with the Stanley Instrument Com- pany.
The number of inventions of Mr. Stanley are too many to be listed here, but are of untold value to the scientific world.
There was another side to William Stanley. It was the gener- osity of his manhood which poured its strength out in service to humanity; it was the honesty of his manhood which found expres- sion in the truthfulness of his work; and it was the great warm love for mankind which gave motive power to his genius.
He was a member of many American, English and French Elec- trical societies, and was vice-president of the Society of American Electrical Engineers. He was a speaker of grace and power, and a debater of much force. While no politician in the sense of self- seeking, Mr. Stanley was loyal to his duties as a citizen, and as an Independent Democrat took his part in all civic duties, and throughout the community was regarded as a far-seeing and in- fluential citizen.
On December 22, 1884, he was married to Lila C., daughter of Jacob S. and Mary L. (Lovejoy) Wetmore, of Englewood, New Jersey, granddaughter of David W. and Harriet (Cooper) Wetmore, and of Ezikel and Clarissa (Baldwin) Lovejoy, and a descendant of Thomas Wetmore who came from England to Connecticut in 1635. To this family came nine children: Harold, William Wet- more, Leonard Lovejoy, George Courtney, Lila, Christine, Ruth, Clarence, and Gilbert.
The following tributes were paid to Mr. Stanley: Professor Jackson said of him: " I know I am speaking for you all when I say of William Stanley, how deep down in our hearts is established our regard for his work, our affection for his personality, our re- spect for his achievement, and our love for his character."
A letter from Sir Hiram Maxim says: - " Mr. Stanley was tall and thin, but what he lacked in bulk he made up in activity. He was boiling over with enthusiasm. I believe that he preferred each week should contain about ten days and each day should be forty- eight hours long. Whatever was given him to do, he laid himself out to do in the most thorough manner."
Professor Elihu Thomson, himself one of the masters in the field of electrical invention, said: - " There is one thing that he has accomplished that even he did not thoroughly realize. He put a heat coil around all our hearts and kept it warm with current. The warmth of our affection is likely to grow. I want to testify to his character as a man; I have always found him most honest, most generous, possessed of all those qualities which mark the per- fect gentleman."
Hezekiah Pince Star
HEZEKIAH PRINCE STARR
H EZEKIAH PRINCE STARR was born in Thomaston, Maine, January 14, 1832. He was a son of John Bentley and Isabella (Prince) Starr, of Thomaston and a grand- son of Richard Starr, a Baptist minister of Maine. Mr. Starr's immigrant ancestors were English. John Prince, rector of East Shefford Church in Berkshire, England, came to Hull, Massachu- setts; Dr. Comfort Starr came from Ashford, Kent, England, to Duxbury, Massachusetts. The Starrs were distinguished in the Revolutionary War.
Such educational advantages as were within his reach, includ- ing terms of attendance at the common schools of Thomaston, and the grammar school at Bath, Hezekiah Prince Starr eagerly embraced. Schooldays at an end, he served an apprenticeship at the trade of tin and sheet-iron worker, lasting five years. He sup- ported himself from the time he was sixteen years of age.
In 1854 he removed to Spencer, Massachusetts, where he entered the employ of A. T. & E. Jones, boot and shoe manufacturers, and was associated with the firm till 1862, when the senior member of the firm retired from the company and Mr. Starr became a mem- ber of the firm of E. Jones & Co. Mr. Starr retired from business in 1888.
Mr. Starr was one of the founders of the Spencer Savings Bank and also one of its Board of Trustees. His political sympathies are with the Republican party and he has served as a member of the Board of Selectmen. In his youthful days he was an active member of the Spencer Fire Department and at a much later period of the Commonwealth Club of Worcester. He is a member of the Congregational Church of Spencer, and of the Congrega- tional Club.
Mr. Starr has been twice married; first to Ellen Smith Prouty, born November 1, 1833, died January 7, 1860. She was the daughter of Isaac Prouty and Mary Ann Goodell. She was the mother of one daughter who was the wife of Chester Linley, and the mother of three children, Helen, Isabella, and Richard. On April 23, 1867, Mr. Starr was married to Ellen E. Lamson of Worcester, who died March 22, 1894. She was the daughter of Eli B. Lam- son and Diadamia Prouty, granddaughter of Richard Prouty, whose emigrant ancestor settled at Scituate in 1667. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Starr are Sarah and Erastus J. Starr.
RICHARD PEARSON STRONG
R ICHARD PEARSON STRONG, of the eleventh generation of the Strong family in the United States, was born at Fortress Monroe, March 18, 1872. His father, Richard Polk Strong, served as an officer in the United States Army through- out the Civil War, retired as a Colonel in the Adjutant General's department, and died in 1903, at the age of sixty-one. He was a man distinguished for his courage, integrity and modesty. Dr. Richard Pearson Strong's mother was Marian Bufort Smith, of Washington, District of Columbia. His grandparents on his father's side were the Honorable Demas Strong, born April 22, 1820, and died March 9, 1893, and Jane (Leaycraft) Strong; on his mother's side, Thomas Smith, born in 1800, died in 1862, and Mary Anne (Pearson) Smith. His great-grandmother was before her marriage Hannah Goffe, the daughter of Hezekiah Goffe, Junior, of Woodstock, Connecticut, the great-grandson of General William Goffe, the Regicide, born in 1605, and died in 1679 at Hadley, Massachusetts.
His earliest immigrant ancestor was Elder John Strong who was born in Taunton, England, a man of Puritan sympathies and con- victions. He sailed March 20, 1630, from Plymouth, England, and after a passage of seventy days landed at Nantasket, and after some delay settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. John Strong eventually made a home in Northampton, where for forty years he was a leading citizen in civil and religious affairs. He was appointed leading Elder in 1663. He died in 1699.
Dr. Strong was married January 1, 1916, to Agnes Leas (Freer) daughter of Augustus S. and Electa M. Leas.
The effect of companionship with his mother, an exceptional woman of a singularly noble spirit, was particularly evident in his intellectual as well as in his moral and spiritual life.
Richard Pearson Strong was educated in the Hopkins School, New Haven, Connecticut, (the oldest school in the United States, founded in 1660), graduated a Bachelor of Philosophy from Yale University in 1893, and from Johns Hopkins University as a Doctor of Medicine in 1897. His Alma Mater bestowed upon him the honorary degree of Sc.D. in 1914, and Harvard University the honorary degree of S. D. in 1916. In 1915 he was decorated by the Serbian Government with the Grand Cross of the Royal Order of St. Salva. His first medical position was as resident-house officer in the Johns Hopkins Hospital (1897-1898) but on the breaking out of the Spanish American War he entered the Army as a medical officer and served from 1898-1902, as Assistant Surgeon in the United States Army, both during the Spanish American War and the military occupation of the Philippine Islands, especially in the earlier campaigns in Luzon. He was appointed by the Secre-
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Muchas P. Strong
RICHARD PEARSON STRONG
tary of War as President of the Board for the Investigation of Tropical Diseases in the Philippines, 1899-1901, and while acting in that capacity he established and directed the Army Pathological Laboratory at Manila. Later when Civil Government was es- tablished in the Philippine Islands he became Director of the Government Biological Laboratory of the Bureau of Science there until 1903, when he was sent by the Government to Berlin to prose- cute scientific investigations. He was a delegate to the International Congress of Hygiene and Demography in 1907, and Honorary Vice-president of the Pathological Section at the International Congress on Tuberculosis at Washington in 1908. He was Pro- fessor of Tropical Medicine in the University of the Philippines, 1907-1913, and Chief of the Medical Department of the General Hospital of the Philippines, 1910-1913. He was editor of the medical section of the Philippine Journal of Science, published at Manila. He was America's delegate to the International Plague Conference at Peking in 1911.
For his work in the suppression of the epidemic of Pneumonic Plague which raged in North China and Manchuria, 1910-1911, the Chinese Government bestowed upon him a special gold medal, and the American National Red Cross Society the gold medal of honor for bravery.
Since 1913 Dr. Strong has been Professor of Tropical Medicine in the Harvard Medical School, and as an expert in this branch of medicine he has been connected with the Massachusetts General and the Boston City Hospitals. In 1916 he delivered the Lowell lectures on the subject of " The plagues of Man." He has also been Professor of Tropical Medicine in the School for Health Officers, Harvard University and Massachusetts Institute of Technology, since 1913. In 1915 he was Medical Director of the American Red Cross Sanitary Commission in Serbia; and of the International Sanitary Commission which he organized. He is a member of the Corporation of the Harvard Medical School of China, and of the Medical Advisory Board of the Yale Hospital in China.
He is a member of the Editorial Board for the Journal of Para- sitology, Urbana, Illinois. During the years that he has been engaged in these broad fields, he has published particularly Studies in Plague Immunity, 1900; Studies on Pneumonic Plague and Plague Immunization, 1912; the Etiology of Beriberi, 1912; on his expedition to South America 1913 and Serbia 1916, and on many other technical subjects germane to Tropical Pathology.
One of his most noteworthy achievements was accomplished as Director of the Rockefeller Sanitary Expedition to Serbia in 1915. He organized an International Board of Health at Nish with Prince Alexander as President, and was himself made Medical Director.
RICHARD PEARSON STRONG
His experience in the Orient, in combating epidemic diseases, par- ticularly cholera and plague, gave him great advantage in the task in Serbia as he undertook the work of abating the ravages of and in eradicating the typhus epidemic. Sir Thomas Lipton, who had converted one of his yachts into a hospital ship, and who visited Serbia at two different times, wrote of the service that Dr. Strong had rendered, saying: - " The first time I was at Ghevgheli, there were fourteen hundred patients there, mostly with typhus. When I was there the other day there were only three typhus cases. I could hardly believe that the staff sent out here by the Red Cross Society could have made such a change."
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