USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 9 > 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 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26
On November 16, 1887, Mr. Codman married Sophia Munroe, daughter of Dr. Horatio Southgate Smith and Susan D. Munroe, a descendant from the Munroes who came from Scotland to Lexing- ton, Massachusetts. Four children were born to them, three of whom are living: William C. Codman, Jr. (Harvard, 1912), an agriculturalist in Georgia; John, now in Harvard College, and Constance (Mrs. Edward Brooks).
Business integrity, sagacity, untiring energy and true public spirit account for his success.
To young Americans he offers this advice: " Athletics, as much work and leisure as possible spent in the real country, historic fiction and nature books will strengthen character, mind and body, and make life worth while. Have ambition to try to live up to or better your forefathers and rear your children to better you. Think before and while you speak, but do not hesitate to speak your mind. Don't think it is necessary to be the biggest pebble on the beach, as you are more likely to be thrown into the sea."
MARCUS ALLEN COOLIDGE
M ARCUS ALLEN COOLIDGE of Fitchburg, was born in Westminster, Massachusetts, October 6, 1865. He is a son of Frederick Spaulding Coolidge and Ellen Drusille Allen Coolidge. He comes of good New England stock and his ancestors figured in political and business history for many years. He was named for his uncle, Marcus M. Coolidge, the first of her sons that the town of Westminster gave to the country in the Civil War, and who was killed in the battle of Booneville, Virginia, June 17, 1861.
The immigrant ancestor, John Coolidge, came from England in 1630 to New England, settled in Watertown, Massachusetts Bay Colony, and was made a freeman in 1636. For several years he served as one of the Selectmen, a position to which, in those days, only high-minded, honorable and trustworthy citizens were called.
Charles Coolidge, the grandfather of Marcus A. Coolidge, was one of the active, progressive business men of Westminster. He was a pioneer in the introduction of the Manufacture of Chairs in that town. Beginning in a small way he built up a large business for those days, did much for the industrial interests of West- minster and held many town offices. Nancy (Spaulding) Coolidge, his grandmother, was a descendant from Edward Spaulding, who came from the Abbey of Spaulding, Lincolnshire, England, to America in 1630 and settled in Braintree, Massachusetts Bay Colony.
Marcus A. Coolidge received his education in the public schools and at the Bryant & Stratton Commercial College in Boston. He assisted his father for several years in the Superintendence of the Boston Chair Shops at Ashburnham, and the Leominster Rattan Works in Leominster. Soon after completing his school days he had taken up the study of electric railways, and from 1894 he was engaged in the Street Railway development of New England, in the days when electric railway construction and equipment was a very active industry. This kept him very busy for several years, and unlike so much of the railway construction of that era, Mr. Coolidge's work has stood the test of time, for good honest building and equipment.
Mr. Coolidge was superintendent of several of the railways after their completion. He earned the confidence of associates and financiers by square dealing and energetic handling of every business problem. In 1897 a banking institution of Fitchburg induced him to accept the presidency of the Fitchburg Machine Works, an old established company in that city. Mr. Coolidge has the rare
Sea by E & Williams & Bro.N.i
maloesge -
MARCUS ALLEN COOLIDGE
gift of handling men. He is always an optimist and his good nature has in no small degree contributed to promoting his business and public success. Every worthy call finds in him a prompt and gen- erous supporter. The leading benevolent society of Fitchburg paid him the high compliment of being " the most humane employer of labor in the city."
From his coming to Fitchburg, Mr. Coolidge has been interested and active in every project that promised to advance the welfare of the city. In December, 1915, he consented to be a candidate and was elected chief executive of the City of Fitchburg. An unusual incident of the campaign was the impromptu parade of over five hundred of Mr. Coolidge's own workmen, who thereby paid a tribute to their " boss " in a demonstration the like of which was never seen in Fitchburg before. The most surprised man in the City was Mr. Coolidge, as the celebration had been planned and carried out by the men without the knowledge of any of the Cam- paign Committees. Every man was there, Superintendents, fore- men, laborers and skilled mechanics all marching shoulder to shoulder with a common purpose.
Mr. Coolidge was Vice-President of the Fitchburg Board of Trade and Merchants' Association for two years, but declined election to the presidency. He was president of the Fay Club in 1914, and is a member of the Fitchburg Chamber of Commerce and Fitchburg Historical Society, director of the Wachusett and Safety Fund National Banks, and of the Northern Massachusetts Street railway company. He is a member of Fitchburg lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and Apollo Lodge of Odd Fellows of Fitchburg. He is an attendant of the Universalist Church.
He was married October 1, 1898, to Ethel L. Warren of Spring- field, Vermont, daughter of Charles N. and Sarah (Minott) Warren. They have three daughters, Louise, Helen and Judith. His home life is an ideal one, and as he is devoted to his family, his greatest recreation is found in their company.
The administration of Marcus A. Coolidge as Mayor was marked by friendliness and courtesy towards all having any business at the City Hall. Making no reckless promises he took hold of the duties with a fine sense of the obligations imposed by the people of the City. His valedictory was characteristic of the man - " I did not come to the City Hall as Mayor to make this job a drudgery, but rather to have a good time doing for the city those things which I saw could be done with great benefit to the city and its citizens." A natural leader, his administration was a very successful one. He positively refused, for business reasons, to accept a re-nomi- nation for a second term.
ALVAH CROCKER
A LVAH CROCKER, successful as a representative of the people and in the business world, was born in Leominster, Massachusetts, October 4, 1801. When he was but eight years of age, he began working in the paper mill of Nichols and Kendall in Leominster. He had eight weeks of schooling each winter until he reached the age of sixteen. When he had saved enough, he supplemented his meagre school training with a term in Groton Academy. Returning to Leominster he taught school, intending to earn enough to enter college, but his father, who was a stern, intensely religious man of Puritanical traits, was prejudiced against a course at Harvard College on account of the strong Uni- tarian spirit prevailing there and thus young Crocker went to Franklin, New Hampshire, to work in a paper mill.
In 1823, Mr. Crocker returned to Fitchburg, and engaged in the manufacture of paper. He built his first paper mill there in a section known as Crockerville, in 1826. He constantly built more paper mills and enlarged his business. He also became interested in railroad construction for the advantage of the manufacturing towns.
In 1834, Mr. Crocker was employed by the town to construct a road further up the Nashua Valley. He finally bought all the farm land as far as the Westminster line, and gave to Fitchburg the needed strip for the required road. By this public-spirited act he laid the foundation of his fortune, for the mills of Crocker, Burbank and Company were later located in this valley. In 1835, Mr. Crocker was sent to the General Court as representa- tive, and he laid before the people the project of a railroad be- tween Fitchburg and Boston. In 1836 he was again sent to the Legislature, and carried through a vote of a million dollars to complete the Western Railroad between Worcester and Albany. Financial troubles arose, and this project was laid aside, but he was again re-elected to the General Court and he took up the railroad measures with renewed vigor. In 1842, he again urged an independent line of railroad connecting Fitchburg with Boston, and in spite of the opposition of Lowell and Worcester he was fortunate in securing a charter for the Fitchburg Railroad. He was the first President of the road and rode on the first locomotive passing over it. When he resigned the presidency of the Fitchburg, it was to accept the same office in the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad. He later resigned from this position, but not until he had achieved what he set out to do, and carried the extension of the Fitchburg to Greenfield, Mass., and Keene, N. H. During the years from 1847 to 1850, Mr. Crocker was interested in the exten- sion of the railroad to Troy, New York, and in the Hoosac Tunnel project. He was instrumental in getting the Commonwealth to
ALVAH CROCKER
assist in the tunnel and in financing the railroad by hundreds of speeches he made in favor of it.
He entered partnership with Gardner Burbank, a nephew of one of his early employers. Other partners were admitted, and after the retirement of Mr. Burbank in 1866, and the death of Mr. Crocker in 1874, the business was carried on by the surviving members of the family under the same name of the Crocker, Bur- bank Company.
In company with several capitalists, he organized the Turner's Falls Company, in 1866, purchasing land and building a dam with a fall of 30 feet and a capacity of 30,000 horsepower. The death of Mr. Crocker prevented his carrying out his project to its com- pletion, but Turner's Falls owes its existence as a town to him. He was interested in the establishment of the Keith Paper Mill, one of the largest mills of fine paper making in the country; in the Montague Mills and in securing other enterprises for the town.
He organized and became President of the First National Bank of Turner's Falls, and also organized the Crocker Institution for Savings. While developing his great project at Turner's Falls, his interest in Fitchburg did not lax. He was an incorporator of the Rollstone National Bank of Fitchburg, in 1849; director the re- mainder of his life, and President after 1870.
In politics, Mr. Crocker was a Republican. As representative he served the state during the years 1835-36-42-43; as Senator in 1862, and as commissioner for the construction of the Hoosac Tunnel. He also filled the unexpired term in Congress of the late Governor Washburn, when he was elected to the governorship, and was re-elected a member of the Forty-third Congress.
Mr. Crocker was thrice married. His first wife, Abigail Fox, a native of Jaffrey, New Hampshire, died at Fitchburg, leaving five children - four daughters and one son. In 1851, he married Lucy A. Fay, who died in 1872. The same year he was married to Minerva Cushing, who survives him.
Mr. Crocker was a remarkable man and highly successful in all the varied activities of his life. He was never idle and no one con- tributed more to the material development of Fitchburg. By his untiring energy and business sagacity in benefiting the whole community. He was a generous giver and delighted in aiding those less fortunate. In serving his community he did not forget the greater service he owed his nation. During the War of the Re- bellion, he was unable to participate actively, on account of ad- vanced years, but he forwarded troops at his own expense, and voyaged to England to plead the cause of the mutual benefit at- tached to a community of interest and fellowship between the two countries.
CHARLES THOMAS CROCKER
C HARLES T. CROCKER was born in Fitchburg, Massa- chusetts, March 2, 1833. He died there January 6, 1911. He was the son of Alvah Crocker and Abigail (Fox) Crocker. His father was the foremost citizen of Fitchburg for many years, the largest real estate owner and largest taxpayer in the city. To his untiring efforts was due the building of the Fitchburg Railroad to Boston and he was President of the road for years. He was the leading spirit in the building of the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad from Fitchburg to Greenfield and Cheshire Railroad to Keene, New Hampshire, and of the Hoosac Tunnel. In every- thing that would advance the business interests or promote the growth of Fitchburg he was always a leader, and his time, money and influence were enthusiastically at her service. Few enterprises were proposed or started to which he did not give substantial aid.
He served the city and town in many important offices, in both branches of Legislature and as a member of Congress. His con- nection with the banking interests of the city was very important. He built up the extensive business of paper manufacturing and was the head and manager of Crocker, Burbank & Co. No name was more widely known in railroad, financial and manufacturing circles or in public affairs in the State of Massachusetts for years, than that of Alvah Crocker.
Charles T. Crocker was educated in the Fitchburg public schools, and from the High School entered Brown University, from which he graduated in the class of 1854.
On leaving college he entered the mills of Crocker, Burbank & Company and thoroughly learned the business of paper making in all its details. He was soon after admitted to the company, and upon the death of his father in 1889 he succeeded to the many positions of trust and responsibility with which his father was associated. It was during the thirty years of active management of Charles T. Crocker that the greatest advancement and success in the manufacture of paper had been made. He became a director of the Fitchburg Railroad and of the Vermont and Massachusetts Railroad, retaining the Directorships during his life. He was President and Director of the Crocker National Bank of Turners Falls, and there was little of the manufacturing or other business of Turners Falls in which he did not have a part. He was President and Director of the Turners Falls Company, Director of the John Russell Cuttery Co., and of Keith Paper Company. It was largely due to the efforts of his father, Alvah Crocker, that the water power of Turners Falls was developed and the town was built up, and Charles T. Crocker carried on the work inaugurated by his father.
He was one of the organizers and largest stockholder in both the Oswell and Nockege Corporations (Cotton Mills) of Fitchburg,
O. K. Crocher
CHARLES THOMAS CROCKER
and President of both, and also of the Star Worsted Co .; Director of Putnam, Machine Company, Director of Fitchburg Gas and Electric Light Company, and interested in many of the other business enterprises of his native city. For years he was a promi- nent figure in the paper manufacturing business of the country, and in the railroad, financial, textile and steel and iron interests, especially of New England.
His steady, calm, and accurate judgment made him a valued co- worker in many fields of diversified industry. With all these varied interests and responsibilities, in addition to his paper busi- ness and his large real estate ownerships, he was one of the most prominent men in the civic life of the town and city of Fitchburg, and for more than a half century one of the strongest influences in its political and corporate life. He found time for many public and political duties, and to all of these obligations he gave the same care and attention as to his private affairs.
He was a member of the First Board of Aldermen of the City of Fitchburg in 1873 and in 1877 and was urgently desired to accept a nomination as Mayor, but he did not feel that he could devote the time that he thought should be given to the duties of that office. He was Representative in the Legislature in 1879, and Senator in 1880, serving on many important committees. He was a staunch Republican and could have had many state and national appoint- ments had he felt he could accept them.
He was named as one of the incorporators of the Burbank Hospi- tal and served until his death as a member of the Executive and Finance Committees, giving loyal service in its management.
He was a liberal supporter of the Benevolent Union and its suc- cessor the Fitchburg Associated Charities; a member of the Board of Trade, the Merchants Association, the Manufacturers Club, and a charter member of the Park Club (now Fay Club).
He was one of the most generous supporters of Christ Episcopal Church of Fitchburg, of which he was a member and one of the Vestry for more than 25 years.
October 14, 1857, he was married to Helen E. Tufts, daughter of William Tufts of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and their children are: Alvah, who is the head of the firm of Crocker, Burbank & Co .; Emma Louise, who married Rev. E. W. Smith, a former Rector of Christ Church; Kendall F., of the Crocker Real Estate Trust; Charles T., Jr., member of Crocker, Burbank & Co., Rev. William T. Crocker of New York City, and Paul Crocker of Fitch- burg.
He married second, June 1, 1881, Helen T. Bartow, daughter of Samuel Bartow of New York City. Their children are: Edith and Bartow C.
LINCOLN CLIFFORD CUMMINGS
L I INCOLN CLIFFORD CUMMINGS was born August 23, 1857, in Portland, Maine. When only two years old, he suffered an irreparable loss in the death of his father, Enoch Lincoln Cummings, a rising young lawyer of great promise, who died in Portland, Maine, at the age of thirty-two years. The father possessed the mind of a philosopher and the life standards of the best type of New England progenitors. He was born May 23, 1827, and died January 21, 1859. Lincoln Cummings's maternal grandfather was Nathan Clifford, born August 18, 1803, and died July 25, 1881, a justice of the United States Supreme Court for twenty-four (24) years and Attorney-General in President-Polk's cabinet, and president of the Electoral Council (Hayes & Tilden). His grandfather on his father's side was Colonel Simeon Cummings, born June 2, 1783, and died February 2, 1831, whose wife, Lincoln Cummings's grandmother, Polly Cushman, was a descendant of the redoubtable Isaac Allerton, Pilgrim on the Mayflower and noted in Puritan annals. His other immigrant ancestor was Isaac Cummings, 1638, of Ipswich, with family traditions reaching back to the Norman Conquest; the Red Cummin of Badenoch, Inver- ness, 1080-1330, was a prominent figure in this line.
One of his ancestors, Isaac Bolster (History Paris, Maine, p. 526) was in Revolutionary War and previously in Colonial service (from 1755 to 1761). He was one of the Minute Men who marched to Concord, April 19, 1775, serving as Lieutenant in Captain John Putnam's Company of Colonel Ebenezer Learned's Regiment, and later commissioned Captain. Another was Robert Cushman, born in England, 1580, and died in England, Jan., 1625, Historic Founder of Plymouth Plantation (Cushman Gen., pages 9, 77, 84), and another who died Apr. 21, 1799, helped to build the old State House on State Street, Boston.
Although born with such a wealth of ancestry, Lincoln C. Cum- mings had the enormous handicap of orphanage and poverty to surmount. But he had a noble mother, Annie Clifford Cummings born January 19, 1830, died November 14, 1899, who brought up her boy with a proper sense of his worthy antecedents and who in- spired him with ambition to honor them. He had a responsive in- tellect and a nature to be strongly and permanently influenced in youth by matters religious, humanitarian, patriotic and political. He was obliged as a boy to lend all the help he could to support the home and to help pay for such educational facilities as he could command. He obtained a good common school education and such advanced training as Gorham Academy could give him. He fitted for Harvard, from which his father had graduated in 1848, but
LINCOLN CLIFFORD CUMMINGS
16 Tonaund Me When vidy two yours UM
He was born Aley
1-T FORkwas 2, 1631, Whose vife, Lionia
Lincoln C. Cummings
LINCOLN CLIFFORD CUMMINGS
was unable to command the means to take the College Course. He was fond of reading, and pored eagerly over Scott, Dickens, Cooper, Irving, Emerson and the Bible, all of which had an im- portant part in shaping his tastes and moulding his ideals.
At eighteen years of age, he became clerk in a cotton mill; but his advancement in business enterprises from this time on was rapid, considering the handicap with which he began life. In 1882 at the age of twenty-five he was president of the Portland Plaster Mills and of the L. C. Cummings Manufacturing Company. He continued in these enterprises until 1887. In 1887 he became treasurer of the Bartlett & Albany Railroad. From 1887 to 1889 he was president of the Cummings Buffum Lumber Company of Maine and New Hampshire. He was president of the Blue Ridge Lumber Company of North Carolina from 1889 to 1891; of the N. C. Cummings and Brother Packing Company, Maine, from 1890 to 1901. During these years he was contracting agent of the Consolidation Coal Co. of Maryland, handling their steamship and railroad business in Maine and New Hampshire.
Mr. Cummings was one of the Founders of the Navy League of the United States, and a pioneer for adequate naval and military preparedness. He has been elected honorary member of boards of trade and chambers of commerce in California, Washington, Virginia, Georgia, Florida. He was made president of the National Navigation Movement, 1906-1907; also chairman of the State of Massachusetts Committee Navy League of the United States for 1916. He also held membership in the First District (Maine, New Hampshire and Massachusetts) Committee for Naval Re- cruiting. He is a member of the Permanent Navigation Com- mission of New York. He was made one of the Honorary vice- presidents of the Navy League of the United States in 1911. He was Vice-Commodore of the Portland Yacht Club in 1899 and in 1900 was elected Commodore of same. The celebrated 90 ft., Herreshoff Steam Yacht " Lucile," was his Flag-Ship as Com- modore. He also owned the 63 ft. steam yacht "Cara " built after his own designs; the 60 ft. Schooner Yacht " Halcyon," and the power-cruiser " Elsie III." The latter was turned over to the Government in 1917 and as U. S. Naval Coast Patrol No. 708 was assigned to patrol of the Maine Coast during the German War. Mr. Cummings holds government license as Master and Pilot of steam propelled Vessels.
He is a member of the Mayflower Descendants of Massachusetts. Yachting and Golf are his favorite recreations and amusements. He has been a member of the Board of Directors of the Woodland Golf Club, Boston. In Religious matters he is an Episcopalian. He was Vestryman of St. Stephens Episcopal Church, Portland, Maine,
LINCOLN CLIFFORD CUMMINGS
from 1892 to 1901; and Vestryman of All Saints' Episcopal Parish Brookline. He is a member of the Board of Directors and Secretar; of the Brookline Federation of the Men's Church Clubs of Brookline He was president of St. David's Church Club, Roland Park, Balti more, Maryland, 1910-1911. He was president of All Saints Church Parish Club, Brookline, Massachusetts, for the years 1915 1916 and 1917. He has served as Trustee of estates. In politic he is a loyal Republican. His first wife was Jessica Hooper Jose o Portland, Maine, whom he married in 1882. His daughter, Gwen dolyn, born at Portland, Maine, July 2, 1885, is her child. De cember 14, 1892, he was married to Sarah, daughter of Henry Savage and Sarah (Leverett,) Chase of Brookline, Mass. As the issue of this marriage there were born five children, of whom three are now living: Rosamond, Henry Savage Chase, and William Leverett. Margaret Atherton was born October 19, 1896, and died August 8, 1897.
Lincoln Clifford, Jr., a young man of unusual promise, who had just won his degree of bachelor of arts at Harvard, class of '17 in three years, was born June 18, 1895, and died suddenly of infantile paralysis, September 11, 1916, at the age of twenty-one years three months.
The following is copied from the Baltimore American:
" A man of national reputation, who has thrown himself with power into the arena of national politics and civic reform, as cham- pion of equal opportunity for all American citizens, Lincoln C. Cummings is strong for adherence to the Constitution, a public benefactor and self-made man of affairs, whose public writings and utterances have commanded wide editorial and press notice."
" He was the candidate of many leading men and organizations for Secretary of Commerce and Labor in the Taft Cabinet and was head of the national movement for government inspection of passenger steamships crews.
" His labors, at his own expense, for better protection of lives at sea were instrumental in securing Federal legislation largely cover- ing his recommendations, and for which he was publicly thanked by the Department and by formal resolutions of many of the com- mercial organizations of the United States."
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.