USA > Massachusetts > Biographical history of Massachussetts; biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state, 1911, vol 9 > Part 9
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His graphic skill as the special correspondent of The Republican at the political conventions and on other occasions has always been recognized, and in 1885, spending a long vacation in Mexico, when Porfirio Diaz was at his height of power, he wrote notable
Solomon Buckley Chiffon
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SOLOMON BULKLEY GRIFFIN
letters to the paper, which were collected and published in 1886 by Harper & Brothers, under the title " Mexico of Today." With his equipment he might have successfully essayed larger literary ventures, but his sole allegiance has been to The Republican.
Naturally Mr. Griffin has been an independent in politics, and his friendships have not been limited by any labels. He has had the confidence of men of all political parties, and the extent to which he has given judicious counsel will never be known. It all came in the line of duty and as part of the day's work.
Of some historic interest is the article which Mr. Griffin pub- lished in the Atlantic Monthly of January, 1912, on " The Political Evolution of a College President." It was a study of Woodrow Wilson's ideas of political leadership as applied through the gover- norship of New Jersey, and since made familiar to the people of the United States and the world. Mr. Griffin became a strong ad- vocate of Gov. Wilson's nomination and election to the presidency - as well as of his re-election - and believes that through the re- sult of the election of 1912 the interests of the nation were greatly served then and after.
Mr. Griffin is a member of the Authors' Club of New York and of the Nyasset, the Winthrop, the Country and Colony Clubs of Springfield. He was given the degree of L.H.D. by Williams College in 1907 and has been twice chosen alumni member of the Board of Trustees. He was elected to succeed the late Samuel Bowles on the advisory board of the Pulitzer School of Journalism. He is president of the Hampshire Paper Company of South Hadley Falls, vice-president of the Carew Manufacturing Company of South Hadley Falls, and director of the Southworth Company of Mittineague, Massachusetts. In 1887 he went to Europe with Judge William S. Shurtleff of Springfield, and while there wrote for The Republican letters dealing with the Irish question.
Mr. Griffin was married November 25, 1892, to Miss Ida M. Southworth of Springfield, daughter of the late John H. South- worth. They have two sons, Bulkley Southworth Griffin, and Courtlandt Brooke Griffin, both in the army aviation service.
Looking back over nearly half a century's observation in politics Mr. Griffin is convinced that holding to the ideal of disinterested, courageous service of one's fellow men, whether in office or in private life, is the surest way to influence and real success. The careers of men so opposite as Grover Cleveland and W. Murray Crane, not to speak of others in both political parties, serve to demonstrate that unselfish service is the thing the people are most ready to welcome and to honor. The test will show that in the long run republics are not ungrateful or incapable of forming sound judgment regarding those who serve them.
CHARLES EDWARD GRINNELL
C HARLES EDWARD GRINNELL was characterized throughout life by a lively and varied interest in all phases of thought and the affairs of men. To him there was nothing dull or indifferent. The traits which were notable in his youth of high spirits, great capacity for enjoyment, open- hearted sociability and personal independence were never lost. He held opinions with ardor and with well-sustained enthusiasm. His religious faith was strong and his intellectual interests were broad and varied. His reading was wide and liberal. He graduated from Harvard college in 1862 when he was twenty-one, studied three years in the Yale and Harvard Divinity Schools and a year at Gottingen, and entered on life as a Unitarian minister. To his latest years wrote ably on religious subjects. Turning to the law in middle life he could not rest content with his regular practice, but took great pleasure in the analysis of unusual cases, the result being several admirable monographs. Regarding life as a field of endless interest, his education never found an end. He began at the age of sixty-three to study the piano, the history of music and the makers of music and players, and got an immense amount of pleasure out of it. He met many musical people, his hearing was trained, and he learned to enjoy opera and concert as he never had done before. Warm in his friendships, he was a source of influence rather than was influenced. He was an independent in politics as in religious affiliations. He was fond of the attractions of Nature; his exercise was in working out of doors in the country, in walking and climbing among mountains, in sailing and swimming. He was, in short, a fine example of rich and attractive individuality. His son says of him, " I think he got more real enjoyment out of life than any other man I ever met."
Mr. Grinnell was born in Baltimore, Maryland, May 7, 1841, and died in his seventy-fifth year, February 1st, 1916, at the home of his eldest son in Boston. His father, Charles Andrews Grinnell, was born in Providence, Rhode Island, December 4, 1817, but went to Baltimore when about fourteen years old and there married Anna Almy Cobb. He is remembered as an amiable, dignified, and much respected gentleman. The Grinnell ancestry is traditionally French Huguenot, and to that strain some of the finest and strongest traits in the nature of Charles Edward Grinnell may well be due, while from his mother it is testified that he drew important elements of moral and spiritual character.
Eng by E. G. Williams & Ben NY
Charles &. Grinnell
CHARLES EDWARD GRINNELL
His schooling began with his entrance in 1854 into the University of Maryland school of letters and sciences. Thence he passed to the boarding school of Mr. John Prentiss. He entered Harvard College in 1858. He took kindly to all sorts of sociability, and he was a member of the Institute of 1770, the Hasty Pudding Club, the Harvard Chapter of Alpha Delta Phi, and the A. D. Club. Mr. Grinnell was class orator of '62. The first three years after graduation he spent in the Yale and Harvard Divinity Schools, graduating in 1865.
He was married on July 11, 1865, and sailed with his bride for Europe, where for eleven months he dwelt in Gottingen, a student in theology at the University. His wife was Elizabeth Tucker Washburn, daughter of W. R. P. Washburn of Boston and Susan Tucker. Her grandparents were Abiel and Elizabeth (Pierce) Washburn, and Alanson and Eliza (Thom) Tucker, and she was a descendant from John Washburn, one of the original proprietors of Bridgewater, from Abraham Pierce of the Plymouth colony, and from William Rounseville, whose son Philip came over from Honi- ton, Devon, England, in 1700. The Grinnell and Washburn families are among the best of New England stocks and have many cross-connections, Charles and Elizabeth Grinnell had two sons. The elder, Charles Ewald Washburn Grinnell, was born in Gottin- gen during his parents' sojourn there; his second name memorializes the noted Orientalist, then one of the faculty, who was compelled to retire from his professorate in that very year of 1866 because he refused to take the new oath of allegiance imposed upon Prussian- ized Hanover. Mr. C. E. W. Grinnell is a shoe manufacturer in Boston, as his grandfather was. The younger son, Frank. W Grinnell, is a lawyer in the same city, and secretary of the Massa- chusetts Bar Association.
Mr. Grinnell had joined the Associate Reformed church in the winter of 1858, when he was not yet seventeen, but found himself, after all his study of theology, a Unitarian. Two or three months after reaching home (having preached some Sundays meanwhile) he was invited to become pastor of the First Unitarian church in Lowell and on February 19, 1867, he was ordained. At this time he translated from the German, and published, in June, 1868, Uhl- horn's " Modern Representations of the Life of Jesus." In October 1869 he accepted a call from the Harvard church of Charlestown, and was installed pastor November 10.
A few events in the period of his ministry may be mentioned. He preached the election sermon before the governor and newly elected officers of the Commonwealth, January 4, 1870, in the Old
CHARLES EDWARD GRINNELL
South Church. From June 21, 1870 to May 8, 1872 he was chaplain of the Fifth regiment Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. On the last day of 1873 he resigned the pastorate of the Harvard Church of Charlestown, and in the following August he retired from the ministry altogether.
The next fall Mr. Grinnell moved to Cambridge and entered the Harvard Law School, studied the full two years' course, took the degree of bachelor of law in June, 1876; went into the office of Chandler, Ware, and Hudson, and in November was admitted to the Suffolk bar. He immediately opened his own office at fifty-six Court Street, and there and at Number thirty was engaged in the general practice of his profession until his retirement in 1910. In July, 1878, he moved to Boston with his family, and in that year was commissioned master in chancery. From 1880 till December 1882 he was editor of the American Law Review, and he edited it again for three years, ending in 1909. Among other activities, he delivered the Memorial Day oration at Milton in 1893, and made an address in May, 1897, before the general convention of Alpha Delta Phi in Providence.
Mr. Grinnell spent the greater part of the year 1909 in Paris and Italy with his wife. Mrs. Grinnell died at Naples and for three years Mr. Grinnell traveled extensively, living for months in Paris and London, and traveling in Germany, Russia, Egypt, the Holy Land, Greece, France and Spain. After 1913 he made his home with his son, Charles, in Boston.
Mr. Grinnell's writings on legal subjects were many. His books include: " A Study of the Poor Debtor Law of Massachusetts and Some Details of Its Practice," 1886; "Points in Pleading and Practice Under the Massachusetts Practice Act," 1889; " The Law of Deceit," " A Legal View of the Inquiry Granted Rear Admiral Schley and of Other Inquiries by Military Courts," 1902; among his Essays are: "Subsequent Payments Under Resulting Trusts," 1887; " Why Thomas Bram Was Found Guilty," 1897; " Beyond a Reasonable Doubt," 1897; " The Task of the Jury in the Maybrick Case," 1900; " Modern Murder Trials and News- papers," 1901. One of his latest essays, on " The Pretended Failure of Christianity," was written for the Springfield Republican, and appeared in that journal on Sunday, December 19, 1915, and is a singularly strong and lucid consideration of the effect on humanity and religion of the world-war, - a survey marked by high trust and spiritual faith.
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Curtis Build
CURTIS GUILD
C URTIS GUILD, one of the foremost sons of the Common- wealth, who was honored at home and abroad by Emperor and King alike, was born in Boston, February 2, 1860, and died in the city of his birth, April 6, 1915. He came of mingled Scotch and Welsh stock. One of his Colonial ancestors, Captain Samuel Guild, in 1678, received the freedom of the town of Salem for distinguished services during King Philip's War; another on his mother's side, General David Cobb (great-grandfather), served on General Washington's staff during the Revolutionary War, and was later Lieutenant-Governor of Massachusetts.
His father, Curtis Guild (1827-1911), was the founder and owner of " The Commercial Bulletin," a man of fine literary taste, who traveled extensively and published an entertaining account of his experiences. He married Sarah Crocker Cobb of Taunton, Massa- chusetts, a woman of high character, who had a strong influence on the moral and intellectual development of her children.
As a boy, Curtis Guild attended Miss Lewis' private school in Roxbury until he was'ten; then he entered the famous Chauncy Hall School, where he was fitted for college. He entered Harvard in 1877, where he was a good scholar and distinguished for his ability as a public speaker. This won for him the honor of election as the Class Orator on graduation in 1881. He was an editor of the " Crimson " and of the " Lampoon," also an all-round athlete. He made a specialty of fencing, and in 1879 he won the cup offered for excellence in that art, retaining the championship until he received his degree. It was his ambition to attend West Point and enter the army, and, although he was disappointed in this, he was always attracted by military affairs. He became an expert in saber-practice and was a skilful horseman. He was one of the charter-members of the Boston Athletic Association, in 1889 and 1890, winning the fencing championship of that club.
After his graduation, he visited Europe and on his return he entered his father's employ as advertising-solicitor and bill-collector
CURTIS GUILD
for the Commercial Bulletin. He rapidly won promotion and became a partner in 1883.
In June, 1892, he was married to Charlotte H. Johnson, whose father was a member of the long-established firm of C. F. Hovey and Company.
He was one of the five original founders of the Republican Club of Massachusetts, taking a prominent part in the agitation against " Free Silver " in 1896. He was selected as delegate-at-large to attend the National Republican Convention at St. Louis, and was one of the Vice-presidents at the meeting which gave William Mc- Kinley his first nomination for the Presidency of the United States.
On the outbreak of the war with Spain, Curtis Guild, who held a commission as Brigadier-General on the staff of Governor Wol- cott, was the first man in the State to volunteer. He was com- missioned as First Lieutenant in the Sixth Massachusetts regiment, and was soon appointed Lieutenant-Colonel and Inspector-General on the staff of General Fitzhugh Lee in command of the Seventh Army Corps. He served in Florida and Georgia, and finally went to Cuba where he was also chief of the secret service, entrusted with the duty of protecting the Spanish inhabitants who were in danger of being massacred by guerrillas. At end of Spanish War, offered rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in Regular Army by President Mckinley.
Lieutenant-Governor 3 years. In 1905 he was elected Governor. He was re-elected the following year. When he was chosen for the third time, his success at the polls showed that he was one of the most popular governors that Massachusetts had ever elected.
In the autumn of 1910, he was sent as Ambassador-extraordinary to Mexico to represent this country in the Centennial celebration of Mexican Independence.
The following year, President Taft appointed Curtis Guild as Ambassador to the Court of the Emperor of Russia. Ambassador Guild was received by the Emperor with conspicuous friendliness, and it was universally recognized that he managed the difficult negotiations following the abrogation of the commercial treaty of 1832 in a dignified and skilful manner. Resigning the ambassador- ship, he returned to America in the Spring of 1913. A short time after his return, the Emperor Nicholas conferred upon him the decoration of the Imperial Order of Alexander Nevsky, the second highest honor within his power. He had already been decorated by the King of Italy and made a Grand Official of the Crown.
CURTIS GUILD
The Holy Cross College of Worcester granted him the degree of LL.D., and he also received the degree of LL.D. from Williams College and University of Geneva.
Mr. Guild was a thirty-third degree Mason. He was President of the National Forestry Association; was a member of the Republi- can Club of Massachusetts, of which he served as President for one year; a member of the Tavern, University, Press, Boston, and Middlesex Clubs, of the Union Club, the Nahant Country Club, the Civil Service Reform Association, the Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, the Society of Colonial Wars, the Society of Foreign Wars, the Sons of the American Revolution, the Military and Naval Order of the Spanish-American War, and of the Boston Chamber of Commerce. He was connected with the Arlington Street Unitarian Church.
Mr. Guild had a remarkable gift for languages. He never lost his familiarity with the classics, which he enjoyed in the original. He read and spoke French fluently, and was able to make addresses, or carry on conversations in German and Italian. He picked up a considerable knowledge of Spanish before he went to Mexico, and had a working knowledge of Russian. He was a most gracious and genial friend and treated strangers with affability and cor- diality. He was fond of children, and was always on the lookout to see that they had not only their rights, but also their pleasures.
The people of Boston have erected in his memory a flight of steps, known as the Curtis Guild Memorial Steps, built on the Common leading from the Mall to Beacon Street. They are made of Quincy granite, the railing and lamp-posts on the Mall are of wrought iron in effective design; on one post is carved the State coat of arms, and on the other is a medallion of Mr. Guild. A memorial has also been dedicated in the State House, consisting of a bas-relief of the former Governor mounted on Istrian marble.
Curtis Guild accomplished vastly more than many who live to greater age. Although it was not permitted him to reach the maturity of his powers, he won the love and esteem of friends in many countries as one of the finest and most public-spirited citizens Massachusetts has ever produced. High-minded, straightforward, and of sterling honesty, he was a true type of the preux chevalier so much admired in history.
HENRY FROBISHER GUILD
H ENRY FROBISHER GUILD was born at Meeting House Hill, Dorchester, December 25, 1849, and died at his home in Newton Highlands, December 18, 1916. He was the son of Henry and Louise (Frobisher) Guild. His maternal grand- father was Benjamin Frobisher. The immigrant ancestor of the Guild family was John Guild, who came to this country in 1636, was admitted to the church at Dedham in 1640, and bought twelve acres of upland, upon which he built a house which was occupied by himself and his descendants for more than two hundred years. Members of the Guild family served in the Revolutionary War and have been prominent in local affairs wherever they went. Their good judgment, ability, probity and interest in religion and in the public welfare are almost too well known to require mention. It is from such stock that the subject of this sketch was descended.
Mr. Guild's father was, at the time of his death, the oldest manu- facturing jeweler in Boston. He had been in the jeweler's business for fifty years. Mr. Guild's mother was a woman of excellent men- tal endowments, a gracious character and a vigorous religious faith, and she exerted a strong influence, both upon the intellectual and upon the moral and spiritual life of her son. Even in childhood he exhibited a passionate love of the sea. In his youth he had no regular tasks to perform which involved manual labor, and his only difficulties in acquiring an education arose from his own ill health. He was an inveterate reader. Biographies and books on philosophy were his choice; he always read the " Outlook " with especial interest, and he was a great magazine reader. His formal education was obtained at the English High School and at the Latin School, in . Boston.
His father had long cherished an ambition for his son to share his business enterprise; accordingly, when Henry Frobisher Guild's school days were over, he became associated with his father in business in the firm of Guild and Delano. In 1884, Mr. Guild became junior partner in the firm, now known as Henry Guild and Son. In 1894, on the retirement of his father, Mr. Guild became the
F. E . Williams & B .: NY
Henry ST. Guild
HENRY FROBISHER GUILD
head of the firm. He remained in business until 1901 and then retired, after serving for thirty years as a manufacturing jeweler.
Mr. Guild was not a club man, though he was for a long time a member of the Newton Club, from which, however, he resigned in 1903. He was a Unitarian in his religious affiliations, and always attended Arlington Street Church, in Boston.
In politics he was a Republican, and he never cared to change his party allegiance. He was an amateur photographer of con- siderable skill, and he found endless amusement in this art. He never outgrew his boyish love of the sea.
In 1903, Mr. Guild was married to Minnie McLaren, of Port Clyde, Nova Scotia. She was the daughter of Charles Edward McLaren, of Barrington, Nova Scotia, and Agnes S. Greenwood, of Port Clyde. Her grandfather was Charles McLaren, of Edinboro, Scotland, and her great grandfather belonged to the McLaren family of Aberdeen, Scotland. Mr. and Mrs. Guild had no children.
Mr. Guild considered that the influence of his home was of the greatest assistance to him in working out his successful career.
From many testimonials to Mr. Guild, the following is quoted from the pen of the friend who knew him best: "Mr. Guild was one of the finest men in every way that Massachusetts has ever produced. He was of a quiet, retiring, unassuming manner, not a public man at all, but loved by every person who came in contact with him. He was very philanthropic, never giving to public charities, but continually to the personally deserving poor. He was always thoughtful of others, never thinking of himself. He was an especial friend of children of all ages, being very fond of them, and had a long list of poor he remembered each year. Mr. Guild was an ideal man in every way, a fine Christian character, kind, gentle, brave and true, always deeply interested in Boston's welfare."
MOSES HADJI GULESIAN
M OSES HADJI GULESIAN, of Boston, Mass., manu- facturer and philanthropist, was born in 1864 in Marash, an important city of about 25,000 inhabitants, one of the centers for the manufacture of rugs in Armenia. Armenia has been described as the mother land and the cradle of humanity; all other lands and countries are her daughters. Her mountain tops of perpetual snow are a crown of glory. She supplies the beautiful Euphrates, the Tigris and the Pison from the jewels of her crown, as they flow onward to girdle and water what men say was once the Garden of Eden, the first cradle, as well as Mount Ararat, the second cradle of the race. Both lie within this favored country, whose people trace back their ancestry to the records in the tenth chapter of Genesis, and which prophecy declares shall furnish the theater, on its field of Armageddon, for the final overthrow of evil and the ushering in of the new heavens and the new earth.
In the midst of these inspiring associations the subject of this sketch passed his childhood and entered into early manhood. While young he learned the trade of a coppersmith, and was in business for himself at the age of seventeen. He became interested in America through one of his schoolmates, whose eldest brother was one of the first Armenians to come to the new world, twenty- five years previous to the time our narrative begins. Hearing from afar the call of the distant West, he bent all his energies for three years to collecting funds for the journey. About a year before his departure, he joined a band of about one hundred and fifty pilgrims from Marash and its vicinity who were purposing to visit the Holy Land. With them he visited Damascus, the Sea of Galilee, Nazareth, Joppa, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Jericho, the River Jordan and the other places of interest. Four months were passed in this way on horseback, as at that time there were no railroads. On the return journey the party passed along the sea-coast, now beheld for the first time, and whenever they halted the youthful Gulesian spent most of his time watching the steamers, yearning to be on board one of them, headed for America.
After returning home to Marash, the visions of the journey re- doubled his desire to go to the United States. He finally left Marash in 1883 with the purpose of embarking for America. He did not tell his people for he knew that they would endeavor to prevent his leaving the country. When he reached Alexandretta to take the steamer, he wrote a letter of farewell to his father and
M. Hanlesion
MOSES HADJI GULESIAN
mother, telling them that he had started for America, and that the first stop would be Smyrna. On reaching that city he would have been thrilled, indeed, had he then been familiar with the dramatic story of Martin Kotzba, the Hungarian refugee in whose behalf, not long before, the sharp and decisive struggle, in that very harbor, had vindicated for all time the right of the oppressed to claim America for their home. Uninspired by any such recollection, young Gulesian was compelled to learn that for him the difficulties, instead of being over, had only just begun, for no sooner had he landed than he was invited to meet an American missionary and an Armenian pastor. The missionary's dragoman accompanied Mr. Gulesian to the house. Here, to his surprise, he was locked in a room, and to his bitter disappointment, he heard read a telegram from his father, instructing his captors to seize all his money and return him to Marash. There appeared to be no escape, as the doors were all locked, and the dragoman stood there armed. There was nothing to do but to hand over the money, consisting of eight- een Turkish pounds, or about $75.00, which he did. However, after hard begging, the youth procured the consent of the captors to delay sending him home until he could telegraph to his father and receive an answer. So they returned two pounds to him to use until the answer should be received. Mr. Gulesian then sent the following telegram: "Sarkis Gulesian - Dear Father: They have got my money, but they haven't got me. Would you rather lose the money or never see me again? (Signed) Moses." For the next four days he went to the wharf to see what chances there might be to work his passage, in case the money was not forth- coming, being determined not to return to Marash in any event. At the end of the fourth day, the same dragoman as before came to his lodgings and told him that he was wanted at the mission. There the missionary informed him that a telegram received from his father had directed that the money be returned to him, but strongly advised and urged him to come home. That very hour he purchased his ticket, and went on board the steamer at once, lest another telegram should announce that they had changed their minds. After two days of great anxiety on his part, the steamer set sail for Palermo, Italy, where connections were to be made for New York.
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