USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Biographical review, containing life sketches of leading citizens of Essex County, Massachusetts > Part 41
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(Further information in relation to the Smith family can be found in the sketch of David E. Smith in this volume.)
ON. MARQUIS D. F. STEERE, of Amesbury, was born in Pascoag, R. I., January II, 1822. A son of Augustus and Cyrena (Salisbury) Steere, he is a descendant of John Steere, one of the early settlers of Providence, R.I., who was born in England in 1634. His grandfather was Simeon Steere. The early education of Mar- quis D. F. Steere was limited to a few terms in district schools. Some years later he at- tended Scituate Seminary. At the age of twelve he went to work in a woollen-mill for eight dollars per month. Gradually he won his way upward until he had mastered every detail of the business, working as second hand, overseer, and agent. Finally he became part owner of a woollen-mill in Uxbridge, Mass.,
with Josiah Seagraves, in the firm of Seagraves & Steere. This partnership lasted until 1858, when Mr. Steere accepted charge of the mills of the Salisbury Woollen Company, one of the largest concerns in New England at that time. He was general agent of these mills for up- ward of a quarter of a century, covering the period of their greatest prosperity. In 1882 he resigned to take a much needed rest, and spent two months in Europe.
Shortly after his return from Europe Mr. Steere became a silent partner in the carriage firm of Biddle & Smart. The firin recently formed a corporate company with Mr. Steere as president. He is 'a director of Wing & Co., hardware dealers; of the Provident Insti- tution for Savings Investment Company; of the Amesbury and Salisbury Water Company ; and he was a director of the water company that manufactured the first gas used in Amesbury. He is also a member of the Board of Trade. In 1883 he was elected to the General Court of Massachusetts from the First Essex District on a nearly unanimous vote. The Tewks- bury matter was being debated in the House when he left for Europe, and it was still under discussion when he returned. The session lasted till June. Mr. Steere was on the Labor Committee when the charter for the Powow Hill Water Company was procured by him.
On February 18, 1861, Mr. Steere was mar- ried to Anna, daughter of Charles Wing, of Uxbridge. She was born September 4, 1840. Mr. and Mrs. Steere have had five children, namely : Edith, born October 21, 1865, who in 1885 was married to Frank Stinson, of Burlington, Vt .; Mary C., who died in in- fancy ; Charles A., born December 3, 1870, who graduated from the Vermont Normal School, is in Wing & Co.'s sales department, and is a director of the corporation ; Harry W.,
Eng ª vy A H Ritchie
M. D. J. Steere
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born July 8, 1877, who is also with Wing & Co. ; and Syrena S., born October 9, 1884, who is the youngest. Mr. Steere is connected with the Masons and Odd Fellows in Ux- bridge, and belongs to Warren Lodge of Royal Arch Chapter and to various other local or- ganizations. In politics he is a Republican.
B ENJAMIN FRANKLIN CALLEY, chairman of the Board of Assessors of Saugus, was born in Effingham, Carroll County, N.H., April 13, 1826. His parents, John Frederick and Aphia (Brown) Calley, were natives of the Granite State. The ancestry of the family dates back to three brothers, who migrated from Scotland to America about the year 1755, one settling in Vienna, Me., one in Holderness, N.H., and the other (Samuel) in Hampstead, N. H. Samuel Calley was Benjamin Franklin Calley's direct ancestor. The male represent- atives of the family are chiefly mechanics and farmers.
Samuel's son John, Benjamin F.'s grand- father, who like his father was a farmer, set- tled in Effingham, N.H., on a large tract of wild land furnishing territory sufficient for nine farms besides the homestead.
John F. Calley, who was a farmer and trader residing in West Parsonsfield, Me., died before his son Benjamin F. was born. His widow, losing the farm after his death, placed her two eldest children in care of their grandfather, and the youngest, Benjamin F., with her husband's sister, who was then the wife of Samuel March, and went to Ipswich, Mass., to live with her brother. There she taught school for some time, and was subse- quently married to Ebenezer Coggswell, of Ipswich, whom also she outlived. Her last
days were spent with her sons in Saugus, where she died in 1863. Besides Benjamin F. she had two sons by her first husband : Jacob B., born April 4, 1822; and John F., June 15, 1824. They lived with their grand- father, John Calley, until Jacob was fifteen years old. Then he went to live with his uncle, Luther Cate, who had married his mother's sister, and learned the shoe business at East Saugus.
Two years later John F. and Benjamin F., aged fifteen and thirteen years respectively, became members of the same household; and they, too, learned shoemaking under their uncle's tuition. The boys worked by the piece, and paid for their board and clothing. John and Jacob also settled in Saugus. Jacob, who died in 1891, married Mary Jane, youngest daughter of Jacob and Abigail New- hall. John, who is living in Lynn, married the eldest daughter of Benjamin T. and Mary A. Hall, of Waterboro, Me.
Benjamin F. Calley was engaged as ap- prentice to his uncle until twenty-one. At the age of sixteen he bought his time, and engaged as cutter in the shoe shops of Will- iam P. Newhall and Artemas S. Atherton, the leading manufacturers in Saugus at that time. When he was nineteen years old he be- came a partner of Levi D. Waldron, who later became his father-in-law, and with him man- ufactured shoes in Saugus and Lynn about twelve years. He then sold his interest in the business to his partner, and for two years was his superintendent. At the close of his engagement he commenced the manufacture of shoes on his own account in Saugus. The shoes (hand made) were sent to be finished into Maine and New Hampshire as well as Massachusetts. A successful business was established, which he managed for twenty years, employing some fifty men and women.
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He sold his own goods, travelling extensively through twenty-eight States of the Union. Many of the shoes made under his supervision were sold in the Cuban and South American markets.
In 1863 Mr. Calley was sent to Washington to obtain men to fill the quota of troops, but he did not go into active servicc. Through his personal efforts a large sum of money was raised to pay bounties to enlisted men to fill the town's quota.
In 1878 he closed up his shoe business, and for a year and a half was superintendent in Coburn & Fuller's shoe factory at Derry Depot, N.H. He was then for five and one- half years superintendent of the T. A. Cooledge factory in Marlboro, Mass. After this he had charge of the Carlisle Shoe Company's fac- tory at Carlisle, Pa. His next engagement was as assistant foreman in George Faulkner's morocco factory in West Lynn. His long experience in the shoe business had made him familiar with leather of all kinds.
In 1889, while employed in Mr. Faulkner's morocco factory, he had his hand crushed in the machinery. Since that time he has done but little mechanical work.
Mr. Calley is a Republican, and took quite an active part in political matters and at- tended all important conventions when he was younger. He was elected Assessor the day before he injured his hand, and has been in office ever since through successive re-elec- tions. Prior to 1889 the Selectmen acted as Assessors. In that year a regular Assess- ment Board was formed. Mr. Calley was the first chairman, and has had the honor of being the only one. He now devotes the most of his time to the duties of his office.
In 1879-80 he was Tax Collector, and from 1870 to 1880 he was on the School Board, serving as chairman most of the time. For
thirty-four years he has been a director in the Saugus Mutual Fire Insurance Company, one of the best companies in the State. For eleven years he has served on the Board of Trustees of the Saugus Free Public Library, and is acting as chairman at the present time. He has been a member of William Sutton Lodge of F. A. Masons since 1866, and has been its secretary twenty-two years. Mr. Calley was a member and clerk of the East Saugus Brass Band, and saw service with the organization at Camp Schuyler, Lynnfield, during the first year of the war of the Rebellion. He taught music in the pub- lic schools for two years without remunera- tion, and composed and arranged words and music for the schools. He was director of a glee club of male voices, was chorister in the East Saugus Methodist Episcopal Church for several years, and was a member of the choir for a quarter of a century. Though not a church member, he has always contributed freely to church enterprises.
Mr. Calley was married May 3, 1849, to Eveline M., eldest daughter of his old part- ner, Levi D. Waldron. She was born in Sau- gus, September 28, 1828, and died August 6, 1896. She was endowed with considerable literary talent, as shown by her poetical com- positions furnished at the solicitation of friends, to be read upon anniversary and other occasions. A kind, true-hearted woman, she had many warm friends. Mrs. Calley was the mother of two children: Carrie M., who died at the age of twenty, a young lady of cheerful disposition and giftcd with rare musical talent; and Benjamin F., Jr. The latter, who resides in East Saugus, is a commercial traveller for the house of H. L. Bowden & Co., 18 and 20 High Street, Boston. He married the eldest daughter of William H. and Ann J. Warren, of Medford, Mass., and
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has one child, Dorothy Eveline, born April 29, 1898.
Mr. Calley is a man highly esteemed by his neighbors and those who have held a busi- ness or social intercourse with him. In the many positions of trust and responsibility which he has held, he has performed the various duties with care and marked ability. He is both physically and mentally well pre- served for a person of his years, having seen seventy-two summers, and bids fair to add many more.
DWARD P. HURD, M. D., a prominent physician of Newburyport and a well- known writer on medical subjects, was born at Newport, a little town near Sher- brooke, in Canada, P.Q., August 29, 1838. His father was Samucl Hurd and his grand- father Edmund Hurd. Farther back we are unable to trace his lineage. There was a John Hurd in Boston as early as 1639 and a settler of the same name in Connecticut ten years later. We are told that three immigrants - Edmund, John, and Luke - bearing this sur- name came to America from the British Isles about 1700. Henry Hurd, M. D., superin- tendent of Johns Hopkins University, is of this family.
Edmund Hurd, grandfather of Dr. Hurd, was born in Worcester, Mass., and went from that city to the Province of Quebec about 1790. Settling in the backwoods at Newport, about forty miles from the Vermont line, he cleared a large farm.
Samuel A. Hurd, father of the Doctor, was born about 1816. Soon after his marriage he removed to Eaton, and opened a general mer- chandise store, which proved a fairly success- ful venture. He acquired a good property, and owned much valuable real estate. He was
active in town affairs, was made County Treas- urer, and was Justice of the Pcace for some years. He was a prominent member of the Congregational church. Samuel Hurd mar- ried Catherine, daughter of Phineas Hubbard, of Stanstead, P.Q., one of the original settlers of that locality toward the close of the last century. The following named children were born of this union: Edward P .; Ellen, who married Dr. H. C. Rugg, of Stanstead; Jen- nie, who died in her twenty-third year; Laura ; and Augustine, a lawyer of Sherbrooke, P. Q.
Edward P. Hurd was educated in the com- mon schools at Eaton Corner, Canada, and at the academy then under W. W. (now Bishop) Niles, of Concord. He studied the classics from 1852 to 1855, and then entered St. Francis College, Richmond, and later, 1861, McGill Medical School at Montreal. Here he remained four years, graduating in 1865, taking the highest honors, and winning the Holmes gold school medal for proficiency in all branches of medical study. Dr. Hurd began the practice of medicine at Danville, P. Q., where his profession called him over a radius of ten to twenty miles. In 1870 he settled in . Newburyport, where he has since remained. Mrs. Hurd is daughter of the Rev. Randolph Campbell, who was for forty years pastor of the Fourth Religious Church of this city. She is also related by marriage to Dr. Enoch Cross, for some fifty years a leading practi- tioner in Newburyport.
During the twenty-eight years since Dr. Hurd's coming to Newburyport he has been actively engaged in his profession, has done a large amount of literary work, and has given considerable time and attention to the various social and educational affairs of the city. For two years he served as a member of the School Board, and for seven years he was a director of the public library. From 1871 to 1881
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Dr. Hurd was one of the City Physicians; and, when subsequently the law providing for appointment through the Mayor went into effect, Dr. Hurd was appointed by Mayor Hale, and served as City Physician till 1885. In 1893, upon the death of Dr. Snow, Medical Examiner for the Third Essex District, Dr. Hurd was appointed to the position for seven years by Governor Russell; and the same year he became Pension Examining Surgeon for Newburyport and the surrounding towns. ;
For many years Dr. Hurd has written edi- torially for the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, the Medical Age of Detroit, and the Therapeutic Gazette of Philadelphia. He has also contributed a number of signed articles to different publications, among others the fol- lowing : "Consumption in New England," to the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal ; sev- eral articles in the Medical Record in 1882, under the head "Functional Diseases of the Heart "; a short treatise on "The Evolution of Medicine," in the North Carolina Medical Journal of 1882; and in 1890 a brochure on "Neuralgia" and another on "Sleep, Insom- nia, and Hypnotics," published by George S. Davis, of Detroit, Mich. Besides these papers, which have been the outcome of Dr. Hurd's own research and experience as a med- ical practitioner, he has made many transla- tions from both the French and the German, which have received wide-spread appreciation and recognition. When, in 1885, he trans- lated "Clinical Therapeutics" from the
French, the author wrote for him a special preface. This was followed in 1886 by "Diseases of the Lungs," from the French by Professor Germain Sée, which was likewise honored with a special preface by the author, and was published by William Wood & Co. The same year appeared "Diseases of the Stomach and Intestines," from the French by
Dujardin Beaumetz. Other translations were as follows: "Infectious Diseases," from the German of Carl Liebermeister, in two vol- umes; "Diseases of the Heart," in two vol- umes, by D. Beaumetz; "Treatment of the Morphine Habit," from the German by Al- brecht Erlenmeyer; "Diseases of the Liver," from the French by Dujardin Beaumetz, in 1887; "Diseases of the Kidneys," by the same author, in 1888; "Diseases of Nervous System," by Professor Charcot; "Appendi- citis and Perityphlitis," by Dr. Charles Tala- mon; "The Bacterial Poisons," by Dr. Gamaleia, in 1893; "A Treatise on Diphthe- ria," by Dr. H. Bourges; "A Treatise on Fractures," by Professor Armand Desprès, in 1890; and "Antiseptic Therapeutics," by Dr. E. L. Trouessart, in 1893.
Dr. Hurd is a member and for two years was president of the Essex North Medical Society, also a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and formerly of the Cli- matological Society, and of the Société de Médecine Pratique of Paris, France. He has been on the medical staff of the Anna Jaques Hospital since its founding. He belongs to the following fraternal organizations: St. Mark's Lodge, F. & A. M., of the Royal Arcanum, American Order of United Work- men, Golden Cross, United Friends, and New England Order of Protection.
In his literary work Dr. Hurd has been ably assisted by his wife, who is a lady of fine culture. Dr. and Mrs. Hurd have had five children, of whom three are now living - Kate Campbell, Mabeth, and Randolph Camp- bell. Kate Campbell, born in 1867, studied medicine in the Women's Medical College of Philadelphia; and after her graduation she studied physical culture in the famous gymna- siums of Sweden, and became medical director and teacher of physical culture at Bryn Mawr
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College. She married William E. Mead, professor of English literature at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Conn. Mabeth Hurd is an artist by profession, and spent several years studying landscape painting and teaching. She was in Europe perfecting her studies in 1893. She married James Paige, a lawyer of prominence in Minneapolis, Minn. Randolph Campbell Hurd is a graduate of Harvard Medical School and was one year surgical interne at the Boston City Hospital.
Dr. Hurd has been professor of Pathology and Dermatology at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, Boston, since 1893, giving every year a course of lectures at the college. He is now Registrar of the college.
ENJAMIN PETERS RICHARD- SON, farmer, one of the most re- spected residents of Middleton, is a native of this town, formerly a part of Salem Village. He was born October 7, 1829. His parents, Jeremiah and Hannah (Richard- son) Richardson, were cousins.
His father was a son of Stephen and Han- nah (Upton) Richardson and one of a family of six children - five sons and a daughter Edith, the other sons being David, Elijah, Abijah, and Daniel. His mother was a daughter of Jonathan and Mary (Peters) Rich- ardson. She had five brothers and two sisters ; namely, Solomon, John, Amos, Ezra, Eli, Lucy, and Naomi. His paternal grandmother, whose maiden name was Hannah Upton, was born in 1753, a daughter of Francis and Edith (Herrick) Upton. Her father was a son of William and a grandson of John, the immi- grant progenitor of the New England family of Uptons.
Stephen and Jonathan Richardson, the grandfathers above named, were sons of Sol-
omon Richardson by his second wife, Abigail Buxton. They had a half-brother David and a brother John, both of whom married; and the latter left children. Two other brothers, Amos and Solomon, Jr., probably died young ; a sister and two half-sisters lived to be married.
Solomon Richardson was born about 1700 in Middleton. He was a son of David, who was a native of Woburn, Mass., son of Isaac and Deborah (Fuller) Richardson. Isaac was a son of Thomas Richardson, who in 1641, with his elder brothers, Ezekiel and Samuel, was among the seven founders of the town of Woburn. It appears from the will of Solomon Richardson and the inventory of his estate (see Richardson Memorial), probated in 1761, that his homestead property consisted of three hundred acres, that he had other lands, that he was the owner of a "negro man Frank," and that his wife had a "maid Dinah." Stephen Richardson, who was Town Treasurer for many years, settled on a farm of about one hundred acres. The house built by him in 1804 is still standing.
Jeremiah Richardson, son of Stephen and father of Benjamin P., succeeded to the owner- ship and occupancy of the estate, which is now the home of his grandson, Hazen K. Richard- son. Jeremiah Richardson's wife, Hannah, died young ; and he afterward married her sis- ter, Lucy Richardson, who was then the widow of his cousin Jonathan, second, son of his uncle John. The children of Jeremiah Rich- ardson were: Lorena, who died at the age of sixty, unmarried; Jasper, who was a teacher in early life, and later became a manufacturer of shoes at West Gloucester; Edith, who mar- ried E. P. D. Kimball; Alethea K., who married George A. Currier, of Middleton ; Benjamin P., the subject of this sketch; Re- becca, who married James E. Currier, and is part owner of the homestead where they re-
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side, and Jeremiah Austin, who married Mary Webster.
Benjamin P. Richardson passed his youth upon his father's farm. He first learned shoe- making, and then became a butcher. In 1855 he bought his present farm, formerly owned by Dr. David Fuller, an estate containing about one hundred and fifty acres. He has carried on a large dairy business for the past twenty years, keeping about forty cows and supplying milk to Salem and Lynn customers for fifteen years. He was married May 28, 1858, to Eliza A. Symonds, a daughter of Jonas and Hannah (Kimball) Symonds, of Andover. She died June 5, 1895, leaving three children - Kate Peters, Benjamin Franklin, and Hazen Kimball. Kate P. Richardson was graduated at the Salem Nor- mal School in January, 1876; advanced class, June, 1878. She taught for eight years in the high schools at Arlington, Newton, and Peabody, and at Bradford Academy, finally taking the position of principal of the Normal School at Bradford, Pa. She was married October 5, 1887, to Daniel N. Crowley, attor- ney-at-law of Danvers, and has four children --- Esmond, Gladys, Benjamin, and Daniel N., Jr. Benjamin F. Richardson, M.D., re- ceived his diploma from the Harvard Medical School in 1886, and is now a practising physi- cian in Lynn, Mass. He was married Novem- ber 14, 1893, to Miss Sadie Sanger, daughter of the Rev. George J. Sanger, of Essex, Mass. Hazen K. Richardson was graduated at Har- vard College in 1886. He was married July 24, 1894, to Miss Gertrude D. Kcan. They have two children : Benjamin Kean, born July 3, 1895 ; and Hazen Mills.
In politics Mr. Richardson is a Republican. He has been a Selectman, a member of the School Committee, and an Overseer of the Poor. In religion he is a Universalist, and he
has for many years held office in the church of that denomination at Middleton.
G EORGE HENRY SEAVERS, of Lawrence, a foreman blind maker with the Briggs & Allyn Company, manufacturers of builders' supplies, was born at Newburyport, Mass., February 16, 1856, son of William Franklin and Sarah (Hodg- don) Seavers. He is descended from Robert Seaver, who came from England to Plymouth, Mass., in 1630. Some of the descendants of Robert were in the Revolutionary War. While the original name of the family was Seaver, different branches of it adopted Severs, Sever, and Seavers. John Seavers, the paternal grandfather of George H., was a merchant residing in Gardiner, Me., and is buried in that town. All of his children, three sons and four daughters, grew to matu- rity and married. Some of them went West, while three of the daughters are buried in Chicago. The other daughter, Carrie, who married William Eggleston, is living in New Hampshire, near the Vermont boundary line. She and her husband, and one of her sisters, were passengers on the first train that went over the Michigan Central Railroad into Chi- cago.
William Franklin Seavers, born in Gardi- ner, Me., in 1830, who was a sea captain, died in Newburyport at the age of thirty-nine years. Having begun life as a cabin boy, he rose steadily until he became commanding officer. For seven years he was in the China seas. During the Mexican War he was in the United States navy. During the gold fever, from 1849 to 1851, he ran a packet up the San Juan River and across Lake Nica- ragua, the course of the proposed canal and the route by which many persons then went to
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California. When the Civil War broke out, he was in the merchant service; and the vessel he was then commanding was sunk in Norfolk Harbor. After the Civil War he was engaged in West Indian trade for a time. His death on January 12, 1869, four days after his return from a voyage, was the result of a disease con- tracted in the tropics. His wife, Sarah, to whom he was married at Newburyport in 1853, was born in Ossipee, N.H. After his death she was again married, and is now living in Manchester, N.H., a widow, active still in body and in mind, with her hair scarcely tinged with gray.
George Henry Seavers, who was the only child of his parents, attended the common schools and the high school at Newburyport and Lawrence. However, a large part of his boyhood was passed on shipboard with his father, visiting the principal ports along the Atlantic coast, the West Indies, and Rio Janeiro, but never having the gratification of crossing the Atlantic. When about sixteen years of age he began learning his trade with the Briggs & Allyn Company. He has been with this firm for twenty-seven years, and has been an overseer during the whole of that period with the exception of two years and a half. For about sixteen years he also made blinds on contract. He was married on Feb- ruary 2, 1878, to Josephine A. Pease, of Appleton, Me., a daughter of Samuel D. and Mary A. (Pease) Pease. Mrs. Seavers lost her mother at the age of three years, and was cared for by her paternal grandmother until her father married a second time. Her father was a farmer. Mr. and Mrs. Seavers have lost one daughter, Mabel, who died at the age of ten months. They have three living chil- dren : Lillian J., born November 24, 1879; Grace, born February 22, 1891 ; and George Henry, Jr., born on May 10, 1894. Miss
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