USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Biographical review containing life sketches of leading citizens of Plymouth County, Massachusetts > Part 28
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While in California he was Postmaster of San Leandro, and was Notary Public for Ala- meda County; and he has in his own native place filled many offices of trust and impor- tance. He was first Town Clerk at Lakeville, and he has also been Treasurer, Assessor, Se- lectman, and a member of the School Commit- tee in the town of his birth and present resi- dence.
The year 1853 was the date of his marriage to Miss Julia Sampson, who did not change her name by becoming a bride. To Mr. and Mrs. Sampson two children were born, namely : Eugene H., who married Ardelia B. Merrill, daughter of Nathaniel Merrill, of Turner,
Me .; and Julia I., who married James M. Willis, Jr., of New Bedford, Mass.
Isaac Sampson is now settled on the farm of his inheritance; and he is a citizen with whom the people of Plymouth County would be loath to part again, for much travel has made him broad, liberal, and progressive, the sort of man who makes a just neighbor and a kindly friend. Having no special party preju- dices, he is at liberty to vote for whatever candidate seems best fitted to fill office, and may therefore be called in the best sense of the term an independent voter.
OSEPH RIPLEY, a highly respected old resident of Hingham, where he has been engaged as a manufacturer of fur- niture and as an undertaker for many years, was born here May 9, 1819. His parents were Nehemiah, third, and Eunice (Whiting) Rip- ley. „His earliest known ancestor in America was William Ripley, who came from Hing- ham, England, in 1638, and settled in Hing- ham, Mass. His wife, who, with their two sons and two daughters accompanied him, died a few years later; and on September 29, 1654, he was married to Mrs. Eizabeth Thaxter, widow of Thomas Thaxter. William Ripley died July 20, 1656. His second wife outlived him, and on January 20, 1658, married her third husband, John Dwight, of Dedham. She died July 17, 1660.
John, the first-born son of William Ripley, married Elizabeth, daughter of the Rev. Peter Hobart. He died February 3, 1684, and his wife died March 26, 1692, at the age of sixty. Next in the ancestral line was Peter, the fifth child of John and Elizabeth (Hobart) Ripley, who was born October 21, 1668. On April 17, 1693, he was united in marriage with Sarah Lassell, daughter of John and Elizabeth
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(Gates) Lassell. She was born in Hingham, November 29, 1666, and died September 19, 1736. He died April 22, 1742. He lived on the paternal homestead on Main Street, Hing- ham Centre, and was an influential man in town affairs, serving as Constable in 1708 and as Selectman in 1725.
Peter, the second child of Peter and Sarah (Lassell) Ripley, was born in Hingham, No- vember 7, 1695, and on January 5, 1720, mar- ried Silence Lincoln, daughter of Caleb and Rachel (Bate) Lincoln. She was born here December 26, 1692, and died March II, 1760. Peter Ripley, second, died in April, 1765, having officiated as Constable in 1735, and as Selectman in 1738 and 1741. He also re- sided on the old paternal acres. Nehemiah, first, son of Peter and Silence .(Lincoln) Rip- ley, born April 2, 1727, was married June 4, 1752, to Lydia Hobart, daughter of the Rev. Nehemiah and Lydia (Jacob) Hobart. She was born in this town February 9, 1733. Ne- hemiah Ripley, first, was a farmer, and served the town as Constable in 1766. He died August 10, 1769, aged forty-three. His son, Nehemiah, second, born April 18, 1755, on February 24, 1780, married Priscilla - Lincoln, whose parents were Moses and Mary (Burr) Lincoln. She was born here February 13, 1757, and died March 30, 1829. Nehemiah, second, died March 8, 1829. He also occu- pied the ancestral farm. By his marriage there were nine children: Nehemiah, third, the father of the subject of this sketch; Jus- tin, who died very young; a second Justin ; Lydia, who also died in early life; John; Peter; Ebed; Priscilla; and Lydia.
Nehemiah, third, son of Nehemiah, second, and Priscilla (Lincoln) Ripley, was born in Hingham, November 5, 1780. He also fol- lowed farming on the old home acres. On February 1, 1807, he was married to Eunice
Whiting, daughter of Amasa and Lydia (Ja- cobs) Whiting. She was a native of Hing- hanı, born in June, 1786. She died October 15, 1850, and he died October 11, 1863, leav- ing six children: Eunice W., who married Francis Campbell, of Milton, Mass .; Ann Eliza, the wife of Winslow C. Whiting, of New York; Abigail, now Mrs. William Whiton; Nehemiah; Joseph; and Lydia Ja- cobs, who married Abner L. Baker. A son, Peter, died in 1841, aged seventeen. William died in 1853, in his twenty-fifth year. An- other had died in infancy.
Joseph Ripley during his boyhood worked at farming and everything else he could get to do, his early educational opportunities being limited to brief terms of schooling. He, however, gained by experience and contact with the business world a fund of practical knowledge which has served him in good stead. When he was seventeen years old he was apprenticed in Milton to learn the carpen- ter's trade, which he readily acquired. Upon attaining his majority he returned to Hingham ; and, instead of making a business of carpenter- ing, in 1842 he engaged with his brother in the manufacture of furniture. Two years later he formed another partnership with Mr. Newhall, under the firm name of Ripley & Newhall. They manufactured furniture for the Boston market with good financial success until 1882, when the partnership was dissolved by mutual consent. In the meanwhile Joseph Ripley had given attention to the undertaking business, which had assumed such proportions as to require his undivided time. He has continued engaged in this ever since, keeping pace with the latest improvements in embalm- ing and furnishings, being also an excellent funeral director. He is pleasantly located on South Street, his residence being on one side of the street and his place of business on the other.
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Mr. Ripley married Elizabeth L. Lane in 1846, and they celebrated their golden wed- ding last June. In politics he is a Republi- can, casting his first vote for John C. Fremont, and voting for every Republican Presidential candidate ever since. Religiously, he was brought up under Unitarian influence; but since 1842 he has been a member of the Baptist church, in which he is actively inter- ested. He is a Deacon who is tender in his relations with the church, being a Christian gentleman who tries to follow the example and teaching of the Master. Though he has attained the age of seventy-seven years, he is still vigorous and active.
ILLIAM STETSON, a well-known carpenter and contractor of Brock- ton, was born in Pembroke, Plym- outh County, in 1842. His parents were Harvey, Jr., and Abigail D. (Walker) Stet-
son. The family, which is of English origin, was founded by Cornet Robert Stetson, who came from the County of Kent, England, in 1634. He settled in Scituate, Mass., on a farm adjoining the one supposed to be alluded to in the popular song, "The Old Oaken Bucket." His rank of cornet was received in the first company of horse raised in the Plym- outh Colony. He married and became the father of four sons. Harvey Stetson, the grandfather of William, was born in Pem- broke, where he was subsequently engaged in the trade of ship carpenter. He married Polly Lanman, of Scituate, and they had three children - Harvey, Jr., Mary Ann, and Ed- ward. Harvey Stetson, Jr., a native of Plym- outh, was considered a mechanical genius. He was also engaged in ship-building, but he subsequently forsook that calling for farming. By his wife, Abigail D., he became the father
of three children - Isaac, William, and John -and he died at the age of seventy-four years.
After attending the common school in his native town for the usual period, William Stetson took a course at Bryant & Stratton's Commercial College in Providence. He sub- sequently learned the carpenter's trade in less time than any other apprentice of his em- ployer. He was afterward employed in a cot- ton gin manufactory for some time. Then he and D. H. Dunbar kept a grocery store, the firm being known as Dunbar & Stetson. After that he worked at his trade in Boston, Lynn, and Bridgewater, and was in the em- ployment of Charles Johnson, of Brockton, as foreman for four years. In the centennial year he began undertaking contracts in Brock- ton. Now, in the possession of a profitable contracting business, he puts up houses to sell, and otherwise deals in real estate. On September 8, 1875, Mr. Stetson was united in marriage with Diana P. Beale, of West Bridgewater. While he supports the Repub- lican party, he takes no part in political affairs beyond voting. At several times he has been solicited to accept important public offices.
REDERICK SIMPSON STRONG was for over thirty years superintendent of the Carver Cotton Gin Company of East Bridgewater, also one of its stockholders and directors ; and much of its early success is due to his wise management and his valuable labor-saving inventions, on which large royal- ties had been paid. Mr. Strong was born in South Coventry, Conn., August 25, 1824, a son of Frederick A. and Julia (Simpson) Strong, both natives of that town. His an- cestry was a distinguished one, the family characteristics being patriotism, a keen sense
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of right and wrong, and great simplicity and purity of character.
He was eighth in descent from Elder John Strong. who came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony from England in 1630, and was active in founding the towns of Dorchester, Hing- ham, and Taunton. Removing finally to Northampton in 1659, he took a prominent part in the development of that place. He was possessed of considerable wealth, and was a large land-owner. Of stanch Puritanical principles, he was the head and support of the church in Northampton. His descendants, who were men and women of firm character, prominent in every generation in church and town affairs, settled in various towns in Con- necticut. In 1763 Justice Joseph Strong, at the age of eighty-nine was elected for the fifty-second time to the Colonial legislature; Caleb Strong was United States Senator from 1788 to 1800, and Governor of Massachusetts in 1800; another member of the family, a physician, was commissioned by Washington in 1793 as Surgeon in General Wayne's army. Roger Strong, who was Paymaster in the army in the War of 1812, was the father of Fred- erick A., and grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Frederick A. Strong was a large manufacturer of Connecticut; and his wife, the mother of Frederick S., was a cousin of General Ulysses Simpson Grant.
Frederick Simpson Strong received an aca- demic education, and prepared for college, but, owing to ill health, did not take a further course of study. He taught school for a while, and was gradually drawn into me- chanics, for which he had a natural genius. In the early fifties he was engaged in the man- ufacture of firearms for the United States gov- ernment at Springfield; and he was subse- quently, as a member of a New York firm, engaged in superintending the dressing of
stone by machinery in New York, having two thousand men under his charge. The panic of 1857 made it necessary for this firm to sus- pend business, and Mr. Strong then obtained the position of superintendent of the East Carver Cotton Gin Company, now known as the Carver Cotton Gin Company of East Bridge- water. He had been connected but a short time with this concern when the mills were destroyed by fire; and in the re-establishing of the plant his mechanical skill and inventive genius were of great service. During the war the manufacture of cotton gins was sus- pended, and Mr. Strong entered the employ of the national government, superintending the manufacture of swords and rifles at West Chelmsford, Mass., and the manufacture of Remington rifles at Ilion, N. Y. His knowl- edge of the manufacture of arms being of im- measurable value to the government, they would not allow him to go into the army, therefore he furnished a substitute. A pretty good record for an ardent Democrat !
As the war neared its close, he returned to East Bridgewater, and purchased one of the most beautiful residences in town, a house built by the famous Oliver Ames, of North Easton, for his daughter. Mr. Strong, becom- ing one of the partners in the Carver Cotton Gin Company, was made its superintendent, and remained in that capacity as long as he lived. Among the most important of his patented inventions were: the iron cylinder for cotton gins; the cotton-gin feeder: a wedge-driving machine; a leather splitting machine; and the Acme Leveller, an indis- pensable adjunct now to shoe machinery.
Mr. Strong was constant and untiring in his application to business; and when business was cared for, his time was devoted to his home and family with great tenderness and fidelity. After the loss of his beloved son,
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this man of strength and vigor seemed to be crushed to the earth by his weight of sorrow. Never again had he the same interest in life as before, and in a little over a year death came as a relief to restore him to his son's companionship.
Mr. Strong was one of the incorporators and a Trustee of the East Bridgewater Savings Bank. He was Chairman of the East Bridge- water School Committee for several years, and a member of the Social Club. Prominent in Masonic circles, he was Past Master Bridge- water Lodge, A. F. & A. M., and was really the founder and first Master of Satucket Lodge, A. F. & A M., of East Bridgewater. He was Commander for a number of years of the Old Colony Commandery, Knights Templars, of Abington, and was a member of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts in Bos- ton. He was seventeen years superintendent of the Sunday-school of the Unitarian church, to which he devoted much time and money. He was popular alike with those in his own station in life, and those subject to his orders ; and a thrill of consternation went through the community when it was announced that he had been stricken with paralysis in his office at the mills. And when, a few days later, he passed away, the mourning for his loss was general. He died October 22, 1894, and his remains were interred in Mount Auburn, the Knights Templars conducting the obsequies.
Mr. Strong was married February 15, 1853, to Sarah Frances, daughter of Luke and Eliza (Sage) Pratt. She was born May 13, 1832, in Springfield, Mass., where many generations of her family have lived and died, and where the old Pratt homestead is still standing. Mrs. Strong's great-grandfather, Jonathan Phillips, was a Revolutionary soldier, and she belongs to the Daughters of the Revolution. She is an esteemed member of the Unitarian Society
at East Bridgewater, and both she and her husband were members of the Universalist church at Springfield, to which, in companion- ship with him, she devoted much of her time and means. For several years Mrs. Strong was a teacher in the Sunday-school. She took part in the literary and social activities of the town, and was a member of the Shakspere Club from the time of its organization, nearly a quarter of a century ago. She has always been interested in those things that pertain to intellectual and moral advancement. The union of Frederick Simpson Strong and Sarah Frances Pratt was blessed with one son, Charles Pratt Strong, who died somewhat over a year previous to his father's demise, after a short and brilliant career as a physician and surgeon.
Charles Pratt Strong was born in Spring- field, Mass., December 19, 1855. He was a graduate of East Bridgewater High School at thirteen years of age, but remained one year longer to study Greek and Latin, under the instruction of Mr. Faxon. The following year he entered Phillips Exeter Academy at Exeter, N. H., in the Senior class, with more knowledge of Greek and Latin than was re- quired the first year at Harvard College. At fifteen years of age he passed a successful ex- amination for Harvard College, with honors in Greek, Latin, and mathematics.
He was enrolled in the class which was graduated in 1876, and received his degree from the medical department in 1881. In the first part of his college course his bent seemed toward the natural sciences; but in his second year in the medical school his inborn fitness for the profession he had chosen became evi- dent, and he threw himself heart and soul into acquiring the knowledge needful for his life work. He gained his initial practice as house officer at the Boston Lying-in Hospital, the
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Charles . Thing
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Free Hospital for Women, and the Massachu- setts General Hospital. Starting as a general practitioner in Boston in 1882, he soon drifted into gynecology as a specialty, and in ten years he rose to the front rank of his pro- fession. Unaided by wealth or influential friends, his love of his profession, his con- scientious work, his pure and honorable char- acter, almost womanly in its sweetness, and his manly independence, attached to him all with whom he came in contact; and the demand for his services yearly increased. He gave his time and energies unsparingly to his patients, private and charitable, and accom- plished a great amount of hospital work.
He was a born surgeon. One of his older associates has said, "Dr. Strong knew by in- tuition what it took others years to learn "; and another, "He had at the early age of thirty-seven reached the zenith of his profes- sion." Dr. Strong had one ambition which he hoped to gratify, and that was to have a private hospital of his own, where he could expand his work, and increase his powers for saving life and preventing suffering. Doubt- less the magnificent estate at Elmwood in East Bridgewater, charming and salubrious in its location, beautiful in scenery, the delightful home of his boyhood days, where his beloved mother, now doubly bereft in loss of husband and son, still resides, would have been the chosen spot. - But in his devotion to his pro- fession and suffering humanity his life was sacrificed before the cherished plan could be executed. Two of the Doctor's leading char- acteristics were his love of home and of his profession. His office was in his dwelling, on the water side of Beacon Street, No. 258, only a short distance from the residence of Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes.
The charitable institutions with which Dr. Strong was connected at the time of his death
were the Free Hospital for Women, in which he was assistant surgeon, and the Massachu- setts General Hospital, where he was acting as physician to out-patients. As an expert in abdominal surgery, he was called upon to per- form an operation on a friend suffering from an acute attack of appendicitis; and the case was of such virulence that the operation failed to save the patient's life, and led to the death of the physician. In little more than twenty- four hours after he had attended to the case, Dr. Strong became conscious of symptoms of blood-poisoning, and he died within six days, March 14, 1893. He was at that time assist- ant in gynecology in the medical department of Harvard University ; a fellow of the Massa- chusetts Medical Society, of the Boston So- ciety for Medical Improvement, of the Boston Society for Medical Observation, of the Bos- ton Obstetrical Society, and of the American Gynecological Society. He was also an hon- ored member of the noted St. Botolph Club.
Miss Sarah Daggett, of Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, whose life Dr. Strong had saved, conceived the idea of founding a schol- arship in Harvard Medical School to perpetu- ate his memory. She contributed thereto, as did others; and so pleasing was the idea to his parents that they forwarded handsome checks, and the balance is provided for in Mrs. Strong's will. This enables some worthy stu- dent, whose means are limited, to obtain an education. In the Art Museum in Boston, a bronze bas-relief reminds us of the young phy- sician's life. As here represented, the Angel of Death stretches out his hand, and stays the work but partly completed; and, looking with saddened eyes upon this emblem, comes the blessed thought of immortality and reunion.
Dr. Strong was married October 9, 1884, by the Rev. Dr. Bartol, in the old West Church, Boston, to Miss Mary Baker. The
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Baker family werc among the English colo- nists of Massachusetts, coming to this country in 1634, and settling in Lynn. They were farmers, merchants, soldicrs, scholars, and took part in the French and Indian wars, the Revolution, and the War of 1812. One son, Bryant Strong, born January 29, 1889, shares with his mother "the heritage of pride in the husband and father who died at the post of duty."
HOMAS J. LEBARON, who resides on the old homestead in Middleboro, where his life has been spent in the time-honored vocation of a farmer, was born here, April 1, 1848, son of Thomas M. and Sarah C. (Morse) LeBaron. His parents had four sons and two daughters. After attending the district school near his home, Thomas J. LeBaron took a supplementary course of study at Jenks's Academy, Middleboro. He con- tinued to live with his parents on the home farm, of which, upon the death of his father, who departed January 3, 1895, aged eighty- four years, he became the owner. The place contains about eighty acres ; but in addition to this he owns other land, the aggregate amount being about three hundred acres. He carries on gencral farming with fairly profitable re- sults, and is also engaged to some extent in lumbering, owning a saw-mill in the town of Rochester. In politics he is a Democrat. On April 8, 1879, Mr. LeBaron was marricd to Miss Sylvia Morse, by whom he has three children; namely, Ralph J., Roy M., and William E.
ENRY C. PECKHAM, a well-known mechanic of Brockton, was born in Fall River, Mass., April 28, 1835, son of Henry Peckham, Jr., and Lydia P.
(Smith) Peckham. His grandfather, Henry Peckham, Sr., who was a farmer of Newport, R.I., and served his country in the last war with England, married Esther Gould, of South Kingston. She was the mother of his thir- teen children, but three of whom are now liv- ing. Of the latter, one is a resident of Los Angeles, Cal., and the other two are living in Fall River, Mass. The father joined the Baptist church when he was sixty-five years old. Hc lived to be ninety, while his wife died at the age of eighty years. Henry Peck- ham, Jr., a native of Newport, R.I., was suc- cessively a cabinet-maker and a pattern-maker. He drafted the first locomotive patterns for the car shops of Taunton, Mass. Subse- quently he was engaged in the turning busi- ness at New Bedford. In religion he was a Baptist, and belonged to the society of the Baptist church in Fall River. He married Lydia P. Smith, who lived in the vicinity of Newport, and by her bccame the father of six- teen children. She is still living, being in her ninety-first year. The father died at the age of sixty.
Henry C. Peckham lived in Fall River with his parents until he was eight years old. Then he removed with them to South Middle- boro, now Lakeville, and there remained five years. In 1848 the family removed to Swan- sea, Mass., where Henry C. spent his time for some years, working on his father's farm in the summer and attending the common schools in the winter. In the spring of 1852, being then seventeen years old, he went to Fall River to learn the trade of wood-turner of Nelson N. Brightman, and remained with him fourteen months. Subsequently he was in company with his father in Providence, R.I., for a timc. In 1854 he returned to Fall River, and found employment at his trade working for A. L. Westgate & Co. In 1858 he removed
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to West Bridgewater, where he learned to make shoes. He afterward worked in the stitching-room of Sawyer, Collaman & Co., Campello. In 1864 he opened a meat market in Somerset. Mass. He was later associated for some three years with his brother in the shoe business at Cochesett, this county, under the style of H. C. & C. T. Peckham. In 1868 he engaged with H. A. Dean & Co., to run his stitching-room. In August, 1869, he came to North Bridgewater, now Brock- ton, and worked at turning for George M. Copeland. On June 29, 1874, A. C. Thomp- son purchased the business of Mr. Copeland, and since that time Mr. Peckham has been associated with Mr. Thompson. Altogether he has been in the wood-turning business for about twenty-seven years. He has also been interested to quite an extent in real estate.
On October 15, 1855, Mr. Peckham was united in marriage with Elizabeth B. Bliss, of Rehoboth, Mass. She has had five children, two of whom are now living. These are: Alton E. and Julia W. The latter is now the wife of Mr. Simmons. In politics Mr. Peck- ham is an Independent. He is a member of Park Revere Lodge, A. F. & A. M., of Satucket ; and is in the Royal Arch Chapter, and the Bay State Commandery, Knights Templars.
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