USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > Biographical review containing life sketches of leading citizens of Plymouth County, Massachusetts > Part 8
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Orlando W. Charles supplemented his pub- lic school education by attendance at Fryeburg
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Academy, after which he began the study of medicine. For several years he taught suc- cessfully in his native town. In June, 1881, he was graduated from Bowdoin Medical Col- lege, and in September of the same year settled in the town where he is now engaged in a large practice. Dr. Charles stands high personally, as well as professionally, among his fellow-men. He is a member of the Mas- sachusetts Medical Society. In politics he is a Democrat. Fraternally, he is a member of Phoenix Lodge, A. F. & A. M., of Hanover.
On May 20, 1883, he was united in mar- riage with Elizabeth Chandler, daughter of Joseph and Mary (Chase) Chandler, of Frye- burg. Mrs. Charles is the grand-daughter and great-grand-daughter of Revolutionary soldiers, and a direct descendant of General Joseph Frye, to whom the site of the town of Frye- burg was given by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts for distinguished services in the French and Indian War. Paul Langdon, the first preceptor of Fryeburg Academy, and son of the Rev. Samuel Langdon, President of Harvard College, was her great-grandfather.
ANIEL WALDO FIELD, an ex- tensive shoe manufacturer of Brock- ton, Mass., and president of the Clark-Hudson Company, shoe jobbers, III Federal Street, Boston, is a citizen of whom Brockton is justly proud. Besides establish- ing a large and prosperous industry which has brought plenty and content into many a work- ingman's home, he has given largely to phil- anthropic enterprises, some of which owe their existence to his generosity. He was born in Brockton, February 18, 1856, the son of Will- iam L. and Mary (Holmes) Field.
He is a descendant of John Field, an Eng- lishman, who settled in Providence, R. I., and
was the original ancestor of most of the American Fields, including the chief justice of the United States Supreme Court. Daniel W. Field's great-great-grandfather, Jabez, the son of Daniel and grandfather of Zopha Field, was born on the Peregrine White grant in Bridgewater, now Montello, a tract of land about a mile and six rods long, a part of which has been in the family one hundred and fifty years or more. Zopha Field, who was a pros- perous butcher, owning a slaughter house and several wagons, was in business a great many years, dying at the age of seventy. He mar- ried a Miss Packard, and reared four daughters and four sons, of whom only William L. and Charles C. are living.
One of the sons, named Daniel, was en- gaged in making boots before the war, and William L. made brogans; but after the advent of machinery lessened the demand for hand work he engaged in other pursuits. As a farmer, he was quite successful ; and he man- aged two large summer hotels, the Pawnee and the Central House, at Martha's Vineyard. A large real estate owner, he realized consid- erable on land sales, the sites of the W. L. Douglass factory, French's factory, the Lavers Dye- works, and other buildings, hav- ing originally belonged to him. He gave the land to the Old Colony Railroad Company for their station at Montello, and his sons were instrumental in getting the station located there. Mr. William L. Field, who is sixty- seven years of age, is now living on the family homestead. He is a shrewd, quiet man, who makes no boast of what he has accomplished, though he has worked very hard in past years. His wife, who was Miss Mary Holmes, of Middleboro, daughter of Jesse Holmes, of Plymouth, has been his untiring helpmate in life's struggle, shirking no duty, however wearisome. They have three sons living.
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Their only daughter was called from earth at the age of sixteen, the happy age which is neither childhood nor womanhood, but com- bines the graces of both. The eldest son, William F., is salesman for D. W. Field, and assistant manager and also treasurer of the Field-Hazard Company. Daniel W. is the second son. The youngest, Fred, is a member of the firm of Packard & Field, of Brockton.
Daniel Waldo Field in his youth attended the Brockton High School and Bryant & Stratton's Commercial College, Boston, where he was graduated in 1875. After leav- ing school, he worked on his father's farm for about a year and a half, driving a milk wagon and taking care of forty cows. One day when he was in his twenty-first year Mr. D. S. Howard stopped him on the street, and re- quested him to take charge of the books in his shoe factory, then the largest in the city. He was in Mr. Howard's employ four years. In the last three years he saved from his salary fifteen hundred dollars; and in 1881 he started in business in a small way as a shoe manu- facturer, employing seven men and making thirty-six pairs of shoes a day. His indus- trious habits and close application to busi- ness brought him prosperity ; and in 1883 he erected, on his father's farm, the nucleus of his present plant, a factory thirty-three by sixty feet in dimension. Since then he has made three additions, only enlarging as his capital allowed; and his factory now is three hundred and fifty feet long, with four floors for business and two storehouses, containing in all fifty-two thousand feet of floor space. He employs on an average five hundred hands, and makes from four to five thousand pairs of shoes a day.
In 1894, in company with his brother, Will- iam L. Field, and Zimri Thurber, he started another shoe factory under the firm name of
Field, Thurber & Co .; and in September, 1895, the brothers bought Mr. Thurber's in- terest, admitting to partnership Mr. Hazard, who is the present manager of the Field-Haz- ard factory, Mr. D. W. Field being president of the corporation. In the past five years, according to record, Mr. Field has shipped one-twelfth of the shoes sent out from Brock- ton. He was one of the original founders of the Clark-Hudson Company, of Boston, which was established in 1892, and of which he has since been president. Hiring quarters at III Federal Street, they purchased their stock, and the first year's sales, in 1893, amounted to over a million dollars, in 1894 the sales aggregated a million and a half dollars, and in 1895 nearly two million dollars. They are now probably the largest jobbers in Boston, and employ a hundred hands, including clerks, typewriters, and salesmen.
Mr. Field's brothers live near him, so they form a manufacturing community of their own. When he started in business, the only means of travel between Brockton and Montello was a coach which made two or three trips daily ; and the silence of the little suburb was broken only by the drowsy and infrequent sounds of farm life. Now the place is changed to a bustling manufacturing village, with hurrying steam-cars connecting it with other industrial centres ; and this great change is due to Mr. Field's enterprise. His factory is kept in constant operation, and he is always ready to aid his help in erecting homes of their own. The best of feeling exists between him and his employees, and only once during his busi- ness life has he had any trouble with them.
As a financier, he has a variety of eonnec- tions. He is largely interested in real estate and building, transacting his business on his own responsibility alone, and has fifty tenants, and has erected thirteen stores; and he is an
GEORGE B. HOWARD.
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active Director in the Brockton National Bank, and owns several union interests. During his whole business career he has never borrowed money, never given his note. His donations to charitable enterprises are generous and fre- quent, and many of his benefactions have been performed in such a quiet way that they are unknown to the general public. He takes a deep interest in schools for the blind. He was one of the Building Committee of the Brockton Hospital, and one of the leaders in the enterprise. He gave liberally to the Wales Old Ladies' Home at Montello; and he built the Congregational church at Mon- tello, which was completed in September, 1895, and gave it to the society.
Mr. Field married Miss Rosa A. Howes, who was born in Barnstable, on the Cape; and she has aided him in his work, not only with sympathy and encouragement, but in many practical ways.
Though he takes no active interest in poli- tics, preferring to devote his time to his busi- ness, he served two years as Park Commis- sioner of Brockton, and was urged to run for Alderman, but declined. He is not a lodge man, but belongs to the Commercial Club, an association of business men. Mr. Field is not a professed church member, yet he is a practi- cal and active Christian. Under the weight of his business cares his health has broken down; and by his physician's advice he has spent much of the past four years in travel, in California, Europe, Cuba, and other parts of the world.
G EORGE BURRILL HOWARD has served efficiently as Assessor of Brockton for the past six years. A member of an old Plymouth County family, he was born in North Bridgewater (now Brockton), November 24, 1845. His parents
were Thomas Jefferson and Lavinia (Tilden) Howard.
His first ancestor in this country was John Howard, who lived for some time with Cap- tain Miles Standish in Duxbury, and later settled on a tract of new land, in what is now West Bridgewater, where he died in 1700. He married Martha, daughter of Thomas Hay- ward, and reared seven children - John, James, Jonathan, Elizabeth, Sarah, Bethiah, and Ephraim. Ephraim Howard, who died in 1750, married Mary, daughter of the Rev. James Keith, perpetuating the line of descent, which includes the special subject of this sketch. His children were: Jane, born Sep- tember 17, 1689; Susanna, March 8, 1692; Martha, August 7, 1695; Ephraim, Jr., March 25, 1697; Daniel, October 3, 1699; David, March 3, 1703; Silence, June 3, 1705 ; and Mary, December 21, 1707.
Ephraim Howard, Jr., the fourth child, married Abigail Tisdale, who died in 1758, leaving the following children: George, born January 31, 1721; Theophilus, born in 1724; Ephraim, in 1731; Abigail, in 1733; Sus- anna, born in 1736, who married John Ames, and was the mother of Oliver Ames, the founder of the shovel works in Easton; Mar- tha, born in 1739; Mary, in 1741. George Howard, the eldest son, who was the great- grandfather of George B., died April 3, 1815, aged over ninety-three years. He was mar- ried in 1745 to Abigail, daughter of Jonathan Copeland. She was born December 9, 1724, and died March 26, 1809. The children of this couple were: Hannah, born July 26, 1746; Abigail, September 26, 1748; Betty, May 9, 1751; George, Jr., September 8, 1753, who was in the Revolutionary War in 1775; Oliver, born December 21, 1755: Job, May 17, 1758; Caleb, December 15, 1760; Rachel, April 20, 1763; Patty, August 2,
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1765; Asaph, March 19, 1768; and Nehe- miah, August 20, 1770.
Caleb, the third son, who was the next in this line, was a man of strong character, and was highly esteemed in North Bridgewater (now Brockton). He filled a number of pub- lic offices, was first Representative to the General Court from the town of North Bridge- water in 1822, Justice of the Peace for a great many years, and held various commissions. He was in the Revolutionary War. In his later years he was commonly called Colonel Howard, being Colonel in the militia, and Commander of the forces at Plymouth in the War of 1812. He died January 4, 1831, in the seventy-first year of his age. On Decem- ber 7, 1780, he was married to Sylvia, daugh- ter of Daniel Alger. She was born Novem- ber 13, 1761, and died September 17, 1819, in her fifty-eighth year. They were the par- ents of eleven children : Hannah, born May 9, 1782; Apollos, August 23, 1784; Abigail, March 23, 1786; Sylvia, June 9, 1788; Vesta, May 17, 1790; Chloe, January 19, 1793; Nancy, January 10, 1795; Welcome, April 17, 1797; Olive, July 24, 1799; Caleb, June 8, 1802; and Thomas Jefferson, July 20, 1804. Colonel Caleb Howard married a sec- ond wife, Abigail Snell, daughter of Issacher Snell, Esq., but by this union had no children.
Thomas Jefferson Howard, youngest son of Colonel Howard, was a farmer of North Bridgewater. He died May 27, 1874. His wife was daughter of John Tilden, who was in the Revolutionary War. She was born April 9, 1810, and died February 25, 1891. Of their children, the following is a brief record : Thomas Franklin was born July 14, 1831. Caleb, who was born August 2, 1833, at- tended the Harvard Law School, and subse- quently studied in Philadelphia. He went to California about 1860, and took the stump for
Abraham Lincoln, and he subsequently taught school in the Sandwich Islands. Sent from there on a government errand to the Island of Guam, near Japan, he died in August, 1864, on the way, and was buried at sea. Frederick Howard, born March 19, 1836, died February 19, 1837. Willard, born July IO, 1839, now a resident of Baltimore, Md., was in the forty-fourth Massachusetts Regi- ment at the time of the war, and was commis- sioned by Governor Andrew in the Fifty- fourth Regiment, serving successively as Lieutenant, Adjutant, and Captain, and re- maining in the service until the war was fin- ished. He is now Colonel of the Fourth Regiment of the Maryland State militia. Davis Howard, born July 16, 1842, was also in the Forty-fourth Massachusetts. Fred Les- lie, born February 2, 1849, is one of the firm of C. A. Browning & Co., of Boston, whole- sale dealers in millinėry goods.
George Burrill Howard, the fifth son, attended in his boyhood the common and private schools of North Bridgewater. He subsequently served a three years' apprentice- ship to the tinsmith's trade, and then entered Martin L. Keith's shoe factory in Brockton, where he was employed for a number of years. When he was twenty-one he began to deal in real estate, and he was successful in that business. He is well known in Brockton, and is a worthy representative of the family to which he belongs. A Republican in pol- itics, Mr. Howard stands high in the esteem of his fellow-partisans. In 1886 he was appointed Assistant Assessor, and served four years. In 1890 he was appointed Assessor, and has been in office continuously since.
He was married in 1870 to Elizabeth Mar- tin, a native of West Bridgewater, daughter of Charles N. Martin, and they became the par- ents of two children, namely: Mildred B.,
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born August 6, 1872. who died October 28, 1892: and Mabel M., born July 24, 1876. In religious belief Mr. and Mrs. Howard are Unitarians.
ATHANIEL SHAW, a veteran of the Civil War, who conducts a thriving grocery business in Plymouth, was born in Carver, Mass., December 14, 1836, son of Nathaniel and Betsey (Shurtleff) Shaw. His grandfather, Nathaniel (first), who resided in Carver, was accidentally killed by a falling tree when he was thirty-five years old. Of the grandfather's five children, there are three living, the eldest of whom has reached the age of ninety years. Nathaniel Shaw (second), Mr. Shaw's father, was also born in Carver. He learned the trade of a hollow-ware moulder in Ellis's foundry, where he was afterward em- ployed for many years. In the spring and summer a good farm gave him ample employ- ment for all his surplus time. He died at the age of sixty-five years, regretted by all who knew him as an industrious man and a good citizen. His wife, Betsey, born in Carver in 1806, was a daughter of Captain Gideon Shurt- leff, also a native of Carver, and a son of Abial Shurtleff. The Shurtleffs descend from William Shurtleff, who came to this country in the "Mayflower," and they are mentioned in a work, entitled " A Nameless Nobleman," written by Jane G. Austin. Abial Shurtleff, Mr. Shaw's maternal great-grandfather, who was born in Marshfield, Mass., moved to Carver when a young man. Of a strong phy- sique, he continued hale and hearty up to the time of his death. When close on ninety-four years old, he walked from Carver to Plymouth, a distance of nine miles. Captain Gideon Shurtleff worked at his trade of moulder in the winter, and was engaged in farming dur- ing the summer season. For several years he
was Captain of a military company ; and during the War of 1812, when the British troops landed at Wareham, Mass., he commanded a company of the volunteers organized to meet and oppose their advance. He was the father of seventeen children, among whom was Betsey, Mr. Shaw's mother. Mrs. Nathaniel Shaw reared nine of her eleven children, five sons and four daughters. Of these, Nathan (third) was the fourth born. The mother lived to the age of sixty-seven.
The third Nathaniel Shaw, who is the sub- ject of this sketch, was educated in the schools of Carver. He afterward assisted his father upon the farm until he was nineteen years old. Then he obtained employment in Ellis's foundry, where he remained for some time. Later he went to the Kingston foundry, where he continued to work for a year. From there he went to Pratt's foundry in North Carver, and then to Watertown, Mass., where he followed his trade until 1862. In this year he enlisted as a private in Company B, Third Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, under Colonel Richmond, and subsequently participated in the North Carolina campaign, doing picket duty in and around Newberne, N.C., and in the battles of Kingston, Whitehall, and Goldsboro. After receiving his discharge in 1863, he returned to Watertown, and re- mained there for some three years. At the expiration of that time he came to Plymouth, where he was for the succeeding ten years employed at the Plymouth Iron Foundry. He then formed a copartnership with Mr. Hatch, and has since carried on the grocery business here under the firm name of Hatch & Shaw.
Mr. Shaw has been twice married. His first wife, a native of Carver, whose maiden name was Lucy Vail, died in 1876. She left one son, E. A. Shaw, who is now engaged in the grocery business in Stoughton, Mass. In
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1878 Mr. Shaw contracted his second marriage with Julianna Baker, a daughter of William W. Baker, of Plymouth. He is a member of Patuxet Colony, No. 103, Pilgrim Fathers, and a comrade of Cadlingwood Post, No. 76, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he has been Commander. In politics he supports the Re- publican party, and, although he is well quali- fied to fill sundry town offices, he invariably declines nomination as a candidate.
UFUS E. PACKARD, real estate agent and man of affairs, of Brock- ton, Mass., formerly North Bridge- water, was born in a house that stood on Bel- mont Street, near Charles Eaton's private resi- dence, July 28, 1836. He is a son of the late Lorenzo E. and Wealthy (Sylvester) Packard, both of North Bridgewater.
The Packards are an old New England fam- ily. Samuel Packard, the first of the name in this country, came from Windham, near Hingham, England, in the ship "Diligence," of Ipswich, and settled in Hingham, Mass., in 1638. From there he moved to West Bridge- water, where for a number of years he kept a . tavern ; and for some time he was constable of the town. He had a family of twelve chil- dren. Zaccheus, the third child, married Sarah Howard, and reared nine children. His son, Zaccheus, Jr., was married in 1725 to Mercy, daughter of Isaac Alden, and had a family of six children. Isaac Alden was a grandson of John and Priscilla (Mullins) Alden. Zaccheus Packard, Jr., died in 1775, aged eighty-two years. His son, Simeon, who was born March 30, 1736, was married on July 6, 1761, to Mary, daughter of Mark Perkins, and died October 23, 1815, aged nearly eighty years. His widow died October 22, 1820, aged eighty-one. Eleven children
were born to this couple. Their third child, Zenas, who was the grandfather of Rufus E. Packard, was born May 22, 1771, and died April 20, 1854, aged nearly eighty-three years. Zenas Packard was an active church member, holding the office of Deacon for a number of years. His wife, Deborah, whom he married in 1793, was a daughter of Eben- ezer Thayer. She died October 1, 1854. They were blessed with a family of ten children.
Lorenzo Emerson Packard, son of Zenas and Deborah Packard, was born in North Bridge- water, August 6, 1810, and was educated in the common schools of this town. He spent his life, with the exception of two or three years, in his native place, and followed shoe- making for a livelihood. Though not an as- pirant for office, he was actively interested in politics, voting originally with the Whigs, afterward with the Republicans. He served on the Prudential School Committee in look- ing after supplies for school-houses in his dis- trict, and was Clerk of the Board. He was a prominent Congregationalist. He was mar- ried November 18, 1832, to Wealthy, daughter of Gustavus Sylvester, of North Bridgewater. She died in 1876. He lived to the age of eighty-one years. Their children were nine in number, namely: Emeline Frances, now the wife of F. E. Allen; Rufus Emerson, the subject of this sketch; Caroline Augusta, the wife of John O. Emerson; Martha Adelaide, who died at about twenty years of age; Wealthy 'Alice, who died in 1893; Ellen Elizabeth, who died in infancy; Luella Mi- nerva, who married George A. Warren; Ho- ratio Lyman, who died in infancy ; and Syl- vester Fremont, who is married and resides in Brockton.
Rufus Emerson Packard, the eldest son, re- ceived a common-school education, distin-
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guishing himself as a pupil by winning a prize book offered for excellence in scholarship. This success was the more remarkable from the fact that at the very early age of seven years he was set to work at pegging shoes, both before and after school hours, now and then even at noontime, so that he had no un- usual opportunities for study. He left school at the age of fourteen, and went to work at shoemaking ; and for some time he was foreman of rooms in different factories. He also man- aged a room of his own, employing a large number of hands. The constant strain of in- door work at length undermined his health; and in 1886 he turned his attention for a while to canvassing, subsequently opening an intelli- gence office. This he closed up after a time, and has since devoted his energies to real estate and insurance, in which he has been very successful. At present he has the man- agement of much of the real estate business in Campello; and he has a number of private estates to look after, including those of Martin I. Keith, the Hon. Ziba C. Keith, and Preston B. Keith. Mr. Packard is also an auctioneer.
Mr. Packard was married in 1855 to Eliza- beth K., daughter of Cushing Otis, of East Bridgewater. She died in 1869; and her chil- dren, three in number, have also passed away. While she was living, Mr. Packard resided in East Bridgewater. On April 17, 1871, he was united to his second wife, Mary W., daughter of Vinal Lyon, of Brockton. By this union he has one son, Granville L., a graduate of the Brockton High School, now cashier and book-keeper for the Standard Oil Company. Granville L. Packard was married in 1895 to Thersa E., daughter of John Shep- ard, of Campello.
Mr. Rufus E. Packard, who is a Republican, was Chairman of the Republican City Com- mittee and Chairman of the Ward 3 Commit-
tee several years; has been two years Treas- urer of the Republican County Campaign Com- mittee, and Warden for fifteen years of Ward 3, since Brockton became a city ; and almost every year he is elected a delegate to some convention. He has been Constable seven or eight years, and was appointed Justice of the Peace by Governor Ames and reappointed by Governor Greenhalge. On June 22, 1871, twenty-five years ago, he became a member of Massasoit Lodge, No. 69, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, of which he has been trustee fifteen years. He has passed all the chairs of the lodge, and is a member of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. He is a member of Brockton Lodge, No: 218, Knights of Honor (having been trustee of this body also fifteen years), and also Past Dictator of the Lodge; and he belongs to Beatrice Lodge, No. 27, Daughters of Rebecca. Mr. Packard, wife, and son attend the South Congregational Church, and he is a member of the Congrega- tional Club.
OHN KINSLEY, a native resident of Lakeville, was born on the farm which is now his home, April 3, 1829. His parents were Unite and Susanna (Alden) Kinsley.
Unite Kinsley was born in Bridgewater, Mass., but removed to Middleboro at an early age. He was a millwright by trade and was an enterprising man, managing a cotton-mill in Taunton, Mass., for a number of years. After his marriage he settled on the farm now occupied by his son in Lakeville. He did not live to enjoy the leisure of old age, but was called to pass from earth in 1833, when he was but forty-two years old. His wife lived to be fourscore, passing away in 1875. Their remains rest in the Precinct Cemetery. Seven children were born to this couple,
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namely : Susan A., who married William W. Nelson; Lydia B., who married O. Haskins; Mary, who married J. C. Haskins; Betsey; Alvin; John, the subject of this sketch; and Sarah.
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