Biographical sketches of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1901, Part 24

Author:
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Boston, Graves & Steinbarger
Number of Pages: 924

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CAPTAIN HENRY W. HUNT :

Sir .- During your proposed visit to Europe this de- partment would be glad to receive from you any infor- mation which you may obtain concerning ships and a .: articles connected with their construction and use. als-

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to receive your observations thereon. At the time of the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. in 1876. your nautical exhibit in the Massachusetts section was highly commended : and further researches and efforts of yours in the same direction cannot fail to be of value. Wishing you all possible success in your mission, 1 am Very respectfully,

WILLIAM E. CHANDLER, Secretary of the Navy.

In later years Captain Hunt has been en- raged in large real estate operations. During the period between 1890 and 1895 his convey- ances included nearly a hundred valuable pieces of property in Norfolk County alone. These were mainly to large investors and holders of trust funds. In 1895, having ac- quired the interests of various owners of a tract of land in Squantum, with a deep-water front of two and a half miles and an area of over seven hundred and seventy acres, he car- ried through a deal with the New York, New Hlaven & Hartford Railroad Company, by which this tract becomes a freight terminal for the system. The same year he began the de- velopment of Harbor Bluffs, Hyannis, one of the largest and most beautiful tracts of shore property on the south shore of Cape Cod. Captain Hunt is an experienced yachtsman, having been familiar with yachts from boy- hood, and has long been prominently connected with local yacht clubs. He now owns the fast schooner yacht "Breeze." He is a member of the Massachusetts Yacht Club, vice-president ot the Hyannis Yacht Club, member of the Forty-fourth Regiment Association, of the Quincy Historical Society, of the Barnstable County Agricultural Society, and of the So- cicty of Colonial Wars. He also expects soon to become a member of the Sons of the Revo- lution. In politics he is a Democrat. He is unmarried. - Men of Progess, 1896.

ILLIAM REGINALD CHIPMAN, M. D., a successful and popular phy- sician of Chelsea, was born in Kings County, Nova Scotia, in 1849, son of William Henry and Sophia (Cogswell) Chip- [?1.111. Ilis paternal grandfather was the Rev. William Chipman, a Baptist minister of Nova Surtia, who was of old Barnstable County

(Massachusetts) stock, and, as appears from the records, a "Mayflower " descendant as well. From an article in the Essex Historical Col- lections, volume xi., and from further geneal- ogical information in Calnek's History of Annapolis County, N. S., we are enabled to trace his lineage as follows: John Chipman, born near Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England, about 1614, emigrated in 1631, arriving in Boston in July. He settled at Barnstable, Cape Cod, and was chosen Ruling Elder of the church there in April, 1670. He married first, in 1646, Hope Howland, daughter of John and Elizabeth (Tilley) Howland, both of whom came over in the "Mayflower" in 1620. John Chipman, Jr., son of Elder Chip- man and his wife, Hope, resided successively at Sandwich, Mass., at Chilmark, and at Newport, R. I. In the Rhode Island Colony he served as an assistant. His second wife was Elizabeth, daughter of Captain Thomas Handley.

Their son Handley, who was born in Sand- wich in 1717, removed from Newport, R. I., about 1761, to Cornwallis, N.S., where he was a Magistrate and Judge of Probate. In re- ligion he was a Baptist. He married first, in 1740, Jane Allen, daughter of Colonel John Allen, of Martha's Vineyard, and his wife, Margaret, daughter of the Rev. William Homes, of Chilmark. By his wife, Jane, he had eleven children, one being William Allen Chipman, who married Ann Osborne, and was the father of the Rev. William Chipman, above mentioned, of Pleasant Valley, Cornwallis, N. S. The Rev. William Chipman was born in 1781. He was twice married, and had twenty-one children. One of the eldest, by his first wife, Mary McGowan Dickey, was William Henry, M. P., father of Dr. Chipman.

The Hon. William H. Chipman, who was a Judge of Probate and a member of the Domin- ion Parliament, was born in Cornwallis, N. S .. November 3, 1807, and died in Ottawa, Can- ada, April 10, 1870. He married January 6, 1831, Sophia Araminta, daughter of James and Elizabeth (Beckwith) Cogswell. Nine chil- dren were born of this union, and eight grew to maturity and married; namely, Leverett de Veber, John Ross, Elizabeth, Frederic W.,

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Mary A., Henry, Annie S., and William Reginald. Mrs. Sophia A. C. Chipman died . June . 11, 1878. Her father, James Cogswell, was of the seventh generation in descent from John Cogswell, who emigrated from Wiltshire, England, in 1635, and settled at Ipswich, Mass. (See "The Cogswells in America," by E. O. Jameson. ) One of the Hon. William H. Chipman's sons, Leverett de Veber, in compliment to his father's partner in the first grocery business established in St. John, was elected to fill his place in Parliament for the remainder of his term of service.

William R. Chipman, after laying the foun- dation of his education in the public schools, became a student at King's College, Windsor, N. S., where he was graduated. Coming to Boston, Mass., at the age of nineteen, he en- tered the medical department of Harvard Uni- versity, and was graduated with the degree of Doctor of Medicine in 1876. His graduation would have taken place in the previous year but for the fact that in that year he entered the United States marine service. On leaving Harvard he went abroad and pursued the more advanced study of his profession in London, Paris, and the University of Geneva, Switzer. land. Returning, he opened an office in Chel- sea, where he was steadily engaged in practice until 1890. In that year he again went abroad, spending a year in the hospitals of the cities above named, and thus adding largely to his stock of practical knowledge, both of medi- cine and surgery. Upon his return he resumed his practice in Chelsea, and has since continued it in that city with very satisfactory results.

Dr. Chipman was Professor of Surgery in Tufts College Medical School three years, and Professor of Surgery in the College of Physi- cians and Surgeons, Boston, seven years. He was also alderman in Chelsea for three years.

Dr. Chipman married Mrs. Annie Stocker Raddin, a daughter of Frederick and Mary (Colby) Stocker, of Saugus, Mass., where she was born and reared. Mrs. Chipman, by a previous marriage, has a son, Dr. Frederic S. Raddin, one of the staff of the Frost Hos- pital in Chelsea. Dr. Raddin married Mary Johnson, and has one child, Reginald O. Raddin.

ZRA WILLIAM LEWIS, a well- known and respected resident of Nan- tucket, was born on the island Feb- ruary 1, IS45. He is the eldest son of Simeon Lumbert and Eliza R. (Gibbs) Lewis, and a grandson of Freeman Lewis, who was long en- gaged in the fishing and coasting trade, and who was born, it is thought, in Centreville, Mass.

Freeman Lewis spent his last days in Co- tuit, where he died in 1831. His wife, whose maiden name was Betsey Cammett, was a native of that place. After his death she mar- ried for her second husband William Bennett, the ceremony taking place in 1836 in Nan- tucket, whither she had come about three years previously. She lived to the age of about eighty years, rearing ten children by her first husband and one by her second.

Simeon L. Lewis came to Nantucket at the age of eight years to live with a brother-in- law. When ten years old, he began a five years' apprenticeship to the shoemaker's trade. From the time he was fifteen until his marriage he was engaged in farming, work- ing for others; and from his marriage until 1862 he followed the same occupation as an independent proprietor. On September 16, 1862, he enlisted in Company II, Forty-fifth Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteer Infan- try. Accompanying the regiment to New- bern, S.C., he participated in the battles of Kinston, Whitehall, and Goldsboro. Having served the full time for which he enlisted, he was honorably discharged July 7, 1863, at Readville, Mass. He brought with him from the South a pair of door knobs that came from the post-office at Trenton, N.C. They are now on the front door of the house in which he at present resides. After his return from the war he continued the business of shoe- making. For a period of twelve years, from 1878 to 1890, he filled the post of sexton, and buried the dead of the island. On March 17, 1844, he was united in marriage with Eliza Roach Gibbs, a native of Nantucket, born Sep- tember 23, 1828, daughter of Stephen and Deborah (Swift) Gibbs. They reared seven children - Ezra W., Simeon L., Israel M., Sarah M., Thomas, George M., and Edward B.

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George M. died at the age of twenty-three years. The others are all living, and reside close to their parents.

Ezra W. Lewis, the direct subject of this sketch, was brought up and educated on his native island. He learned the trade of shoe- maker at Abington, Mass., whither his father removed for a time with the family after re- turning from the war; and this occupation he subsequently followed in Nantucket. The only shoe factory on the island being finally destroyed by fire, he engaged in the manufact- ure of clothing until 1891. In that year he established himself in his present business as an undertaker, he being the only one on the island. In 1894 he removed to his present comfortable. home on Union Street.

Mr. Lewis was married in 1873 to Miss Annie Maria Coffin. She was born in Nan- tucket, daughter of Charles G. Coffin, second, and his wife, Hannah S. P'hinney, her father being a lineal descendant of Tristram Coffin. Mr. and Mrs. Lewis have had one child, a son named Charles Morey, who died at the age of five years. They are both members of the People's Baptist Church. Mr. Lewis belongs to Nantucket Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fellows.

ENRY JACOBS, who has followed the mason's trade for forty-five years in Dorchester, his native place, was born February 21, 1837, son of Wil- liam and Eliza (Howe) Jacobs. His paternal grandfather was Benjamin Jacobs, son of Elisha Jacobs. He is descended from an old English family, represented, it is said, in 1433 by William Jacobs, who was among the gentry of Berkshire. His first progenitor in New Eng- land was Nicholas Jacobs, who settled at Bare Cove, now Hingham, Mass., in 1633, was made a freeman in 1635-36, was a Deputy to the General Court in 1648 and 1649, and whose death occurred June 5, 1657. Captain John Jacobs, son of Nicholas, was a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery in 1682. He was a soldier in King Philip's War, and it is said that he commanded Captain Isaac John- son's company after the battle of December,

1675, the great Narragansett fight, in which that officer was killed.

Benjamin Jacobs, Henry Jacobs's grand- father, settled at Dorchester in 1783. His first wife was Sarah, daughter of Timothy Foster; and his second wife, whom he married May 12, 18OS, was Jemima, daughter of Ed- ward Foster. His children were: William, Elisha, Benjamin, Sarah, Sarah A., Mary D., and Timothy. Benjamin Jacobs, second, who was a carpenter by trade, lived to an advanced age.

William Jacobs, Mr. Henry Jacobs's father, was born at Meeting House Hill, Dorchester, July 29, 1787. As a boy he served an appren- ticeship at the cabinet-maker's trade, and in early manhood established himself in that business, following it for many years in his native town, of which he was a lifelong resi- dent. He married Eliza Howe, who was born in Dorchester, November 1, 1800, daughter of Deacon Isaac Howe. Their children were : William T., born December 9, 1823; Sarah F., born December 9, 1825; Benjamin, born January 15, 1828; Eliza A., born April 4, 1830; Caroline H., born January 22, 1833; Henry, the subject of this sketch; and Elisha, who was born May 1, 1842. Sarah F. died May 13, 1893; Benjamin died in California, September 23, 1895; and Elisha is now resid- ing in that State. Mr. and Mrs. William Jacobs were members of the Second Parish Church.

IJenry Jacobs was reared in Dorchester and educated in the public schools. When eigh- teen years old he was apprenticed to a mason, with whom he served the customary three years ; and he has worked at that trade contin- nously to the present time. He is widely known and respected as a reliable workman and useful citizen.

OHN SPARHAWK MARTIN, of the firm of John S. Martin & Co., Marble- head, was born in this town, April 1I, 1825, son of Captain Arnold and Mary (Sparhawk) Martin. John Martin, his great- grandfather, was an carly settler in Marble- head; and Captain Arnold Martin, first, his

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grandfather, was a shipmaster of this port. His father, who died at the age of about forty- two years, was a ship-owner and master mariner, engaged in the coastwise trade. His mother was a representative of the Sparhawk family of Marblehead.

John S. Martin was educated in the Marble- head public schools. When sixteen years old, he was apprenticed to John Chapman, a well-' known carpenter and builder, with whom he remained until attaining his majority. He then engaged in the building business as a member of the firm of John T. Bragdon & Co., which existed for two years; and for the suc- ceeding thirty-eight years he conducted opera- tions alone, erecting a large number of resi- dences and other buildings, many of which he assisted in designing. In 1876 he was awarded the contract for the carpenter work upon the Abbot Hall Building. He was for years the leading building contractor in Marblehead, his operations furnishing employment for a large number of men. In 1886 he was succeeded by his son, B. F. Martin, who is still carrying on the business. For the past fourteen years Mr. Martin has been engaged in the coal and wood trade at Martin's Wharf, 6 Cliff Street, in which he is associated with another son, John A., under the firm name of John S. Mar- tin & Co. He also deals in hay, straw, mason's materials, Akron drain pipe, and so forth. He is actively interested in financial affairs, being a trustee of the Marblehead Savings Bank ; and, while serving as a Select- man during the eighties, he in no small meas- ure aided in providing an able administration of public business. He was also instrumental in developing the town's industries, securing in- creased railway facilities and promoting other improvements. Politically, he is a Prohibi- tionist. For fifty-three years he has been a member and is now the official head of the Rechabite Society, a local organization favor- ing the suppression of the liquor traffic. 1Ie has also been identified with the local Masonic Lodge for nearly the same length of time. In religious matters he is of an investigative turn of mind, believing in the doctrine of Spiritual- ism.

Mr. Martin and Miss Alicia Cruff Prichard,

of Marblehead, a daughter of Ezra and Mary (Stevens) Prichard, were married in 1848. They have been bereft of three children --- William Gerry, William Bartlett, and Mary Sparhawk - and they have five living : Eliza- beth Dove, born May 3, 1850, now wife of Frank Blackler; Benjamin Franklin, born Jan- uary 19, 1852; John Arnold, born February I, 1857; Emma Sparhawk, born January IC. 1859 -- all of Marblehead; and Mary Cars .. born May 5, 1865, now wife of Frank A. Chandler, of Cambridgeport, Mass .. and mother of one child, Frank Davenport. bin November 11, 1893. Elizabeth D .. M.s. Blackler, has one living child. Alice G., born February 23, 1884, and two deceased children - Alicia P. and Nellie Stevens. Benjamin Franklin Martin married Lizzie R. Langley. and has one child, Frank Irving, born in March. 1875. John Arnold Martin married Mary Jane Fisher, November 16, 1887. They have two children - Marion Arnold and William Gerry Martin.

LAS ROBERT GYZ.ANDER, a we !:- known resident of Everett. Middle- sex County, analytical chemist of the Cochran Chemical Works i that city, was born in the parish of Gilberg ?. Province of Wermland, Sweden, January 22. 1857, son of Knut Robert and Sophia ( Ek- ström) Gyzander. He is a great-grandson cf Robert Gyzander, a native of the parish of Gysna, Province of Småland, Sweden. Robert was a man of studious disposition, who became a pastor in the Lutheran church. His son and namesake, Robert Gyzander, second, grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was a mer- chant in Lilla Edet, near Gottenburg, and also a manufacturer of cotton yarn. This second Robert had a family of seven children. His son Knut Robert, father of Clas Robert. was a manufacturer of bar iron and nails. Knut resided on his estate of Emilsdal at Gil- berga, Province of Wermland. His wife. So- phia, was a daughter of Carl F. Ekstrom. of Westra Ed, where he was superintendent of a lumber station.

Clas Robert Gyzander was educated by

HON. CHESTER W. KINGSLEY.

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private tutors until sufficiently advanced in his studies to enter the public schools of Gotten- burg. At the age of eighteen he left the school in Gottenburg, and entered Chalmers Institute of Technology, at which he was grad- unted in the class of 1879 as chemical en- gineer. During the following year he was em- ployed as assistant teacher in the chemical department of that school. He then accepted a position in the extensive glass works at Steninge, near Ilalmstad, which he subse- quently left to take a situation with the State assayer in Gottenburg. In less than a year from that time he was offered a very desirable place at Hernösand, and partially accepted it; but, before entering upon his duties there, he decided to make a trip to the United States in order to satisfy his curiosity in regard to the country. After arriving here, with the view of ascertaining the conditions that prevailed in the field of practical chemistry, he called on the well-known Cochran Chemical Company, and was offered such inducements by them that he decided to remain in this country, and ac- cordingly entered their employ, in which he has continued up to the present time, having been chemist of the works since July, 1882.

Mr. Gyzander was married on June 25, 1887, in the city of Worcester, Mass., to Alma Elizabeth Kolthoff, a daughter of Herman Kolthoff, of Wermland. Her father, born in IS17, was a son of Lars Gustave, born in 1775, *who was a son of Sven, born in 1748. Sven was a son of Johan, born in 1722. Johan was a son of Herman, born in 1683, whose father was Herman, born in 1643. Herman was a son of Henric, who came to Sweden with his father, Herman, from Kultenhof, Westphalia, about 1630, and died in Sweden in 1661. This first Herman Kolthoff was a very well- known and prosperous citizen of his day, and established at different times no less than seven of the best-known iron manufacturing establishments in Sweden. His son Henric wits also a man of considerable prominence, serving several times as mayor of Carlstad.

Mr. and Mrs. Gyzander are the parents of two children : Arne Frank Kolthoff, born June 14, 1888, who is attending publie school in Everett ; and Per Ake, born April 11, 1896.

ON. CHESTER WARD KINGS- 0 LEY, of Cambridge, financier and philanthropist, was born in Brigh- ton, now a district of Boston, June 9, 1824, being the youngest child of Moses and Mary (Montague) Kingsley. His father was a native of Northampton, Mass., and a lin- eal descendant of Enos Kingsley, who is men- tioned in Trumbull's History of that town as one of the arrivals there in 1659 from Dor- chester.

Enos Kingsley is further spoken of as one of the bailiffs chosen in 1664, as having bad his house and barn burned by Indians in 1675, as an Overseer of the Poor in 1699, and in 1672-3 as a contributor to Harvard College of three pounds of flax, value three shillings, other donors being credited with similar and even smaller amounts. Enos was a son of John Kingsley, who came from England in 1635, was one of the seven men who signed the church covenant at Dorchester, twenty- third day, sixth month, 1636, and about two years later was one of the forty-six "first and ancient purchasers" of Taunton, then known as Cobannet, the territory being bought of Massasoit. From Taunton John Kingsley removed to Rehoboth, where he died in 1679. His will mentions Enos as one of his sons.

Moses Kingsley, of Brighton, was the son of Moses and Abigail (Lyman) Kingsley, of Northampton, Mass., where he was born in 1772. His mother was the daughter of Abner Lyman, a representative of the well-known family of that name in the Connecticut valley, whose founder, Richard Lyman, came with John Eliot to Roxbury in 1631, and, subse- quently removing to Connecticut, was an orig- inal proprietor of Hartford. Three of the sons of Richard Lyman - namely, Richard, Jr., John, and Robert - settled at Northampton.

Moses Kingsley, the younger, married first, in 1794, Sally Parsons, who died in 1802. She was the mother of two children -- Luther and Fanny, born in Chesterfield, Mass., now deceased. He married on March 31, 1807, Mary Montague, daughter of Nathaniel and Sarah (Goodrich) Montague, of Hadley. Her father was a son of Deacon Nathaniel Mon- tague, Sr., a grandson of John, and a great-

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grandson of Richard,' the immigrant progeni- tor of the family. Richard ' Montague, "born in England about 1614, son of Peter, son of William, son of Robert, of Boveney in the parish and hundred of Burnham, England" (twenty-three miles from London), "is said to have removed in 1646 from Wells, Me., to Boston, thence in 1651 to Wethersfield, Conn., and in 1659 or 1660 to Hadley." (See History of Hadley.)

Moses Kingsley, after his second marriage, removed from Chesterfield to Brighton. The "Osborn house," his first home in Brighton, he left in 1809, moving to the Sparhawk house, corner of Market and Sparhawk Streets. In 1821 he bought the old Deacon Fuller house with seven acres of land opposite the present Faneuil House, and in that home he died, May 13, 1828.

"It is said," we quote from a sketch of the family in "Historic. Brighton," "that his was the first funeral in Brighton where no spiritu- ous liquors were furnished the pall-bearers. In less than a year after the death of her hus- band, Mrs. Kingsley, by a legal technicality, was dispossessed of a pleasant home and com- petency, and was forced to unaccustomed labor to rear her six children. She was always indus- trious, quiet, and unassuming, and had strict views with regard to keeping the Sabbath, which have left an impression on all her children, a sacredness for the day which nothing has im- paired. She died at the age of eighty, on May 11, 1857, at the home of her eldest son, where she had long resided."

She was the mother of seven children, of whom one, Nathaniel, died young, and six grew to maturity, namely: Daniel, born in 1808, who died in 1878; Moses, born in 1810; Sarah J., born in 1813; Mary J., born in 1814; Abigail, born in 1817, who died in 1898; and Chester Ward, the subject of this sketch, who was not quite four years old when his father died.

Early in 1835 Chester went to Michigan, journeying by rail as far as Westboro, Mass., thence by stage to Albany, canal to Buffalo, by the lake to Detroit, and from there in a wagon to Webster, forty miles distant, where his brother Moses was Postmaster. For two

years, while living with his brother, he carried the mails on horseback to Ann Arbor, eight miles away; and for six months he drove a ploughing team of four yoke of oxen, all of this time breaking up new land, his wages being six dollars a month. From Webster they removed to Kalamazoo. In 1840, having been able to make but little progress in his education, he gladly availed himself of an opportunity that offered for coming back to Brighton. Working to pay his way, he con- tinued his studies till he was graduated from the high school. In mathematics he won the commendation of his teacher by depending upon his reasoning faculty rather than on his memory. He came to be known as a boy who kept his word, who was thoughtful and prudent and scrupulously honest in monetary transac- tions. After leaving school he learned the carpenter's trade; but, not inclining to that as a life ocupation, he entered the Bank of Brighton, in which for two years he served as messenger, his ambition then being gratified by promotion to the position of teller, which he held for three years. The next five, begin- ning in 1851, he was cashier of the Cambridge Market Bank; and in 1856 he established him- self in the wholesale provision business in Boston. After nine prosperous years in trade he retired from mercantile life and turned his attention to the coal industry, becoming part owner of a mine in Pennsylvania and treasurer of the Anthracite Coal Company, a position that he still holds. From 1879 to 1887 he was president of the National Bank of Brigh- ton, whose career was then honestly closed, the stockholders being paid one hundred twenty-six and one-half per share for their stock.

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Biographical sketches of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, 1901, Part 24

Author: Publication date: 1901 Publisher: Boston, Graves & Steinbarger Number of Pages: 924

Author:
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: Boston, Graves & Steinbarger
Number of Pages: 924