USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Boston of to-day; a glance at its history and characteristics: with biographical sketches and portraits of many of its professional and business men, 1892 > Part 40
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HOLTON, EUGENE ALEXANDER, son of Jesse and Jane Bennett (Allen) Holton, was born in Nashua, N.H., Jan. 13, 1847. He was educated in the Boston public schools. He began business in 1867 as a photographer, and has successfully pursued
EUGENE A. HOLTON.
that profession ever since. He served in the Forty- third Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers during the war, and is now a member of Post 113, G.A.R. He has for years been prominent in Masonic circles. He has presided over all the bodies in the York Rite and the Scottish Rite. He is a member of Boston Commandery Knights Templar, and Massa- chusetts Consistory, thirty-second degree. He was married July 11, 1869, to Miss Jennie H. Allen.
HOMANS, JOHN, M.D., was born in Boston Nov. 26, 1836. He is a son of Dr. John Homans, who graduated from Harvard in the class of 1812, and practised medicine in Boston until 1867. His grandfather (Harvard University 1792) was a sur- geon throughout the Revolutionary War, and in that capacity was present at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was also one of the original members of the Society of the Cincinnati. John Homans was fitted for college at the Boston Latin School, and entered Harvard College, graduating in the class of 1858. He received his degree of M.D. from Harvard College in 1862. Dr. Homans was house surgeon at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and then
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served until 1865 as assistant surgeon in the (regular) United States army. He was in charge of the St. James Hospital at New Orleans, and on the staff of General Banks in the Red River expe- dition. He was then ordered to Virginia, and served in the Shenandoah Valley, first as surgeon- in-chief of the First Division, Nineteenth Army Corps, and afterwards as medical inspector on the staff of Major-General Sheridan. At the close of the war he went to Europe for two years, returning to Boston at the end of that time and beginning the practice of his profession. He was surgeon to the Boston Dispensary, to the Children's Hospital, to the Carney Hospital, and is now one of the visiting surgeons of the Massachusetts General Hospital. He is lecturer in Harvard University on the diagnosis and treatment of ovarian tumors. During the last eighteen years his name has been especially associated with abdominal surgery. He is a member of the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, and of the Military Historical Society of Massachusetts. He has contributed various papers to the different medical journals of the country. Dr. Homans was married in Boston, Dec. 4, 1872, to Miss Helen Amory Perkins ; they have had six children.
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WILLIAM HOMES.
1849. He attained his education in the local
schools. He began his business career in 1865, with the firm of Scudder, Rogers, & Co., prominent hardware-dealers at that time. Subsequently he became a member of the firm of Willard, Homes, & Co., lumber dealers, and carried on an extensive business in that line. In 1877 he associated him- self with James Edmonds & Co., manufacturers and importers of fire-brick, sewer-pipes, etc., and soon took the entire charge of the business of the con- cern. In 1885 he was admitted to the firm of Fiske & Coleman, which had practically succeeded to the business of James Edmonds & Co., when the firm name was changed to Fiske, Coleman, & Co. In the general management of the large business of the house, which now includes, besides the man- ufacture and importation of fire-brick and sewer- pipes, the manufacture of architectural terra-cotta and the production of faience for interior and ex- terior decoration, Mr. Homes gives his special attention to sales. He is now a resident of Malden, and has served in the city government of that city. [For noteworthy examples of the work of Fiske, Coleman, & Co. in modern buildings in Boston and elsewhere, see sketch of George M. Fiske].
HOOPER, FRANKLIN HENRY, M.D., was born Sept. 19, 1850. After receiving his education in HOMES, WILLIAM, was born in Dorchester in private schools of Boston, he went abroad, studying in Berlin and Frankfort, Germany, and Neufchatel, Switzerland. Returning to Boston in 1870, he entered the Harvard Medical School in 1872, grad- uating in 1876. Dr. Hooper is instructor in laryn- gology in the Harvard Medical School, and professor of laryngology in Dartmouth College. He also occupies the position of physician to the throat department of the Massachusetts General Hospital. He has contributed in various ways to the different medical journals of the country, his articles being chiefly in reference to the physiology of the recur- rent laryngeal nerves and obstructive diseases to the respiration of children.
HORSFORD, EBEN NORTON, was born in Moscow, Livingston county, N.Y., July 27, 1818. His father, of English descent, was Jerediah Horsford, from Charlotte, Chittenden county, Vt. : and his mother, Charity Maria Norton, from Goshen, Litchfield county, Conn. She was in direct descent from Thomas Norton of the colony of 1639, and on her mother's side from Major John Mason of the Pequot War. Mr. Horsford's father was in his early manhood a missionary among the Seneca Indians in western New York, and a soldier of the War of 1812. The son enjoyed the rare advantages of a
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home in which good books were common and the as it is called, by which the professors are enabled parental training was refined and vigorous. He at- tended the district and select schools until he was thirteen, when for three years he was a student in the Livingston county high school. While yet a boy he was employed in the extemporaneous sur- veys of the New York & Erie and the Rochester & Auburn Railroads. Then followed a course of study at the Rensselaer Institute, where he gradu- ated as civil engineer in 1837. He was for two years engaged in the geological survey of the State of New York, as an assistant to Professor Hall, and in geological and engineering surveys for the Adir- ondack Iron Works of Essex county, N.Y. For four years he was connected with the Albany Female Academy, as professor of mathematics and the natural sciences, and during this time he lectured on chemistry in Newark College, Delaware. For two years after this he was a student under Liebig, at Giessen, Germany. On his return to this country he was appointed Rumford professor of applied sciences in Harvard University, and he filled this professorship for sixteen years. Since his resigna- tion of that office he has been engaged in chemical manufactures based on his own inventions. He has taken out some thirty patents, most of them connected with chemistry. His home is still in Cambridge. Besides the professional career or Professor Horsford, he has engaged in many works of general utility and interest. His first work on his return from Germany was on the proper mate- rial for the service-pipes of the Boston water-works, in view of which the city of Boston presented him with a service of plate. He was appointed by Gov- ernor Andrew, soon after the opening of the Civil War, on the commission for the defence of Boston harbor, and prepared the report of the plans to be pursued in the event of the approach of Confederate cruisers. He devised a marching ration for the army
in the late war, reducing transportation to the sim- plest terms. Of this ration General Grant ordered and there were prepared half a million. In 1873 he was a commissioner of the United States to the World's Fair at Vienna, and he published an elab- orate report in connection with his official duties. In 1876 he was a commissioner at the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia. As the intimate friend of Henry F. Durant, the founder of Wellesley Col- lege, Professor Horsford has been the constant and munificent friend of that institution. He has been from its organization the president of the board of visitors, and has devoted much time to the interests of the college. He has endowed the college library and founded the system of the "Sabbatical Year,"
to pass every seventh year, for rest and study, in Europe ; and also a system of pensions for the pro- fessors. Of late years he has given much time to geographical studies. His attention was turned to New England cartography, and especially to the finding of the lost city of Norumbega. His investi- gations led him to believe that the ancient city was not in Maine, but in Massachusetts. His first re- search led him to the Old Fort of Norumbeg, at the mouth of Stony Brook, in the town of Weston. When he had decided, from the ancient literature of the subject and from the modern geography, where its site must have been, he drove to the spot, but a few miles from his own house, and there found the remains of extensive ditches and walls. Five years later he announced the discovery of the site and walls of the ancient city of Norumbega at Water- town. It was a startling discovery. His conclusion was inevitable ; the maps, the books, the ancient walls, the results of his studies in the field, com- bined to convince him that this was the place which had been named in history and song, but had long ago been lost to sight. He had already found the landfall of Leif Erikson and the site of his houses in Vineland. In the summer of 1889 he erected a tower of stone at the junction of Stony Brook with Charles River, to mark the site of the ancient fort, and to commemorate the discoveries of Vineland and Norumbega. In connection with his historical enterprise he found other extensive remains of Norse settlements along the upper waters of Charles River, and elsewhere in New England. Following the old sagas, he had found that Leif Erikson, after his landfall on Cape Cod, sailed across the bay to Boston harbor and passed up. the Charles in the year 1000. The coincidences between the sagas and the river and its banks were striking, and as one point after another became clear to his mind, he saw where Leif and his companions had come ashore and where they had built their houses. He has issued monographs in which his investigations have been described at length, with collections of rare maps, original charts and surveys and photo- graphs. When the statue of Leif Erikson was erected in Boston in 1887, the historical address on the day of its unveiling was given in Faneuil Hali by Professor Horsford. In 1889 he gave a public address in Watertown before a large gathering, upon his discovery of Norumbega. The American Geo- graphical Society was represented on the occasion. By the invitation of the authorities of Boston, he delivered in Faneuil Hall the memorial address upon the life and work of Prof. Samuel F. B. Morse,
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the inventor of the electric telegraph. In 1886 he gave an address in connection with the library festi- val at Wellesley College. His publications on the various problems of the Northmen number ten in all. He has for many years conducted, as an ex- pert, investigations in chemistry and physics. He has published numerous chemical researches in the scientific publications of Europe and America. Pro- fessor Horsford is still busily engaged in profes- sional and philanthropic work whose influence is extended and helpful. In 1847 Professor Horsford was married to Mary L'Hommedieu Gardiner, daughter of Hon. Samuel Smith Gardiner, of Shelter Island, N.Y. She died in 1855, leaving four daughters, one of whom is the wife of Andrew Fiske, of Boston, and one the wife of the late Judge Benjamin Robbins Curtis, of Boston. In 1857 he married a sister of his former wife, Phoebe Dayton Gardiner, who has one daughter.
HORTON, WILLIAM H., son of Stephen and Mar- garet (McCoy) Horton, natives respectively of Massachusetts and New Hampshire, was born in Milton, Mass., Dec. 16, 1817. He was reared on a farm and obtained a common-school education. Coming to Boston at eighteen, he found employ- ment as clerk in a dry-goods store at a salary of seventy-five dollars a year. He continued nine years in this capacity, the last year receiving eight hundred dollars. In 1844 he became a member of the firm of W. H. Mann & Co., dry-goods dealers on Tremont row. The next year they opened a branch store for wholesale trade on Milk street, and the year after that devoted themselves entirely to the wholesale trade, concentrating their business in the Bowdoin Building. In 1853 the firm of W. H. Mann & Co. dissolved. Mr. Mann retired, E. C. Cowdin went to New York, and Mr. Horton to Europe. Returning in the fall of 1853 Mr. Horton, early in 1854, established the firm of William H. Horton & Co., which continued, with Mr. Horton as senior member, with great success. Mr. Horton retired from business in 1882. During his active business life he crossed the Atlantic four- teen times. Mr. Horton is in politics a Republican. He is one of the incorporators and a member of the finance committees of the Homeopathic Hospital, a member of the Bostonian Society and of the Art Club, and was one of the incorporators of the Boston Merchants Association. He first married, in 1846, Mary M. Bowen, who died in 1849, leaving two sons : William H., jr., born in Cambridge, died in Boston in 1880 ; and James B., born in Boston, and died in Constantinople in 1873. By his marriage with
Augusta, daughter of David Kimball, he has two children living : David K. and Walter G. Horton, both in the Harvard Law School. Mr. Horton is a Unitarian in religion.
HOUGHTON, HENRY ARVIN, M.D., son of Paul Houghton, was born on Christmas day, 1826, at Lyn- don, Vt. He received his education at the Lyndon Academy, working a part of each year in the scale manufactory of E. & T. Fairbanks & Co., of St. Johns- bury, to meet his scholastic expenses. He began his medical studies under Dr. C. B. Darling, of Lyndon, the second convert in Vermont to the doctrines of homœopathy. Afterwards he attended the medical school in Woodstock, Vt., and finally completed his course of study at Philadelphia, Pa., where he graduated in March, 1852. He began practice with his old preceptor in his native town, and after four years here removed to Keeseville, a picturesque village on the Au Sable River, where he resided for seventeen years occupied with an extensive practice, finding leisure, however, to interest himself in the schools and in various manufacturing industries of the neighborhood. In December, 1876, Dr. Hough- ton moved to the Charlestown district, where he has also enjoyed a large and lucrative practice. He is a member of the Boston Homoeopathic Medical Society ; of the Massachusetts Surgical and Gynæco- logical Society, and at one time its president ; and of the Massachusetts State Homoeopathic Medical Society, and its president in 1890. The year after his removal to Keeseville, in 1857, he was elected a member of the New York State Homoeopathic Medi- cal Society, becoming its president in 1872, and three years later a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy. In the autumn of 1852 Dr. Houghton was married to Miss Sarah D). Page, of St. Johns- bury, Vt.
HowE, ELIAS, born in Framingham in 1820, is one of the oldest living music-publishers in the United States, having issued his first music-book over fifty-one years ago. His parents were in humble circumstances and he early went to work. His first outside work was riding a neighbor's horse during ploughing, for the munificent re- muneration of two cents a day. As a boy he was naturally musical, and, having obtained an apology for a violin, used to spend his spare hours fid- dling the old tunes then popular. At that time there were few or no collections of music that could be bought, as it was only published singly or in sheet-music form, and sold at a high price per sheet ; and as it was beyond his means to have a
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collection of printed music, he was in the habit of copying in a blank book every tune he heard played or could get hold of. In this way, in the course of time, he had gathered a large collection of music in
ELIAS HOWE.
his book, and it was in great demand by all the musi- cians the country round, who used frequently to bor- row it to use at dances. Early in 1840, when nine- teen years old and working on a farm, it occurred to him that he might make some money if he could but get his book published. Accordingly, obtaining from his employer a few days' leave of absence, he came up to Boston to try his fortune here. Submit- ting his manuscript to Albert J. Wright, of the firm of music printers Wright & Kidder, then doing business in Cornhill, he was told that it would cost five hundred dollars to issue the first edition of a few hundred copies. Asked if he had any friends in Boston or at home who could help him with funds, he replied that he had none with money, but that he would " work his legs off to make the book a success, if they would only print it for him." Finally Wright & Kidder agreed to make the plates and print the books at their own expense, allowing him to take the copies as fast as he was able to pay for them. The book thus published was "The Musician's Companion," and afterwards, when is- sued in three volumes, it ran through many editions, and an immense number were sold. Mr. Howe bought his first small stock from his publishers in
borrowed money, and soon accumulated a little capital by peddling his books from door to door. From this beginning sprang the immense number of music books at a popular price which are pub- lished in the United States. In 1842 Mr. Howe opened his first store in Providence, R.I., at No. 98 Westminster street. Here he carried on a small music-business, besides repairing accordeons and umbrellas, until 1843, when he sold out. After- wards, moving back to Boston, he published " Howe's Accordeon Preceptor," with an entirely original system of instruction, which soon reached the. sale of one hundred thousand. This was followed by " Howe's Violin School," the first of the cheap, self- mastering books, containing a large collection of graded popular music, of which over five hundred thousand copies have been sold. Mr. Howe's first store in Boston was in the old Scollay Building, where he was associated with Henry Tolman, the only partner in business he ever had. Afterwards he successively occupied Nos. 5, 9, and 11 Corn- hill. About 1850 he sold out his entire business to Oliver Ditson and retired, buying the large estate in South Framingham of Seth B. Howes of circus fame. There he lived quietly, meanwhile acting as manager of the South Reading Ice Company several years, until about 1861, when he again entered his old business. Establishing himself at No. 33 Court street, moving from there to No. 61 Cornhill, and then to No. 103 Court street, he began making drums, and during the early years of the war he sold drums and fifes to nearly all the Massachusetts regi- ments and to many of the Western States. He also published music, especially military band and drum and fife, for use in the armies. Much of this music was sent to Louisville, Ky., and after the war he was informed that it all went into the Confederate army and was played there. Since the war days Mr. Howe has continued publishing music, steadily en- larging his catalogue and issuing many notable books. His series of instruction books for all in- struments, still popular, have reached a sale of over a million copies. About twelve years ago he moved to his present warerooms, Nos. 88 and 90 Court street. In 1871, foreseeing the present great popu- larity of violins, he determined to have his choice in old violins before they had been picked over ; and with this in view he made his first trip to Europe. Since that time he has made many trips abroad, scouring the Continent for bargains in old and new violins, violas, violoncellos, and double basses, rare and curious instruments, and now he has the largest and finest collection of old violins in the world.
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HOWE, ELMER PARKER, son of Archelaus and M. H. Janette (Brigham) Howe, was born in West- borough, Mass., Nov. 1, 1851. He graduated from the Worcester Polytechnic School in 1871 and from Yale in 1876, and afterward entered the law office of Hillard, Hyde, & Dickinson, attending. the Boston University Law School one year. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in September, 1878, and the fol- lowing January he became a member of the law firm with which he studied, it soon after becoming Hyde, Dickinson, & Howe. So it continued until 1889. These gentlemen are still associated to- gether, but not as partners. Mr. Howe has devoted himself chiefly to patent law. He is a Republican in politics. He is a member of the Union and Country Clubs, and of the Boston Bar Association.
HOWE, JAMES SULLIVAN, M.D., was born in Long- wood, Mass., July 7, 1858. He was educated in private schools, and fitted for college at St. Mark's School. Then he went to Harvard one year, and subsequently to the Medical School, graduating there- from M.D. in 1881. After graduation he served one year in St. Elizabeth's Hospital, New York. Then he went abroad, studying his profession two years in Vienna, London, and Paris, taking dermatology as a specialty, which line he now practises. Dr. Howe is at present physician to the Boston Dispen- sary and assistant in dermatology in the Boston City Hospital. He is a member of the Massachu- setts Medical Society, and of the American Der- matological Association.
HUNNEWELL, JAMES FROTHINGHAM, son of James and Susan (Lamson) Hunnewell, was born in Charlestown July 3, 1832, in the house which he still occupies. The Hunnewell family have lived in Charlestown since 1698, and the Frothinghams since 1630. He received his education mostly in private schools, and then was engaged with his father in the shipping business, chiefly with foreign ports, especially with Honolulu, and in the export of American products to them. The mercantile house founded by his father at Honolulu, in 1826, is still in a flourishing condition. For some years he has not been engaged in mercantile pursuits, but is occupied with private and trust affairs, and with antiquarian and historical subjects. He served through several years upon the Charlestown school board; was a trustee of the Charlestown Public Library for eight years from its formation ; is chairman of the standing committee of the First Parish; president of the Charlestown Gas and Electric Company ; a vice-president of the Win-
chester Home for Aged Women; a trustee of the Free Dispensary ; trustee of the Five Cents Savings Bank; a director of the Bunker Hill Monument Association ; a vice-president of the New England
JAMES F. HUNNEWELL.
Mortgage Security Company ; an officer of the Society for Propagating the Gospel; and in con- nection with the Hawaiian Islands, president of the Hawaiian Club, and treasurer of the United States Endowment of Oahu College. He was also for several years director of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and since 1868 has been a member of the American Antiquarian Society. He is also a member of the St. Botolph, Union, and other clubs, and holds a membership in the Bos- tonian Society and other organizations. He has published several historical works of interest, which represent a large amount of careful study, and also some results of his travels, extensive in our own country and including many towns abroad. His house, fronting its ample, old-fashioned garden shaded by large trees, is one of the very few family homes of its sort now left in the crowded parts of the city. To the curiosities gathered from various quarters of the world by his father and by him are added his library, in which he has collected an unusual variety of illustrated books and many rare and curious volumes. His library is, indeed, said to be one of the choicest in the country in its special departments. Mr. Hunnewell has displayed
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the tastes and talents that lend dignity to the leisure of a man whose mind has been broadened by the commercial activities which have given a zest to his literary pursuits. Among the more important of his published works may be mentioned : " The Land of Scott," " Bibliography of Charlestown, Mass., and Bunker Hill," "The Historical Monuments of France," "The Imperial Island," "England's Chronicle in Stone," "A Century of Town Life," " Historical Sketch of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians and Others in North America," " Civilization at the Hawaiian Islands," " An American Shrine," "Records of the First Church, Charlestown," " Journal of the Voyage of the Missionary Packet, Boston to Honolulu," and " Illustrated Americana." Mr. Hunnewell was mar- ried in Boston April 3, 1872, to Sarah Melville, daughter of Ezra and Sarah (Parker) Farnsworth, of Boston ; they have 'one child : James Melville Hunnewell.
HUNT, FREEMAN, son of Freeman Hunt (editor of Hunt's "Merchants' Magazine," published in New York city) and Elizabeth T. (Parmenter)
FREEMAN HUNT.
Hunt, daughter of William Parmenter, of Cambridge, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., Sept. 4, 1855. He was educated in the Cambridge schools, graduating from the high school in 1873; in Harvard, enter- ing in 1873 and graduating in 1877; and in the
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