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 54
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POPE, ALBERT A., son of Charles and Elizabeth Pope, was born in Boston May 30, 1843. He was educated in the public schools of Brookline. He began his business career as a clerk in a shoe-find- ing store on Blackstone street. Subsequently he was a successful merchant. Then in 1879 he es- tablished the Pope Manufacturing Company, and became the founder of the American bicycle indus- try. His concern is the largest bicycling establish- ment in the world. He has advanced bicycling interests in various directions. He was the first to obtain responsible legal opinion upon the rights of wheelmen in the public roads and parks, and to secure these rights ; and he founded the " Wheel- man," now absorbed in " Outing." He served in the Civil War with distinction, entering as second lieutenant in the Thirty-fifth Massachusetts Regi- ment in 1862, and advancing through the several grades to lieutenant-colonel. When the war broke out he was a clerk in a Milk-street store, and all his leisure time he 'devoted to studying army tactics and army regulations. He had a musket in the store, and, whenever opportunity offered, drilled his fellow-clerks, and even the partners and neighbors who came in. He joined the Salignac's Zouaves as a private, and also the Home Guards in Brookline, and an artillery company with whom he faithfully drilled, so that when he finally enlisted he was a well-prepared soldier. He is now a prominent mem- ber of the Order of the Loyal Legion and of the Grand Ariny. Colonel Pope is a director of the American Loan and Trust Company, of the Winthrop Bank, and a dozen other corporations and companies ; is a member of the Algonquin, Art, Country, Athletic, New York Athletic, and other clubs ; of the Beacon Society, of which he is vice-president; and a life
member of a number of charitable organizations. For two years he was a member of the Newton city government. He was married Sept. 20, 1871, to Miss Abby Linder ; they have five children : Al- bert Linder, Margaret Roberts, Harold Linder, Charles Linder, and Ralph Linder Pope.
POPE, ARTHUR WALLACE, son of the late Charles and Elizabeth (Bogman) Pope, was born in Brook- line, Mass., March 9, 1850. His education was received in that town, and in early manhood he entered the employ of his brother, Col. Albert A. Pope, who at that time was in the wholesale shoe- finding business on Pearl street. In 1871 he was made junior partner, and about five years later, Col- onel Pope retiring, he became the head of the firm, the name of which was changed, later, to A. W. Pope & Co. Under his judicious management the business has steadily increased, until the firm is known in all parts of America. He is recognized as a man of excellent judgment, energy, financial ability, and perseverance. Mr. Pope has travelled extensively at home and abroad, combining busi- ness with pleasure, and in 1887 he carried out a long-cherished wish and made a tour of the world. This trip included the ascent of the famous Mainu- rina pass, in the Himalaya mountains, eighteen
ARTHUR W. POPE.
thousand six hundred feet above the level of the sea, an elephant hunt in Ceylon, a trip up the Nile,
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another to the Holy Land, and ended with a visit to years financially interested in the Dorchester Ga- Norway and the North cape. He is a member of several Boston clubs, and a thirty-second degree Mason.
POPE, WILLIAM, son of W. and Sarah ( Pierce) Pope, both of Massachusetts, was born in Dorches-
WILLIAM POPE.
ter Dec. 27, 1813. His father was a large lumber- merchant there. He has been foremost in all en- terprises looking to the advancement of the inter- ests of that section of the city. Under the old town government he was for a number of years a member of the board of selectmen, and after an- nexation he represented the district first in the common council, serving two years, and then in the board of aldermen, where he also served two terms. Before annexation he was for some time on the school committee of the town, and after- wards on the Boston school committee, his entire service in this capacity covering fifteen years. Early in life, at the age of thirty, he engaged in the lumber business, wholesale and retail, which he followed successfully for thirty years, under the firm names, first of A. & W. Pope, and then of William Pope & Co., with yards in Dorchester. He is one of the original incorporators of the Homco- pathic Hospital, and has aided largely by his means and efforts in bringing that institution to its present successful standing. He was for many
Works and the Dorchester Savings Bank, and wii- president of the latter for some time. He also started the First National Bank of Dorchester, and conducted it successfully to its close, June 8, 1836. He is Republican in politics, and Unita- rian in religion, belonging to Rev. Christopher K. Eliot's church. Mr. Pope was married to Sarah A. Foster, of Dorchester. She took an equally active interest in the Homoeopathic Hospital, and was president of its Ladies' Aid Society for a number of years previous to her death in 1888. Their chil- dren now living are John Foster, Elizabeth F., wife of Dr. Conrad Wesselhoeft, one of the most prominent of the homeopathic physicians of Boston, and W. Carrol Pope, president of the Pope Manganese Company of Boston.
PORTER, ALEXANDER S., was born in Colds Mouth, Va., Aug. 25, 1840. His father, John K. Porter, was a native of Boston, born on the corner of Washington and Bedford streets, and his grand- father owned that property, extending to Harrison avenue. He was educated in Boston, and entered his father's office at No. 27 State street when a youth, May 1, 1860. Ten years later, in the autumn of 1870, he went into business on his own account in the same building, where he remained until 1891, when he removed into the new State-street Ex- change. Subsequently, however, in 1892, he re-
turned to No. 27. Mr. Porter has long been a prominent man in his business, identified with the largest transactions in real estate yet recorded in the annals of the city. His first large transac- tion was the sale of "Scollay's Building " which stood for so many years in the middle of Scollay square. It was sold in 1867 to Arioch Wentworth for $100,000. This was considered in those days a large transaction. Mr. Wentworth subsequently sold the building to the city for $200,000, and it was pulled down. Another large sale made by Mr. Porter was of the well-known Deacon estate on Boston Neck. The house here was built by Peter Parker, for his daughter, early in the fifties, and old . Bostonians well remember its stately appearance. It was a reproduction of a French chateau, and the lot, extending from Concord to Worcester streets, was surrounded by a high brick wall. It was rarely occupied, the owners preferring Paris to Boston as a place of residence. An old family servant was the sole occupant for many years, and few persons had the good fortune to view the interior. It was filled with beautiful furniture and rare works of art. When Peter Parker died, the estate was sold by
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Mr. Porter to Paul D. Wallis, a prominent Boston builder of that time, for $125,000. Mr. Wallis sold the land off in lots, which were long since improved. The house still stands, but it is shorn of its former glory. For a while it was occupied by the Normal Art School. After the great fire of 1872 Mr. Porter, who had just returned from Europe, at once took a hand in the negotiation of property in what was called the " burnt district." His loans and negotiations during the following two years footed up to millions of dollars. The panic of 1873 caused a depression in real estate, and for the next few years business was almost at a stand- still. The tide turned in 1880, and since then dealings have reached immense & proportions. Among the notable transactions in that and the following year or two, carried through by Mr. Porter, were the sales of large estates to Fred. L. Ames : that on the corner of Washington and Court streets, now the site of the " Ames Building," the Chandler estate on Winter street, the so-called " Castor" Building on Washington near West street, the great estate on the corner of Bedford and Kingston streets, and the residence of Mr. . in 1887. Mr. Porter, believing that Boston was worthy Ames on the corner of Commonwealth avenue and Dartmouth street, purchased of Charles Whitney. Mr. Porter also sold to ex-Governor Ames the lot
ALEXANDER 8. PORTER.
of land on which his residence stands. Mr. Porter was instrumental in the filling of the " great basin"
west of West Chester Park, forming a syndicate to purchase a large tract of the land, to be paid for when filled. It was called the Palfrey syndicate, and involved nearly half a million dollars. He also made the largest land sale on record in the Back Bay, for Henry M. Whitney to John Quincy Adams and Charles Francis Adams, amounting to not far from a million dollars. This property is on Common- wealth-avenue extension, and runs back to Charles river. Other large tracts were sold to Henry Lee, H. H. Hunnewell, Augustus Lowell, Dudley L. Peck- ham, and others. In 1886 Mr. Porter organized the Boston Real Estate Trust, raising by subscrip- tions $2,000,000, since increased to $3,500,000. The trustees are Robert Codman, Samuel Wells, Abbott Lawrence, John Quincy Adams, and Will- iam Minot, jr. He was also one of the promot- ers of the Berkeley House Company, of which he is a director and Aaron W. Spencer is president ; and he organized the Boston Storage Warehouse Com- pany on West Chester Park. But the largest trans- action that has ever been accomplished in the city was the conception of the new State-street Exchange of a building that would be a credit to the State as well as the city, quietly went to work and bonded all the property that could be had, containing in all thirty-three thousand square feet or two-thirds of an acre. He then made an estimate of the cost of a building, the total sum aggregating $3,500,000. Within thirty days from the date of the bond the entire sum was subscribed, and soon after the prop- erty was conveyed to Samuel Wells, C. E. Cotting, and James Jackson, trustees. Afterwards a charter was obtained and the corporation began the work of construction. The building as completed is the second largest office-building in the world. Mr. Porter has had some notable transactions in sub- urban estates, especially on Chestnut Hill and neighborhood, and at the seashore. He has also ex- tended his operations to the West, having, with the aid of Luther S. Cushing, organized a large Western connection, and has established offices in Chicago, St. Paul, Minneapolis, Kansas City, Omaha, and Denver. He is a director of the Campobello Island Company, the West Chop Land and Water Company, and the Society for the Prevention of Title Forgeries ; and he belongs to a number of the leading clubs.
PORTER, CHARLES B., M.D., son of Dr. James B. and Harriet (Griggs) Porter, was born in Rutland, Vt., Jan. 19, 1840. He comes of a family of phy- sicians. His father, a native of Rutland, had an
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extensive practice there ; his grandfather, Dr. James Porter, first practised in Montreal, where he was born and removing to Rutland became one of the local medical celebrities of the time ; and his great- grandfather, Dr. James Porter, was a surgeon in the British army under the command of Lord Howe and Sir Henry Clinton on Long Island, during the Revolution. His mother was the daughter of Joseph Griggs, merchant, a native of Brookline, Mass. His early training was received from private tutors. He
CHARLES B. PORTER.
entered Harvard in 1858, and after graduation in 1862, began the study of medicine as a private pupil with Prof. Jeffries Wyman, of Cambridge. After a year and a half spent with Dr. Wyman he further pursued his studies in the Harvard Medical School, from which he graduated in 1865. During the last year of student life he served as house sur- geon to the Massachusetts General Hospital. Early in 1865 he was appointed assistant surgeon to the Armory-square Hospital in Washington, D.C., and two weeks after he was made surgeon-in-charge of the Armory ward which was used for the reception and treatment of wounded army officers. Here he remained until the close of the war. Returning to Boston early in 1866, he began at once the general practice of his profession. That year he was ap- pointed surgeon to the out-patients department of the Massachusetts General Hospital, and district physician to the Boston Dispensary ; and he was
also made assistant demonstrator of anatomy in the Harvard Medical School. The following year he was advanced to the position of surgeon to the Bos- ton Dispensary, and was appointed demonstrator of anatomy in the Medical School. He continued as surgeon to the out-patients department of the Mas- sachusetts General Hospital until February, 1875, when he was appointed visiting surgeon to the hospital. In 1873 he was appointed instructor in surgery in the Medical School, in 1882 assistant professor of surgery there, and in 1887 professor of clinical surgery, which chair he still holds. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, the Bos- ton Society for Medical Observation, and the Amer- ican Surgical Association ; also of the Somerset, the St. Botolph, the Athletic, and the University Clubs. In 1869 he visited Europe, where he spent about a year and a half in professional studies in London, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin. On June 15, 1865, Dr. Porter was married to Miss Harriet A., daughter of Samuel.P. Allen, of Cambridge.
POST, ABNER, M.D., was born in Westfield, Mass., Aug. 9, 1844. His education was acquired in the Westfield schools and in Williston Seminary at Easthampton, Mass., where he spent two years, graduating in 1866. Subsequently, in 1870, he graduated from the Harvard Medical School, receiv- ing the degree of M.D. After serving one year as house surgeon to the Massachusetts General Hospi- tal he went abroad, and there continued his studies, chiefly in Vienna. Upon his return, in 1872, he be- ,came assistant surgeon to the Chelsea Hospital for three years. At the close of this service he estab- lished himself in Boston, and has been successfully engaged in general practice here ever since. He is also surgeon to the Boston City Hospital, and clini- cal instructor in Harvard University. He is a mem- ber of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Boston Society for Medical Observation, the Boston Society for Medical Improvement, and the Ameri- can Association of Genito-Urinary Surgeons. He is also a member of literary and other organizations, among them the St. Botolph Club.
POTTER, WILLIAM H., M.D., was born in Boston June 20, 1856. He was educated in the Roxbury Latin School, from which he graduated in 1874, and at Harvard College, graduating in 18;8. He then studied in the Harvard Medical School for two years, and later entered the Harvard Dental School, from which he graduated in June, 1885, with the degree of D.M.D. In 1887 he was appointed
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demonstrator of operative dentistry in the Harvard Dental School, and in June, 1890, clinical lecturer on operative dentistry there. Dr. Potter is an ac- tive member of the Harvard Odontological Society and the American Academy of Dental Science, and an associate member of the New York Odontologi- cal Society.
POWERS, CASSIUS CLAY, son of Arba and Naomi Powers, natives of Maine, was born in Pittsfield, Me., Jan. 23, 1846. He graduated from. Bowdoin College in 1869. A fine mathematician, he took high rank as a scholar, was president of his class one year, and delivered the Latin salutatory oration at graduation. For two years he was principal of the high school at Gardiner, and of the high and gram- mar schools at Brunswick, Me., fitting two classes for college. He read law with Artemas Libbey, now a justice of the Supreme Court of Maine. He was admitted to the Kennebec county bar in 1871, and to the Suffolk bar in Boston in May, 1872. He has since successfully practised in New England and New York, in State and United States courts, his cases including several important patent-cases. Mr. Powers is Republican in politics, with independent views ; he represented Ward 21 in the city council in 1886-7-8. He is past master of Massachu- setts Lodge Free Masons, a member of the Royal Arcanum, of the Order of the Eastern Star, and of Hobomak Tribe of Red Men. He is also a mem- ber of the Boston Bar Association, and of the New England, Pine Tree State, and Roxbury Clubs. He has had five brothers who were lawyers : his brother Llewellyn has represented the Fourth Maine Dis- trict in Congress ; Cyrus M. has been a member of the Maine Legislature and the Governor's Council ; Gorham is judge of the Twelfth Judicial District Court of Minnesota ; Frederic A. has served in the Maine house of representatives and is now a sena- tor ; and Don. A. H. is his law partner at Houlton, a Democrat, and at one time a candidate for Con- gress in place of C. A. Boutelle ; the others are Re- publicans. Mr. Powers married Miss Annie M. Orr, daughter of Rev. John Orr, and granddaughter of Benjamin Orr, one of Maine's ablest lawyers. He resides in the Roxbury district.
N.H. He entered Harvard College in 1853, and graduated with the degree of S.B. in 1856, receiv- ing the honor of a " magna cum laude." He then entered the Harvard Medical School with the view of becoming a surgeon, but upon the sudden death of his father, he was obliged to abandon the study of medicine and surgery and devote himself to his father's business. After successfully managing and settling the estate he decided to study law, and for that purpose entered the Harvard Law School in 1857, where he graduated in 1858 with the degree of LL.B. The following year he formed a law copart- nership with Hon. Linus Child and Linus Mason Child, under the firm name of Child & Powers, counsellors, opening law offices in Boston, where they have since remained. He was one of the few who believed in the success of the street railways which were then being opened. He embarked early in the enterprise, became a large owner, and was made counsellor and also director and president in several of the roads. Soon after settling in Boston Mr. Powers also became an active Free Mason ; was elected master of Zetland Lodge, and was for several years the eminent commander of the Boston Commandery of Knights Templar, and for three years grand master of the Grand Council of Massachusetts. He has never been an aspirant for political office, but for three years, after the great fire of 1872, he was unanimously elected by both parties to the common council. Afterwards he was elected to the Boston water board, where he served until the water works were put into the hands of commissioners. He and two others had the entire charge of the Sudbury-river supply. Mr. Powers was married in 1858 to Miss H. E. Fessenden, daughter of Hon. Walter Fessenden, of Townsend ; they have two daughters : Marion (Mrs. Lamar S. Lowry) and Florence Agnes (Mrs. Henry Mclellan Harding), residing in Pittsburg, Pa.
POWERS, SAMUEL LELAND, son of Larned and Ruby (Barton) Powers, both natives of New Hampshire and of English descent, was born in Cornish, N.H., Oct. 26, 1848. He fitted for col- lege at Kimball Union Academy and Phillips (Ex- eter) Academy, and graduated from Dartmouth in 1874. He studied law in the law school of the University of the City of New York, where he re- mained one year, after which he entered the office of Verry & Gaskill, of Worcester, and was admitted to the Worcester county bar in November, 1875.
POWERS, CHARLES EDWARD, son of Charles and Sarah (Brooks) Powers, was born in Townsend, Mass., May 9, 1834. He was educated in the pub- lic schools and at various New England academies, and after graduating at the institution in New On the first of January the following year he began Hampton, N.H., he became a private pupil in practice in Boston, in partnership with Samuel W. mathematics of Professor Knight, of New London, McCall. For the past few years he has made a
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specialty of electrical matters, and has been con- nected as counsel with the American Bell Telephone and the New England Telephone & Telegraph Companies. His offices are in the Bell Tele-
SAMUEL L. - POWERS.
phone Building on Milk street. He resides in New- ton, is a Republican in politics and a Unitarian in religion. He was for many years connected with the Newton city government. He was one of the founders of the Newton Club, and is first vice- president of that organization. In June, 1878, he
was married to Miss Eva Crowell, of Dennis, Mass .; . engaged by this patron to spend five years in close they have one son, Leland Powers.
PRANG, Louis, born in Breslau, Germany, in 1824, the son of a calico printer, comes of (Norman) Huguenot and pure German ancestry. He was a delicate child, given to dreaming and critical re- flection, and, being spared the close application to lessons and tasks required of the sturdier children of the household, divided his time between playing, watching with imaginative absorption the compli- cated processes of his father's trade, and dreaming fancies of his own about the myriad figures and hues. In his own way he worked, too, as well as dreamed. He had ready hands, and the processes of bleaching, dyeing, color-mixing, and color-printing, with which he soon grew familiar, suggested a host of ambitious experiments of his own in these same lines. The practical father of the family, feeling after a time
that the boy needed the commonplace balance of mercantile routine, sent him, while yet a lad in his teens, to spend a year in the counting-room of a friend in Westphalia. Here he found himself in a strange, bustling world, where the accomplishments he possessed were but moderately esteemed, while accomplishments he had never cared for were held absolutely necessary. His way of meeting the situa- tion was characteristic. Finding, for instance, that conventional business correspondence was an un- known tongue that had to be learned, he promptly made up his mind to learn it, and, saying nothing of his purpose, spent hours every night in patiently studying and carefully copying the letter-book pages, filled each day by the accomplished head of the establishment. It was in the same spirit of quiet determination that other phases of mercantile
routine were studied and mastered; and when the year was over, the new clerk had made himself master of them as thoroughly as most young men would have done through long application. The self-discipline gained through this year's drudgery soon showed its value, when changes in the family fortunes threw the young man on his own resources. In one way and another he had gained a thorough practical knowledge of the various arts connected with calico-printing, and was regarded as a highly skilled technologist. His unusual gifts for study and original investigation came to the notice of a wealthy German manufacturer desirous of setting up a model establishment for calico-printing. An agreement was made with a view to founding such an establishment on a basis of the broadest knowl- edge of the subject that could be attained. Mr. Prang, then but little over twenty years of age, was
investigation of the most advanced methods of bleaching, dyeing, and color-printing practised in Great Britain and the various continental countries, and afterwards to organize and superintend a large manufactory in Bohemia, where the collated results of his comparative study should be put in practical operation. The first part of this contract was ad- mirably carried out. The most progressive houses for dyeing and calico-printing in America, Switzer- land, France, England, and Scotland were succes- sively visited and exhaustively studied, the student of methods often turning workman and securing direct employment at the processes he specially wished to investigate. But besides being a student of technical processes he was always ardently inter- ested in politics and social science, and when he returned to Germany he carried home not only the riper experience in technological directions which
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he set out to acquire, but also deepened enthusiasm in the cause of social democracy. The great revo- lutionary uprising of 1848 found him the leader of a prominent revolutionary club in his native country, and when the cause was overthrown political com- plications blocked the young patriot's professional prospects. The plans for the model calico-printing establishment had to be given up. The to-be superintendent and inaugurator of the new enter- prise in calico-printing found himself a political refugee, with a prison-cell awaiting his apprehension by government authority. For a time Switzerland offered a shelter to him as to other political refugees, but the cause for whose sake he lingered seemed hopeless. Even Switzerland came to be an insecure asylum, and he at length decided to leave the Old World to try his fortune in America. It was in 1850 that he landed in New York. His only capital consisted of his practical knowledge of calico- printing and the arts connected with it. He was unable to find any employment in this direction, and for a few years he had a hard and precarious living. In the course of one apparent failure he learned the art of drawing on stone for lithographic purposes, and in another to do fine wood-engraving. His talent for wood-engraving, indeed, seemed des- tined to decide his career in his adopted country. He soon became expert in the craft and was able to command a good income ; but the long hours which he devoted to this close sedentary labor undermined his health and made another change necessary. This was really the beginning of his great success. He embarked in 1856 in the business of lithography in color, and found himself at last in his element. Color lithography was then in its infancy ; but with Mr. Prang's thorough and broad experience in work closely related to this, and his strong faith that really good pictorial art in color must in time win the appreciation of the people, he made the begin- ning of the work by virtue of which his name is now a household word. The business had at first to sustain itself as it could. Sometimes the particular matter in hand was of a commercial nature, like the designing and printing of labels for manufactured goods. Sometimes, again, it was an original enter- prise, like the publication, in 1857, of a lithographed picture of Cambridge, with the college buildings in the foreground. In 1860 Mr. Prang bought out the partner with whom he had been associated, con- tinuing the same lines of work under the name which has since become so widely known, - L. Prang & Co., - and his prosperity seemed to be fairly assured ; but in 1861 the breaking out of the Civil War threatened sudden disaster to general
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