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 70
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WHITE, WILLIAM ALLEN, M.D., son of William A. White, was born in Ware, N.H., May 2, 1863. He was educated in the high school of Concord, N.H., and graduated from the Boston College of Physi- cians and Surgeons in April, 1890. Since that time he has been in general practice in Boston. He is instructor in the theory and practice of medicine in the College of Physicians and Surgeons, and is lect- urer in the Boston Dental School in materia medica
WILLIAM A. WHITE.
has held for two years. He conducts a drug-store at No. 150 Friend street, at which place he also has an office. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society.
WHITE, W. H., was born in that part of the town of Woburn now Winchester, Mass., Oct. 26, 1829. His ancestry on both sides were of the pure New England type. His father, Col. Samuel B., was first treasurer of the town of Winchester, and was also the first commander of the Woburn Mechanics' Phalanx, a military organization of prominence for the past sixty years. W. H. White obtained his education in the public schools and the academy of Woburn. Upon leaving school at the age of sixteen he entered the employ of Joel Whitney, machinist. From Whitney's he went to the locomotive shops of the Boston & Lowell Railroad, in East Cambridge, and was soon promoted to engineer, running his engine between Boston and Lowell. Shortly after- wards he accepted a position on the Erie Rail- road, at Hornellsville, N.Y. There he became fore- man of locomotive shops, and later was advanced to the position of assistant master-mechanic at Dun- kirk, N.Y., being then but twenty-one years of age. While in this position he was offered a partnership in the mahogany business in his native town, which
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he accepted, and for a few years did a very profita- ble trade, when the mill was burned, entailing a heavy loss." Subsequently he entered the leather business. He built a tannery at Winchester, and for several years conducted this enterprise, until it was stopped by the depression of 1857 .. The fol- lowing year he went to Montreal, where he planned and constructed large leather-works for a Boston firm, being principal manager for several years, and doing a successful business ; but his deep-seated American ideas induced him to retrace his steps, and in 1863 he established his family in Lowell. He was at this period of his busy life still a young man, full of resources. For some years he had made the manufacture of glove leather his careful study, and engaging in this work, he soon attained an enviable course of time he further increased the business by adding glove manufacture. Thus far he had been without a partner, but in 1867 he took with him a brother, and later a Mr. Kilburn, and estab- lished the firm of White Bros. & Kilburn, as glove and leather manufacturers. The quality of the product took the highest rank with the best New England trade, which in a measure had been cut off through the Civil War from imported goods of this character. Subsequently the firm was recon- structed as White Bros. & Sons, and engaged in the manufacture of fancy leathers. This style continued until 1887, when the firm was again reorganized, this time under the name of White Bros. & Co., which included the senior partner and his three sons ; viz., Edward L., Henry Kirke, and William T. White. Edward L., the eldest son, had already been a partner in the old concern, and as such had taken a leading part in-the conduct and man- agement of the business, for which his marked skill and ability justly qualified him. Under his leader- ship and that of their experienced father, the younger brothers early developed superior business qualifications, and the house soon built up a very extensive and profitable business. The goods which they manufacture are of extraordinary deli- cacy of finish, and are made in various grades and colors, under a process known only to their house. They have already established agencies in the lead- ing centres of Europe ; viz., London and North- ampton, Paris, Frankfort, and Vienna, and in Sydney and Melbourne, Australia. At home their produc- tions are in demand, not only for boots and shoes, but for pocketbooks, piano and organ manu- facturers, upholsterers, decorators ; and they are adapted to many of the art industries. This firm were the largest producers in this country of alli-
gator and lizard skins at the time when these skins were popular, and among their latest novelties has been their ooze leather, produced in various colors and finish much resembling silk plush or velvet. The factories of the Messrs. White are in Lowell ; their working capacity is equal to some five thou- sand skins per day the year round. Mr. White is a gentleman of refined and cultivated tastes, of amiable disposition, and of a generous and philan- thropic spirit. He commands and enjoys the good- will and esteem of his townsmen. He is not a politician, nor does he seek public offices ; he has already been a member of the Lowell city govern- ment, which has satisfied his ambition.
WHITMORE, WILLIAM H., was born in Dorchester reputation for the quality of his productions. In Sept. 6, 1836. His active life has been passed in Boston, where he received instruction in the public schools and the high and Latin schools. He started in business life in 1859, with the firm of E. F. Jones & Whitmore, but this concern was dissolved in 1860. Later he became a partner of C. O. Whitmore & Sons, with which house he remained until 1865. At present he is engaged in the mining and smelting business. Mr. Whitmore has long been prominently identified with city politics, and for eight years was a member of the common council, president of that body in 1879. He is a prime mover in many Democratic circles, and, although not always conspicuous before the public, his judgment and foresight are often appealed to, and his advice followed. He has also been prominent in the field of literature, and has a wide reputation for accurate and careful work in historical writings. He has received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Harvard and Williams. For fifteen years he has been one of the commissioners of public records of Boston, and still holds this important position. Mr. Whitmore is a genial man socially, and ever ready to assist others with his vast store of historical information.
WHITNEY, HENRY M., son of James Scolly and Laurinda (Collins) Whitney, was born in Conway, Mass., Oct. 22, 1841. He was educated in the public schools and in the Easthampton Seminary. He began his business career as a clerk in the Con- way bank, where he remained three years. Then he came to Boston and was for a short time a clerk in the Bank of Mutual Redemption. Afterwards he was clerk in the navy agent's office for a year, -- 1860, - and then was engaged in the shipping bus- iness in New York city. In 1866 he returned to Boston as agent for the Metropolitan Steamship
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Company ; in 1879 he was made president of the company, which position he still holds ( 1892). In 1887 he was elected president of the West End Street Railway Company, and then began his nota- ble career as the head of the great corporation which has revolutionized the street-car system of Boston. Having secured control of all the old lines and con- siderably extended them, the West End is now the largest street-railway in the world. In 1889 Mr. Whitney introduced electric cars run by the over- head trolley system, and in 1890 obtained a charter for an elevated railroad. Then, a rapid-transit com- mission having been created by the Legislature to inquire into the whole question, further development of the West End system in this direction was for the time suspended. Mr. Whitney is also president of the Hancock Inspirator Company. He was mar- ried Oct. 3, 1878, in Brookline, to Miss Margaret F. Green ; they have four children : Ruth Bowman, Elinor Green, Laura Collins, and James Scolly Whitney.
WHITNEY, JAMES LYMAN, son of Josiah Dwight and Clarissa (James) Whitney, was born in North- ampton, Mass., Nov. 28, 1835. His early education was obtained in the Northampton Collegiate Institu- tion, and then he attended Yale College, from which he graduated in 1856, and Berkeley Scholar of the House 1856-7. Then for some time he was libra- rian of the Brothers in Unity, Yale College, and afterwards assistant librarian of the Cincinnati Public Library. From 1858 to 1868 he was a book- seller in Springfield, Mass., and from 1870 to 1887 he had an interest in the same business. In 1869 he entered the service of the Boston Public Library, and is now principal assistant-librarian in charge of its catalogue department ; is editor of the Ticknor Catalogue, and other catalogues and bulletins of the library ; also editor of the " Handbook for Readers in the Boston Public Library." Mr. Whitney was chairman of the school committee of Concord, Mass., from 1879 to 1887 ; is secretary of the library committee of the Concord Free Public Library ; chairman of the book committee of the Bostonian Society ; and treasurer of the American Library Asso- ciation.
WHITON, JOHN CHADWICK, master of Suffolk County House of Correction, South Boston, was born in Hingham Aug. 21, 1828. He obtained his educa- tion in the public schools of that town. After leav- ing school he was employed as clerk in a retail grocery store in Boston, and afterwards in a whole- sale store, where he remained until 1862, when he
entered the army with the Forty-third Regiment as lieutenant-colonel. He was mustered out in July, 1863, at the expiration of his term of service. Before he went out to the field he was in command of Company A, Second Battalion Infantry, Massa- chusetts Militia (the Tigers), at Fort Warren, April, 1861, for four weeks. In the winter of 1863 he was superintendent of recruiting in Plymouth county. In April, 1864, he was lieutenant-colonel, command- ing the Fifty-eighth Regiment Volunteers, remaining in the service until he was finally mustered out, July, 1865. On the Ist of September, 1865, he was appointed chief clerk in the Boston city audi- tor's office, which position he held until Sept. 15, 1873, when he took charge of the institutions on Deer and Rainsford Islands. Here he remained till August, 1876. In the spring of 1877 he was ap- pointed treasurer and steward of the Reformatory Prison for Women, and this position he held two and a half years. From 1880 to 1883 he was superin- tendent of the Boston and Hingham Steamboat Line. 'In 1884 he was appointed to his former place in charge of institutions on Deer Island, which he held until March, 1889, when he was transferred to his present position as master of the House of Cor- rection. Mr. Whiton is a member of the Colum- bian Lodge of Masons, of the Loyal Legion, and of Post 15, G.A.R.
WIGGIN, JOHN WILLIAM, son of Andrew J. Wiggin, was born in Lowell, Mass., Feb. 8, 1837. He is a lineal descendant, on the paternal side, of Gov. Thomas Wiggin, who came from the west of Eng- land in 1631 and settled in Stratham, N.H .; and on the maternal side, of John Hoyt, who also came from England about the middle of the seventeenth century and settled in Salisbury, Mass. Governor Wiggin came to New Hampshire as agent of the English proprietors of the "Upper Plantation," embracing Dover, Durham, Stratham, and- a part of Newington and Greenland. After spending two years here he visited England on business, and, as Governor Winthrop says, " by his good testimony in behalf of the Massachusetts Colony he did much to avert the evils that threatened it." John Hoyt of Salisbury was also a chosen leader among the earlier settlers of that ancient town, holding offices of trust for many years. John William Wiggin was educated in the Lowell public schools. He was first employed in the Lowell miils as a " bobbin boy," and later engaged with the Lowell Carpet Company as a wood machinist. In 1864 he be- came superintendent for Flint & Hall, of Boston, in the construction of portable houses, and he con-
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tinued in this line of business for that and another firm until June, 1870, when he was appointed deputy-surveyor under Gen. George W. Cram, surveyor-general of lumber for Massachusetts. Upon the retirement of General Cram in 1884, Mr. Wig- gin was appointed surveyor-general for the term of three years. He was reappointed by Governor Ames, and still holds the position. During the winter of 1888 he was engaged by the Pennsyl- vania Lumber Storage Company of Bradford, Pa., and, as inspector-general, organized for it a valuable system for the inspection, piling, and shipment of lumber, which was new to that region. General Wiggin has held various positions of responsibility in the higher grade of fraternal organizations.
WILLARD, EDWARD A., son of Joseph A. and Penelope (Cochran) Willard, was born in Cam- bridge, Mass., Nov. 7, 1844. He received his education in the public schools. When about six- teen years of age he entered the wholesale dry- goods business in Boston, as a clerk, and there remained a little over a year. Shortly after reach- ing seventeen he enlisted in the Forty-fourth Regi- ment Massachusetts Volunteers, for the period of nine months, and was sent to Newberne, N.C., where the regiment was attached to the command under General Foster. Participating in all the battles in which the regiment was engaged, and returning to Cambridge in 1863, he soon reënlisted, this time in the Eleventh Massachusetts Light Bat- tery for three years, Capt. (now Major) Edward J. Jones commanding, which was assigned to the Ninth Army Corps under General Burnside, then attached to the Army of the Potomac under General Grant. Starting in the campaign of 1864, he was present at the battles of the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, Cold Harbor, etc., and all the battles around Petersburg and Richmond, up to the surrender of Lee in 1865. Again returning to Cambridge in the fall of this year, he entered the money-order department of the Boston post-office, John G. Palfrey then being post- master. There he remained for about a year and a half, during the latter part of the time under the then newly-appointed postmaster, William I. Burt. Some time during the year 1867 he entered the clerk's office of the Superior Court. Here he re- mained until the present jury waived, or third session of said court, as it is now called, was created, when, in February, 1877, he was appointed by the court, as second assistant clerk, to take charge of that session. That position he held until January, 1890, when he was appointed first assistant clerk, to take the place made vacant by the death of the former
assistant. Mr. Willard's father is the present clerk of the Superior Court ; his grandfather was Sidney Wil- lard, at one time a professor in Harvard College and afterwards mayor of Cambridge, and his great-great- grandfather was president of Harvard. He is also related to Maj. Solomon Willard, who fought in the Revolutionary War, and also to Solomon and Aaron Willard, the makers of famous clocks, and Solomon Willard, the designer of Bunker Hill Monument. On his mother's side he is related to Peter Faneuil. Mr. Willard's residence is in Cambridge.
WILLARD, JOSEPH AUGUSTUS, son of Sidney and Elizabeth (Andrews) Willard, was born in Cam- bridge, Mass., Sept. 29, 1816. After studying for a time in the Westford Academy and the Cam- bridge Latin School, he was prepared for college
JOSEPH A. WILLARD.
under the able instruction of James Freeman Clarke and Ralph Waldo Emerson. He did not then enter college, but in 1830 went to sea. Return- ing at the end of eight years he resumed his studies with his father, who had formerly been a professor at Harvard University. In 1846 he en- tered the office of the clerk of the Court of Com- mon Pleas, and two years later, in addition to his other duties, was appointed deputy sheriff by Sheriff Joseph Eveleth. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1854, and the following year was appointed to the office of assistant clerk of the
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Superior Court of the County of Suffolk. In 1859 he was appointed assistant clerk of the present Superior Court, and in 1865 clerk of the Superior Court, appointed by the court to fill a vacancy. He has received a reelection every term since. His present term will expire in. 1897. Mr. Willard is prominent in Masonic affairs, and is a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He numbers among his ancestors men who have been prominent in the history of the State for generations ; among them Joseph and Samuel Willard were each president of Harvard University, and his father was librarian and professor of Oriental languages and Latin in the same institution. His great-great-grandmother, on his mother's side, was Anne Dudley, more familiarly known in history as Anne Bradstreet, wife of Gov. Simon Bradstreet.
WILLIAMS, FRED. HOMER, son of Virgil Homer and Nancy Reed (Briggs) Williams, was born in Foxborough, Mass., Jan. 7, 1857. . He was edu- cated in the Foxborough schools and at Brown University, from which he graduated in the class of 1877. For two years after his graduation he taught school in East Medway (now Millis). He was admitted to the bar Sept. IS, 1882, and has since practised his profession in Boston, his office at No. 53 Tremont street. He was a member of the lower house of the Legislature in 1883 and 1884. Mr. Williams was married July 19, 1881, to Miss Julia Annette Blake ; they have one child, Harold P. Williams.
WILLIAMS, GEORGE FRED., son of George Williams and Henrietta (Rice) Williams, was born in Ded- ham, Mass., July 10, 1852. His maternal ances- tors are of old Massachusetts stock, and his paternal ancestors were German and French. He was educated in private schools until he entered the high school in Dedham. In 1868 he entered Dart- mouth College. At the end of his freshman year he went to Germany, where he studied in Hamburg for six months, and spent the next year at the uni- versities in Heidelberg and Berlin. Making up the college studies of sophomore and junior year in the spring and summer of 1871, he reentered his class at Dartmouth and graduated in 1872. In the winter of 1872 and 1873 he taught school in West Brewster, Mass., and in the spring and summer of 1873 was a reporter of the " Boston Globe." He studied law in the Boston University Law School, and was admitted to the Suffolk bir in October, 1875. Subsequently Little, Brown, & Co. published his volume of " Massachusetts Citations," and he edited
for that firm volumes ten to seventeen of the " An- nual United States Digest." He was for three years a member of the Dedham school committee. He began active participation in politics as a Re- publican in 1882, and in 1883 organized the Nor- folk Republican Club, which was and now is one of the largest political clubs in the State. In the summer of 1884 he joined the Independent move- ment, and was one of the committee on resolutions in the Independent convention held at New York. Appointed by the Massachusetts Committee of One Hundred one of its executive committee, he was in August selected as chairman of that committee which conducted the State campaign. In 1886 he was elected to the lower house of the Legislature, where he took an active part as a Democrat. In 1890 he was elected to the fifty-second Congress from the Ninth Massachusetts District, succeeding a Republican, Hon. John W. Candler. His political work has been done in connection with constant work in the profession of the law, which he has practised mainly in the courts of Boston. He has been for several years a member of the executive committee of the Massachusetts Reform Club, and has served as secretary and on the executive com- mittee of the Dartmouth Alumni Association of Boston. He is now president of the Dartmouth Club of Boston. In 1886 he delivered the Fourth of July oration in Boston by invitation of the city, and in 1889 delivered an address before the faculty and students of Dartmouth College, on the centen- nial anniversary of the inauguration of Washington.
WILLIAMS, HAROLD, M.D., was born in Brookline, Mass., Dec. 5, 1854. He was educated in the public schools of Brookline and at Harvard Col- lege, graduating A.B. in 1875, from the Medical School M.D). in 1878. Then he went abroad, spending one year in Vienna, six months in Paris, and six months as surgical interne in the London Hospital. He returned to Boston in 1880, and has since practised his profession here. He also prac- tises during the summer at Nantucket. He is physician to children at the Boston Dispensary. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, of the Boston Society for Medical Improve- ment, and of the Boston Society for Medical Ob- servation. He has been a frequent contributor to the medical journals, some of his more noteworthy papers being on " Cesarean Section and High For- ceps " ("American Journal of Obstetrics"), " Cli- matic Treatment of Phthisis " (" Medical and Sur- gical Journal "), and " A Case of Hodgkins' Disease" (" Medical and Surgical Journal "). Dr. Williams is
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also the author of several works of fiction. He was been brought from Rome by an ablegate of the Pope, married June 27, 1876, to Miss Alice Louise, Mons. Caesar Roncetti, accompanied by his sec- granddaughter of the late George B. Cary, of retary, Dr. Ubalbi, and by a nobleman of the Papal Boston.
WILLIAMS, JOHN J., son of Michael and Ann (Egan) Williams, was born in Boston April 27, 1822. His education began in Mrs. Newmarch's kindergarten school. Then he was for some time a pupil of Father Fulton, and at the age of eleven was sent to St. Sulpice College, Montreal, Canada, where he studied about eight years. In 1841 he went to Paris and entered the seminary of St. Sul- pice. At the age of twenty-three he was ordained a priest, and returning to Boston he officiated in the old cathedral on Franklin street, where the cathe- dral building now stands. In 1855 he was appointed rector of the cathedral, and there he remained until 1857, when he was appointed pastor of St. James Church, Albany street. The same year he was made vicar-general, and during the last years of Bishop Fitzpatrick's episcopate he administered the diocese. In 1866, on the 19th of January, he was appointed coadjutor of the bishop of Boston with the right of succession ; and by the death of Bishop Fitzpatrick he became bishop of Boston, consecrated on the 11th of March, that year. In 1866 he assisted at the Plenary Council of Baltimore, and1 in 1869-70 at the (Ecumenical Council held in Rome. He has been connected with many good works in Boston. He was instrumental in the establishment of the House of the Good Shepherd, the Redemptorist and Oblate Fathers, the Little Sisters of the Poor, and the Infant Asylum. He also reorganized and en- larged the Home for Destitute Children, founded the Catholic Union, and led the movement for the build- ing of the present great cathedral at the junction of Washington and Union Park streets. The first sod of the cathedral lot was turned April 27, 1866, on Bishop Williams' forty-fourth birthday, and the build- ing was completed and dedicated Dec. 8, 1875. In that year (1875) Boston was created an arch- bishopric, and Bishop Williams was made the first archbishop on the 12th of February. On the 2d of May the ceremony of conferring the pallium of an archbishop upon him took place in the new cathe- dral, which, being yet unfinished, was temporarily fitted for the occasion. The brilliant and solemn ceremony was before all the bishops of the ecclesi- astical province of New York, the clergy of this and neighboring dioceses, and a great congregation of six thousand persons. Bishop Me Neirney, of Albany, celebrated the solemn high mass, Bishop Goesbriand preached the sermon, and the pallium, which had
Guard, Count Marefoschi, was conferred upon the new archbishop by Cardinal McCloskey, of New York.
WILSON, WILLIAM POWER, son of James Hamilton and Margaret McKim ( Marriott) Wilson, was born in Baltimore, Md., Nov. 15, 1852. His paternal great-grandfather was William Wilson, who was born in Limerick, Ire., in 1750, came to America in 1773, founded the house of William Wilson & Sons in Baltimore, was for seventeen years president of the Bank of Baltimore, served one term in the Mary- land Legislature, and was grand-uncle of W. W. Corcoran, the Washington philanthropist, who was named after him. The maternal. grandfather of William Power was William H. Marriott, a lawyer by profession, who was speaker of the Maryland house of delegates 1824-5, and collector of the port of Baltimore 1844-9, being appointed Nov. 22, 1844, and serving until May 31, 1849. And Mrs. Margaret Duncan, who built the "Vow" church in Philadelphia, was Mr. Wilson's great-great-great- grandmother through his maternal grandmother. William Power Wilson was educated at Phillips (Andover) Academy, at Harvard College one year, and at the Harvard Law School three years. He received the degree of LL.B. from the latter in 1877, and soon after was admitted to the Suffolk bar and began practice in Boston. He has been prominent in municipal and State politics since his first appearance in the common council in 1886. He was a member of that body two years, 1886-7, and took a leading part in its proceed- ings. In December, 1887, he was elected an alder- man and served in the board three years, - 1888, 1889, 1890, - the last year as chairman. Then he was elected to the lower house of the Legislature, in which he served one term ( 1891) in leading posi- tions. During 1891 he was president of the Repub- lican city committee. He is a member of a number of local organizations, including the Union and St. Botolph Clubs. In 18So he received the honorary degree of Master of Arts from Dartmouth College. Mr. Wilson was married April 30, 1884, to Miss Louise Keith Kimball.
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