Genealogy and history of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 2

Author: Hurd, Charles Edwin, 1833-1910
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston, New England historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 850

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Mr. Saltonstall married at Salem in Octo- ber, 1854, Rose S., daughter of John Clarke Lee and his wife Harriet Paine Rose. Mr. Lee was founder with George Higginson of the well-known banking house of Lee & Higgin- son of Boston. Mr. and Mrs. Saltonstall had six children, namely: Leverett, third, born November 3, 1855; Richard Middlecott, born October 29, 1859; Rose Lee, born June 17, 1861; Mary Elizabeth, born October 17, 1862; Philip Leverett, born May 4, 1867; and Endi- cott Peabody, born December 25, 1872. Lev- erett, third, died February 14, 1863 ; and Rose Lee, who married George Webb West, died February 28, 1891, leaving two children. Richard Middlecott (Harvard College, 1880), member of the Suffolk Bar, married Eleanor, daughter of Peter C. Brooks, of West Medford. Mary Elizabeth married a son of Quincy A. and Pauline (Agassiz) Shaw - namely, Louis Agassiz Shaw - who died July 3, 1891, leav- ing two children. Philip Leverett (Harvard College, 1889) married Frances A. F. Sher- wood, and has five children. Endicott Peabody (Harvard College, 1894) married Elizabeth Dupee, and has one child,

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GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

The Hon. Leverett Saltonstall died at Chest- nut Hill, Newton, April 15, 1895, in the seventy-first year of his age. He had com- pleted but a short time before the preparation for the press of a valuable genealogical work, which under the supervision of his son, Rich- ard M., was printed in 1897 for private distri- bution, under the title "Ancestry and Descend- ants of Sir Richard Saltonstall." To this book we are indebted for most of the facts em- bodied in the foregoing sketch.

ENRY LEE, A. M., one of the most eminent and worthy citizens of Bos- ton in the nineteenth century, of which he did not live to see the close, his death occurring November 24, 1898, eleven months after his retirement from the business house of Lee, Higginson & Co., was the elder son of Henry, Sr., and Mary (Jack- son) Lee, and was born in Boston, September 2, 1817. Holding the rank of Colonel on Governor Andrew's staff in the sixties, he came to be generally known under that title.

He was of the sixth generation in descent from Thomas Lee, a merchant of Boston, who d. in this city in June, 1766, in the ninety- third year of his age. Of this ancestor Colo- nel Lee wrote in a letter published in the "Salisbury Family Histories and Genealo- gies," volume III. : "My grandfather's grand- father, Thomas Lee, was an honest, indus- trious, prosperous North End citizen, intrusted with many duties by town and church: his mother, Martha Mellowes, her father John, grandfather Oliver, great-grandfather Abraham, all respectable. Who Thomas Lee's father was I know not, only that he died when his son was very young." Thomas Lee's mother also died, "leaving him in the care of his grandmother, who became Martha Winthrop, wife of Dean Winthrop." Thomas Lee above named m. in 1700 Deborah Flint, daughter of Ensign Edward Flint, of Salem.

Their son, Thomas Lee, Jr.,3 a graduate of Harvard College, 1722, and later a merchant in Boston, removed in 1733 to Salem. He represented Salem in the General Court in 1739 and 1740, and in 1747, the year of his

death. By his first wife, Elizabeth Charnock, daughter of Captain John Charnock, of Boston, he had two daughters - Martha and Elizabeth. His second wife, Lois Orne, of Salem, who was b. in 1712, d. in 1790. She was the daughter of Captain Timothy and Lois (Pick- ering) Orne. Her father, one of the early Salem merchants, previously a mariner, was the son of Joseph Orne, and grandson of John Horne (or Orne), of Salem. Her mother, Lois, was a daughter of John3 Pickering, of Salem, and his wife Sarah, who was a daughter of John and Lois (Ivory) Burrill, and grand- daughter of George' Burrill, "one of the rich- est planters of Lynn."

Lieutenant John2 Pickering, son of John,' the founder of the family in Salem, and grand- father of Lois Pickering, was in Captain Mose- ley's Company in the fight at Bloody Brook, September 18, 1685. His wife was Alice, daughter of William Flint and niece of Thomas Flint, who both settled at Salem, probably before 1640. Colonel Timothy Pickering, pa- triot and statesman, who was a member of Washington's cabinet, was a scion of this notable family, being a grandson of John and Lois (Orne) Pickering.

Joseph4 Lee, b. in Salem in 1744, son of Thomas, Jr.,3 and Lois (Pickering) Lee, brought up by his widowed mother, went to sea as a boy of thirteen, became captain of a vessel, and later a merchant and ship-owner in Beverly, in Salem, and in Boston, whither he removed in 1807, and where he d. in 1831. He was a man of wealth and liberality. Among the objects of his beneficence was the Massachusetts General Hospital, to which he gave twenty thousand dollars. His first wife was Elizabeth Cabot, sister of his partner, the Hon. George Cabot, and daughter of Joseph and Elizabeth (Higginson) Cabot. His sec- ond wife'was her cousin Deborah, daughter of Francis Higginson, and widow of Stephen Cabot. Joseph Cabot, father of Elizabeth, was the youngest son of John Cabot, a native of the Isle of Jersey (son of Francis and Suzanne (Gruchy) Cabot), who came to Salem with his brother George about the year 1700, m. Anne Orne, of Salem, and was the founder of the Essex County family of Cabot. Elizabeth

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Higginson, wife of Joseph Cabot, was a de- scendent in the sixth generation of the Rev. Francis Higginson, first minister of the First Church in Salem, the ancestral line being : the Rev. Francis,' the Rev. John,2 John, 3 John,4 John,5 John3 Higginson, grandfather of Elizabeth,6 married in 1672 Sarah Savage, daughter of Captain Thomas and Mary (Symmes) Savage, of Boston, and grand-daugh- ter of the Rev. Zechariah Symmes, of Charles- town.

Henry Lee, Sr., b. in Beverly in 1782, son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Cabot) Lee, and ninth in a family of twelve children, was educated at Phillips Academy, Andover. He became a merchant of the firm of Bullard & Lee, and engaged in the East India and South American trade. He was interested in political econ- omy, and was a friend and correspondent of Horne Tooke and Richard Cobden. He d. February 6, 1867. He m. Mary, daughter of the Hon. Jonathan and Hannah (Tracy) Jack- son. The children of Henry and Mary (Jack- son) Lee were: Mary Cabot, who d. young ; Mary Cabot, second, who m. George Higgin- son; Francis L., who m. Sarah M. A. Wilson ; Colonel Henry, the special subject of this sketch; Elizabeth Cabot, who m. Dr. Charles E. Ware; and Harriet Jackson, b. in 1826, who m. Samuel Torrey Morse.

Colonel Henry Lee was graduated at Har- vard College in 1836, and shortly began busi- ness life as a clerk in his father's counting- room. In 1851 he joined the firm of Lee, Higginson & Co., brokers (founded in 1848 by his cousin John C. Lee and his brother-in- law George Higginson), of which he subse- quently became the head, and as such the promoter of large and important enterprises. It was his sagacious forethought that origi- nated the Union Safety Deposit Vaults, of which he was the manager. He was president of the Provident Institution for Savings, a director of the Bunker Hill Association, for thirty years a member of the Board of Over- seers of Harvard University, treasurer of the Building Fund of Harvard Memorial Associa- tion and of the Association for Preserving the Old South Meeting-house. "His public spirit," it has been well said, "had no narrow

limitations. Whatever concerned the well- being of his city, his State, or his country, was of profound interest for him, and promptly engaged the services of his helping hand, the counsel of his sagacious mind, and the enthu- siasm of his ready sympathies. He loved literature and the fine arts. He was a valued contributor to the former, and a liberal patron of both."

He was a member of the New England His- toric-Genealogical Society and of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society. At the meeting of the latter in December, 1898, a few weeks after his death, J. Elliot Cabot was appointed to write a memoir of his life for publication. President Eliot, of Harvard, on that occasion, in a tribute to the character and worth of Colo- nel Lee, alluded to his service as Chief Mar- shal on Commemoration Day, 1856, and in the celebration of the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the college in 1886; spoke of him as a man who in his business dealings loved honor and hated baseness, scorned pretence, and thoroughly detested eminent mental capac- ity used for selfish or harmful ends, one who had a "real delight in every human capacity for love and righteousness, and in every right- eous capacity for human service"; noted his interest in the preservation of ancient land- marks and historical sites and buildings, and in commemorating heroic persons, good deeds, and great events; the fact that "family love with him included generations earlier and later than his own," and that he was "an habitual attendant at church, an admirer of good preaching, and a believer in the social and political efficiency of religious teaching."

Henry Lee and Elizabeth Perkins Cabot were married October 20, 1845. They became the parents of eight children, namely : Eliza- beth Perkins, born in" 1846, who married in 1876 Frederick C. Shattuck; Henry, born in 1848, who died in 1872; Clara, who was born in 1850 and died in 1872; Elliot Cabot, born in 1854; George, born in 1856; Margaret, born in 1858, who died in 1879; Joseph, born in 1862; Susan Mary, born in 1864, who died in 1872.

Mrs. Lee is now living at the family resi- dence in Brookline. She was born in 1823,

GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

daughter of Samuel and Elizabeth (Perkins) Cabot, of Boston.

OHN CODMAN, D. D., first pastor of the Second Church and Society in Dor- chester, was born in Boston, August 3, 1782. He was the son of the Hon. John and Margaret (Russell) Codman, sixth in line of descent from Robert Codman of Salem and Edgartown, Mass., and fifth from Robert's son Stephen, who was of Charlestown in 1680. His father was grandson of Captain John Cod- man, whose wife, Parnel, was a daughter of Captain Richard and Parnel (Winslow) Foster, Parnel Winslow being a daughter of Isaac Winslow, grand-daughter of John and Mary (Chilton) Winslow, and great-grand-daughter of Governor Edward Winslow of Plymouth Colony. It is thus shown that Dr. Codman was a "Mayflower " descendant of the eighth generation. His maternal grandmother, Kath- erine Graves, wife of the Hon. James Russell, Jr., was a great-grand-daughter of Rear Ad- miral Thomas Graves, of Charlestown.

The Hon. John Codman was an enterprising and prosperous merchant of Boston and a use- ful and highly respected citizen. At the time of his death in 1803, at the age of forty-eight years, he was a member of the Massachusetts Senate. He was survived by his second wife, Catherine Amory, and several children.

Dr. Codman was fitted for college at the acad- emy at Andover and under the instruction of the Rev. Henry Ware, of Hingham, and was grad- uated with honor at Harvard in the class of 1802. He shortly began the study of law in the office of his kinsman, John Lowell, but was diverted from it by the sudden death of his father and attendant circumstances, particu- larly by the wish intimated by his father that he should devote himself to the ministry of the gospel. In 1803 he began under his early teacher, the Rev. Henry Ware, the study of theology, which in the following year he con- tinued at Cambridge and later on in Edin- burgh, Scotland, going abroad for that purpose in 1805, sailing from Boston for Liverpool in the brig "Superb " on July 30. Among his congenial associates in Cambridge were "sev-

eral students and preachers of evangelical sen- timents, with one of whom, William Allen (afterward Doctor of Divinity and the writer of a memoir of Dr. Codman), he entered into a peculiar and strong friendship, which lasted during his subsequent life." With Dr. Chan- ning also he early became acquainted; and it is said that, although in after years "their views of Christian doctrine placed them in widely different relations, yet their mutual friendship and regard were never interrupted." Of the Kappa Delta Society, formed by theo- logical students and preachers at Cambridge, Mr. Codman was the secretary. He was an active friend also of the Saturday Evening Religious Society, said to have been useful in "keeping alive, in a time of degeneracy, a spirit of piety."

With the so-called "liberal" theology of that day, and with the new opinions that in the minds of many began to take the place of Cal- vinistic doctrines, Mr. Codman had no sympa- thy. "Neither the pride of the world nor the accomplishments of life nor the love of friends nor any or all the combined and powerful influ- ences which were brought to bear upon his mind could shake his high and holy resolu- tion" to enlist all his powers to promote "what he believed to be the Gospel of the Son of God." Leaving Edinburgh in the spring of 1807, Mr. Codman obtained at Bristol, Eng- land, in April, a license to preach, and shortly accepted a call to the pulpit of a Scotch church in London, where he continued his labors for about a year. Returning to Boston in May, 1808, in August he preached his first sermon to the Second Church in Dorchester, whose new meeting-house had been dedicated in Oc- tober, 1806. He was ordained as pastor of the church December 7, 1808, Dr. Channing preaching the sermon, which was on the im- portance of a zealous and affectionate perform- ance of ministerial duties, and was earnest and eloquent. In quietude and with great success the new pastor labored for about a year. Then followed a period of anxiety, controversy, and trouble. His biographer points to this expe- rience as "precisely the discipline which he needed for the perfecting of his virtues and the improvement of his character," saying that he

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"waged a weary battle of three years, but he fought wisely, manfully, and prayerfully, and achieved a very important triumph." The Rev. Dr. Storrs, in his funeral discourse, said of him, "It was to win souls to Christ and prepare them for the heavenly city, to the ex- clusion of every personal consideration and private interest, that he hazarded reputation, endured reviling, and emulated in fortitude the martyrs at the stake." The disaffected ones at length retired from the parish, and early in 1813 organized the Third Religious Society in Dorchester. From this time the Second Church under Dr. Codman was growing and harmonious, his long ministry successful and happy. He preached from its pulpit for the last time on October 18, 1847, and he assisted in the communion service on December 5. He died December 23, 1847.

His friend, the Rev. Dr. Storrs, of Brain- tree, in his funeral discourse, giving a delinea- tion of his character and an account of his labors, spoke of Dr. Codman as one whose "course exhibited a bright pattern of pastoral fidelity in the services of the pulpit, the lect- ure-room, the prayer-meeting, at the bedside of the sick and dying, in the cottage of the poor and the mansion of the opulent. . .. Of his private charities no account is kept in human records, for even his right hand knew not what his left hand did; but, that they were abundant and full, ten thousand witnesses on earth can testify, and the opened books of heaven will hereafter declare. . . . His sermons, sometimes very forcible, always well arranged and perspi- cuous, were at times delivered in a style of re- markable pathos and eloquence. . . . It is prob- able that his usefulness as a minister was much increased by a prominent trait of his character which greatly endeared him to his friends. We mean his ardent social feelings, his ready sympathy, the warmth and benignity of his heart, the true unaffected interest he took in the welfare of others."

The degree of Doctor of Divinity was con- ferred on him by Princeton College in 1822. He was united in marriage January 19, 1813, with Mary Wheelwright, daughter of Ebenezer Wheelwright, of Newburyport, and a grand- daughter of William Coombs, an eminent mer-

chant of that city. Dr. Codman had six chil- dren, as follows: Captain John Codman, who died April 6, 1900; William C. Codman, now a merchant in Boston; Robert Codman, a Bos- ton lawyer and financier, who died suddenly at his home, 17 Brimmer Street, January 20, 1901 ; Mary M., wife of Otto W. Pollitz, now deceased ; Margaret Russell, wife of the Rev. W. A. Peabody, now deceased; and Elizabeth, who is the widow of Charles K. Cobb.

Robert Codman, above mentioned, was born in Dorchester, Mass., March 8, 1823. He prepared for college at Dummer Academy, Byfield, and in 1840 entered Harvard, where he pursued the entire academic course, inter- rupted only near the end of his first year by a four months' suspension for an alleged partici- pation in kindling a bonfire. He distinguished himself in Latin, Greek, and political econ- omy, and was assigned the Latin oration at Commencement in 1844, when he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts. In 1848 he took the degree of Master of Arts in course. While in college he was a member of the Institute of 1770 and of the Hasty Pudding Club. Among his classmates were Francis Parkman, the his- torian; George Merritt Brooks, Judge of Pro- bate of Middlesex County; George Silsbee Hale, of the Boston bar; William Harris Hunt, the noted artist ; Benjamin Apthorp Gould; and Dr. Edward Augustus Wilde, an eminent physician of Brooklyn and surgeon of artillery in the Turkish army during the Cri- mean War. In 1844 Mr. Codman entered Harvard Law School, where he was graduated with the degree of Bachelor of Laws two years later. His legal studies were subsequently continued in the office of Francis B. Hayes, of Boston, and in 1848 he formed a partnership with Henry A. Johnson under the style of Codman & Johnson, which was continued for over thirty years. His adaptability to the legal profession was soon made manifest. He rapidly gained a high standing at the bar, and acquired an extensive practice. His advice was based upon a sound and comprehensive knowledge of the law both as laid down in the statutes and as established by precedent, and his wisdom as a counsellor was equalled by his success as an advocate, During the last ten

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Mint Bright.

GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

years of his life he devoted his time to the management of the many large estates that were confided to his care, among the more im- portant being that of Peter B. Brigham, a charitable trust fund of which he became exec- utor in 1877, and which now amounts to nearly four million dollars.

A Democrat in politics, Mr. Codman served as Alderman from his ward in 1856, but other- wise took no active part in political affairs beyond casting his vote. In 1895 he succeeded William Minot as president of the Massachu- setts Hospital Life Insurance Company, of which he had been previously for several years vice-president. At the time of his death he was a director of the Fitchburg Railroad and of the New England Trust Company of Boston ; president of the House of the Good Samaritan, Boston; president of the Wheelwright Scien- tific School of Newburyport, Mass. ; president of the Trustees of Donations of the Protestant Episcopal Church; president of the Episcopal Charitable Society and of the Standing Com- mittee of the Episcopal Club of Massachusetts ; and Senior Warden of the parish of the Church of the Advent, Boston. He was a life mem- ber of the New England Historic-Genealogi- cal Society. In his church he was a zealous and earnest worker; in the State a citizen of high integrity, courage, and public spirit, faithful to his clients and trusted and respected by all who knew him.

Mr. Codman was married November 16, 1854, in University Place Church, New York, to Catherine C. Hurd, daughter of John Rus- sell and Catherine M. (Codman) Hurd. Mrs. Codman died in 1892, leaving five children : Catherine Amory, Robert, Jr., Archibald, Edmund Dwight, and Stephen Russell Hurd. Robert Codman, Jr., was graduated at Harvard in 1882, and in the year 1900 was appointed Anglican Bishop of Maine. Archibald, who was graduated at Trinity College in 1885, was rector of the Church of Our Saviour, Roslin- dale. He died May 4, 1891. Edmund Dwight was graduated at Harvard in 1886, and was president of the Fitchburg Railroad Com- pany until the lease of that company to the Boston & Maine Railroad Company. He mar- ried Annie Hasbrouck in June, 1898. Stephen

Russell Hurd was graduated at Harvard in 1888, and is now an architect in Boston.

m® RS. ELIZABETH GARBRANCE BRIGHT, of Waltham, Mass., was born in New York City, September 27, 1828, daughter of Jonathan Brown Bright and his wife, Mary Huguenin Garbrance. She comes of long lines of hon- orable American ancestry, on her father's side of English and on her mother's of Dutch origin. Her husband, the late William Ellery Bright, who was her own cousin, died March 12, 1882.

The surname Bright is an old Saxon one (Beorght) of excellent character, frequently found in early English records. To Thomas Bright, Jr., of the parish of St. James, Bury St. Edmund's, England, was confirmed in 1615 a coat of arms of which the distinguishing feature was a dragon's head vomiting flames. The coat of arms having escallops, it is supposed to have been adopted in the time of the Crusades. That the family was a long-established one. of the better class may be inferred from the family portraits at Netherhall, one being represented in armor. John Bright, a maltster, was living in the parish of St. Mary, Bury St. Edmund's, in the time of Henry VII. He is thought to have been the father of Walter with whom begin the authentic records of the Bury St. Edmund's branch of the family, from which Mrs. Bright of Waltham is descended. The related branches - the Netherhall and the Talmach Hall - be- came extinct in the male line in the eighteenth century. Of the Bury St. Edmund's branch a genealogist writing fifty years ago said, "No male descendant is known in England."

Walter Bright, the first known ancestor of this branch, died in 1550, leaving bequests to his wife and children, to the poor, and to St. Mary's Church, of which he was a parishioner. He is said to have been twice married. His second wife (probably not the mother of his children), whom he married in 1545, was Mar- garet Elwolde. To his son John he left by will "a harness for a man with half a sheaf of arrows."

Thomas Bright, son of Walter and next in the line of descent now being considered, was

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buried September 1, 1587. The date of his birth is not known. He was a draper, a wealthy man, and a benefactor to his town. His por- trait, procured by the corporation of Bury St. Edmund's, hangs in the Guild Hall. He owned several manors, besides numerous lands and tenements in Bury St. Edmund's and elsewhere. He was an alderman (then a more important office than in the present day), as were also his son Thomas and grandson John in succession. His wife, whom he married in 1554, was Mar- garet Jervis. In her will, dated November 20, 1599, she leaves one hundred pounds each to her sons Robert, Henry, and Jasper, and her daughters Anne Reed, Catherine Barker, Joan Houghton, and Susan Barker, also bequests to the poor.

Henry Bright, son of Thomas and Margaret, and father of Henrie, the American immigrant, was baptized at St. James's Church, Bury St. Edmund's, December 20, 1560. He inherited from his father lands and property in Bury St. Edmund's, Great Barton, and other villages. His history is not well known. It is thought that he left Bury St. Edmund's about the year 1610 with his family, and removed to one of the estates in the neighborhood which formerly be- longed to his father, and perhaps died there. But, the books of record between 1612 and 1630 having been lost, this conjecture cannot be veri- fied. It is possible that he died while on a visit to his son Robert in London, and was buried there. That son in his will, in 1618, speaks of his mother, whose Christian name was Marie, as then the wife of William Cole. By the death of his sons except Henrie the male line seems to have become extinct in England.

Deacon Henriet (or Henry) Bright was b. in Suffolk County, England, and baptized Decem- ber 29, 1602. With him begins the Ameri- can branch of the Bright family. He is sup- posed, upon good evidence, to have come over in 1630 with Governor Winthrop. His name is the forty-eighth on the list of members of the First Church of Boston, which was organized in Charlestown. He was admitted freeman at Watertown, Mass., May 6, 1635. There was another Henry Bright in Watertown among the early settlers, who d. in 1673, aged one hundred and nine years, having for some years previous

been supported by the town. For a long time it was supposed that this Henry was the father of Deacon Henrie Bright, but this supposition was clearly disproved by the researches in Eng- land of H. G. Somerby, Esq. (Bond's Water- town.) Deacon Henrie Bright was many times Selectman of Watertown between 1640 and 1667. He was a juror on the Court of Assist- ants July 22, 1684, at the age of eighty-two years. He d. October 9, 1686, from injuries received from carrying home in a cart, or wagon, chairs and other articles used at the ordination of the Rev. William Bailey.

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Genealogy and history of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 2

Author: Hurd, Charles Edwin, 1833-1910 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Boston, New England historical publishing company Number of Pages: 850

Author: Hurd, Charles Edwin, 1833-1910
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston, New England historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 850