USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Vol I > Part 16
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Solomon L. Russell came to Pittsfield in 1827 with his brother Zeno, and purchased and for nine years conducted the Berkshire Hotel located on the corner now occupied by the Berkshire Life Insurance Company's block at the northwest corner of North and West streets. Upon the sale of this property in 1835, Mr. Russell settled on a farm about three-quarters of a mile north, now owned and occupied in part by the widow of his son Solomon N. Russell. It was in the cause of education that Solomon L. Russell took especial interest and demon- strated an especial capacity for usefulness. He had been for a time at Northampton, Massachusetts, a town which was much in advance of her sister towns of the state in the educational facilities afforded her citizens. Mr. Russell bent his best efforts toward the establishment of a public school system in Pittsfield. As prudential committeeman he diverted the school tax fund from its customary pro rata division among families having children of school age, to the exchequers of two private schools which thereafter received and educated these children free of cost. Mr. Russell was therefore the practical father of the present public school system of Pittsfield, and the appropriateness of naming one of its imposing structures, the Peck's road schoolhouse, after him is obvious. He was largely instrumental in the establishment, laying
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out and beautifying of the Pittsfield cemetery, serving for a number of years as one of its directors and keeping an especially close personal supervision of the initial work done thereupon.
Solomon Nash Russell, eldest of the children of Solomon L. and Wealthy (Nash) Russell, was born in Conway, August 1, 1822, died February 16, 1899. He married, September 1, 1864, Caroline A. . Wheeler, born December 8, 1831, daughter of Horatio N. and Hannah B. Wheeler, of Old Chatham, New York.
The inception of Mr. Russell's career as a manufacturer was in 1843 when he purchased a small shop on Onota creek and engaged in the making of cotton-batting. Two years later, in association with his brother Charles, the shop and manufacturing facilities were enlarged and the manufacture of wadding added. In 1857 the manufacture of woolen goods in the stone mill on Waconah street was begun, and in 1863 the present factory of the S. N. & C. Russell Manufacturing Company was erected. The product of this plant obtained early recog- nition as a superior article, attracting the favorable notice of Alexander T. Stewart, the then merchant prince of America, who from 1861 to 1865 absorbed its entire output, directly, and for some years following the close of the war controlled it on a commission basis. No more favorable commentary on the super-excellence of this company's early manufactures than the preceding statement could be given, and it is in strictest accordance with the facts that the company has kept fully abreast of the times and today enjoys the same splendid reputation which it so speedily acquired. During the period of A. T. Stewart's commission handling of the Russell plant's output, Mr. Frank W. Rus- sell, the present president of the company, looked after its interests while in the employ of Mr. A. T. Stewart.
The latter, youngest of the children of Solomon L. Russell, was
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Franklin W Russell ,
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Zeno Muscul
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associated from boyhood with the manufacturing interest established by his brothers and succeeded to their management upon- the decease of Solomon Nash Russell.
The late Solomon N. Russell was a valued and valuable citizen, contributing in many ways to the healthy growth and development of this locality. He, with Mr. E. D. G. Jones, built the Central Block on North street, Pittsfield, at the time considered a very important addi- tion to the business blocks of the county seat. He was a member of the Cemetery corporation, the Berkshire Mutual Fire Insurance Company. a director in the Third National Bank, and an attendant of and liberal contributor to the First Congregational church. He served efficiently as selectman and representative and was prominent in all local affairs. He was greatly interested in the House of Mercy and his memory has been perpetuated in connection therewith by his gift of the property known as the " Russell Elins," upon which the hospital stands. Mrs. Rus- sell is living in the old mansion on North street, and has been one of the managers of the House of Mercy since the establishment of that benef- icent institution and has been one of its liberal benefactors.
FRANKLIN WEST RUSSELL.
The gentleman whose name introduces this article has abundantly demonstrated his capacity as presiding officer of the Russell Manufac- turing Company, his substantial equipment therefor being set forth in the story of the career of his brother. Solomon N. Russell, with whom he was long associated and succeeded officially. His services in a pub- lic way have been limited to his representation of Ward I in the board of aldermen of Pittsfield.
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HEZEKIAH STONE RUSSELL.
The mental and physical vigor, the spirit of progressiveness, and the industry and integrity which were the characteristics of so many of the Russells heretofore dwelt upon, find still another exponent in the gentleman whose name introduces these memoirs and who was the sev- enth of the children of the late Solomon L. and Wealthy (Nash) Rus- sell.
Hezekiah Stone Russell was born in Pittsfield, December 7, 1835. His initial schooling was obtained at Pittsfield and he was one of the scholars in attendance on the day of the opening of its first high school in 1852. He subsequently entered Mt. Pleasant Academy, Amherst. In 1853 he went west, where he was for four years variously employed in connection with railroad and lumbering interests. In 1857 he went to Melbourne, Australia, and undertook mining, which he abandoned soon to engage in telegraph contract work.
Returning to America in 1860 he was for one year engaged in a clerical capacity with the Pomeroy Oil Factory's office in Toronto, Can- ada. In 1862 he resumed residence in Pittsfield where he was em- ployed for several years in his brothers' woolen mills. In 1865 he purchased an interest in the old Mckay & Hoadley Machine Shop, of which he became sole owner in 1872. In 1874 he sold the machine shop to E. D. Jones, retaining the boiler-making plant which he con- tinued to operate successfully up to 1902. when he disposed of it to the E. D. Jones Company and retired from business. Mr. Russell has been a Republican of the stalwart type since the formation of that party and has been active in advancing its interests in town, county and state. Although not in any sense an active politician his services have been sought and efficiently and freely given in the discharge of the
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I.S. Presell
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duties of numerous offices. He was selectman in 1887-88; councilman from the fourth ward in 1897-98; and was elected to the mayoralty in 1900, and re-elected to that office the following year. It was during Mr. Russell's incumbency of the office of mayor of Pittsfield that the Berkshire Company added its lines to the trolley systems of the vicinity, and material extensions to the Pittsfield Company's lines were made. During this period also the initial steps were taken looking toward the increase of storage capacity for Pittsfield's water supply. Mr. Russell was one of the original members of Pittsfield Co-Operative Bank. and has been one of the board of directors and security committee since the organization of that institution. He is a member of Crescent Lodge, of Pittsfield, F. and A. M., Berkshire Chapter, R. A. M., Berkshire Council, R. and.S. M., and Berkshire Commandery, K. T. He was a charter member of Crescent Lodge, Berkshire Council, Berkshire Com- mandery and Lodge of Perfection, and presiding officer in all save the last mentioned.
He was married July 4. 1863, to Martha. daughter of Julius and Anna Rowley. Of nine children born of this union a son. Frank A., lived to attain his twentieth year, four died in childhood, and four survive. The latter are: Kate, the wife of L. A. Merchant (see sketch herein ) ; Helen, wife of Frank A. Bradley, whose children are Alton and Grace; Anna, wife of Edgar R. Whiting; and Martha, wife of George L. Waterman, by whom she has a son, Laurence.
HENRY R. RUSSELL.
Henry R. Russell, son of late Zeno Russell, was born September 23, 1874; attended Pittsfield high school and Amherst College, and entered the office employ of the S. N. and C. Russell Manufacturing
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Company in 1893. He has been treasurer of the company since 1899. He is a member and treasurer of the First Congregational church, of the Country Park Club and Pittsfield Boat Club.
OLIVER LESLIE BARTLETT.
Oliver Leslie Bartlett was born in Rockland, Maine, October 19. 1859, son of the late Edward H. and Mary E. (Lawson) Bartlett, the former a native of Maine, the latter of England.
Their son Oliver L. received his initial schooling and academic in- struction in his native city and then entered Bates College (Lewiston, Maine), from which institution he was graduated with the class of '83. practically earning his way through college by teaching. His study of medicine was taken up under the preceptorship of Dr. E. L. Esterbrook, of Rockland, and continued in the College of Physicians and Surgeons. the medical department of Columbia University, from which he received his diploma in 1887. Immediately thereafter he entered upon the gen- eral practice of his profession in Rockland, remaining there for a period of seven years, during three years of which he was the city physician. The multiplicity of cases of diseases of the eye. ear, nose and throat that were brought to his notice as incumbent of the office named aroused Dr. Bartlett's especial interest and necessitated especial investigation and study along those lines, leading him to determine to specialize thereafter his practice. With this end in view he sold his Rockland practice and took courses at the Chicago Polyclinic, the New York Ophthalmic and Aural Institute and New York Polyclinic. Thus well equipped he opened offices at Brockton, Massachusetts, where he remained for nine years. In 1903 he came to Pittsfield to purchase the business of Drs. H. A. and W. F. Noyes, with offices in Central block. Dr. Bartlett is a
Im & Mactunes
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member of the Berkshire Medical Society, Massachusetts Medical Soci- ety and American Medical Association, and is one of the staff of physi- cians of the House of Mercy, Pittsfield. He is a member of Crescent Lodge, F. and A. M., and a member of the board of deacons of the Baptist church, Pittsfield. He has always had an especial interest in works of the Y. M. C. A., having had official connection therewith at Brockton and upon the transfer of his membership to Pittsfield was elected to fill a vacancy in the directorate of the local branch. Dr. Bart- lett married in 1889, Evie Tolman, daughter of the late Rev. Aaron G. Hemingway, of Rockland, Maine. Dr. and Mrs. Bartlett reside at 100 Wendell avenue.
WILLIAM DONALD MACINNES.
There is scarcely a flourishing center of population in the United States that does not number among its most enterprising merchants and aggressive and progressive manufacturers men of Scotch nativity. The dry goods trade especially has had many strong representatives from the land of the thistle, notably that prince of merchants, the late Alexander T. Stewart, who is generally conceded to have revolutionized business methods, amazing his contemporaries and showing the way for the broad twentieth century lines of gigantic operations in both the wholesale and retail trade. Of his followers and fellow-countrymen Pittsfield is the fortunate possessor of several gentlemen who have con- tributed in no small measure to the business development of the county seat and to the fair fame of its merchants for business integrity.
Among these may appropriately be numbered William Donald Mac- Innes, president of The Kennedy-MacInnes Company, the leading dry goods house of the Berkshire Hill country. He was born in Comrie, Perthshire, Scotland, October 5, 1853 : received a common school edu-
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cation in his native place and his inceptive business training in the establishment of Frazer, McLaren & Co., Glasgow, Scotland, then and still one of the great dry goods houses of Great Britain. In 1871 he came to the United States, stimulated to the step through the letters of an older brother John C. MacInnes who had sailed for America two years previously and who had discovered as he believed the promised land for ambitious young business men, a correct conviction as was dem- onstrated in his own eminently successful business career; he, having been the founder and being now president and leading stockholder of the great Worcester (Massachusetts) dry goods house, The John C. MacInnes Company.
William D. MacInnes found his earliest employment with Shepard, Norwell & Co., dry goods merchants of Boston. This term of service extended over a period of three years, during the major portion of which time he was in charge of the black goods department. In 1874, Mr. MacInnes formed the acquaintance at Boston of Mr. Alexander Kennedy, also a Scotchman, and a few minutes sufficed to inform each of the other's intention of entering into the dry goods business. It having come under their mutual notice that the Smith & Wallace dry goods business at Pittsfield, Massachusetts, was for sale, and both being favorably impressed with the opportunity for investment and entrance into business thus offered, the two gentlemen came to an almost imme- diate understanding, journeyed to Pittsfield and purchased the busi- ness in question which was thereafter conducted under the firm name of Kennedy & MacInnes up to the incorporation of The Kennedy-Mac- Innes Company, of which Mr. MacInnes is president and Mr. Ken- nedy, treasurer. From a comparatively small trade the business has grown to extensive proportions, being numbered among the conspicu- ous business successes of western Massachusetts. The Root block, the
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original structure occupied by the firm, proving inadequate for its growing trade a removal to its present commodious quarters in the . Central block, North street, was effected in 1882.
Mr. MacInnes' public service has been as a member of Pittsfield's board of aldermen representing ward 4, the only Democrat ever elected therefrom. He served efficiently as chairman of the highway commit- tee. He was appointed by Governor Russell on the board of trustees of Northampton Lunatic Hospital, an office which he has since contin- uously held, and is one of the directors of the Pittsfield Boys' Club in which institution he takes an especial interest. His fraternal connec- tion is with Mystic Lodge, F. and A. M., Berkshire Chapter, R. A. M .; and Berkshire Commandery. K. T., of which he is past eminent com- mander. He is a member and past thrice potent grand master of the Lodge of Perfection, fourteenth degree; of Massachusetts Consistory (Boston) thirty-second degree and Melha Temple (Springfield) Nobles of the Mystic Shrine.
Mr. MacInnes married, October 4, 1893, Annie, daughter of the late George P. Adriance, a former member and son of the founder of the firm of Adriance, Platt & Co., manufacturers of mowers and reap- ers, Poughkeepsie, New York. Mr. and Mrs. MacInnes have two sons, Donald and John. The family resides on South street and attends the First Congregational church.
CHARLES C. MARTIN.
Charies Cyril Martin, deceased, father of Mrs. George Blatchford, Pittsfield, was in his day one of the most accomplished of American civil engineers, and in all parts of the country great works stand as evidence of his masterly skill.
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He was born August 30. 1831. in Springfield. Bradford county, Pennsylvania, son of James and Lydia ( Bullock) Martin. grandson of James Martin and Judith Read, and a descendant of John Martin, who came from England about 1666 and settled in Swansea, Massachusetts. His ancestral line has been traced to Martin de Tours, who came into England with . William the Conqueror.
His boyhood was passeil upon a farm in a sparsely populated re- gion, and the life developed in him a vigorous physical manhood. School advantages were meagre, and he was in large degree self-e.lucated, but so well did he apply himself to his studies that at the age of seventeen he taught a district school and was an acknowledged authority in land surveying. At the age of twenty-three, with about two hundred dollars as his entire possessions, he became a student of engineering in the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute at Troy, New York, from which he graduated with high henor in 1856. He had paid his way by teaching in a parcchial school, and by giving private instruction to his fellows, and proved so capable a teacher that after his graduation he remained for one year as a member of the regular instructional corps. In after years he was repeatedly offered a professorship in the institution, and as often declined. In 1891 he was unanimously elected director of the Institute, the duties being those pertaining to the president of other like schools, but this high compliment he also declined.
Immediately after leaving the Institute, Mr. Martin became rod- man on the Brooklyn (New York) Water Works, at a wage of $1.50 a day. He remained with the company for two years, advancing from place to place, until he was appointed assistant engineer under James P. Kirkwood, and was given charge of the construction of three of the great reservoirs and eight miles of the conduit. After the completion of the work, he entered the employ of the Trenton Locomotive and
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Machine Manufacturing Company, his principal object being to acquire familiarity with iron work and bridge construction. He proved so apt in all pertaining to the operations of the company that he was called to the superintendency. At the outbreak of the civil war, Mr. Martin was engaged in the construction of an iron bridge across the Savannah (Georgia) river for the Savannah & Charleston Railroad. Railroad communication along the seaboard was interrupted, and he had much difficulty in making his way north, leaving Savannah on the last train, and making his journey by a long detour by way of Nashville, Tennessee. During the greater part of the war period he was engaged in the manu- facture of arms for the government, from the Springfield rifle to the great eleven-inch Dahlgren gun, the largest piece of ordnance of that day. In 1864 he was employed by the government as an expert to con- duct boiler experiments at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, in order to test the relative merits of horizontal and vertical tubular boilers for naval vessels.
After the war he superintended the laying of the forty-eight-inch water main to the Ridgewood reservoir, of the Brooklyn water system. He was subsequently chief engineer of Prospect Park, in that city, and inaugurated the present satisfactory road and sub-drainage systems, and he carried to completion the construction of the great park well, at that time the largest work of its kind in the world. This was accomplished at moderate cost and without accident - a feat which attracted wide attention, his predecessor having pronounced the accomplishment well- nigh impossible, and involving "a mint of money and a perpetual funeral procession."
In January, 1870, Mr. Martin became first assistant engineer on the Brooklyn Bridge, under Colonel W. A. Roebling, and he occupied that position from the day the first earth was removed until the com-
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pletion of the structure. At the outset his practical knowledge of the pneumatic process of bridge foundations, drawn from his experience in similar work on a much smaller scale on the Savannah and Santee rivers found immediate application, and his methods were followed in sinking the caissons in both the New York and Brooklyn ends. From first to last he had full charge of the execution of the work, the employ- ment of workmen, the purchase of material and the auditing of accounts. So masterly was his directionary power, and so equable his temperament, that the engineer corps was maintained intact, and not a symptom of jealousy or ill feeling marred the relations between its various members.
For nineteen years, and until the office was abolished by the con- solidation of the Department of Bridges, in January, 1902, he held the position of chief engineer and superintendent of the New York and Brooklyn Bridge. In January, 1903, shortly before his death ( which occurred July 11th of the same year, at Far Rockaway, Long Island), he completed thirty-three years of service on the great bridge, and more than forty years of professional work on the public works of Brooklyn. His professional skill and his accomplished work as an engineer. his tact and ability, were all truly admirable, but more wonderful than all his achievements was the uniform exercise and beneficent effect of his personal influence upon all his subordinates and associates. His wise counsel. tender sympathy and generous treatment made of each a friend. and with surprising unanimity they characterized him as " the best friend I ever knew." His integrity was unassailable. Owing to changes in plans of construction, advanced prices of materials and labor, and the great rise of value of real estate, the cost of the bridge largely exceeded the estimates of Colonel Roebling. In spite of these disadvantages. and with opportunity for speculation, Mr. Martin's skirts were never touched with the faintest odor of suspicion. He made his contracts and scrutin-
John M. July
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ized the accounts as carefully as though the work had been at his per- sonal cost, and the various reports of public officials and investigating committees bore cheerful testimony to his strict impartiality and spotless honesty.
Mr. Martin was a member of the American Society of Civil Engi- neers, and an honorary member of the Brooklyn Engineers' Club. His personal life was a model of practical Christianity, based upon a careful and undeviating application of the Golden Rule.
In August, 1860, Mr. Martin was married to Miss Mary A. Read, a daughter of General Jonathan Read, of Rensselaer county, New York, and a direct descendant of Governor Bradford and other Puritan sires. She was a lady of intellectual ability, of varied and extensive reading in English and German, and of most amiable disposition. Mr. Martin's home life was of the most serene and restful character, to which he brought the joyous spirit of a schoolboy and the heart of a child when surrounded by his children and grandchildren. He never hesitated to assert that he owed much of his success in life and all of his happiness to his estimable wife.
To Mr. and Mrs. Martin were born four children: Mrs. J. J. Hopper, of New York: Mrs. George Blatchford, of Pittsfield, Massa- chusetts; Charles Boynton Martin, an electrical engineer, and Lieutenant Kingsley Leverich Martin, resident engineer on the Williamsburg Sus- pension Bridge.
JOHN MARK SEELEY.
John Mark Seeley, formerly a prominent business man of Housa- tonic, was born in Great Barrington, April 17, 1814, son of John and Mary. (Hart) Seeley. His father, who was a native of Connecticut,
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settled in Great Barrington and engaged in mercantile business. Ile also kept the Seeley tavern.
John Mark Seeley acquired a better education than most of the youths of his neighborhood, first attending the common schools in which Squire Seeley was a teacher, later becoming a pupil at the Lenox Acad- emy, and completing his studies at a school in Stockbridge said to have been presided over by Dr. Mark Hopkins. After serving an appren- ticeship in a cottonmill at Van Deusenville, in 1847, he engaged in busi- ness with Judge Lyman Munson in that village. Later he was inter- ested in the Maple Grove mills at South Adams. Returning to Hous- atonic in 1856 he was appointed treasurer, agent, and general man- ager of the Monument mills, founded in 1850, and under his able direction this enterprise became so prosperous that in 1864 a mill for the manufacture of cotton warp was added to the plant. In 1860 he assisted in organizing the Waubeck Mills Company, which engaged in the manufacture of bedspreads, and in 1866 that concern also erected a brick factory for the production of cotton warps. He was a director of the National Mahaiwe Bank of Great Barrington, and the growth and business development of Housatonic was in a great measure due to his superior business ability. In 1864 he was elected a representative to the legislature from Housatonic. He was a member of the board of selectmen in Great Barrington for the years 1863, 1864, 1865 and 1876; was again a member of the house of representatives in 1874, was a state senator from southern Berkshire district for the years 1882 and 1883, and held the appointment of postmaster at Housatonic for thirty years. In politics he was a Republican.
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