USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Berkshire County, Massachusetts, Vol I > Part 27
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success of individual efforts, holding that great benefit is derived for both parties from the placing of good, well-prepared help with good, well-meaning employers-the right person in the right place meaning brilliant success for both. From the many young men and women who have gone out from his care and tuition into the active duties of business life in every avenue, making success for themselves and em- ployers, thus with his plan of solving the labor problem, Mr. Holmes derives the greatest pleasure in placing his energies and institution at the service of the business world. With these sterling qualifications and exalted methods of organizing and presenting a course of study for an active business life work it makes the environment of Berkshire Business College most fitting to inspire zeal, energy and higher business motives. Mr. Holmes was married November 8, 1888, to Amanda Merrill, daughter of J. S. Merrill, of Jay county, Indiana. Mr. and Mrs. Holmes have three children : Eva Beatrice, Arthur William and Clarence Merrill. They reside at 20 Wallace place, Pittsfield, Massa- chusetts, and are members of the Methodist Episcopal church. Mr. Holmes is a member of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows.
WILLIAM ANDREW FAHEY.
Among the younger merchants of Pittsfield whose private enter- prise and public service have alike appealed to the favor of the citizens of the county seat, the gentleman whose name introduces these memoirs may be appropriately mentioned. Born in Pittsfield, July 26, 1875, educated in the public schools of that city, and finding his initial and all subsequent employment there, he is essentially a home product. Early recognized by his political associates as a man to whom the duties and responsibilities of office could be safely entrusted, at the age of twenty-
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seven he was nominated by the Democratic party and elected to the State Legislature, and re-elected the following year. He demonstrated the wisdom of his constituents by serving acceptably during the first year upon the Fisheries and Game committee, and the second year upon the Mercantile Affairs committee.
As a boy of fourteen William A. Fahey entered the employ of J. H. & J. J. Enright, shoe merchants of Pittsfield, and continued with this firm up to September, 1905, having been promoted from time to time to increasingly responsible duties, until he was recognized as the leading salesman in the employ of the firm, buying as well as selling therefor, and thus gaining such general insight into the business as well equipped him for his entrance into the same line on his own account. At the date last mentioned Mr. Fahey, in association with Mr. Francis A. Farrell, opened an admirably fitted and thoroughly well stocked retail shoe house in the Merrill Block, on North street, an enter- prise which met with most gratifying success from the outset, and which gives promise of attaining a position second to none in that trade.
Among the local organizations which have had an especial interest for Mr. Fahey and for which his services have been valuable is the Retail Clerks' Protective Association. in affiliation with the American Federation of Labor, Mr. Fahey serving one year as its president. He is also actively interested in the work of the Father Matthew Total Abstinence Society, a branch of the Diocesan Union, and has served as its president, is now (1905) treasurer of the society, and has served as delegate to all of the temperance conventions that have been held in the Springfield diocese for the past fifteen years. He is a member of the St. Vincent de Paul Society of Pittsfield. of St. Joseph's church, and the Ancient Order of Hibernians. Division No. 12.
The parents of Mr. Fahey, Patrick and Anne ( Hynes ) Fahey, both
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of whom are deceased, were married in the county Galway, Ireland, and came to the United States in 1864, locating in Pittsfield, where he was for thirty years in the employ of the Boston and Albany railroad. Five of the brothers of the late Patrick Fahey also came to Berkshire county, and three of these are still residents of Pittsfield, viz: John, Edward and Michael-John for thirty-four years also an employe of the Bos- ton and Albany railroad; Michael, a member of the police force of Pittsfield: and Edward, employed in mercantile pursuits.
ALMON EVERETT HALL.
Almon E. Hall, of Williamstown, Massachusetts, is a representa- tive of one of the old New England families. His paternal grandfather was Loton Hall, a native of Enfield, Connecticut, who removed to Ver- mont and settled upon a farm in Halifax. He married Rhoda Nichols and they became the parents of four sons and five daughters.
Obed Hall, son of Loton and Rhoda (Nichols) Hall, was born in Halifax, Vermont, October 12, 1821. He spent his boyhood days under the parental roof, while in the public schools he acquired his edu- cation. He taught school for several terms, learned and followed the trade of blacksmith and then entered mercantile life in Stamford, Ver- mont, but afterward turned his attention to the manufacture of lumber. He served for a time as town clerk and filled other local offices, taking an active part in the management of the town affairs and rendering capable services because of his patriotic and progressive spirit that de- sired first the welfare of his community. His fellow townsmen recog- nizing his worth and ability called him to still higher offices, and he acted as associate judge of Bennington county, also served as a dele- gate to the constitutional convention, where he aided in framing the
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organic law of the state, and was also chosen as a representative to the general assembly of Vermont. He acted as superintendent of schools in his home town, and contributed to the material, political, intellectual and moral activities of the place. He served as class leader and steward of the Methodist Episcopal church for fifty years, and was superin- tendent of the Sunday school for thirty years. He died in Montpelier, Vermont. October 27, 1898. while attending the legislature as a mem- ber. His influence was ever given on the side of reform, right and progress, and he was known as one of the distinctly representative men of Bennington county, honored and respected by all with whom he was associated. Judge Hall married Miss Susan Everett, a native of Hali- fax. and a daughter of Jacob Everett, a prosperous farmer. Her grand- father was Dr. Jeremiah Everett, a physician of Westminster, Massa- chusetts, who served as a surgeon in the Patriot army during the Revo- lutionary war. He is descended from a common ancestor with Gov- ernor Edward Everett. Mrs. Hall, who survived her husband, made her home with her son, Almon E., up to the time of her decease. Octo- ber 7, 1900. Of her children, the daughter, Adelia M., is the wife of Rev. Fayette Nichols. a Methodist minister belonging to the New Eng- land conference.
Almon E. Hall, the elder of the children, was born in . Stamford, Vermont, December 6, 1846, and was educated in the public schools of that town and at the Wesleyan Academy, at Wilbraham, Massach11- setts, subsequent to which time he entered the Wesleyan University of Middletown, Connecticut. from which institution he was graduated with the class of 1872, winning the degree of Bachelor of Arts. Later he received the degree of Master of Arts from the same institution. He is a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, with which he became affiliated during his college days. After completing his course in the
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Boston University Theological School, he joined the New England Southern Conference in 1874 and was assigned to a church in Dighton, Massachusetts, the pulpit of which he had supplied during the previous year. A year later he took charge of St. Paul's church in Providence. Rhode Island, and afterward went to West Dennis, Massachusetts, where his labors were attended with gratifying results, but in 1878, owing to ill health, he was forced to relinquish the work of the min- istry and for the next few years was obliged to abstain from active labor. After a period of rest on the farm at Stamford he took charge of a grist mill and small store at Clarksburg, Massachusetts, where he remained for two years. In 1886 he purchased S. T. Mather's general store, which he enlarged and conducted until December, 1901. He then sold that property to Arthur G. Bratton, of Williamstown, and in November, 1901, he turned liis attention to the manufacture of brushes under the firm name of the Hall-Hefferman Brush Company, at 46 Lincoln street, North Adams. The firm manufactures power rotary brushes which are used in cotton mills, print works, shoe and brass factories, and for general polishing. Mr. Hall is president of the Will- iamstown Savings Bank, of which he has been a trustee since its incor- poration. During the summer of 1904 he was elected to the former office to fill out the unexpired term of Dr. John Bascom, who retired on account of ill health, and in November of the same year was regularly elected president for a full term. He is thus actively identified with the financial interests in Williamstown, as well as with the productive industries of northern Berkshire. As his moneyed resources have in- creased with his success in business he has invested quite largely in real estate, having developed a tract of land and laid out Hall and Maple streets. Windsor. He has erected several dwellings on this and other property in the town. Aside from his business interests
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Mr. Hall .has contributed in large measure to various activities of Will- iamstown. He is a Republican in his politics, active in the work of the party and has been a delegate to various Republican conventions. He takes a special interest in educational matters, assisting materially in improving the public schools of Stamford, Vermont, and is also chair- man of the committee that erected the Williamstown high school; while as a member of the school board he rendered signal service in advanc- ing the standard of public education. He was postmaster of Williams- town station from the time the office was opened in 1889 until 1896, when he was elected to represent his district in the state legislature and his son succeeded the father as postmaster. In 1897 Mr. Hall was re- elected to the general assembly, and during the two years he spent in the house was active on the floor and in the committee rooms. He served on the ways and means committee, the liquor law commission. and was clerk of the committee on education. He assisted in passing an act requiring all liquors carried by express companies from license to no license towns to be properly labeled and a record kept of same. He was also instrumental in securing the passage of the Greylock Park bill, in securing the North Adams Normal School appropriation, and in passing the law for the further protection of song birds. He also assisted in defeating a bill to exempt college property from further taxation.
On April 2, 1874, Almon E. Hall was married to Caroline E. Beard, of Dighton, Massachusetts, a daughter of Captain Elisha D. Beard. He has two children, Damon Everett Hall, who won the de- gree of Bachelor of Arts upon his graduation from Williams College with the class of 1897, and who, having studied law at the Boston Uni- versity Law School, was admitted to the bar and is now with the law firm of Hurlburt. Jones & Cabot in Boston. He married Miss Isabel
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Leighton, in October. 1902. a daughter of John Leighton, of Somer- ville, Massachusetts. Elizabeth M. Hall is at home with her parents. The family reside at Williamstown, where they are prominent socially. Fraternally Mr. Hall is a Royal Arch Mason and also one of the Sons of the American Revolution. Controlling extensive business interests, his efforts along public lines have at the same time been far-reaching and beneficial and he is to-day honored and respected throughout the state. His efficient labors on behalf of the public good have won for him general recognition.
FRANKLIN BURT COOK.
Although alien to Berkshire county the gentleman whose name forms the caption of this article has been for so long a period identified with one or other of its important interests as to have long since been accepted as a son of its soil, his general education having been com- pleted at Hinsdale and a very large share of his business career having been within the borders of the county.
He was born in Chester. Hampden county, Massachusetts, March 16, 1835, son of the late John J. and Lucy S. (Taylor) Cook, also na- tives of Chester and descendants of early English settlers of New Eng- land.
The late John J. Cook was a son of Parley Cook. a Guilford. Con- necticut, farmer, who settled in Chester toward the close of the eighteenth century. His wife was Lovina Burt, whose father was a soldier in the patriot army during the Revolutionary war.
The late John J. Cook, born July 13, 1806, owned and operated a small cotton mill at North Chester, where he was also engaged in other manufacturing. He died in March. 1890.
F.B. look.
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John J. and Lucy S. (Taylor) Cook had three children, a son (the immediate subject of this sketch) and two daughters, Marion L. and Anna E. Cook, both deceased, the former dying in July, 1887, the latter in April, 1884.
Franklin Burt Cook received his initial schooling in North Ches- ter and attended Hinsdale Academy for one year, during the latter period being a member of the family of the late Charles H. Plunkett, whose wife, Nancy ( Taylor) Plunkett, was a maternal aunt of the young student.
His schooling finished he returned to Chester, where he remained in his father's employ until 1855, when he returned to Hinsdale to enter the service of Charles H. Plunkett, in the latter's general store at that place, acting latterly as manager of the business. Upon the latter's de- cease five years later Mr. Cook and Amory E. Taylor purchased the store in question and continued its successful conduct in partnership association under the firm name of F. B. Cook & Company, up to April I. 1864, when Mr. Cook sold his interest therein to his partner.
The following year he entered the employ of Hayden, Gere & Com- pany, water faucet, gas and steam valve manufacturers, of Williams- burg. Massachusetts. Three years later the firm located a branch plant at Springfield and the company was incorporated. Mr. Cook purchasing stock therein and being installed as manager and treasurer of the Spring- field branch, which was operated under the name of the E. Stebbins Company.
In 1873 Mr. Cook, in connection with Mr. W. A. Taylor, purchased the remainder of the stock of the company not owned by Mr. Cook, and operated the plant in partnership association up to its destruction by fire in 1875. Additional capital was then secured and a new plant built
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and operated at Brightwood, Mr. Cook selling his interest therein in 1879.
The following year. having returned to Hinsdale, he re-established himself in general merchandising and continued to be thus engaged until 1894. \ period of rest and recuperation was followed in 1896-7 by his charge of the Albany office of L. M. Payne, General Agent New Eng- land Mutual Life Insurance Company.
In 1898 he was appointed to office, of which he is incumbent, deputy collector of internal revenue for the Ninth Division Massachusetts.
Mr. Cook's name is a synonym for uncompromising integrity, and his friends are only limited by the number of his acquaintances.
He married, June 8. 1870, Aurelia W., daughter of Charles H. and Mary Granger of Saco, Maine. One child born of this union died in infancy; Mrs. Cook died April 7, 1871. Mr. Cook is a member of Hinsdale Congregational Church and was its treasurer for a number of years. He was one of the founders and for eight years treasurer and general manager of Hinsdale Co-operative Creamery Company.
ORLANDO CURTIS BIDWELL.
The legal profession of Berkshire county has an able and active representative in Orlando Curtis Bidwell, of Great Barrington. Mr. Bidwell belongs to a family which was founded in America by Thomas Bidwell, who came to and located at Hartford, Connecticut. His son, the Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, came thence in 1749 to western Massa- chusetts, locating in Tyringham, then known as township No. I, and soon became conspicuous in that section of Tyringham which now con- stitutes the town of Monterey. He was a man of property and pastor of the first Congregational church in that vicinity. His son and name-
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sake, Adonijah Bidwell, great-grandfather of Orlando C. Bidwell, was a farmer. Another of the sons of Rev. Adonijah Bidwell, while a resi- dent of Stockbridge, served as one of the early treasurers of Berkshire county and also as attorney-general of Massachusetts. Adonijah Bid- well (2) had a son, Barnabas Bidwell, who also followed agricultural pursuits.
Marshall S. Bidwell, son of Barnabas Bidwell, was the largest landowner in the town of Monterey, using his estate as a stock farm and raising great numbers of horses and cattle. He took a prominent part in public affairs, served several years as chairman of the board of selectmen, and represented his town in 1881 in the state legislature. He was one of the trustees of Hampton Institute, Virginia. In re- ligious matters he adhered to the Congregational denomination, and was one of the trustees of the church of which he was an active mem- ber. He married Sophia P., daughter of John D. Bidwell, a farmer, and they were the parents of two sons: William S., who resides at Monterey, Massachusetts: and Orlando Curtis, mentioned at length hereinafter. Mrs. Bidwell died in 1901, and the death of Mr. Bidwell occurred in July, 1902.
Orlando Curtis Bidwell, son of Marshall S. and Sophia P. (Bid- well) Bidwell, was born March 17, 1862, in Monterey, Massachusetts, and received his preparatory education at the Lehigh school. He then entered Williams College, from which he was graduated in 1886. Choosing to devote himself to the profession of the law. he began its study under the preceptorship of Judge Seymour Dexter. at Elmira, New York, and in 1889 was admitted to the bar. In 1890 he settled in Great Barrington, where he has since remained and where he has been actively engaged in the practice of his profession, in which he has secured for himself an honorable standing both for legal penetration
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and fair-minded dealing. He also negotiates transactions in insurance and real estate. He is a member and chairman of the prudential com- mittee of the fire district and a member of the school committee. He is a member of the Library Association, in which he holds the office of clerk. Since 1895 he has been treasurer of the Housatonic Agricultural Society, and since 1900 one of the trustees of Great Barrington and a member of the investment committee and attorney for the Great Bar- rington Savings Bank. He is a member of Cincinnatus Lodge. F. & A. M., and Monument Chapter. R. A. M., and has served as district deputy grand master of the Fifteenth Masonic District of Massachu- setts. He is a Republican politically and a member of the Congrega- tional church. He married, in 1891, Helen B., daughter of Rev. Henry M. Higley, a Congregational minister of Salamanca, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Bidwell have four children: Margaret, Marshall, Gertrude and Helen. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bidwell are active in church work.
WILLIAM J. DE VALL.
A machinist of exceptional ability, a merchant of enterprise and a citizen of excellent repute is he whose name is the title of this narrative. He was born in Ulster county, New York, June 22, 1848, son of the late William and Hannah (Purdy) De Vall, also natives of Ulster county, the former of French, the latter of Dutch lineage.
George De Vall, the grandfather of the late William De Vall. emi- grated from France and came to the American colonies some years prior to the War of the Revolution, locating in Ulster county, New York, where he purchased and cultivated a farm. Of his children, John De Vall succeeded to the homestead farm, married Betsey Longyer and reared a large family of children, of whom the second in order of birth
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was William De Vall, born 1786. He, too, tilled the soil of a farm in Ulster county, purchased for him by his father, and to this he added to his holdings other adjoining farming lands until he had become the lead- ing realty owner in the valley which early became and is still known as De Vall Hollow. He was a leading man in community affairs and held various local offices. He met his death in 1859 through being thrown by a restive young horse. Of his children. William J. De Vall received a public school education and as a young man was employed in the freight carrying business on the Hudson river. He subsequently found employ- ment in the mills of the A. T. Stewart Company, at Catskill, New York. where he served as overseer in the shawl making plant and incidental to this-being of a decided mechanical turn of mind-acquired a very thorough knowledge of sewing machine construction.
Through this his services were sought in 1883 by John L. Brady, then agent at Pittsfield for the Singer Sewing Machine Company, and for two years Mr. De Vall assisted Mr. Brady in both the sales and re- pair departments of his establishment.
In 1885, upon the recommendation of Mr. Brady, Mr. De Vall's services were secured for the charge of the numerous Singer machines in the D. M. Collins Company's Knitting Mills at Pittsfield, an associa- tion which was maintained to the mutual satisfaction and profit of em- plovers and employed up to 1896. In the latter year, when the merits of the then new safety bicycles were the subject of press and general comment, Mr. De Vall, believing that there was a promising future for that industry, established himself in a bicycle salesroom and repair shop on Bank Row, Pittsfield, remaining in that exclusive business at the lo- cation named until 1900. By this time the automobile had usurped the first place in popular favor at the expense of the bicycle, and Mr. De Vall decided upon engaging in mercantile pursuits in conjunction with the
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old business. He consequently removed the latter to the rear of 277 North street, stocking the large store-the front of the premises nameu -with miscellaneous merchandise, having as specialties news, maga- zine, stationery and phonograph departments. He also established a cir- culating library, the institution of its kind of the county seat.
He married, January 23. 1868, Mary, daughter of the late John Van Steenberg, a farmer of Delaware county, New York, of Holland extraction. Two daughters born of this marriage are Barbara, wife of Charles Linberg, patternmaker for E. D. Jones Sons' Company, and Georgianna De Vali. The family residence is 265 West street and its members belong to the Methodist Episcopal church, Pittsfield.
GEORGE BROWNING.
The Browning family are of English descent, and first settled in this country in what is now the state of Rhode Island.
Ephraim Browning, of Charleston, Rhode Island, the founder of the family in America, and Rebecca Clark, of South Kingston, Rhode Island, were married on March 1, 1787, and were the parents of the family of children who settled in this section of the country. Their children were: Gideon C., born in 1788: Rebecca, born in 1792; Charles, born in 1795: Betsey, born in 1797: Matilda, born in 1799; John C., born in 1801; Anson, born in 1804: and
Horace Browning, born December 31. 1808, married, December 31, 1834. Catherine R. Wells, of Rowe, Massachusetts, and this mar- riage united the most prominent family of the neighboring county of Franklin and the Browning family of this vicinity. They made their home in Rowe, Massachusetts, and were the parents of the following named children : Noah Wells, born March 15, 1836: Sarah Reid,
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born April 3, 1838, became the wife of Pratt Stone, and they reside in Florence, Alabama ; Frederic, born July 11, 1840, and his death oc- curred in New Orleans in 1869; Arthur, born January 6, 1843, died at Rowe in 1882; Catherine W., born February 15, 1846, became the wife of Dr. D. W. Deane, of Washington, D. C .; George, born July 6, 1848, mentioned hereinafter; John W., born February 24, 1851, is married, and resides with his family in Washington, D. C .: Helen, born November 2, 1853, died at the age of four years.
George Browning, of Dalton, Berkshire county, Massachusetts, was born July 6, 1848, at Rowe, Massachusetts, and spent the first nine years of his life there. He attended the public schools of the town, which was then an enterprising village, in which his grandfather oper- ated a mill and his father was a manufacturer of wooden planes such as carpenters use. George spent four years of his life in Deerfield, where he attended school, and at the age of thirteen years he went to live with John Wells, late judge of the Massachusetts supreme bench, in Chicopee, Massachusetts. For two years he was an employe of the First National Bank of Chicopee. When only seventeen years of age he formed a partnership with D. C. Colby in the harness business in Holyoke, and this is the trade he has followed more or less ever since. On account of impaired health he has tried to secure lighter work, but each time has been compelled to relinquish his position. He was clerk in the patent office in Washington, D. C., for a short period of time; traveled for W. B. Lyht. a whip manufacturer of Westfield, Massa- chusetts ; in 1872 he settled in Cheshire, buying out the shop of W. R. Scrivens, which he conducted for nine years, and it is now occupied by the postoffice ; for a number of years he managed a branch store for a large Waterbury concern at Thompston, Connecticut; in 1886 he re- turned to Cheshire, resided there until 1891, during which time he was
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