Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I, Part 67

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 824

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I > Part 67

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(VII) Sarah Rebecca Parker, daughter of Leonard Moody Parker (6). born March 6. 1822, married Joseph Mason, of Worcester. November 10, 1846. One child was born of this union, Josepli P., at Worcester, September 15. 1848. married A. Wright, of New York city. November 13. 1877.

FREDERICK SUMNER PRATT. The Pratt family, of which Frederick S. Pratt is a representa- tive, traces its ancestry to Thomas Pratt, who took the oath of fidelity in Watertown, Massachusetts, in the year 1652, and who was there as early as 1647. He is reported to have come to America about that date from London, England. About the year 1679 he purchased of Thomas Eames thirty acres of land in Framingham, and settled in that town. By his wife Susanna he had the following children : Thomas, Abial, married Daniel Bigelow ; Ebenezer, Joseph, John, Philip, Ephraim, Nathaniel, Jonathan, David, and Jabez.

( Il) Jonathan Pratt married Sarah, daughter of John Gale, of Framingham, and first resided on a portion of his father's place in Framingham; then removed to Oxford and was a selectman of Ox- ford in 1723. Administration on his estate was granted in 1735. His children were: Jonathan, born April 21, 1701; Abraham, Sarah, married Oliver Shumway: Joseph. Lydia, married Jedediah Barton; Micah, Jonas, and Susanna, married Jonas Coller.

(III) Jonathan Pratt, born April 21, 1701, re- ceived from his father a deed of sixty acres of land in Oxford, in 1723, and November 18, 1725, married Lydia, daughter of Theophilus Phillips, of Watertown. He built the house afterward, known as the Deacon Stone place, which was standing in 1892, and then considered to be the oldest house in Oxford. His wife died in May, 1729, and he mar- ried (second), May 28, 1730. Ruth Eddy, who died April 1, 1731, and he married (third), December 15. 1731, Deborah, daughter of Deacon John Coolidge, of Watertown. He died July 25, 1788, and his wife died February 9. 1793. aged eighty-three years. He was a selectman of Oxford in 1740-41-51-56. His children were: Keziah, born March IS, 1727. married Moses Holmes: Lydia, born 1728, died 1729; Ruth, born 1731, died 1746; Mellison, born 1733, died 1746; Lydia, born 1736, died 1746; Huldah, born March 1. 1739, married Isaac Town; Jonathan, born August 15, 1741: Elias, born No- vember 7, 1743; Elisha, born July 15, 1747; Esther, born June 6, 1752: Deborah, born July 15, 1754, married Jesse Merriam.

(IV) Elias Pratt, born in Oxford, November 7. 1733. married. August 6, 1767. Lydia, daughter of Jonathan Hill. of Billerica. She was born March 25. 1746. He settled near the old homestead in Oxford, and was one of the men who marched in Captain John Town's company in answer to the alarm. April 19, 1775. They went to Roxbury and served fourteen and three-quarter days. Septem- ber 25. 1778, he was commissioned captain of the Fifteenth Company, Fifth Worcester County Regi- ment. Colonel Jonathan Holman, commanding. He again served as captain, from April 11, 1779. to July I. 1779, a period of two months and twenty days, his company being stationed at Rutland. He was a selectman of Oxford from 1785 to 1794. He died March 14, 1816. and his wife died. March 10, 1829, in Sutton. Their children were: Lydia, born 1768, died the same year; Jerusha. born September 18, 1769. married Thomas Davis; Lydia and Ruth (twins), born September 25, 1771. married brothers, Ambrose and William Stone: Elias and Elijah (twins). born March 4. 1773: Zadock, born Novem- ber 17. 1775: Jeremiah, born September 20, 1779;

Sylvanus and Sylvester (twins), born August 20, 1781 : and Amasa, born May 7. 1787.

(V) Elias Pratt, born in Oxford, March 4, 1773, married Sally, daughter of Dr. Ezra Conant of Ox- ford. November 15, 1801. He first settled upon the old family homestead in Oxford, but about 1817 removed to the neighboring town of Sutton, where, in 1825, he purchased the Hathaway place, known later as the Pratt house, and afterward as the Rufus King house. He made this farm his home for a number of years, but finally removed to Worcester, where he died September 2, 1854. In Oxford he served on the board of selectmen 1808-09-17, and was captain of militia. His children were: Sally, born 1802, died 1804; Ezra, born October 6, 1804, died October 9. 1805; Serena, born August 14, 1806, married Charles King; Sarah, born January 29, 1808, married Joshua O. Lewis; Sumner, born Sep- tember 30, 1809; Emeline, born December 14, 1812, married Leonard Woodbury; and Amanda, born August 11, 1815. died May 22, 1837. The mother of these children, Sally (Conant) Pratt, was a lineal descendant of Roger Conant, often called the first Colonial governor of Massachusetts. She was born in Warwick, Massachusetts, May 15, 1777, and died in Worcester, December 4, 1852.

(VI) Sumner Pratt was born in Oxford, Massa- chusetts, September 30, 1809, upon the farm which was the home of his ancestors for three genera- tions, and there his school days and early man- hood were passed. His business career began with the manufacture of loom shuttles in 1831. In 1843 he was engaged in manufacturing cotton thread in Worcester. This continued for two years, when he established an agency for cotton and wool machinery and mill supplies in that city. He was very success- ful in this business, which grew extensively in the course of years, and he maintained an active interest in the firm which bore his name until a short time before his death, which occurred January 6. 1887. He was respected as a high-minded and public- spirited citizen and was held in esteem by all his associates for his sound judgment and nobility of character. In his social and family life he was beloved for personal qualities of an uncommon order. He served the city as a member of the common council in 1869-70-71-72, and of the board of alder- men in 1876-77. He was a trustee of the Wor- cester County Institution for Savings, vice-presi- dent of the People's Savings Bank, a director of the Worcester Safe Deposit and Trust Company, and at one period president of the Board of Trade. Dur- ing his life in Worcester he attended All Saints' Church (Protestant Episcopal), holding the offices of vestryman and warden for a long period. In politics he was first a Whig and then a Repub- lican.

Sumner Pratt was twice married. His first wife, whom he married May 19. 1836, was Serena, daugh- ter of Caleb Chase, of Sutton, and who died June 19, 1848. By her he had two children: Frederick Sumner, born September 21. 1845; and Emma Amanda, born May 8, 1848. His second wife, whom he married August 5. 1850. was Abby Curtis, daugh- ter of Ebenezer Read, of Worcester, and who died April 29, 1896. By her he had one child, Edward Read, born May 1. 1851, died October 31, 1880.

(VII) Frederick Sumner Pratt was born in Wor- cester, Massachusetts, September 21, 1845. He was educated in the schools of Worcester, graduating from the high school in 1862. After four years of service in the Worcester Bank he entered the busi- ness of his father, soon after becoming a member of the firm of Sumner Pratt & Co. In 1896 he retired from this firm in order to confine his at-

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tention to portrait and landscape painting, a work which for some years had been of exceeding in- terest to him. This interest, although dating from art studies pursued in early life, received a fresh impulse from the visit of John Sargent to Worcester in the year 1890, when a most friendly and helpful intercourse with that distinguished master was brought about. Naturally his advice and criticism proved an invaluable aid to the Worcester artist. There are inany portraits bearing Mr. Pratt's signa- ture now in Worcester homes and others, and he has been an occasional exhibitor at the art galleries of national reputation. He is a trustee of the Wor- cester County Institution for Savings and an officer of the Worcester Art Society and the Worcester Art Museum, as well as a member of several clubs. He is a parishioner and warden of All Saints' Church ( Protestant Episcopal) and a Republican in politics.

Frederick Sumner Pratt married, January 19, IS7I, at Worcester, Sarah Mckean Hilliard, who was born in Boston and was a daughter of Judge Francis Hilliard and Catharine Dexter Haven (daughter of Judge Samuel Haven, of Dedham, Massachusetts.) She died in Worcester. December 27. 1897. Their children are: Francis Hilliard, born in Worcester, November 3, 1871, died November 4, 1871. Frederick Haven, A. M., M. D., born in Worcester, July 19, 1873, a graduate of Harvard College and of the Har- vard Medical School, who has published papers on scientific and educational subjects, and is engaged in physiological research. He is a member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Boston Society of Medical Sciences and of the St. Botolph Club, Boston. Katherine Chase, born in Worcester, December 29, 1875. She became the wife of Dr. Alfred Lindsay Shapleigh, of Boston, June 2, 1896, and they both went to China as missionaries in 1896 and again in 1904. In February, 1905, hier husband and only children (Samuel Brooks and Stephen) died from smallpox at Ngankin; a third son (Frederick Gordon), having died in 1900 at Worcester. With rare courage and devotion she resolved to continue her work in China and is now (1906) at Yang Chow. Robert Gage, born in Wor- cester, October 17, 1877, a graduate of Harvard College, class of 1900. and now (1906) holds a re- sponsible position in the Crompton & Knowles Loom Works. He married, July 9, 1906, Edythe McCord Coleman, of Morristown, New Jersey. Elizabeth Hilliard, born in Worcester, July 27, 1882, married Dr. William Irving Clark, of New York, June 23, 1906.

PETER WOOD. Thomas Wood (1), great- grandfather of Peter Wood, of Worcester, Massachu- setts, was born and brought up in Yorkshire, Eng- land. He came of an old English family not quite generally scattered over Ireland as well as Eng- land. Few surnames had a larger representation among the early settlers and pioneers of New Eng- land. Thomas Wood left England when a young man to make a home in Ireland and establish him- self in business there. He bought a farm in Castle Bleyney, county Monaghan, Ireland, established a woolen mill and manufactured woolen cloth. His son John, grandfather of Peter Wood, of Worcester, succeeded him in business.

(II) John Wood, son of Thomas Wood (I), was born in Castle Bleyney, county Monaghan, Ire- land. He followed his father in the manufacture of woolen goods in his native town. He left his business to three of his sons, Bernard, James and William. In fact, the woolen mill established a hundred years ago by Thomas Wood is still owned and operated by his descendants. The children of

John Wood were: James, Thomas, William, Ber- nard, father of Peter Wood; Catherine, married - Markey. All the children were born in Castle Bleyney, Ireland.

(III) Bernard Wood, son of John Wood (2), was born about 1798 in Castle Bleyney, Ireland, died there in 1848. He was a farmer and manufacturer, owning with his two brothers the woolen mill of his father and grandfather. He married Anne Cum- mesky. She died 1880, aged about seventy-eight years. The children of Bernard and Anne (Cum- mesky) Wood were: Catherine, resides on the old homestead in Ireland; Mary, died unmarried at the age of nineteen in her native place; Patrick, mill- wright, resides in Bleyney, has a family; Margaret, died in 1900 in Albany, New York; four of her children are living in New York state, viz .: Anne, John, Patrick and Bernard; Owen, died in Ireland unmarried; Bernard, a bleacher by trade, resides in Brookfield, Massachusetts, married Anne Shevlin ; Peter, born March 18, 1845; James, died young in Ireland.

(IV) Peter Wood, son of Bernard Wood (3), was born in Castle Bleyney, county Monaghan, Ire- land, March 16, 1845. He obtained a common school education in the national schools of his native parish. He went to work in the dyeing establishment of Alexander Reid & Son in the city of Glasgow, Scot- land, and there learned the trade of dyeing and bleaching. In 1868, at the age of twenty-three years, he came to this country. He was engaged at his trade for four years and saw something of the country, working in various places in the United States. In 1872 he came to Worcester and since then he has lived there. He went to work first in the dye-shop of Orr & Walker at the corner of Gardner and Southgate streets. Two years later he bought an interest in the business of Mr. Walker and became a partner with Mr. Orr, of the original firm. The firm name was the Worcester Bleach and Dye Works, with shops at IIO Grove street. In 1894 Peter Wood sold his interest in the com- pany. The Worcester Bleach and Dye Works are now located at 61 Fremont street, near Webster. James E. Orr is treasurer of the company, which was incorporated in 1891. This company bleaches and dyes cotton yarns and warps, braids, threads and tapes.

Mr. Wood established his present business in the following year. He formed a corporation known as the Peter Wood Dyeing Company, with capital of $20,000. The original officers were Peter Wood, Walter Delano and Robert Ruddy. The present works were built at the foot of Holmes street. South Worcester, in 1895, and Mr. Wood began business there in 1896. At present the officers of the com- pany are: President and treasurer, Peter Wood; directors, Robert Wood, his son, and Ini C. Davis. Robert Wood is the boss bleacher. Another son, Peter Wood, Jr., is superintendent of the works. The company bleaches and dyes cotton yarns and warps, threads, tapes, braids, etc., largely for the cotton mills, employing thirty or more hands regu- larly. Mr. Wood has interests in several other successful Worcester enterprises. In 1887 Mr. Wood, Robert Ruddy and Robert Redford started the thread factory on Manchester street under the firm name of Ruddy Thread Company. It developed into an excellent business, but in 1899 it seemed advisable to sell out to the trust-The American Thread Com- pany. But Mr. Wood and his associates did not stay out of the thread business long. Mr. Wood bought the shop of the Worcester Steam Heating Company at 116 Gold street. Mr. Wood, James Montgomery, Charles Dolan, Charles Hall and James

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Ruddy became the directors of the Wachusett Thread Company, which for several years has con- ducted a profitable and growing business in the manufacture of thread. Mr. Wood is president, Mr. Dolan superintendent of the mill and Mr. Montgomery treasurer. The business in 1905 amounted to $360,000. Mr. Dolan has demonstrated the fact that he has good judgment and business ability. The industries that he has established have been creditable to the city as well as to him, and there is every prospect that the business has a great future in Worcester. Mr. Wood is a member of the Worcester Lodge of Elks, No. 243; Alhambra Lodge, Knights of Columbus, and of the Frohsinns. He be- longs to the Roman Catholic Church of St. Peter's parish, Worcester. In politics he is .a Republican. He married (first), November 24. 1875, Anne McKenna, daughter of Terence and Anna (Hughes) McKenna, at Worcester, Massachusetts. He mar- ried (second), July 31, 1895, at Worcester, Agnes Mitchinson, daughter of Joseph and Ellen ( Pilken- ton) Mitchinson. the children of Peter and Anne (McKenna) Wood were: Catherine, born October 12, 1876, resides at Albany, New York; Owen, born October 12, 1878, plumber by trade, resides in Schenectady, New York; Robert, born December 17, 1879, attended. the Worcester schools, entered the dye shop and learned the business; is now boss bleacher for the Peter Wood Dyeing Co .; Peter, Jr., born March 1, 1881, attended the Worcester schools, went into the dyeshop and learned the business; is now superintendent; unmarried; lives with parents at 24 Cambridge street; Anne, born March 28, 1882, lives at home with her parents. The children of Peter and Agnes (Mitchinson) Wood were : Mildred, born May 10, 1896; William, born July 31, 1897; Agnes, born March 10, 1898. All the children were born in Worcester, Massachusetts.

GEORGE HENRY COATES, son of Henry Moss and Orra Natalia (Cone) Coates, was born in Windsor, Vermont, June 23, 1849. For his mother's family see sketch of Cone family. She is living, 1905, with her son in Worcester at the age of eighty-four. There were twelve children born to her parents and six of them are now living: Mrs. Coates; H. S. Cone, Ascutneyville, Vermont, aged eighty-seven; Mrs. Lucy Marston, Marshall, Mich- igan, aged seventy-nine; James M. Cone, Keene, New Hampshire, aged seventy-three; Mrs. Ellen M. Putnam, Manchester, New Hampshire, aged seventy- one. In her immediate family there was not a death until the oldest child was sixty-two years old. There were ten of the twelve alive in Igor, when the youngest was sixty-six years old. The family has an unusual record for longevity. Henry M. Coats, as his name was formerly spelled, was a blacksmith by trade. He was the son of Prescott and Lydia (Penniman) Coates.

George H. Coates was educated in the public schools and at Windsor Academy. He had some mechanical knowledge and doubtless much inherited skill in mechanics. He came to Worcester at the age of eighteen to learn tool making and mechanical engineering. He started to work for the Ethan Allen Fire Arms Company and learned the business thoroughly. He had charge of the construction of the first self-cocking fire arms. He was foreman at Allen's for about eight years.

In 1877 he established the business in which he has been so successful and with which his name is associated the world over, the manufacture of the Coates Clipper. When he invented the adjustable clipper in 1876 all clippers were imported from Eng- land and France. Mr. Coates had made a specialty

of repairing these imported instruments. It re- quired a mechanic of exceptional skill to insert new teeth in these instruments, temper them anew and grind them. Mr. Coates did considerable work of this kind for McCoy & Saunders of New York city. He naturally came to devise a vastly better article than the one then made abroad. He showed his patent to McCoy & Saunders and received at once an order for five hundred. These were the ad- justable hair clippers, and doubtless many of the first made are still in use in barber shops. Mr. Coates had no machine shop, but the price he had been quoted by Forehand & Wadsworth for the manufacture of his machine caused him to buy a small plant and start to manufacture his own goods. Step by step he advanced until he has a very ex- tensive plant and an extremely successful business. His first machinery was bought in Boston of Hill, Clark & Company, and he has bought a great deal of machinery of that firm since. After a year in the little basement of a house on Dewey street, Mr. Coates was able to build a shop forty by fifty feet on the present location, 237 Chandler street. He had only a five horse power engine to run his ma- chinery. His first engine and boiler was bought of William Allen & Son. His Chandler street shop was built in 1878 and was but one story high. He soon had to build an addition forty feet long. In 1884 he raised the building to two stories and added fifty feet, making the building six times its original size. The business increased with proportionate rapidity. The clippers found a market all over the world. The power was increased to one hundred and fifty horse. Another addition of seventy-five feet on the Dewey street end of the building was erected in 1903. At present the factory has over an acre of floor space.

Mr. Coates was not satisfied with his first in- vention and he has from time to time improved on his own work and added new devices. He has taken out more than forty patents. He says that in his experimenting and designing he has been greatly indebted to the education received at the night school in mechanical drawing at the Wor- cester Polytechnic Institute soon after he came to Worcester. He studied under Professor Alden and Superintendent Higgins, who are now the owners of the Norton Emery Company and the Plunger Ele- vator Company. He won several prizes at exhi- bitions of mechanical drawings in Boston, and re- ceived the highest reward of merit there for a col- ored drawing of a Corliss engine. The business is now a corporation. The officers are: President and treasurer, George H. Coates; vice-president and manager, B. Austin Coates. These two own the business. The additions have been made as their means would permit. Mr. Coates has shown a rare combination of inventive genius and shrewd business ability. He has made his own fortune without out- side assistance from the outset.

The Coates Clipper Manufacturing Company is known all over the world for ingenious and use- ful machinery. The selling agents are John H. Graham & Co., 113 Chambers street, New York. The London place of business is at 14 Thayies Inn, Holborn Circus; the continental headquarters in Copenhagen. The latest patterns of clippers are models of artistic work. They have ball bearings, the teeth are beautifully cut and hardened, and each blade is ground with diamond dust. These clippers, for the use of amateur and professional barbers, are sold from $2.50 to $3.50 each. A Worcester man who returned recently from a visit to Australia told Mr. Coates that he found the Coates clipper the only kind on the market in Australia, where he

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and many others used it to keep their beards trimmed close.

The power clipper equipped with the Coates patent flexible non-heating shaft is the best instru- ment yet devised for clipping horses and shearing animals. It is the only gearless machine on the market. Special sheep shearing machines are built. The ordinary horse clipper is run by hand power, but some very fine instruments run by electric motors are made. A number of other specialties are made by the Coates Clipper Mfg. Co. The Coates grooming brush is operated by power and is warranted to groom perfectly twenty-five horses in an hour. This company makes an ingenious machine to grind the caulks on horses' shoes without having the expense and trouble of taking the shoes off when they get dull.

The flexible shaft which Mr. Coates invented is one of the most important devices recently used in the mechanical world. They are made large enough to transmit twenty horse power or more and small enough for the most delicate dentist machinery. The Coates Company has recently built some dentists machinery, using this shaft which never breaks like the coiled wire flexible shafts in general use. The flexible shafting has been found extremely useful by some manufacturers of automobiles and launches. In some forms of grinders used in the manufacture of machinery this device is a wonderful time saver. It is believed that Mr. Coates has in this shaft an even more valuable patent than that of the clippers. In all of the Coates manufacture the greatest pains is taken to make all parts interchangeable and to test fully everything made in the shop.

Another important department of the Coates Company is the manufacture of the Coates housed gear breast drills and the Coates drill press. An ingenious device is a combination of the Coates flexible shaft, an electric motor for power and a magnetic hold-on with a Coates drill for use in marine work, bridge work and in other places diffi- cult to reach by ordinary drills. It is easily portable, is used under water and it is said to be a great time saver for all kinds of drilling. The Coates angle drive is a device to transmit power at right angles. The Coates screw driver is used by chair builders and others having to insert a large number of screws. It is operated with a flexible shaft and works very rapidly. There is hardly a day but some new use for this flexible shafting develops. It has been tried successfully in transmitting one hundred and fifty horse power.

The possibilities of the device are incalculable.

A biography of a man like Mr. Coates, who has made his business what it is, must be something of a catalogue of the products of his factory. Those products represent his life work and thought. They represent an important contribution to civilization and progress. Mr. Coates has made some tremen- dous contributions to the labor-saving machinery of the world. Every successful device means labor- saving for the whole human race, in other words means that each man's labor should bring him a little more of the fruits of human toil, more of what is generally described as wealth. While Mr. Coates is one of the inventors who has gained some return financially from his invention, he has given to the world devices that will always be useful and labor- saving.

Mr. Coates is fortunate in his partner. His son, B. Austin Coates, was born June 2, 1879. He gradu- ated from the Worcester high school in 1896 and from the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1900. Since then he has been associated in business with his father. He married Louisa Boyden Coe, daugh-

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Historic homes and institutions and genealogical and personal memoirs of Worcester county, Massachusetts, with a history of Worcester society of antiquity, Vol. I, Part 67

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed Publication date: 1907 Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company Number of Pages: 824

Author: Crane, Ellery Bicknell, 1836-1925, ed
Publication date: 1907
Publisher: New York, Chicago: The Lewis Publishing Company
Number of Pages: 824