History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913, Part 34

Author: Eliot, Samuel Atkins, 1862-1950. 4n
Publication date: 1913
Publisher: Cambridge, Mass. : Cambridge Tribune
Number of Pages: 396


USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Cambridge > History of Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1630-1913 > Part 34


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A HISTORY OF CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS


learned yet unpretentious, thoughtful yet not effusive in speech. Tender as a woman in his sympathies, yet lion-hearted for the right." Anna Maria, born in Cambridge, February 4, 1848, died September 23, 1850. Martha Louise, born in Cambridge, February 4, 1851, received her education in the public schools, completing the high school course. She mar- ried, November 20, 1889, Dwight W. Ensign (sketch follows). Flavel, Jr., (3) born August 8, 1816, died in Cambridgeport, February 28, 1891. He married Betsey Perkins, and (second) Almira Pierce.


Dwight W. Ensign, above mentioned, was born in Sheridan, Chautauqua County, N.Y., August 2, 1839. He is the son of Seymour P. and Diantha (Holmes) Ensign, grandson of Otis Ensign, Jr., who enlisted in the Conti- nental army when sixteen years old, and served five years, being one of the guard at the hanging of Major Andre, and was with General Wash- ington at Valley Forge, when he received a scolding and apology from Washington when circumstances were explained; great-grandson of Otis Ensign, Sr., who was killed in the mas- sacre of Wyoming, and a decendant of James Ensign, who settled in Brattle Street, Cam- bridge, Mass., about 1632. He is a member of the Sons of the American Revolution, Union Club of Boston, Cambridge, and the Boston Art Club. His wife, Martha Louise (Stratton) Ensign, has traveled extensively in Europe. She is a member of the Vermont Society of Colonial Dames; Old South Chapter, Daugh- ters of the American Revolution, Daughters of the Revolution; The Daughters of Massachu- setts; New England's Women's Club; Canta- brigia Club of Cambridge; Peabody Home for Aged People, and other societies and organiza- tions. Mrs. Ensign takes a deep interest in charitable and religious work. She is a member of the Second Church (Unitarian), of Copley Square, Boston.


WILLIAM P. SUTTON


SUTTON, WILLIAM P., prominent Cambridge business man and proprietor of the Mansion House Ice Cream Company, was born on June 16, 1865. He received a good education in the public schools of Cambridge. His first inde-


pendent business venture was a grocery and provision store. Mr. Sutton continued to conduct it for sixteen years, and in addition, about twenty-eight years ago, began in a small way to manufacture and retail ice cream. The excellence of his product becoming generally known soon resulted in such a demand that, in 1902, he was finally compelled to give all his time to an enterprise which had originally been subordinate.


WILLIAM P. SUTTON


The Mansion House Ice Cream Company, which this year ceased to be a retail concern, is one of the most important wholesale ice cream companies in this part of the country. The plant covers an area of 4,800 feet; the operating power is electricity, and the modern brine system of freezing is used. The maximum daily output is 1,500 gallons; thirty-one people are employed, and the delivery service consists of twelve wagons and two motor trucks.


Mr. Sutton is an ardent advocate of pure food; furthermore, he has demonstrated that his theories are practicable. Not content with merely living up to the regulations of the Board of Health, he has adopted a higher standard of his own. From the moment that the raw


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material leaves the dairy until the ice cream is delivered at the consumer's door, no precaution is neglected. The ice cream is made, not in a basement-as is often the case-but on the ground floor, where there is plenty of fresh air and sunshine. In an article on pure food, published in a recent issue of the Boston Ameri- can, the Mansion House Ice Cream Company was mentioned as being among the firms which produce and distribute their goods under the most sanitary conditions.


On January 8, 1890, Mr. Sutton was married to Matilda J. Schlitter. They have two daugh- ters-Esther V. and Alice M., the former at present a student at Radcliffe College.


Mr. Sutton is a Mason, being a member of Putnam Blue Lodge, Cambridge Royal Arch Chapter, Cambridge Commandery, Naphthali Council and Aleppo Temple of the Mystic Shrine. He is also a member of New England Lodge, I.O.O.F., Cambridge Lodge, B.P.O.E., Lechmere Council, R.A., and the Cambridge Board of Trade. He is one of the Trustees of the East Cambridge Five Cent Savings Bank.


Mr. Sutton's home is in Cambridge.


WILLIAM DONNISON SWAN, M.D.


SWAN, WILLIAM DONNISON, M.D., of Cam- bridge, was born in Kennebunk, Me., January 1, 1859, son of Rev. Joshua A. Swan, Unitarian minister at Kennebunk for eighteen years, and Sarah, his wife, daughter of the Rev. Richard M. Hodges, Unitarian minister at Bridgewater, Mass. His mother's maternal grandfather, William Donnison, was an officer in the Revo- lution, and afterwards adjutant-general to Governor Hancock and judge of the Court of Common Pleas. He was fitted for college at the Cambridge High School; entered Harvard, and graduated in the class of 1881. His pro- fessional training followed at the Harvard Medi- cal School, from which he graduated M.D. in 1885. After two years of study in the hospitals of Boston and one year in Vienna and Frankfort- on-the-Main, he began practice in Cambridge in 1888. Three years later he was appointed medical examiner for the First District of Middlesex County (Cambridge, Belmont and Arlington) by Governor Brackett. He is now also visiting physician to the Cambridge Hos-


pital and to the Avon Home of Cambridge. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and of the Massachusetts Medico- Legal Society. His club connections are with the Union Club of Boston, and the Oakley Club.


WILLIAM DONNISON SWAN, M.D.


Dr. Swan was married April 30, 1890, to Miss Mary Winthrop Hubbard, daughter of Samuel Hubbard, of Oakland, Cal. They have two children: Marian Hubbard (born February 22, 1891) and William Donnison Swan, Jr. (born October 9, 1894).


BENJAMIN TILTON


TILTON, BENJAMIN, son of Captain Benjamin Tilton, was born in the State of Maine, August 25, 1805. He came to Boston in a sailing vessel in the year 1821 and there became a clerk in a dry goods store. He was married in 1828 to Lucinda, daughter of Ebenezer and Anna (Whiting) Newell, and granddaughter of Colonel Daniel Whiting (1732-1807), of Natick, Mass., an officer in the French and Indian War and in the Patriot Army during the American Revolu- tion. Mr. Tilton and his wife lived first in Boston, then removed to Brookline, and in 1837


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made their permanent home in Cambridge. Besides being a director in the Cambridgeport Bank, he was instrumental in founding and organizing the Harvard Bank, in 1860, which became the First National Bank of Cambridge in 1864, which, in turn, became the Harvard Trust Company in 1904. Mr. Tilton was its president from its organization, March, 1864, to the time of his death in November, 1882. He was also president of the Cambridgeport Savings Bank, 1854-1882. Under his presidency the Harvard Bank, with its capital of $200,000, paid annual dividends of from six to twelve percent. He was also associated with large business inter- ests in Boston, and was always very successful in his investments. He left three sons: Henry Newell, born in Boston, May 18, 1829; died February 11, 1904, in Cambridge. He was a member of the of the Cambridge School Board for many years, director of the First National Bank of Cambridge and trustee of the Cam- bridgeport Savings Bank. (2) Benjamin Rad- cliff, was born in Boston, August 22, 1831; died in January, 1892. He was a member of the Cambridge City Council, trustee and member of the investment committee of the Cambridge- port Savings Bank, the Cambridge Club, and was an active member of the Prospect Street Church. (3) Frederick William Tilton, was born in Cambridge, May 14, 1839, was educated in the Cambridge Schools, and graduated from Harvard University, A.B., 1862, and received the degree of A.M., 1865. He took a post- graduate course in the University of Gottingen, Germany, 1863-1864. He returned to this coun- try in 1864, and taught three years in the High- land Military Academy, Worcester, Mass., and in 1867 was elected superintendent of the public schools of Newport, R.I. He became principal of Phillips Academy, Andover, Mass., in 1871; in 1873, he was appointed head master of Rogers High School, Newport, R.I., and held that posi- tion until 1890. He visited Europe, returned in 1894, and took up his residence in Cambridge, Mass., where he became a director in the Har- vard Trust Company, and a trustee and a mem- ber of the investment committee of the Cam- bridgeport Savings Bank; he has served as vice-president of the Bank since 1904. He was married July, 1864, to Ellen, daughter of John Howe and Adaline (Richardson) Trowbridge,


granddaughter of John and Sally (Howe) Trow- bridge, and of James and Elizabeth Richardson and a descendant from Chief-Justice Trowbridge of Cambridge Colony under George III. Mrs. Tilton died in Cambridge, January 5, 1910, being survived by her husband and four children, namely: William F. Tilton, born February 24, 1867, educated at Harvard and in Germany;


BENJAMIN TILTON


has German degree Ph.D .; writer on historical subjects. Benjamin T. Tilton, born July 17, 1868; A.B. Harvard, 1890; M.D. Germany, 1893; surgeon in New York City. Ellen Maud, born February 29, 1872, now Mrs. Frederic Atherton, Boston. Newell Whiting Tilton, born October 26, 1878, A.B. Harvard, 1900; of the firm Harding, Tilton & Co., Boston, New York and Philadelphia.


BENJAMIN VAUGHAN


VAUGHAN, BENJAMIN, was the son of William Manning Vaughan and Anne Warren Vaughan, who was a great-niece of General Joseph Warren of Revolutionary fame. He was born in Hallo- well, Maine, the 3d of November, 1837, and died in Cambridge, Mass., on the 2d of July, 1912.


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He was married on the 8th day of May, 1864, in Philadelphia, to Anna Harriet Goodwin, daughter of Rev. Daniel R. Goodwin, who was then Provost of the University of Pennsylvania and who had been President of Trinity College.


He attended school at the old Hallowell Acad- emy, which was quite a famous institution of learning in those days. He moved to Cambridge in 1857, and went into the office of Jerome G. Kidder in Boston, who was doing a commission


BENJAMIN VAUGHAN


business in oil and coal. He worked under Mr. Kidder and then in partnership with him, and finally established the Beacon Oil Company, of which he was president and the sole and active head. This Company became the Oil Company for New England, but in the eighties Mr. Vaughan sold it out to the Standard Oil Com- pany of New Jersey. After this, Mr. Vaughan took no active part in any oil business, but still continued to do business as a coal commis- sion merchant. He kept up this business until the 1st of January, 1912, when he retired, dis- solving the partnership with Henry S. Mann, with whom he had been associated during the later years under the firm name of Vaughan & Mann. He, however, retained his office until


the 1st of July, 1912, which was practically the date of his death. He thus was in business for over fifty-four years, and, at the date of his retirement, was the oldest coal commission merchant in Boston.


In 1863, Mr. Vaughan joined the "Home Guards" in Cambridge, and received a com- mission as 1st Lieutenant under Col. Charles F. Walcott in the 61st Massachusetts Regiment. He went to the Front, and was dangerously wounded at the battle of Petersburg in 1865; he was brevetted Captain, though his wound prevented his seeing any more service at the Front.


Mr. Vaughan was interested in several Cam- bridge institutions. At the time of his death he was a director in the Cambridge Trust Com- pany, and had been, since its formation and until a short time before he died, the treasurer of the Longfellow Memorial Association. He was one of the promoters in the establishment of the Cambridge Coffee House Association, which was organized and existed for a few years when the city first became no-license.


He was an Episcopalian and had been a con- stant worshipper at St. John's Memorial Chapel for more than forty years, and was the last sur- vivor of the original group which organized the Association of the Congregation in January, 1871. He served for many years as Vice- Chairman and subsequently as Chairman of the Committee of this Association; and, in the words of the report from the present Committee of the Association, "his loss has removed a land- mark in our history as a Congregation."


He was one of the originators and active in the management of the old Cambridge Dramatic Club, which, during the beginning of its ex- istence, gave its plays in one of the buildings of the old State Arsenal, which was situated on Arsenal Square between Chauncey and Follen Streets.


He found his chief recreation in out-of-door life, particularly in shooting and on the water, yachting or canoeing while camping in Maine. Of late years he regularly went for some weeks every winter to the South for shooting. Part of the summer he always spent in yachting along the Maine coast and part at Hallowell in the old homestead where he was born and in which five generations of the family have lived.


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Mr. Vaughan was a member of the Com- mercial and Union Clubs of Boston; the Brook- line Country Club; the Eastern, Massachusetts and Portland Yacht Clubs; the Oakley Country Club; Colonial Club of Cambridge and several shooting clubs. He was, also, a member of a Dining Club in Cambridge composed of a dozen well-known Cambridge men. He was, however, not at all a clubman in the usual sense of the word, but spent most of his time with and for his family.


He was a support and an adviser for many people and helped many, but always most unostentatiously, so that even members of his immediate family did not know until after his death how much he did for others. His quiet modesty and unselfishness were excep- tional, and he was pre-eminently endowed with common sense and ability to diagnose and judge rightly intricate business problems and, also, public questions. In his later years, particu- larly, he followed the complications and evolu- tions in business and politics with close interest, and his sane judgment and wise conclusions impressed all who came in contact with him. Many men prominent in affairs at home and in the South-where reconstruction and the up- building of industries are still going on-with


whom he talked or came in contact, were openly . daughter of Dr. Maurice H. Richardson. impressed by his broad and sound views and felt his influence. He was a valuable citizen who stood for the right and for conservative advancement, with a broad-minded view of affairs which made him of benefit to the com- munity in which he lived.


HENRY PICKERING WALCOTT, M.D.


WALCOTT, HENRY PICKERING, physician, was born at Salem, Mass., December 23, 1838, being the son of Samuel Baker and Martha (Pickman) Walcott. He graduated from Harvard in 1858, studied medicine at the Harvard Medical School and Bowdoin College, and received his degree of M.D. from the latter in 1861. He spent two years in Vienna and Berlin. From 1867 to 1881, he was engaged in the active practice of medicine in Cambridge. Since 1881, however, he has devoted his time to the State Board of Health, and has been chairman of it since 1886. Por- tions of the reports of that board have been


written by him, and he is also the author of various reports upon the water supply and the drainage of Massachusetts. Dr. Walcott has been prominent in movements promoting public health. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, Massachusetts Historical So- ciety, Massachusetts Horticultural Society, American Public Health Association, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Board of Presi- dent and Fellows of Harvard University, and an honorary fellow of the Royal Sanitary In- stitute of Great Britain.


ROBERT WALCOTT


WALCOTT, ROBERT, is the son of Dr. Henry P. Walcott, LL.D., president of the Massa- chusetts General Hospital and of the Cambridge Hospital, chairman of the State Board of Health, and a member of the Metropolitan Water Board.


He is associated in the practice of law with Hon. Herbert Parker, formerly Attorney-Gen- eral; James F. Jackson, ex-chairman of the Board of Railway Commissioners; and Lieu- tenant-Governor Frothingham, having offices at Barristers' Hall, Boston.


He has continued to live in Cambridge, where he was born, since his marriage, in 1899, to the


He graduated from Harvard College in 1895, and, after spending a year travelling in India and China, from the Harvard Law School in 1899.


He is a member of the Union Club, Tennis and Racquet Club, Oakley Country Club, and of the Cambridge Club; secretary of the Cam- bridge Boat Club; secretary of the Longfellow Memorial Association; director of the Cam- bridge Homes for Aged People; director of the Prospect Union; member of the corporation of the Cambridge Savings Bank, and president of the Cambridge Neighborhood House.


He was appointed, in 1904, by Governor Douglas, special justice of the Third District Court, which includes Cambridge, Belmont and Arlington.


Judge Walcott's recreations are swimming, canoeing, yachting and travel, he having accom- panied Mr. William Brooks Cabot in his ex- ploration of the Assawaban River district in Labrador, in 1904, and having been a member


Surge Fisher


:


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of the party that made the first ascent of Mount Mummery in the Canadian Rockies in 1906.


He is an officer of the Harvard Travelers' Club. He has a record swim of ten miles across Buzzards Bay.


WALTER C. WARDWELL


WARDWELL, WALTER C., ex-Mayor of Cam- bridge, Mass., and a Deputy Sheriff of Middle- sex County, was born in Richmond, Va., Janu- ary 27, 1859. His father, the late Burnham


WALTER C. WARDWELL


Wardwell, was a native of Maine, went to Vir- ginia previous to the Civil War, and, refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Southern Confederacy, was pressed into service in 1861. With much peril he made his escape to the Union lines, and, joining the Northern army, served under General Butler at Fortress Monroe and Dutch Gap. He served upon the grand jury which indicted Jefferson Davis for high treason; and after the close of the war he was appointed by General Schofield warden of a penitentiary. Through his efforts the whipping-post was banished from nearly every locality where it had previously been used, and his successful work in that field of philanthropy gained for him much distinction throughout the United States.


Walter C. Wardwell began his education in the South, and completed it in the public schools


of Cambridge. He was employed for twelve years in the civil engineer's department of the city of Boston, and in 1893 was appointed Deputy Sheriff of Cambridge. He served in the Cambridge City Council in 1894 and 1895, and then as alderman for four years, the last two as president. He was mayor from January, 1907, to April, 1909, serving the extra three months on account of a change in the fiscal year.


In 1878 he enlisted in the Cambridge City Guard, Company B, Fifth Regiment, under Captain William A. Bancroft (now major gen- eral), and afterward served in Battery C, First Light Artillery, later being sergeant, major, adjutant and quartermaster of the First Bat- talion of Cavalry. He is at present president of the newly-formed Cambridge City Guard Veteran Corps.


Besides being connected with the Board of Trade and other institutions, Mr. Wardwell is prominent in Masonic circles. He is a past member of Mount Olivet Lodge, and is a mem- ber of Cambridge Chapter, and Cambridge Commandery, K.T. He is a past district deputy grand master in the "Blue Lodge."


Mr. Wardwell was married in Cambridge, in January, 1898, to the daughter of Austin Kingsley Jones, the old bell ringer at Harvard College. For many years the Wardwell home has been at 465 Broadway. There are two daughters, Misses Grace and Georgianna, and one son, Austin.


FISHER-WELLINGTON


E GEORGE FISHER, eldest child of Jabez and Sarah (Livermore) Fisher, was born in Cam- bridge, February 15, 1820. He took the full course in the public and high schools of Cam- bridge, and a partial law course at Harvard University Law School, and was made a mem- ber of the Law School Association. He suc- ceeded his father in the coal and wood business in 1845, and after carrying it on for several years sold it out and became a partner in the firm of Simmons & Fisher, organ builders in Charles Street, Boston. On March 30, 1859, he purchased the Cambridge Chronicle, and made the paper a profitable investment, and in 1859-1866 it had no competition in Cam- bridge. In 1873 he sold the newspaper plant


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to Linn Boyd Porter. In the Chronicle he advocated anti-slavery, temperance and Ameri- canism as opposed to the "perilous encroach- ments" of the Roman Catholic church. He represented his district in the General Court in 1885. He founded the Cambridge Con- servatory of Music in 1873, and with the assist- ance of his daughter and other instructors, taught music to large classes for several years. He was a well-known expert performer on the organ, and held positions at various times in the largest churches in Cambridge. He made a discriminating collection of music, both printed and in manuscript, and was one of the earliest members of the Handel and Haydn Society of Boston, and a member of the govern- ing board. The large Cambridge chorus that attracted so much notice at the World's Peace Jubilee was organized and trained by Mr. Fisher. He was a friend and benefactor to Elias Howe in his struggle to introduce the sewing machine, and gave his financial aid at a time when Mr. Howe appeared to him hope- lessly in debt, and while the application for a patent was pending he accompanied Mr. Howe to Washington, and they each wore a suit of clothes made upon the machine which was the patent office model. He was married March 16, 1840, to Hannah Cordelia, third child of Samuel P. and Eunice S. Teele, who was born in Charlestown, October 9, 1818, and died July 3, 1894. She was a member of the Austin Street Unitarian church, Cambridge. George Fisher died in Cambridge, September 12, 1898. Their children were: Sarah Cordelia, born 1841, married, November 29, 1887, to Colonel Austin C. Wellington. Caroline Louise, born 1843, married Colonel Austin C. Well- ington, as his first wife, June 30, 1869, and she died November 23, 1879. George, born in 1845, died in 1846. Anna Josephine, born in 1847; died in 1851. Harriet Ellen, born in 1849; died in 1850.


Lizzie Livermore, born in 1850; died in 1853. Eliza Bennett, born in 1853; died in 1875. George, born in 1855; died in 1860. George William, born in 1858; died in 1876. George Fisher outlived all his children except Sarah Cordelia. He had no grandchildren. A scholarship in Harvard Law School has been contributed by his daughter in memoriam of George Fisher.


SARAH CORDELIA (Fisher) WELLINGTON, eldest child of George and Hannah Cordelia (Teele) Fisher, and the last surviving member of a large family, was born in Cambridge, Mass., October 10, 1841. She was graduated at the Cambridge high school, attended Pro- fessor Louis Agassiz's school and received musical instruction in London, England, from Senor Randegger and Madam Rudersdorf, and while in Europe in 1876, attended the first performance of Wagner's "Niebelungen- leid," at Bayreuth. She married her brother- in-law, Colonel Austin Clarke Wellington, November 29, 1887, eight years after the death of his first wife, Caroline Louise (Fisher) Wellington. Colonel Wellington had no chil- dren by either wife. He was a son of Jonas Clarke and Harriet Eliza (Bosworth) Welling- ton, and was born in Lexington, July 17, 1840, where he attended school up to 1856, when his parents removed to Cambridge, and he became a bookkeeper in the establishment of S. G. Bowdlear & Company, of Boston, and left the firm in August, 1862, to enlist in Company F, Thirty-eighth Massachusetts Regiment, and accompanied the regiment to Baltimore, New Orleans, and on the Red River expedition under General N. P. Banks. In July, 1864, he was transferred to Washington, D.C., and was in the army of General Sheridan during the closing period of the Civil War. He was acting adjutant of his regiment, with the rank of lieutenant, and later was appointed adju- tant. His battles were: Bisland, Siege of Port Hudson, Cane River Ford, Mansura in Louisi- ana, and with Sheridan in Opequan, Fisher's Hill and Cedar Creek, Virginia. He was mustered out of the volunteer service, June 30, 1865. Upon returning to Massachusetts he engaged in the coal business, and formed the corporation of the Austin C. Wellington Coal Company, of which he was treasurer and manager, and this grew into one of the largest concerns in its time, in New England. He continued his interest in military affairs, and May 2, 1870, entered the Massachusetts State Militia as captain of the Boston Light Infantry, known as the "Tigers," Company A, Seventh Regiment. He was elected major of the Fourth Battalion in 1873, and colonel of the First Regiment, February 24, 1882. His




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