USA > Massachusetts > Bristol County > New Bedford > History of New Bedford and its vicinity, 1620-1892 > Part 70
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6
HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD.
William J. Rotch, whose portrait accompanies this sketch, was graduated at Harvard with his brother Benjamin in 1838 with the honors of his class, and was chosen a mem- ber of the Phi Beta Kappa. He was associated with his brother in many business enterprises. In company with Joesph Ricketson, of New Bedford, they founded the New Bedford Cordage Company, which developed into one of the most successful manufacturing companies io the city. In later years the two brothers were among the first to recognize the value and aid in the development of the Mckay sewing machine, which, under the able management of Gordon Mckay, has won a world-wide reputation. Mr. Rotch has been prominently connected with most of the important business enter- prises of New Bedford, and has held many offices of public and private honor and trust. In 1852, at the early age of thirty-three years, he was elected mayor of New Bedford, being the second person to hold that office after the incorporation of the city, and was also one of the military staff of Governor Clifford. He had previously served two terms as representative at the General Court-1847-8 and 1849-50. But the allurements of public life had no charms for him, and he turned a deaf ear to all propositions for political preferment. For thirty-four years he was president of the New Bedford Cordage Company, and for forty-two years president and treasurer of the Friends' Academy, which offices were held by his grandfather, William Rotch, jr., for thirty- nine years. He is now president of the Howland Mills Corporation and of the Rotch Wharf Company, and vice-president of the New Bedford Institution for Savings, and a director of most of the manufacturing enterprises of the city, and also of the Old Colony Railroad Company, and of the National Bank of Commerce.
In his long life in New Bedford Mr. Rotch has established and maintained a character exemplifying all the best phases of manhood, and few men in their mature years are 80 fully vouchsafed the respect and esteem of their fellow citizens.
From 1876 to 1881 Mr. Rotch lived in Boston during the winter, and in 1881 he went abroad with his wife and four daughters, returning in the fall of 1882. Now, in his capacious mansion, formerly the home of his uncle, James Arnold, surrounded by exten- sive and beautiful grounds, and filled with all the home treasures that wealth can pro- cure, he abates none of his interest in the city of his ancestors, but in company with William D. Howland, the accomplished treasurer and manager of the Howland Mills, is laying the foundation of a new enterprise which is to bear the family name.
In 1842 Mr. Rotch married Emily Morgan, daughter of Charles W. Morgan, of New Bedford; she died in 1861, leaving seven children. These are Charles M. (the eldest son, having died in infancy), William, Helen (who married Dr. T. M. Rotch), Morgan, Isabel M. (who married Pierre Severance), Sarah R. (who married Frederick Swift), Emily M. (who married Dr. J. T. Bullard), and Anna S. (who married Francis H. Stone). In 1866 he married Clara Morgan, and they have one daughter, Mary R.
Of these children William Rotch was born at New Bedford July 22, 1844, and gradu- ated at Harvard college in 1865. In 1869 he received the degree of Ingenieur Civil at the Ecole Impériale Centrale des Arts et Manufactures at Paris. In 1871 he was ap- pointed assistant engineer of the Fall River Water-works, on January 1, 1875, advanced to chief engineer and superintendent, which position he held until the water-works were completed, in 1880. Was one of the original members of the Fall River Board of Trade.
7
THE ROTCH FAMILY.
From 1880 to 1882 he was consulting engineer and purchasing agent of the Mexican Central Railway Company, Sonora Railway Company, Atlantic and Pacific Railroad Company, and California Southern Railroad Company, and from 1882 to 1884 treasurer of the Connotton Valley Railroad Company. February 9, 1870, he was chosen first president of the Union for Good Works, of New Bedford. March 5, 1873, was elected a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, He is a director of the Mexican Central Railway Company, Cleveland and Canton Railroad Company, Consolidated Electric Manufacturing Company, Plymouth Cordage Company, Continental Mills, and West End Nursery and Children's Hospital; also one of the trustees of the Friend's Academy. He is a member of the Somerset Club, St. Botolph Club, Country Club, and Boston Athletic Association, of Boston, and of the Wamsutta Club, of New Bedford. On September 6, 1873, he married Mary Rotch Eliot, daughter of Thomas Dawes and Frances Lincoln Eliot. Five children were born to them as follows: Edith Eliot, born August 11, 1874 ; William, jr., born August 17, 1876; Charles Morgan, born May 19, 1878; Mary E., born December 9, 1879, died December 12, 1879 ; Clara Morgan, born February 17, 1881. Since 1884 he has been managing trustee under the will of Ben- jamin S. Rotch.
Morgan Rotch (see portrait) was born April 8, 1848 in New Bedford. He began his education in the New Bedford schools, and attended the Friends' Academy from 1858 to 1865, going thence to the Phillips (Exeter) Academy, where he remained until 1867, then entering Harvard he graduated in 1871. Returning home he soon afterward started on a European tour of one year, after which he engaged in cotton brokerage at New Bedford, and subsequently took up the business of stock and note brokerage, which he has continued with success until the present time. But through his well- known ability as a financier and his sound judgment on all matters of business policy, he has been chosen to fill numerous stations in the leading enterprises of New Bedford. He is at the present time president and director of the New Bedford Manufacturing Company, director in the Howland Mills Corporation, in the Southern Massachusetts Telephone Company, in the National Bank of Commerce, in the New Bedford Cordage Company, in the Opera-House Company, in the Pairpoint Manufacturing Company, and the Illinois Steel Company. In these various offices he wields an influence that is always for the good of the stockholders.
In politics Mr. Rotch is a Republican and has evinced a deep interest in that field. In 1879-80, when only about thirty years of age, he was chosen to the Common Coun- cil of the city. He occupied the mayor's chair for four years, being elected at the age of thirty-six (1885-88), to his own credit and the good of the community. He was also one of the military staff of Governor Ames. In 1891 he was elected State senator and there proved himself a legislator of broad and correct views, and the honesty and inde- pendence to support them. He was chosen chairman of the Board of Public Works in 1889, when it was organized, and held the office until a new law gave it to the mayor. He is now a member of that important board, and also a commissioner of the city sinking fund. Mr. Rotch has always kept the welfare of his constituents before him, and advocated such measures as, in his judgment, would effect the greatest good for the greatest number.
8
HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD.
Socially Mr. Rotch and his family have been and are conspicuons in the community. Affable to all, firm in his adherence to his numerous friends, possessed of a large fund of information, and excellent conversational ability, he is welcomed to a large circle.
Mr. Rotch was married December 4, 1879, to Miss Josephine G. Grinnell, of New Bedford. They have two children-Arthur Grinnell, born November 22, 1880, and Emily Morgan, born March 21, 1882.
Rodman Rotch (1821-54) left New Bedford at an early age and settled in Philadel- phia, where he died at the age of thirty-three. He married Helen Morgan, daughter of Thomas W. Morgan, of Philadelphia, and had two children-Anna S., and Thomas Morgan.
Thomas Morgan Rotch was born in Philadelphia, where he was educated previons to entering Harvard College, from which he was graduated in the class of 1870. He then entered the Harvard Medical School, and took the three years' course of study. In 1874 he was house physician at the Massachusetts General Hospital, and took his medical degree that year. Dr. Rotch then went to Europe, spending two years in travel and in the study of medicine, chiefly in Berlin and Vienna. In 1876 he moved to Boston, and since that time has been engaged in active practice. During the last ten years Dr. Rotch has published a number of articles, chiefly on subjects connected with dis- eases of children. He has for several years held the chair, devoted to the teaching of diseases of children, in the Harvard Medical Faculty, with the title of Assistant Pro- fessor.
He is a member of the staffs of the Boston Children's Hospital, City Hospital and the Infant Hospital ; Consulting Physicial of St. Luke's Hospital. He was president of the American Pediatric Society in 1891, and has been respectively secretary, vice- president and president of the Boylston Medical Society ; also secretary of the Improve- ment Society and of the Suffolk District Medical Society. He is councilor of the Massachusetts Medical Society, a member of the Observation Society and of the Society of Medical Sciences.
In 1874 he married Helen, daughter of William J. Rotch, of New Bedford. They have one son, Thomas Morgan Rotch, jr.
Seven generations of this family have lived in New Bedford since 1765, and probably no other family has had greater influence in developing its character and prosperity, and shaping its history.
C RAPO, HON. HENRY HOWLAND.1-" We must leave to the pen of the biog- rapher the details of the life of this estimable and remarkable man. The materials are ample lor a volume replete with interest and instruction. Justice to his memory and to the large number to whom his name on the title page would give the book a value, and to that much greater number to whom the experience of such a life would impart energy and guidance, calls for the publication of such a work.
" Mr. Crapo was born in the north part of the town of Dartmouth, in the County of Bristol, May 24, 1804. His early life was one of toil and privation. His parents were
1 This sketch was in great part written by James B. Congdon.
9
H. H. CRAPO.
poor ; and from the sterile soil which they cultivated no returns could be obtained be- yond a mere livelihood. He early became alive to the fact that there were better things to be obtained in life than such as were yielded by hard and unnecessary toil upon a Dartmouth farm, and he saw, too, that the opening to these better things was mainly through the knowledge to be found in books. We cannot follow this earnest Dart- month boy in the long continued struggles which constitute the salient feature of his early life. No toil was too hard, no sacrifice too great to be encountered and overcome by his persistent efforts. We have seen a dictionary in manuscript, compiled (not copied) by him, when such a book was not to be found in his neighborhood, and no means were within his reach for its purchase. In his desire to acquire a knowledge of the English language, he copied into his book the words he met with, whose meaning he did not understand. and then as he met them in the newspapers and books within his reach, he would study cut and record the definitions.
" From a book which he picked up in the neighborhood, he made himself familiar with the theory of surveying. There was a call for the services of a land surveyor, but. he had no compass. But in this, as in other cases, there was a ' will,' and consequently there was a 'way.' A compass he wanted, and a compass he would have. He had no money ; but near at hand there was a blacksmith's forge, and upon that forge and with such tools as he found in the shop and used while the smith was at dinner, a compass was constructed, and the Dartmouth boy, like George Washington, began life as a sur- veyor of land. The general did not make his own compass.
" He became a teacher, too. He was the 'village master'; and when in the course of time and under the pressure of law a high-school was to be opened, he became a candidate for the mastership, and succeeded. Not however without a struggle. He knew what the law required ; and hard was the toil required of him to meet these re- quisitions.
"One evening, after the labors of the day were over, he traveled on foot from his home in Dartmouth to New Bedford, called upon J. H. W. Page, then, it is believed, preceptor of the Friend's Academy, went through a thorough examination, received from him a certificate that he was qualified, trudged back to his home the same night, and lay down upon his bed after traveling twelve or fifteen miles on foot, happy in the possession of a talisman that would open to him the door of the school-house.
" When at the age of twenty-eight he left Dartmouth and became a citizen of New Bed- ford, he still followed the occupation of a land surveyor, helping out his scanty gains by occasionally acting as an auctioneer. Upon the retirement of Capt. Kelley Eldridge, who had long and faithfully served the town, he was chosen town clerk, treasurer and collector of taxes. These offices he held until the form of our municipal government was changed, a period of about fifteen years. Upon the inauguration of the city gov- ernment, he was elected treasurer and collector of taxes, a situation which he held for two or three years. He closed his connection with our municipal government by hold- ing for a short time the office of alderman. As chairman of the council committee on education, he was one of the first board of trustees of the Free Public Library. The report upon which was based the order for the establishment of that institution, was prepared by him.
B
.IO
HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD.
" No man connected with our municipal government ever had, to a greater extent than Mr. Crapo, the confidence of the people. He was exact and methodical in all mat- ters of record ; conscientious and laboriously persistent in the discharge of every duty ; clear in his methods aud statements in all that appertained to his official transactions with the town and his townsmen, leaving, at the close of his long connection with them, all that belonged to his department as a financial or recording officer so luminous and complete, that no error has ever been detected, or any improvement made upon his methods.
"It was while thus connected with the town, that his mind was in training for the elevated positions to which he was afterwards called. It was in the New Bedford town meetings and in the transaction of the business connected with the town affairs, that he learned those practical lessons which were so important to him when he took his seat in the Senate of Michigan, and when he guided the affairs of the peninsular State as its governor. How often when speaking of his experience while holding these offices, so exalted and honorable, has he been known to advert to the training of the town meet- ing, and to the lessons taught him while connected with our town affairs ; and to de- clare but for that experience he never would have succeeded when his fellow citizens of Michigan bestowed upon him such high official honors.
" As president of the Bristol County Mutual Fire, and secretary of the Bedford Com- mercial Insurance Companies, he gave to those institutions that integrity of purpose, those prudent and sagacious counsels, and that luminousness of method that character- ized all his transactions with and for his fellow citizens. No moment was unimproved. While connected with the town government he compiled and published between the years 1836 and 1845 five numbers of the New Bedford Directory, the first work of the kind issued among us. He also gathered a large and valuable amount of materials re- lating to the early history of his native town, which have been of inestimable worth in the compilation of this and other volumes. He also organized the Horticultural Society of New Bedford and was its first president.
" We have but brief space for a sketch of Mr. Crapo's business and public career after his removal to Michigan. The circumstances of his removal and of the manly struggles and sharp conflicts, which made a large part of his experience during his early residence in that State, although they form an interesting portion of his history, and, in a most remarkable manner, exemplify the sagacity and persistence so prominent in his char- arter, cannot be detailed here. He triumphed over every obstacle, and in a few years after his removal to Michigan in 1857, he was known as one of the largest owners of woodland, and one of the most extensive and successful manufacturers of lumber in the State.
" The qualities which he exhibited in the management of his large and Inerative busi- ness, led to his introduction into public life. In 1862 he was elected mayor of Flint, his place of residence ; the two following years he served as a member of the Michigan Senate; and in 1864 he was elected governor of the State, holding the office for four years. As a senator he exhibited those patriotic and statesmanlike qualities which excited the surprise and admiration of the people, and which led to his selec- tion, with uncommon unanimity, for the highest office in their gift. The volunteers of
II
H. H. CRAPO.
Michigan were grateful to the senator whose devotion to them never faltered; the peo- ple were also grateful; for he showed them the way by which they could be just to the defenders of the country, and, at the same time, bear with ease the pecuniary burthens of the conflict.
" But prominent as he was, and great as was his success as a senator, the people of Michigan would not receive him as their candidate for governor until he had, by stump- ing the State, showed them his face, and proved, by meeting his opponents in public discussion, his right to the high distinction,
" In no time during his life did Governor Crapo show more prominently the large resources and sterling traits of his character. He owed it to the party which had put him in nomination that there should be no failure on his part to meet the call of the people. But he went forth with an unfaltering determination, it is true, but with many misgivings; and when after a few trials he found that he had met the expectations of his political friends and had worked himself into a position of confidence in his own ability to meet the exigencies of the occasion, no man in Michigan was more surprised at the result than the candidate himself.
"The man, who but a few years before, had been obliged to retire from the plat- form of a political meeting in New Bedford, because, in his distrust of his own ability and his awe of the multitude, he could not utter a word, was now the favorite orator of the people, and everywhere triumphantly successful. He was elected and re-elected by large majorities ; and his wise administration of the affairs of the State justified the selection that had been made by the people. The events of that administration belong to the history of the country. We can allude to one only. For many years it had been the custom for the successful candidates for governor to be applied to for pardons for all such inmates of the State Prison as had been able, in any way, to make interest with the prominent politicians of the winning party. It was considered as a matter of course that these applications should be granted ; and the result had been that upon the election of a new governor many pardons were granted, and a great number of con- victs let loose upon the people. Governor Crapo met the usual applications of this character with a firm and inflexible denial. The party men who aided in his elevation, and who looked upon this brokerage in pardons as a portion of the party spoils, were amazed and indignant at this exhibition of official independence. But indignation and threatening prevailed not. The vile practice was stopped ; and the governor sent forth from his office, in defence of his course, and in condemnation of the former proceed- ings, a paper, so full of sound and statesmanlike views upon the subject, and so clearly and forcibly expressed, that it was regarded as one of the ablest upon the subject of the pardoning power ever written.
"The biographer of Governor Crapo may tell us of the heroie determination with which he bore up under the pressure of disease and performed his public duties, when to discharge them seemed to be the summons to death. The visitor to Michigan and to the former home of Governor Crapo will be shown his wide-spreading acres, and will be told of that sagacity and perseverance which converted immense tracts of swamp, prolific in nothing but wild plants and poisonous malaria, into beautiful and fertile farms. His was not a long life, but few men have accomplished so much; and while
12
HISTORY OF NEW BEDFORD.
his efforts gave him success and distinction, they at the same time were the means of wide-spread and enduring advantage to others.
" He died July 22, 1869, and the following are extracts from the daily papers pub- lished in Flint, Mich., which had always been his home since his removal from New Bedford :
"'To say that his death has cast a gloom over our entire city (Flint), very inade- quately expresses the deep sorrow depicted on every countenance. He has not only won the respect but the affection of our citizens. While the State at large will mourn his death as an eminent and upright public officer, we deplore his untimely end as an energetic, influential citizen, a wise counselor, a prime mover in the prosperity of our city, and a kind neighbor, who ever stood ready to aid the unfortunate. His adminis- tration of public affairs needs no eulogy. He assumed control at a very critical period, being near the close of the war, when all State affairs were in a very unsettled condi- tion, and when the resources of the State were being taxed to the greatest extent to meet the demands of the general government in prosecuting the war with vigor. That we emerge from the great contest with a proud record, ranking with the highest for aid and counsel rendered the government, was attributable in no small degree to the great foresight and indomitable energy displayed by our lamented ex-governor, wbo so well took up and carried forward the patriotic and untiring efforts of his predecessor in the gubernatorial office. The brave boys who sustained the glorious reputation of our State, during the last year of the war, learned to love and respect him for the almost parental affection shown them, and we know they will long revere his memory, and in this they will he joined by all who knew him.'
" Even his political opponents accord to him great credit for his integrity and earn- estness of purpose. A contemporary remarks that " Michigan never had a governor be- fore who devoted as much personal attention and pains-taking labor to his public duties as did he " The same may be truthfully said in reference to every public position he has held. 'The same spirit controlled him in everything with which he had to do. His vast private business received his personal attention even to the smallest minutia. This, he contended, was the real secret of success; and in no branch of his business was it more strictly adhered to than in his agricultural pursuits. Agriculture was his favorite theme, and he gave it much attention and study. He owned and cultivated three large farms in this county, the most extensive of which, known as the " Gaines Farm," being located about twelve miles from this city and containing 1,200 acres. These farms are well stocked with the highest grades of imported cattle, sheep, etc., (many of which he imported himself), and are under a fine state of cultivation. He directed operations on these farms from maps which he had drawn, and when confined to his bed he required those in charge of them to report at regular intervals. From his conch he gave direc- tions for their management, even to the minutest details. When we add to all the zeal he manifested in conducting his business enterprises, the attention which he has given to those of a public nature-bis connection with railroad interests, and the vast amount of labor which the public positions he held imposed upon him-we are amazed while we admire the great mental power which he has exhibited.
"'Governor Crapo was not what critics would call a brilliant man, yet he was gifted by nature with the true elements of greatness,- a clear and comprehensive intellect, an
13
W. W. CRAPO.
honest heart, of righteous determination, and vigilance in all his undertakings. Ever truthful, he knew what course to pursue; prudent, he knew where to stop; fearless, be knew when to advance. As a private citizen he was enterprising, generous, and a safe counselor; as a neighbor he was kind, and in his family affectionate. He was a mem- ber of the Christian Church. He considered the self-evidence of the Christian doctrine its most powerful recommendation to the conscience of every human being possessed of a well-balanced heart and brain; and we believe he has a place in the kingdom "not of this world." Long will the loss of the great and noble subject of this notice be felt, not alone by the people of this city and vicinity, but by the people of the State at large.'"
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