History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 184

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 184

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His education, begun in the district school, was continued at Leicester Academy and Harvard College, where he was graduated in 1817. Among his class- mates were George Bancroft, also of Worcester, Caleb Cushing, Samuel E. Sewall and Samuel J. May. After leaving college Mr. Salisbury studied law with the Hon. Samuel M. Burnside and was admitted to the bar. He did not make the law his profession or engage at all in its practice, nor probably did he ever intend to do so. But the study was a useful part of his education and equipment for a life of varied busi- ness employments and responsibilities. He spent two years in European travel, an advantage which was not enjoyed by so many Americans then as now. Mr. Salisbury was never a man of leisure. Besides his private affairs, which, in all their details, had his per- sonal attention, he was much occupied with public matters and financial trusts. He was a selectman of the town in 1839, a member of the first Board of Alder- men under the city charter in 1848, a Representative in the General Court in 1838 and 1839, State Senator in 1846 and 1847, a Presidential elector in 1860 and in 1872, a director of the Free Public Library when the board was first organized and president of the board from 1863 to 1865, and again from 1868 to 1872. He was an overseer of Harvard College from 1871 to 1883, a trustee of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology and treasurer of its funds for fifteen years from its foundation. He was a member of the American An- tiquarian Society from 1840, a member of the council from 1843, vice-president in 1853 and president from 1854 until his death.

He was a director of the Worcester Bank for fifty-

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

two years, having been first chosen in 1832, and its president for thirty-nine years, from 1845. He was president of the Worcester County Institution for Savings from 1845 to 1871, when he resigned that office. He was a director of the Worcester and Nashua Railroad Company from its organization, in 1845, and its president in 1850 and 1851. He was a director also of the Boston, Barre and Gardner Rail- road Company. He was the first president of the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, now the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, holding that office until his death. He was also for nine years a trustee of the State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester, was a trustee of Leicester Academy, president of the Worcester Horticultural Society and a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society.

Mr. Salisbury, in accepting these various trusts, re- cognized the duties they brought with them, and was exact even to punctiliousness in their discharge. Though always occupied, he was never hurried, and the time fixed for the completion of any official busi- ness by him always found the work done and his re- port prepared. He expected equal exactness in his associates, and did not shrink from rebuking in them any neglect of duty. It is said that when he was president of the library directors he made a point of advising any director who had been absent from two successive meetings that it was his duty to resign his office unless he could be sure of more constant attend- ance in the future.

In his long life Mr. Salisbury saw the little inland village of his boy hood, whose industries and interests were those of the centre of a flourishing agricultural district, grow to a city of seventy thousand people, the home of varied manufactures, some of which had their origin here, others had been developed by the ingenuity of Worcester inventors to an excellence not attained elsewhere, and several, in the amount of capital employed, the skill displayed in their processes and the extent of their production, had few rivals in the world. The railroad system also had its begin- ning and its extraordinary growth, changing all the conditions of business, bringing here, as to other New England towns, cheap food and materials of manu- facture, making the people no longer dependent for the staples of subsistence upon the farms of the immediate neighborhood, making it possible to collect here the materials of an unusually varied industry, and to transport its products at a cheap rate to the remotest parts of our own and to other countries. It is re- markable that Worcester, with but scanty natural water-power, with no near supply of ores or coal or other essentials of manufacture, and no cheap water carriage, should not only have kept pace with other towns of New England having one or more of these advantages, but have outstripped most of them in the development of its industries and its growth in wealth and population.

Such results are not due to a mere caprice of des-

tiny, which, without visible cause, makes one vil- lage grow into a city and lets another, equally open to the favors of fortune, remain stagnant. The causes of prosperity and increase cannot always be traced with exactness and their relative efficiency assigned to each. They are many and diverse, and their mutual relations are intricate. Among the causes operative here was probably the political and social distinction which the town early acquired from the eminent men who, from colonial times on- ward, made their homes here, exerting a wide influ- ence by their characters and their achievements in their professions, in politics and in statesmanship. Such men, by giving their town an honored name, made their fellow-townsmen proud of it and the more willing to establish here the work-shops and factories which their ingenuity and skill had created. Another factor of prime importance in the growth of the town, doubtless, was that Worcester was fortunate in having, at the beginning of the era of manufac- ture, besides ingenious inventors and skillful me- chanics, wise directors or captains of industry,-men of orderly and provident minds, who recognized the value not only of capital inventions, but of minor improvements of machinery or process, the neces- sity of systematic and organized operations and scrupulous care of financial credit. These pioneers of manufacture trained their assistants and succes- sors in correct habits of business, and gave a tone to the productive industries of Worcester which has en- abled them to set at naught the natural disadvantages of their position as compared with that of their most successful rivals.

But, besides these and other favoring conditions, which cannot be detailed here, was the influence of the capitalists of the town, of whom Mr. Salisbury was the chief in extent of means and weight of char- acter. He would scarcely be described as enterpris- ing, still less as adventurous, but he was equally far from stubborn and obstructive conservatism. His imagination was not easily kindled by the enthusi- asm of a sanguine projector or his reason convinced by a specious calculation of seductive profits. His coolness of temper, rigorous inquiry into details and sobriety of judgment as to results were sometimes exasperating to men of sanguine temperament, hasty conclusions and enthusiastic advocacy. But there is no doubt that this wisely conservative spirit of one having so great financial influence was im- mensely advantageous to the town in keeping its business sound, safe and healthy, and saving it from the shocks to credit and the losses of capital which would have followed the establishment of superfi- cially promising, but insecurely founded enterprises. On the other hand, Mr. Salisbury was not timid or unduly tenacious of profit for himself or for those whose interests were in his charge. Both his fortune and his character made it his opportunity and his dnty to have a large share in directing and assisting

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the development of his native town. He accepted the duty and discharged it, as he did others, with scrupulous fidelity.

Amid the new forces, the lately discovered re- sources of ingenuity and skill, and the quickened en- terprise which were recasting the destiny of Worces- ter when his active business life began, his judgment was undisturbed. He insisted upon convincing proof of solidity as a condition of encouragement to any new undertaking ; but, once satisfied of that, his support was prompt and steadfast. The soundness and healthy growth of Worcester enterprises, and the generally excellent credit of our business men, are among the proofs of his wisdom. Mr. Salisbury contributed materially by his counsels and financial support to the development of the railroads centering here, and throughout his life was a large stockholder and director of one or more of them. He built at Lincoln Square the factory long known as "Court Mills," for the manufacture of agricultural imple- ments, and, when the land was needed for other pur- poses, he built for the Ames Plow Company, which had succeeded to the business of the earlier partner- ship, the large factory on Prescott Street. He built for Ichabod Washburn the first wire-mill on Grove Street, and enlarged and improved the works to adapt them to the expanding business, finally selling the site to the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Company. He also built several large factories, va- riously occupied, on Union Street and near it. Be- sides these direct contributions to the material pro- gress of the community, Worcester is largely in- debted to his exactness, method and fidelity in busi- ness for the high standard of commercial integrity and honor which has generally prevailed here, espe- cially in financial institutions.

Such were Mr. Salisbury's relations to the commu- nity on its business side. His interest was certainly not less, and his influence larger, and, doubtless, more lasting, in the 'advancement of learning and in the establishment and fostering of institutions devoted to education and culture. He was a scholar and the friend of scholars. His love of literature gave him one of the pleasures which he most valued, and he was a systematic and thoughtful reader of good books in his own and other languages. His official rela- tions to Harvard College have been already men- tioned, and from that institution he received the de- gree of Doctor of Laws in 1875. He was a liberal benefactor of the American Antiquarian Society and its president for many years, presiding at its meetings with a benign and dignified courtesy, taking a keen interest in the papers presented and the discussions to which they gave rise, contributing himself the re- sults of careful research and sound judgment in a simple, clear and dignified style. It was his custom to entertain at dinner the members of the society when they met in Worcester, and the annual gather- ing at his table in unrestrained social intercourse of

so many men of kindred tastes was one of the great pleasures of the year to both host and guests.

The wide range of Mr. Salisbury's intellectual interests and sympathies is illustrated by his equal care for the Antiquarian Society, which pre- serves the history of the past, and the Worcester County Free Institute of Industrial Science, now the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, which gives practi- cal training to the mechanics, engineers, chemists and architects of the future. Of this latter institu- tion he was the president from its origin until his death, and the largest contributor to its endowment. He superintended its affairs faithfully and wisely. The eminence which this school has already attained among institutions of like character and purpose is due in large measure to his generous bounty and sagacious counsel.

Mr. Salisbury's advice and aid were sought for many enterprises of education or charity, but he never gave until his judgment was satisfied or to escape im- portunate solicitation. In his private life he was courteous, dignified, but simple in his manner and in his habits. He was constantly accessible, though the demands upon his time and strength were greater than most men could endure, and it never occurred to any man who knew him that they met otherwise than as equals.

Mr. Salisbury was of a devout and reverent spirit. A member and constant attendant upon the services of the church of the Second Parish (Unitarian), he was thought somewhat old-fashioned by his contem- poraries of later years in his strict observance of Sunday. His open mind recognized and respected sincerity and the essentials of true religion in Chris- tians of all sects, and he often attended with satisfac- tion and spiritual profit the services of churches other than his own. He was all his life a student of the Bible.

Mr. Salisbury married, November 7, 1833, Rebekah Scott, daughter of Aaron and Phila Dean, of Charles- town, New Hampshire, who died July 24, 1843, leaving one son, Stephen Salisbury, Jr. He married, June 26, 1850, Nancy Hoard, widow of Capt. George Lincoln, who died September 4, 1852. He married as his third wife, June 2, 1856, Mary Grosvenor, widow of the Hon. Edward D. Bangs, for many years secretary of the Commonwealth.

In his youth Mr. Salisbury was not apparently of vigorous constitution, but correct habits and an active life increased his strength, and during most of his life his health was uniformly good. While his physical strength declined in his last years, he had no mental infirmities, but his mind was as clear and as active as ever, seeming, indeed, to maintain a constant and healthy growth. His last illness, of several weeks' duration, was rather the effect of age and the gradual failure of his bodily powers than of any acute disease. Having met every duty as it came, and left no task unfinished, he faced death without anxiety or regret,

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

dying on the 24th of August, 1884, in the eighty- seventh year of his age.

STEPHEN SALISBURY (3D).

Stephen Salisbury 1 (3d) was born March 31, 1835, in one of the block of brick houses near the lower end of Main Street, in Worcester, opposite the court- house. He was the only child of Stephen and Rebekalı Scott Dean Salisbury. His education was begun at the private infant-school of Mrs. Levi Heywood on Main Street, where the insurance building now stands. At the age of six years he passed the winter of 1841 and 1842 with his parents at Savannah. In 1842 he attended the private school of Mrs. Jonathan Wood, at the corner of Main and School Streets, and for a short time in 1844 was a pupil at Miss Bradford's private school in Boston. He entered the public grammar-school on Thomas Street in 1845, and con- tinued there, under the instruction of Warren Lazell, and afterwards of C. B. Metcalf, until, in 1848, he entered the Worcester High School, of which Mr. Nelson Wheeler was then master. He entered Har- vard College in 1852, and was graduated in due course four years later.

Immediately after leaving college Mr. Salisbury went to Europe, and became a student at the Fred- erick William University in Berlin. In the spring of 1857 he attended lectures for some months at the Ecole de Droit in Paris, and during the summer and autumn traveled with his classmates Rice and Kinni- cutt in England, Scotland and Ireland, and later in the year extended his travels to Turkey, Asia Minor and Greece, making a month's horseback tour in the latter country with a guide and mule- teer, during which he became familiar with the life of the people, and visited many places of historic interest. He resumed his studies at Berlin the next winter, and in the spring revisited Paris, whence, in May, he set out with his father's family upon a tour of several months in Italy, England, Scotland, Ire- land and Wales.

After this absence of more than two years, Mr. Salisbury returned to Worcester in December, 1858, studied book-keeping for a time, and then entered the office of Dewey & Williams as a law student. A year later he entered the Harvard Law School, and after two years' study received the degree of LL.B., and was admitted to the bar in Worcester in October, 1861. In the winter of that year he visited his class- mate David Casares in Yucatan, studying during his stay of six months many of the Maya Indian ruins and monuments. It may be added here, though out of the order of time, that Mr. Salisbury again visited Yucatan in 1885, extending his journey to other parts of Mexico and to Cuba. He re-examined some of the ancient buildings which he had formerly seen, and studied the character of the descendants of their builders. In this journey he observed with satisfac-

tion the progress of the country since his former visit, and gained confidence in the great future of the Mexican Republic, of which the many lines of rail- way already constructed, and the pacific, wise and resolute administration of the government by its eu- lightened president, Porfirio Diaz, are the most im- portant factors now visible. Mr. Salisbury revisited Europe in 1888, and traveled in France, Belgium, Holland and Spain. He saw Spain under conditions peculiarly favorable for becoming familiar with the domestic life of the people, as he was accompanied by a gentlemau from Yucatan, with whom he visited relatives of the latter still living in the mother cout- try. Most of the chief cities of Spain were visited in this journey, which extended also into Portugal.

In 1863 Mr. Salisbury was elected to the Common Council of Worcester, and was re-elected two years later. In 1866 he was president of the board. He became a director of the Worcester National Bank in 1865, and was made its president in 1884, on the death of his father. He was a member of the Board of Investment of the Worcester County Institution for Savings in 1877, and has been its president since 1882, when, upon the death of the Hon. Alexander H. Bullock, Mr. Salisbury succeeded him in that office. He has been, since 1863, a director of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company ; was a direct- or of the Worcester and the Nashua and of the Boston, Barre and Gardner railroads at the time of their ab- sorption by the Boston and Maine and the Fitch- burg railroad companies respectively, and has been officially connected with other financial and business corporations. He was chosen a commissioner of the sinking funds of the city of Worcester in 1889. He was president of the Worcester County Horticultural Society in 1882.

Mr. Salisbury has been one of the builders of Wor- cester. Besides the Salisbury and Dean buildings, for business and residence, on Lincoln Square, an addi- tion to the City Hospital and the laboratory of the Polytechnic Institute have been erected at his ex- pense. He has given to the city, as a park or pleasure- ground, the tract, of about eighteen acres, bordering on Salisbury Pond, known as Institute Park, and has contributed in other ways to the prosperity and well- being of the city and the support of its institutions for charity, education and research. He has been a trustee of the City Hospital since its incorporation, and secretary of the board since 1872; and was for ten years secretary of the Memorial Hospital, of which he still continues a trustee ; and he was for ten years treasurer of the Music Hall Association, of which he still is a director.

Mr. Salisbury was elected a member of the Ameri- can Antiquarian Society in 1863, a member of the council in 1874, a vice-president in 1884 and became its president in 1887. He has contributed to its trans- actions several papers on the early inhabitants of Yu- catan and their arts, as illustrated by recent discov-

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eries there, and has translated for the society, from the German, several valuable papers by Dr. Valentini, on these and kindred subjects. He also read, at the April meeting of the society, in 1888, a paper on "Early Books and Libraries."

He is also a member of the Sociedad Mexicana de Geografia y Estadistica, of the Conservatorio Yucateco, of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and of the American Geographical Society. He was elected a trustee of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1884, and of the Peabody Museum of Archaeology in 1887.

SAMUEL SWETT GREEN.

Mr. Green was born in Worcester, February 20, 1837. He is a son of the late James Green and a nephew of Dr. John Green, the principal founder of the Free Public Library.

Through his father, Mr. Green is descended from the ancestor of an old Worcester County family, which traces its origin in America to Thomas Green, of Malden, Mass,, who came to this country from England in about the year 1635 or 1636, and having lived elsewhere (perhaps in Ipswich, Mass.) for four- teen years or thereabouts, settled in Malden.

His son, also named Thomas, married Rebecca Hills, of Malden, a daughter of Rose Dunster (who was a sister of Henry Dunster, the first president of Harvard College).

Their son, Captain Samuel Green, became one of the chief founders of the town of Leicester, in this county, to which place he removed in about the year 1717. His son, Thomas Green, who went from Mal- den to Leicester when a boy, became one of its most distinguished residents. He was an eminent physi- cian, a successful man of business and at the same time the founder of a Baptist Church in the portion of Leicester called Greenville and its acceptable pas- tor for a long series of years.

Thomas Green's son, John Green, came to Wor- cester in about the year 1757, at the age of twenty- one years, and began successfully to practice medicine here, having studied his profession under the super- vision of his father, in Leicester. He became the ancestor of a numerous family, several representa- tives of which still live in Worcester. He married for a second wife Mary Ruggles, a daughter of Judge, or, as he is commonly called, General Ruggles, of Hardwick, a distinguished resident of Worcester County. Their son, John Green, of Worcester, was also an eminent physician. He married Nancy Barber, a descendant of one of the Scotchmen who came to America and settled in Worcester after their families had lived for a time in Ireland.

He was the grandfather of the subject of this memoir and the father of the late Dr. John Green, who was the most skillful surgeon and practitioner of medicine that has ever lived in this place, and will always be remembered as the principal founder of the Free Public Library.

It may be added here that the line of distinguished doctors who have borne the name of John Green has been continued in the present generation by an older brother of the subject of this memoir, John Green, M.D., a very eminent ophthalmic surgeon, whose home is in St. Louis, Mo. The only other living brother or sister of Samuel S. Green is James Green, Esq., a lawyer in Worcester.

Mr. Green's mother is Elizabeth Swett, daughter of Samuel Swett, of Boston and Dedham. Through her mother, who was a daughter of Dr. John Sprague, of Boston, she and the subject of this sketch are de- scended from an ev en earlier resident of the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony than Thomas Green, namely, Ralph Sprague, who came to Charlestown, in 1629, from Upway, Devonshire, England.

Through General Ruggles Mr. Green is also de- scended from Rev. John Woodbridge, one of the earliest settlers of Newbury and from his wife's father, Thomas Dudley, the second Governor of the colony of Massachusetts Bay. Rev. John Wood- bridge was the brother of Rev. Dr. Benjamin Wood- bridge, whose name stands first on the list of gradu- ates of Harvard College.

The first school attended by Samuel S. Green was that of Mrs. Levi Heywood. Her school was discon- tinued, however, before long, and he was sent for several years to another infant school, which was kept by Mrs. Sarah B. Wood, now of Chicago, the widow of Jonathan Wood. From that private school he passed, upon examination, into the public gram- mar school on Thomas Street, which, during his studies there, was under the charge of Mr. Caleb B. Metcalf. Going next to the High School, he grad- uated from that institution in 1854, and immediately entered Harvard College. Among his classmates there, were two other graduates of the Worcester High School, namely, Eugene Frederick Bliss, who is now a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, and the late Lieutenant Thomas Jefferson Spurr, who was mor- tally wounded at the battle of Antietam. Mr. Green graduated from Harvard College in 1858. In the early part of the summer of 1859 he sailed from Bos- ton for Smyrna as a passenger in the barque " Race Horse," and before returning home, in the same ves- sel, visited Constantinople. Remaining two years in Worcester on account of ill-health, he resumed his studies at Harvard University in the autumn of 1861, and graduated from the Divinity School connected with that institution in 1864.

During the Civil War, and while in the Divinity School, Mr. Green was drafted for service in the army, but was debarred from entering it by delicate health. He took the degree of Master of Arts at Harvard University in 1870, and June 28, 1877, was chosen an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society by the chapter of the order connected with the same university.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 184

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1464

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1464