History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 190

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 190

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Mr. Wilder was for many years a member of the Central Church, bnt transferred his allegiance to the Plymouth Church when that society was formed. His widow is still living at the age of eighty-eight, and his only son, Harvey B. Wilder, is the present Register of Deeds.

HARVEY BRADISH WILDER, son of Alexander H. and Harriet Wilder, was born in Worcester October 12, 1836. Besides the education acquired in the schools of the city, he also attended the Thetford Academy of Vermont, and the Leicester Academy in this county. He began the business of life in the Registry office, under his father's administration, in

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

1853. In April, 1855, he went to Boston and engaged in the book-store of Ticknor & Fields until August, 1856, when he returned to Worcester and became his father's chief clerk in the Registry office. With the exception of this absence, and the year 1876, when Mr. Charles A. Chase was elected Register of Deeds -to fill the unexpired term of Alexander H. Wilder, deceased-Mr. Wilder has been constantly connected with this office for over thirty-four years. He was clected Register to succeed Mr. Chase, and entered upon his duties January 1, 1877. The office ranks as third in the State in the number of instruments re- corded-Middlesex and Suffolk preceding-notwith- standing the loss of five towns,-Fitchburg, Leomin- ster, Lunenburg, Ashburnham and Westminster which were set off as a distinct registry district, and called the Worcester North District, by an act of the Legis- lature, in August, 1884.

The records cover a period of over one hundred and fifty years, and some idea of the volume of the work may be gathered from the fact that during the last twelve years there have been completed three hun- dred volumes of records, each of six hundred and fifty- two folio pages. The office has long been regarded as a model of systematic arrangement, orderly classi- fication and accurate indexing.

Mr. Wilder has been a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Massachusetts since 1873, and has held rank as second lieutenant in that corps. He is a member of the Quinsigamond Lodge F. and A. M., and is widely known as a courteous official and a popular and companionable gentleman.

He married, October 21, 1862, Anna F. Chapman, of Ossipee, N. Y., who died November 12, 1864. For his second wife he married Mary J., daughter of Dr. Jefferson Pratt, of Hopkinton, Mass., June 14, 1870. They have one son, Charles Pratt Wilder, born April 3, 1873.

CHARLES FRANCIS WASHBURN.

The now extensive wire-drawing business of Wor- cester has au interesting history. It was commenced as far back as 1831, by Ichabod Washburn, who is yet remembered by many as a genial, benevolent and highly respected townsman. By his inventive genius, industry and enterprise he became one of the most wealthy people here, and was a man of marked Christian character and manly virtues; one who had deeply at heart, not only the material prosperity, but likewise the moral and intellectual advancement of his adopted home. He was from a good Old Colony family, a descendant of the seventh generation from that worthy Puritan, Governor Bradford. He came to Worcester in 1819, and here continued laboring for some time as a working blacksmith. He had a twin brother named Charles, who began his business-life as a practicing lawyer in Maine, but who left a fair practice and came to Worcester, where he joined Ichabod in his industrial vocation.

Charles F. Washburn, the subject of this sketch, was a son of Charles Washburn, just named, and, of course, a nephew of Ichabod. He was born in Harri- son, Cumberland County, Me., on the 23d of August, 1827, and received a full high school education, but owing to ill health did not take a college course, as had been intended. He, however, in a most practical way supplemented his academic attainments by travel in Europe.

Mr. Washburn early exhibited a decided taste for mechanics, and his first efforts in a business way were as an operative in the works of his father and uncle here in Worcester. And connected with those works he has remained to the present time, rising from one position to another, and now finding himself one of the principals in a business of almost incredible proportions. The corporate firm-name is the Wash- burn and Moen Manufacturing Company. Mr. Wash- burn is vice-president and secretary ; and the busi- ness is wire-drawing, rod-rolling, galvanizing and kindred work. Their wires for electric transmission, for telegraph and telephone purposes, have an espe- cially high reputation. Their business is so extensive at the present time as to employ not less than three thousand workmen, and to turn out daily some two hundred and fifty tons, as mentioned in the sketch accompanying the portrait of Mr. Moen. In the chapter on Manufactures in preparation for the pres- ent work, by the competent hands of Charles G. Washburn, Esq., assistant secretary and counsel of the company, so full an account of this, in common with the other manufacturing establishments of Wor- cester, will no doubt be given as to render any further notice here unnecessary. And a general remark of similar nature may be made touching the sketches accompanying other portraits in the present work. These sketches are not designed to go much into detail regarding business relations, for matters of business are treated of in other connections ; but are designed to be more directly of a personal character.

Mr. Washburn has not been conspicuous as a po- litical partisan, but has served more or less in offices of a non-partisan character. He has been a member of the Common Council; is now president of the Home for Aged Women, a notably beneficent and successful institution ; is a trustee of the Mechanics' Savings Bank, as well as of the Washburn Memorial Hospital, founded by his Uncle Ichabod, and much commended for its great usefulness and excellent management. In religious sentiment Mr. Washburn is an adherent of the Protestant Episcopal Church.

As a politician he ranked with the old Free Soil party, and when the great purpose of that party was accomplished, and its dissolution took place, he passed into the Republican party, whose principles he still maintains.

In September, 1855, he was united in marriage with Mary E. Whiten, and they have been the par- ents of eight children, seven sons and one daughter.

ThomasMRogues

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WORCESTER.

Mr. Washburn is perhaps best known as a business man. As an officer of the great company with whose interests he had been so long and so intimately con- nected, he has fully appreciated his position. New lines of manufacture, akin to those primarily estab- lished, have received his patient investigation and, when found desirable, been adopted and developed. But their abundant means have never been wasted through heedless speculation or too sanguine expecta- tion. To his exertions and judicious management it is reasonable to attribnte a large share of the con- tinued prosperity of the famed company with which he is connected.

THOMAS M. ROGERS.

Thomas Moore Rogers, the only son of Nathan and Mary C. Rogers, was born in Holden, May 10, 1818. He found himself in a large family of half-brothers and half-sisters, the father having seven children living and the mother four by former marriages. His mother died in 1828, and his father took for a third wife Sarah Blair, of Worcester, by whom he had three children. As one of this large family, it was a matter of course that young Rogers should, at a ten- der age, learn to know in what hard work consisted. And he was early taught the lesson of self-reliance, being entrusted, at the age of twelve years, with the duty of driving the team to market with timber, wood and other farm products, and buying stock and sup- plies for the house and farm.

At seventeen he "bought out his time" of his father for one hundred dollars, which he paid in cash at his majority, and found himself with a little bal- ance over in the savings bank. His education had been by no means neglected ; attendance at the dis- trict school, with two terms at the "select" or high school, and one at Westfield Academy, served as a training for intellectual faculties which were bright and active by nature.

Mr. Rogers came to Worcester in August, 1840, en- gaging as clerk with Blake & Trumbull, grocers, in Butman Block. In the spring of 1841 he formed the partnership of Smith & Rogers, for the manufacture of goat-skin shoes, at the north corner of Main and Mechanic Streets. Two months later the entire building was burned down with its contents. After settling all the debts of the firm Mr. Rogers was en- gaged to start a shoe-store at Oswego, N. Y . He re- turned to Worcester in January, 1842, and with George E. Chapin began the manufacture of boots over the store of Charles Boardman on Front Street. In April, 1844, he formed a partnership with John P. Southgate, for the sale of leather and "shoe-findings," on the present site of Piper's Block, removing to Paine's Block, at the corner of Pleasant Street, in 1850. Mr. Southgate retired from the firm in 1855. His place was soon taken by his son Reuben H., and Phillip Hunt being also taken as a partner, the firm was known as Rogers, Southgate & Co. In 1873 Mr.

Rogers sold out to his junior partners, who removed to Franklin Square. From 1873 to 1880 he was em- ployed as assignee in the settlement of many bank- rupt estates.

Mr. Rogers has been a large and successful dealer in real estate. His first venture was the purchase of an estate on Trumbull Street in 1847. This was fol- lowed by his buying a farm in Auburn, and next of a part of the Deacon Brooks farm at South Worcester, over which he constructed Canterbury and Southgate Streets. After several other purchases he bought of the Boston and Worcester Railroad Company an es- tate on Front Street, and built a block thereon, which he sold to George Crompton, with ten thousand feet of land running through to Mechanic Street. In 1866 he bought his old store at the corner of Main and Pleasant Streets, which he rebuilt in 1869. In 1867 he bought a large and sightly lot at the corner of Chatham and High Streets, on which he built a house to occupy as a homestead. In 1880, with Edwin Morse, he built the Odd Fellows' Hall build- ing on Pleasant Street, and in 1883 built the block on the corner of Park Street and Salem Square, and bought a lot and stable on Market Street and other real estate in the city.

Mr. Rogers has always been interested in the wel- fare of his adopted town and city. He was a mem- ber of the Common Council in 1876-77 and of the Board of Aldermen in 1886-87. He served as trustee and a member of the investing board of the Worces- ter County Institution for Savings, and now holds the same offices in the People's Savings Bank, of which he is also one of the vice-presidents. He was for several years a director of the Citizens' and of the City Bank ; is director of the Street Railroad Com- pany and president of the Worcester Electric Light Company. He married, in April, 1843, Mary S., daughter of Israel and Charlotte Rice, of Shrewsbury. The result of this union was two children,-Ellen Frances and Walter Thomas,-of whom the former survives. Mr. Rogers is of the "Orthodox " faith of New England, belonging to the liberal wing of the denomination. In politics he is a Republican, but he believes that all good citizens should have a repre- sentation, especially in city affairs.

ALBERT CURTIS.

Mr. Curtis is prominent among the sons of Wor- cester who have been highly prosperous and who have made for themselves names that will always figure conspicuously in the history of her industries. He was born here on the 13th of July, 1807, and is consequently now to be numbered among her most aged, as he has long been numbered among her most useful and repntable citizens. He was one of a large family of children, and was bereaved of his father at so early an age that he could hardly have realized his loss.

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Even before he had completed his first decade of years Mr. Curtis was, to a considerable extent, com- pelled to provide his own living. After remaining for a time with an uncle in Auburn, and afterwards with an elder brother in Tioga County, N. Y., doing what he was able to at farm labor, he returned, at the age of seventeen, to Worcester, robust in health and with a laudable ambition to so far better his condition as to be dependent on no one for support. His education up to this time was such as he had been able to acquire in the winter district schools, which, at that time, had not arrived at the degree of excellence they have now reached.

His first engagement after returning to the place of his birth was in the service of White & Boyden, who were manufacturers of woolen machinery. In their employ, as apprentice and journeyman, with a brief interval or two, he remained several years. In 1831, with John Simmons and Abel Kimball as partners, he commenced a business of his own, in the manufacture of machinery suitable for use in various departments of cloth-making. His business, from time to time, so broadened that in a few years he found himself not only in the manufacture of cloth machinery, but of cloth itself. He was pres- ently the owner of extensive mill property, at times turning out large quantities of cotton sheeting, sati- nets and woolen goods of various descriptions. His early knowledge of machinery stood him in good stead in the various branches of his extensive busi- ness, and aided greatly in his accumulation of wealth. During his business career, too, he has formed one or two partnership connections that have been of great assistance, both by their added knowledge and experience and by sharing in the labors and anxie- ties incidental to so large and constantly increasing business relations.

Twice during his business career he has suffered largely by destructive fires; but, nothing daunted by such vicissitudes, immediately set about repairing and rebuilding.

Having in his early years imbibed a taste for read- ing, he acquired a good knowledge of books, and that, in its turn, begat a desire to pursue studies in various departments of intellectual culture; particu- larly has he been interested in historical and anti- quarian researches ; has been a vice-president of the Worcester Society of Antiquity and an efficient mem- ber of some other like associations.

For the last thirty years Mr. Curtis has been the owner of many acres of farm land, and taken un- bounded delight in the cultivation of choice products. But as to whether, on the whole, he has taken most pleasure in the "rural sounds" of the farmstead or in the hum of factory machinery, the writer shall not venture to make a guess. He himself would very likely declare that both were, in their way, "music to his ears."

Like most individuals whose lives are devoted

largely to their own concerns, he has spared com- paratively little time to public affairs, never seeking office, though not really shunning a public position when it appeared that a valuable end might be pro- moted. Before the adoption of the City Charter, as early as 1840, he was chosen a selectman of the town and served two years. He was a member of the Common Council the first year of the infant city, and an alderman in 1857.

In politics Mr. Curtis has been an unswerving ad- herent of the Republican party, having passed into it from its father, the Whig party, and from its grand- father, the old National Republican party, and, may it not be added, its great-grandfather, the Federal. In his religious views he adheres to the Trinitarian Con- gregational faith, as his fathers did, and became a church member as early as 1828.

The first wife of Mr. Curtis was Mrs. Griffin, of Sterling, the marriage taking place in October, 1833. His second wife was Mrs. Bancroft, widow of Rev. David Bancroft, to whom he was married in 1880.

A Curtis genealogy has been prepared with much labor and care, which gives a good many family trac- ings and matter of enduring interest, especially to the family connections.

It will be observed that Mr. Curtis has already passed the boundary of four-score years. And were it allowable in a work like this, a good opportunity would be afforded for indulgence in a sentimental strain. What can be more grateful to the octogena- rian than to look back upon a well-spent life-to trace, in the serenity of his old age, the progress through the volatile days of childhood, the hopeful years of youth and the ambitious period of manhood-to recall the faces of loved ones, and again live over the pleasant scenes that have been as sunbeams on the path. None of us, however, can indulge in a life- time retrospect, and not fall here and there upon a gloaming passage. But it is not wise to sigh over what admits of no change ; wiser it is to linger on the brighter side. But the octogenarian who has no well-spent life to view in retrospect-what of him ?

MARTIN V. B. JEFFERSON.

Martin V. B. Jefferson, of Worcester, was born in Uxbridge, Mass., May 19, 1833. Hisgrandfather was a soldier in the Revolution, and also in the War of 1812. His father died when he was but eight years of age, and Martin was " put out to live " with an uncle in Holden, Mass., on a farm, where he received ten weeks' district schooling and his board and clothes as compensation for his labor. At the age of sixteen his natural independence asserted itself, and he went back to Uxbridge and learned the trade of shoemak- ing, having acquired which, he earned sufficient money by working mornings, evenings and during school vacations to pay his expenses at Uxbridge Academy, which he attended for four years. In 1853

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he went to work on the Providence and Worcester Railroad as brakemau and baggage-master, but, having an arm and leg broken by a railroad accident, he was obliged to suspend work. On his recovery, in 1854, he went to California, where he remained six years. The first year he kept a restaurant at San Jose, the second year he sold fruit-trees at Sonora, but the remainder of his stay in California was de- voted to selling milk from a large ranche where he kept from eighty to one hundred cows.

Having acquired a considerable sum of money, Mr. Jefferson returned to Holden in 1860, where he mar- ried a daughter of Deacon William Howe, of the firm of Hall & Howe, who were then running a small, one- set woolen-mill in Drydenville (now Jeffersonville), a village in the town of Holden. In November, 1860, he purchased Mr. Hall's interest in the mill, and for twenty-six years he was in partnership with his father-in-law in that business under the firm-name of Howe & Jefferson. Meanwhile the little one-set mill has been enlarged six-fold, and a second mill, with six sets of machinery, has been added, making a total of thirteen sets, the two establishments employ- ing two hundred and fifty hands. The little village has grown to eight times its former size, and now sup- ports two railroad stations on the Fitchburg and Central Massachusetts Railroads and a post-office.

Mr. Jefferson's business capacity, shrewdness and integrity have secured for him a merited success in business and the confidence and esteem of a large circle of acquaintances.

For ten years he served as selectman of Holden, a portion of the time chairman. He was a director of the Boston, Barre and Gardner Railroad for several years, is a director of the Cotton and Woolen Manu- facturers' Mutual Insurance Company, and also of the Quinsigamond National Bank of Worcester. In 1875 he removed his residence to Worcester for the sake of better educational advantages for his daugh- ter. He was elected to the State House of Represen- tatives in 1880 from the Nineteenth Worcester District by a handsome majority, and was returned in 1881. In politics he has been a stanch Republican since he cast his first vote for John C. Fremont for Presi- dent in 1856. He is accustomed to congratulate himself that he has always paid one hundred cents on the dollar, a phrase which fully expresses the general estimation in which Mr. Jefferson is held socially and politically, as it does his financial and business standing. He brought to his legislative duties the same stirring qualities he has displayed in other things, and served on the important Committee on the Hoosac Tunnel, Troy and Greenfield Railroad. Mr. Jefferson was elected to the State Senate from the First Worcester District, which comprised the city of Worcester, in 1884 and 1885, and served on the Committees on Railroads, Treasury and Labor. In 1888 he was chosen as alternate delegate to the Republican National Convention from the Tenth

Congressional District. In 1880 Mr. Jefferson bought his partner's interest in the business, and now runs the mills himself, by the name of the Jefferson Man- ufacturing Company, making woolen goods.

LUCIUS J. KNOWLES.

Mr. Knowles was born in Hardwick, Worcester County, on the 2d of July, 1819, and was educated in the common school with a three years' course in the well-known Leicester Academy. He early manifested an inclination for mechanics and exhibited rare in- ventive genius; his boyish contrivances eliciting much attention and many predictions as to future achievements.

He left home at the age of seventeen and went to Shrewsbury as assistant in a store, where, in about two years, he rose to the position of partner. But his penchant for mechanics made him so restless as to induce him to quit that employment, though all along he had found opportunity to indulge his incli- nation to some extent, and among other things had contrived certain improvements in reed-organs and other instruments and completed models for one or two improved appliances for steam machinery, espe- cially that known as the Knowles Safety Steam Boiler Feed Regulator.

He gave up his store business in 1840 and began to study into the feasibility of the application of elec- tricity as a motive-power. Then he applied himself to gaining a knowledge of photography, at that time a newly-discovered process. For a while on from 1844, having invented a spooling-machine, he was in the manufacture of thread at New Worcester. Soon after that he commenced the manufacture of cotton- warp; and in 1853 he began the manufacture of woolen fabrics. His mind seems to have been almost unremittingly employed in devising some beneficial mechanical contrivance; so that during his life, it is asserted, he obtained at least a hundred patents for useful inventions chiefly connected with manufactur- ing machinery.

It was in 1866 that he came to Worcester and with his younger brother, Fraucis B. Knowles, whose por- trait, with a biographical sketch, appears in the pres- ent work, began the manufacture of looms. The business rapidly increased and is now one of the leading industries of the place. The looms, of which it is said a greater variety are made than in any other place in the world, were invented by the partners and are fitted for the manufacture of a great variety of fabrics, from heavy woolen carpets to delicate silk ribbons.

Mr. Knowles was somewhat in public life-was a legislative Representative in 1862 and 1863, was a member of the State Senate in 1869; in 1873 was a member of the Common Council of Worcester ; was a director in the Central National Bank; a director in the State Mutual Life Assurance Company ; president

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

of the People's Savings Bank, and president of the Worcester Board of Trade. And various other insti- tutions of a financial and semi-public character have had the benefit of his efficient services.

The honorary degree of Master of Arts was con- ferred on him by Williams College in 1869.

Mr. Knowles' death took place in Washington. D. C., February 25, 1884, and was very sudden, occa- sioned by neuralgia of the heart.

For his mechanical genius and skill Mr. Knowles had a high reputation-a reputation that extended far be- yond the limits of our own country ; and his inventions have in many ways, and to an untold extent, added di- rectly and indirectly to the comforts and conveniences of the world at large, but his reputation for true man- hood, for liberality in the support of charitable and reformatory enterprises, for sympathy with the suf- fering and relief of the indigent, was almost as exten- sive, and far more to be envied. His business con- nection with his brother Francis was characterized throughout not only by the most friendly of trade relations, but by true brotherly complaisance. And so intimately connected were the two in some of their inventions and improvements that it was hard to de- termine to which the highest honor was due, each being ever willing to accord to the other the greater share of merit.

It is often said that distinguished inventors usually live and die poor ; at least such of them as are dependent upon their own exertions for a livelihood, and that others, with more selfishness and worldly shrewdness, reap the benefit of the inventions; in other words, that the inventors beat the bush and the others catch the bird. It is undoubtedly true that the inventor is usually more absorbed in perfecting his inven- tion than in calculations as to the benefit that may accrue to himself-so absorbed as to let slip the best opportunities for self-enrichment. It is also un- doubtedly true that some inventors are moved by the lofty purpose of benefiting the world in general, disregarding, or even sacrificing self-interest. But there are others, both broadly benevolent and worldly wise, who maintain a well-balanced purpose of benefiting the community and at the same time advancing their own interest, and in looking at the result of the labors of Mr. Knowles it seems fair to conclude that he belonged to the latter class, for we find that he rose from comparative indigence to afflu- ence, and at the same time so used and so disposed of his inventions as to greatly benefit others, not to mention that all along, with judicious liberality, he dispensed of his gains in ways most helpful to those about him.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 190

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