USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts of today; a memorial of the state, historical and biographical, issued for the World's Columbian exposition at Chicago > Part 10
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BENJAMIN F. BRIDGES.
78
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
B RIGADIER-GENERAL BENJAMIN F. PEACH, Jr., commanding the Second Brigade, Massachu- setts Volunteer Militia, was born in Marblehead, Mass., in October, 1838, and was educated in the public schools of that town. At an early age he learned the business of shoe manufacture, residing in Marblehead until the outbreak of the Rebellion, and at its close locating in Lynn. He continued in the shoe business until 1879, when he was elected city treasurer and collector of taxes of Lynn. He was, in nearly every instance, unanimously re- elected for six suc- cessive years, retiring in August, 1885, to accept the appoint- ment of United States pension agent, tend- ered him by Presi- dent Cleveland. During his term of office he disbursed many millions of dollars to the pen- sioners of his district, to the satisfaction of the government and of the people. In 1889, he became assistant treasurer and assistant general manager of the Thomson- Houston Electric Company, and on its consolida- tion with the Edison General Electric Company, he was elected assistant treasurer of the con- solidated organization, which is the largest electric com- pany in the world. He still holds this position. He is also a member of the board of trustees of the Thomson- Houston Securities, and is connected with various elec- trical manufacturing, railway and lighting companies. General Peach is likewise trustee of one of the funds of the city of Lynn. He has been repeatedly urged to accept the nomination for Congress from his district, but has always declined the honor. He is a member of 1
BENJAMIN F. PEACH.
Post 5, G. A. R .; a companion of the first class of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion ; a member of Mt. Carmel Lodge, F. and A. M., and a member of the Oxford Club of Lynn. Early in youth he became inter- ested in the militia of the Commonwealth, and in 1854 enlisted in Company C, Fifth Regiment, which became in 1855 Company C, Sixth Regiment of Infantry, which company the following year was transferred to the Eighth Infantry. He was promoted sergeant in 1857, and first sergeant in May, 1858, which position he held in April, 1861, when he responded to the call of the President for troops. His company was the first to enter Faneuil Hall on the morning of the mem- orable 16th of April, 1861. In March, 1862, he was promoted first lieu- tenant ; in Septem- ber, 1862, adjutant ; in February, 1863, detailed acting assis- tant adjutant-general, and in July, 1864, promoted colonel. After the expiration of his term of service he remained in com- mand of the Eighth Regiment of Militia until February, 1882, when he was com- missioned brigadier- general. General Peach is one of the most experienced officers in the State, a man of sound judgment, and one to be relied on with perfect confidence at all times. He is looked upon as a perfect soldier, and is very popular in his command and throughout the entire State force. Always exacting in the performance of duty, and yet ever watchful of the interests and wel- fare of his troops, he is an officer of the best type. General Peach was married in 1870 to Miss Adelaide 1 .. , daughter of Colonel F. J. Coffin, of Newburyport.
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THE NEW STATE HOUSE. (Side Elevation.)
BOSTON
G REATNESS in cities in America is too often associated with prodigious commercial activity, miles of business blocks, fine new sixteen-story buildings, the ceaseless strife of toiling thousands, and other features of a "boom." Rome was not built in a day ; nor has the greatness of any city of ancient or modern times been due to its mere material achievements, piled fast one upon another. In cities, as in men, there is a far higher and a nobler attribute of greatness, -the impress they make upon the thought, welfare, and progress of the nation of which they form a part. Athens was Greece, Rome was the Empire, London is England, Paris is France, and in a narrower but no less truthful sense, Boston is the United States. Her greatness is all her own ; it never can be taken from her, never surpassed or imitated. New York might disappear in a night, and Chicago might sink into the waters of Lake Michigan, but another and a greater New York, and a new Chicago, bigger and more forceful, would rise, as if by magic, from the ruins. Boston, on the contrary, never could be replaced ; she is of the nation, and the nation is of her.
A recent visitor, when asked with what he was most forcibly impressed in Boston, replied, first, the repose and the delightful domestic atmosphere with which the people, as a rule, are surrounded ; second, the ability to enjoy themselves by the pursuit of some chosen object other than mere business; third, their pronounced suscep- tibility to new impressions. This observer had tasted the life of Boston in its true flavor, the life whose real spirit may be breathed only at the firesides, and which cultivates the perfection of man, woman, and child in all that pertains to advanced civilization. Those who have never breathed this rarefied atmosphere wonder whence comes the stimulus which by its example supplies the impetus to intellectual pursuits in all parts of the Union, which gives birth to an enlightened public opinion, whose voice never speaks except on the side of right and justice, and which keeps alive and spreads abroad the idea of nationality, whose message is patriotisin and whose key- note is progress. The east wind, a codfish diet, and other innocent fictions of newspaper wags are habitually cited as contributing causes of the intellectual supremacy of the Boston people, but only those to the manner born, as it were, know how terribly earnest, and what largess of self-improvement accompanies it, is the pursuit of knowledge for its own sake ! A kindred aim has opened up a vast field of study and discussion on all topics relating to religion and science, woman suffrage and socialism, speculative philosophy and political economy, spiritualism and psychic research, archeology and astrology, while literature, art, music, and architecture nowhere can claim devotees more ardent and scholarly. The innumerable clubs and societies, which constitute a feature of Boston life in all its relations, have for their motive the acquirement of truth, and that intelligent discussion withont which truth never may be attained. Among the trades and professions, the dining clubs which meet on given days are unique in that the members listen to the reading of papers bearing upon various topics of interest to their callings. Naturally enough, therefore, the material man from another city, who views Boston only from the outside, or from the inside only to his utter discomfiture, is unable to grasp the full meaning of this current of intel- lectual enthusiasm, and when he gets home, gravely declares that Boston is " slow."
Yet in its commercial, as distinguished from its aesthetic, aspect, Boston still occupies relatively as prominent a position among the cities as she ever did. While it is true that other cities in certain directions are growing more rapidly, yet, in many instances, it is Boston brains and Boston capital and Boston methods which are responsible for their advancement. Chicago owes its remarkable rise to the enterprise of banking houses located within a stone's throw of the Old State House, - their capital built the great railroads which made the now robust
8 1
BOSTON.
young municipality a possibility and supplied her, in the hour of her calamity in 1871, with the funds wherewith to rebuild her all but destroyed city. In other cities, both in the West and in the East, the Boston investor stands in the forefront in developing property and otherwise affording opportunities for commercial prosperity. By the showing of the clearing houses of the country, Boston stands second only to New York, the business transacted amounting to over five billion dollars a year. Life insurance, which began in America in Boston, fire insurance, publishing, of which there is none more excellent mechani- cally than that done here, and some of the largest and best equipped retail stores in the country, are other conspicuous features of the business life of the city. Here also are the business offices of hundreds of manufacturing industries whose products are made in mills and factories located throughout Massachusetts and in the contiguous States, but which are sold through Boston, and therefore belong in any computation of the city's commercial wealth. The value of the imports at the port of Boston in 1891 was over $70,000,000 ; that of the exports was $81,400,000.
The latest figures relating to manufacturing and mechanical establishments in Boston are those of the State BOSTON CITY HALL. census of 1885, which gave the number of establishments as 5, 199, and the total capital invested as $144,376,206. The increase since then has been steady and large, betokening a substantial growth.
STATUE OF LEIF ERICSON.
Boston's maritime commerce, which years ago led the entire country and carried the national flag into every foreign port of any consequence, fell away after the war, when capital sought the quicker and larger returns to be won in manufacturing, yet it is large enough to-day to rank Boston as the second port of entry in the United States. Steamships, most of them flying foreign flags, to be sure, the result of unfavorable legislation at Washington, leave her docks for England, Scotland, and France ; and there are lines to Germany, Italy and the Mediterranean, Australia, China, and Japan. There are ten lines of steamers connecting Boston daily and semi-weekly with impor- tant points north and south on the Atlantic seaboard.
The intense love which Bostonians have for the historic landmarks, of which there are so many in the city, is manifested by the determination many times repeated, to keep these sacred institutions and localities intact. That Boston is still true to the traditions of its origin is evident from the reverence and affection shown for the Old State House, the Old South Church, the Old North Church, the Granary Burial-ground, and the other relics of "Old Boston." Of their history the youth of Boston never become weary. How- ever, the "march of improvement" may be seen in any of the older parts of the city where the old-fashioned substantiality of last-century architecture contrasts forcibly with the loftier and more elaborate structure of the prevail- ing architectural types. These ancient buildings, together with the narrow and winding streets and the byways and isolated corners of the down-town districts, never will lose their interest for the true Bostonian.
The parks and the pleasure grounds, than which none are planned or conducted on a more intelligent system, enjoyed for their improvement and extension in the three years, 1889-90-91, the munificent sum of $2,433,555. The common schools and the high schools, with an enrolment in 1891 of over seventy-two thousand pupils between five and fifteen years of age, and supported by a fund of $2,120,546 raised by taxation. need no
82
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
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encomiums passed upon them here ; their high standard is a matter of common knowledge. The public institutions of the city for the sick, the infirm, and the blind ; the comprehensive system of public and private charities, which handles the difficult problems in its peculiar field with a rare humanity and a wise discrimination ; the noble work of education performed by the Public Library ; the improved methods of sanitation and street cleaning, and the singular purity of the city government, against which no breath of scandal can be raised, all testify to the superior virtues of Boston as a well- regulated municipality, free from the evils so apt to creep into communities thickly settled. The notable improvement in transportation facilities, made in spite of obstacles placed in their way by the topography of the down- town district, reflects much credit upon the West End Street Railway Com- pany, the extent of whose business may be judged from the company's showing for the year ending Sept. 30, 1892. From this it appeared that the number of passengers carried in twelve months was 126,201,781 ; the miles run numbered 17,498,660 ; the miles operated numbered 263 1-2, of which 148 were equipped with electricity ; and the number of cars employed was 2,554, of which 1,028 were electric cars; the earnings were $6,317,205; the expenses, $4,477,783.
The population of Boston, by the federal census of 1890, was 448,477, a gain since 1885 of 58,084 ; the total population of the city and its suburbs was 680,421, or 30.39 per cent of the entire population of the State. Of Boston's population 260,000 are American born, 70,000 Irish, 35,000 Canadian, COLUMBUS STATUE. 10,000 German, and 3,000 Italian. The aliens who arrived from transatlantic ports in the year ending Sept. 30, 1891, numbered 32,808 ; from the British Provinces, 21,983. Of the former 11,515 were Irish, 7,633 were English, 4,092 were Swedes, and 3,479 were Russians.
83
BOSTON.
IN the hands of Nathan Matthews, Jr., have been entrusted, for three consecutive years, the municipal interests of Boston. For two years he has given the city such an administration as will, in many respects, serve as a standard for future mayors. A native of the city whose affairs he manages with such ability, he is a scion of sturdy Cape Cod stock. He was born March 28, 1854. - Having obtained his preparatory education in public and private schools, he entered Harvard and graduated with math- ematical honors in 1875. From Cam- bridge he went to the University of Leipsic for two years, devoting his atten- tion chiefly to politi- cal economy and jurisprudence. Re- turning to Boston, he studied two years in the Harvard Law School, and in 18So was admitted to the bar. For ten years he followed his pro- fession with great success, his practice during the latter por- tion of that period being largely in the line of building cases and trusts. In equity cases he is an ad- mitted authority. He has also contrib- uted valuable articles on economical and financial questions to the leading re- views. In charge of large trust funds, he secured an enormous clientele, and there is probably no man in Boston better acquainted than he with real estate matters. By natural ability, no less than by long train- ing, Mr. Matthews was eminently fitted to perform the duties of mayor, and his election in 1890 by a heavy majority meant to those who knew him that business principles of the soundest quality would govern his administration. His re-election in 1891, by the largest
NATHAN MATTHEWS, JR.
majority ever given to any candidate for political office in the city, showed that he had amply fulfilled the expec- tations that had been entertained of him. His second re-election in 1892, was a further indorsement of the reforms which he has introduced into the city govern- ment. In all the great questions which have agitated the public, as well as in all the details of administration, Mayor Matthews has shown himself the master of the situation. He has created and led public sentiment, not followed it. A public man of such force of character cannot help antago- nizing some inter- ests and individ- uals, but none of his opponents ever ac- cused him of lacking either integrity or ability. He has done more than any other one man, ex- cepting Governor Russell and General Collins, to broaden and strengthen the Democratic party in city and State. He was one of the origi- nal members of the Young Men's Demo- cratic Club of Mas- sachusetts ; in ISSS he was a member of the Democratic State Committee ; in 1889, chairman of the Democratic State Convention ; in 1890, chairman of the executive committee of the Democratic State Com- mittee ; in 1892, delegate to the National Democratic Convention, where he was an ardent and influential worker in Cleveland's interests. He is a member of the American Statistical Society, of the New England His- toric Genealogical Society, of the Boston Athletic Asso- ciation, of the Union Boat Club, and of many other clubs and societies. In ISS4 he married Miss Ellen B. Sargent. They have two children.
84
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
T THE Associated Board of Trade of Boston is prob- ably the best representative body among business associations in this country. Founded upon a new idea, it has, during the few years of its existence, so demon- strated its practicability as to have become now the exemplar of the newer boards of trade throughout the country. The Boston Associated Board of Trade is not a promiscuous grouping of business men coming together as individuals, but is made up of delegates of the various regularly organized trade associations in the city, these repre- sentatives being duly elected by their vari- ous organizations, and attending the Associated Board of Trade meetings to speak and act, not only for themselves, but as voicing the wishes of the associa- tions which send them. Thus, when the members of the Associated Board of Trade make a decision, their action is at once of impor- tance in forming commercial and legis- lative opinion. When a man attains to the highest office in such an association, it can be said of him that he occupies an esti- mable place among business men. That position is now hekl by Jerome Jones, whose life is an instance of substantial mercantile success. He was born in Athol, Worcester County, Oct. 13, 1837. He is the youngest son of the late Theodore and Marcia ( Estabrook ) Jones, and grandson of Rev. Joseph Estabrook, the second minister of Athol, and a noted clergyman in his time. He was educated in Athol, and when a mere lad entered as a clerk the country store of Goddard & Ward, in Orange, Mass. In 1853, he was apprenticed to Otis Norcross &
JEROME JONES.
Co., of Boston, then the leading importers of crockery in the United States, and in 1861, when but twenty- three years of age, he was admitted as a partner. In 1865, Mr. Jones began as European buyer for the firm. When, in 1867, Otis Norcross was elected mayor of Boston, and retired from business, the firm name became Howland & Jones, and when, in 1871, Ichabod Howland died, the firm assumed its present form of Jones, Mc- Duffee & Stratton. In June of the present year, Mr. Jones completed his thirty-ninth year of continuous service in the widely known house of which he is now the head. Mr. Jones is a Jefferson- ian Democrat and an executive committee- man of the New Eng- land Tariff Reform League. He is a trustee of Mount Auburn Cemetery ; director in the Third National Bank and the Massachusetts Loan and Trust Com- pany ; vice-president of the Home Savings Bank ; member of the Boston Commer- cial Club, of the Uni- tarian Club, the Union Club, and commissioner of the Sinking Fund in Brookline. Mr. Jones is also an active member of that important com- mercial organization, the Boston Merchants' Association. He has been president of the Boston Earthenware Asso- ciation, and of the Worcester Northwest Agricultural Society. Mr. Jones has been twice married. His first wife was Elizabeth R. Wait, of Greenfield. Mrs. Jones died July 10, 1878, leaving four children : Theodore, Elizabeth W., Marcia E., and Helen R. Jones. He was married the second time in February, 1881, to Mrs. Maria E. Dutton, of Boston. His residence is in Brookline.
85
BOSTON BOARD OF TRADE.
THE president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, until he declined a re-election in October, 1892, was L. G. Burnham. The career of Mr. Burnham is replete with interest. At the call of the country in 1861, he left school (being then in his eighteenth year) and enlisted in Company E of the Forty-eighth Regi- ment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia. Here he served with credit until the term of his company expired. Later he served in Company F, Third Massachusetts Regiment, until it was disbanded at the close of the war. He was next appointed captain and brigade quartermaster on the staff of General Isaac S. Burrell, Massachu- setts First Brigade. Still later he was ap- pointed captain and provost marshal on the staff of Brigadier- General Hobart Moore, in which capacity he served five years. He was afterwards elected captain of Troop D, First Battalion Cavalry, resigning after two years' ser- vice. If Mr. Burn- ham as a young man became a soldier from a sense of duty, he is to-day a business man from predilec- tion and because his natural gifts fit him for commercial life. His business career commenced in 1865, when he entered the service of Batchelder Brothers as clerk. He remained here, working his way up through various positions until 1868, when he entered into partnership with Charles F. Newell, under the firm name of Newell & Burnham, succeeding to the coal business of William Wood & Co., of No. 132 Charles Street. This partner- ship continued until 1871, when, Mr. Newell retiring, the firm assumed its present name of L. G. Burnham &
Co. Mr. Burnham lends material business aid towards keeping Boston warm in winter, his firm supplying more coal than any other retail house in the State. Mr. Burnham was born in the town and county of Essex, Massachusetts, on Aug. 5, 1844. He is the son of Wash- ington and Mary B. Burnham. As a boy he attended the district schools and afterwards the Putnam High School at Newburyport. It was while attending the latter that the note of the war was sounded, and he enlisted as a boy soldier. Mr. Burn- ham was formerly president of the Boston Board of Trade. He is a director in various banks, and is inter- ested in many social, business, and chari- table organizations. In politics he is a consistent Republi- can. He was married in 1881 to Miss May A. Wood, of Lowell, Mass. Mr. Burnham resides in Boston, but owns a pleasant farm in Essex, which he makes his home dur- ing part of the sum- mer season. He is quiet and business- like in his demeanor, coming as he does of sterling New Eng- land stock. In the histories of Essex and of Essex County, the name of Burn- ham finds an honored place, and the family record has no more creditable career than that of the ex-president of Boston's Chamber of Commerce. In 1892 he was elected president of the Boston Associated Board of Trade. His place among the business men of Boston is an enviable one, and has not been attained without long and patient endeavor and a strict adherence to those principles of commercial integrity that animate the best element among Boston merchants.
L. G. BURNHAM.
86
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
O NE of the first trade organizations formed in Boston for the purpose of bringing together, in a social way, men in the same line of business, and thus promoting a spirit of solidarity, was the Paint and Oil Club, of New England, which was organized in 1884. Among the most active of its founders was John D. Morton, who served as its president during the years 1886 and 1887. From this club have come other clubs of the same kind in most of the large cities of the United States, and, later on, the National Paint, Oil, and Var- nish Association, in the formation of which Mr. Morton took an active part, being one of the New England club delegates that brought about its organization. Fol- lowing the Paint and Oil Club, other orga- nizations of a similar nature arose, making possible the forma- tion of the Boston Associated Board of Trade, composed of regularly chosen del- egates from twenty trade organizations in the city, thus being perfectly rep- resentative of all the city's business inter- ests. In the creation of the Board of Trade, Mr. Morton was a leading spirit, being the one who first suggested the idea of forming such an association. He called the first meeting, which resulted in its organization, served as its first vice-presi- dent, and as chairman of its committee on postal affairs, and helped perhaps more than any other person to secure improved mail service between Boston and New York. Mr. Morton was born in Athol, Mass., Oct. 3, 1830, the son of Jeremiah and Olive (Morse) Morton. His great-grandfather, Richard Morton, came from
JOHN D. MORTON
Hadley, Mass., and was one of the first seven settlers of Athol. Mr. Morton left school at fifteen years of age and entered a country store in the adjoining town of Royalston, where he remained for three years, after which he spent a year in school. Then for three years he was in a country store in what is now the town of Putnam, Conn. He came to Boston in 1853 and soon after entered the counting-room of Stimson & Valentine, dealers in paints, oils, and varnishes, remaining with this firm until 1859. In 1859 he became connected with the house of Banker & Carpenter, in the same line of business, and was admitted as partner in 1864, the firm name being changed in 1868 to Carpenter, Wood- ward & Morton, and is now composed of G. O. Carpenter, J. D. Morton, F. H. Newton, and E. A. Rogers. This house is one of the largest in its line in New England, doing a heavy business in the manufacture and im- portation of paints, varnishes, and artist materials. For many years, and until the formation of the lead trust, Mr. Morton was the New England manager of the St. Louis Lead and Oil Company. In 1862 he was married to Miss Maria E. Wesson, daughter of William C. Wesson, of Hardwick, Mass., and granddaughter of the Rev. William B. Wesson, in his day a well-known Massachusetts divine. Mr. Mor- ton resides in Roxbury. He has three children ; one of his daughters being the wife of Joseph H. Goodspeed, treasurer of the West End Street Railway Company. Few men in the United States possess a wider knowledge of the ramifications of the paint and oil industry.
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