USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts of today; a memorial of the state, historical and biographical, issued for the World's Columbian exposition at Chicago > Part 12
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67 | Part 68 | Part 69 | Part 70 | Part 71 | Part 72 | Part 73 | Part 74 | Part 75 | Part 76 | Part 77 | Part 78
FRANK L. YOUNG.
95
BOSTON BOARD OF TRADE.
A STRIKING feature in the commercial life of Boston within the last ten years has been the removal of barriers that formerly separated men in the same line of business. A competitor was once an enemy, with whom no relations were to be held, and who was not even to be recognized on the street. Busi- ness men, however, have learned the advantages of getting acquainted with their rivals and have found the utility of trade clubs. One of the first of these organi- zations was the Dry- salters' Club of New England, composed of manufacturers and dealers in dyestuffs and chemicals. This club was formed in March, 1885, by Henry D. Dupee and about a dozen other gentlemen in the same line of business. Mr. Dupee was its first president, and has been four times re-elected to that office. Ever since its formation the club has been one of the most influential of the many trade organizations in Bos- ton, having represen- tation in the Associ- ated Board of Trade and in the Executive Business Men's As- sociation. Mr. Dupee is of Hugue- not descent, his an- cestors, the Dupuis family, coming to Boston about the year 1700, soon after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes. John Dupuis, the first settler of the family in America, was elder of the old Huguenot church in Boston. The spelling of the family name was changed to Dupee, in order to preserve, as far as possible, its French pronun- ciation. Mr. Dupee's paternal great-grandfather was a captain in the Revolutionary War under General Washington, and his maternal great-grandfather was
HENRY D. DUPEE.
killed at the battle of Bunker Hill. Mr. Dupee was born in Dorchester, June 28, 1848, the son of James A. and Elizabeth (Baldwin) Dupee. His father was a noted Boston banker. After studying in public and private schools, in Roxbury, Brookline, and Boston, he entered the Military Academy at Worcester, and subse- quently went to the old Park Latin School in Boston, where he remained one year. In 1865, having deter- mined to learn the chemical, paint and oil business, he went to work for Thayer, Babson & Co., of Kilby Street. He remained three years with this firm, and then went to the Boston Diatite Com- pany, of which, one year later, at the age of twenty-one, he was made superin- tendent. Severing his connection with this company in 1870, he went into business on his own account as broker and commission merchant in dye- stuffs, and in 1871 began, in a small way, the manufacture of colors. His busi- ness developing, he built the factory at Walpole, which now covers four acres and is devoted to the manufacture of a great variety of dye- stuffs and chemicals. It has the reputation of being the best appointed plant of its kind in the country. Mr. Dupee is a trustee of several private estates ; of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association ; director in several manufac- turing corporations ; and past master of the Lodge of Eleusis, F. and A. M .; member of St. Bernard Com- mandery, Knights Templars ; of the Union, Athletic. and other social clubs. He was married in 1872 to Mary I. Sumner. They have two children.
96
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
T THE Boston Fruit and Produce Exchange is one of the most efficient and vigorous organizations of business men in the city. It is alive to all the interests of Boston, and its influence has largely helped to secure better transportation facilities between Boston and the West and South. Its president is Charles G. Roberts, who was born in Lyman, Me., in 1846. He comes of Revolutionary stock on both his father's and mother's side. His paternal and maternal great-grandfathers were both soldiers in the Revolutionary War, and both served with distinction, the former enlisting when he was twenty-one and being in the battle of Bunker Hill. He died at the age of ninety- four. Mr. Roberts's ancestors came from England and settled near Dover, N. H., from where his great- grandfather moved to Lyman, Me., and 7 took a farm, which still remains in the Roberts family. The old house, which was built about ninety years ago, is standing yet, and is now occupied by the fourth generation. Mr. Roberts received his education in the public schools of his native town, and in private schools. When about eighteen years of age he left home and came to Boston, and became connected with N. Boyn- ton & Co., the well-known cotton-duck house. This was in January, 1867. To the experience he received while in the employment of this house he owes much of his future success. He remained with N. Boynton & Co. four years, and then engaged as salesman for the firm of Bennett, Rand & Co., produce commission merchants. This situation he held for eleven years,
CHARLES G. ROBERTS.
being very highly esteemed by his employers and by all his business associates. In 1882 he severed his connec- tion with Bennett, Rand & Co., and formed a partner- ship with Mr. Patch, under the firm name of Patch & Roberts, which relation still continues. The firm has established and maintains a high reputation among the merchants of Boston. They are heavy receivers of butter, eggs, and poultry from the West, as well as being the largest receivers in New England of pineapples direct from the grower. The firm's name is known all through the South as solid and safe consignees of fruit and produce. Mr. Roberts is a promi- nent member of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and is one of the charter members of the Bos- ton Fruit and Pro- duce Exchange, in which he has always been a faithful worker, and of which he was elected pres- ident in January, 1892. Mr. Roberts resides in Chelsea, and there he has always taken a lively interest in municipal affairs. He was twice elected to the Common Council of Chelsea, and for three years he served on the Board of Aldermen. In this capacity he brought his excellent business instincts to bear on municipal matters, and was enabled to serve the city both with honor to himself and with profit to his constituents. Mr. Roberts is a charter member of the Commonwealth Lodge of Odd Fellows of Boston, a member of Robert Lash Lodge of Free Masons, the Royal Arcanum and the Chelsea Review ('lub. In 1873 he married Miss Serena Ann Morgan, of Surry, Me. They have two children.
97
BOSTON BOARD OF TRADE.
E USTACE CAREY FITZ has become widely known as one of the most public-spirited and soundest business men in Massachusetts. He is the senior mem- ber of the firm of Fitz, Dana & Co., of Boston, iron and steel merchants, with which firm he has been con- nected for more than a quarter of a century. He is also identified with some of the largest business corpo- rations of the city and State, and is now a director of the New York and New England Railroad Company, the West End Street Railway Company, and president of the Blackstone National Bank of Boston. He was born in Haverhill, Mass., on Feb. 5, 1833, being the son of Jeremiah and Hannah Eaton Fitz. When he was but a year old his parents came to Boston, and in 1841 removed to Chelsea. Nearly all his life he has made the latter city his home, and its citizens have repeatedly honored him with positions of high responsibility and trust, all of which he has filled with credit to him- self and his city. He attended the public schools of Chelsea and gradu- ated from the High School. On Jan. 10, 1856, he was married to Sarah Jane, daughter of Alfred and Margaret C. Blanchard, of Chelsea, and made his home in Cambridge. Three years later he returned to Chelsea. He was elected to the Chelsea Common Council of 1861, and re-elected for two succeeding years, and during those last two terms he was president of that body. He was called from the council to be mayor of the city, serving as such during the years 1864, 1865, and 1866. His services in the city government
EUSTACE CAREY FITZ.
of Chelsea were right in the midst of the critical war period, when the soundest judgment was demanded. As mayor of the city he was a strong supporter of Gov- ernor Andrew, and did much to keep intact the fair name of Massachusetts. Mr. Fitz contributed liberally of his means for the Union cause. For eighteen years he was a trustee, and most of the time chairman of the Chelsea Public Library, and at the end of that long period, in 1885, he presented to his adopted city a handsome, commo- dious library build- ing, costing upwards of $25,000. The picture accompany- ing this sketch is taken from a life- size portrait of Mr. Fitz, painted by Robert G. Hardie, on the order of the city of Chelsea, at a cost of $1,200, and which now hangs in the Public Library. The City Council of Chelsea, in 1889, changed the name of the Chelsea Pub- lic Library to the "Fitz Public Library of Chelsea." Mr. Fitz served in the House of Represen- tatives in 1873 and 1874, in the Senate in 1875 and 1876, and in the Gov- ernor's Council in 18SI and 1882. He was for five years chairman of the Prison Commissioners. In religion he is a Baptist, and contributed largely to the erection of the Cary Avenue Baptist Church in Chelsea. He is president of the trustees of the Newton Theological Institution, and has been president of both the Boston Merchants' Club and the Boston Board of Trade. Amid the cares of an active business career, Mr. Fitz has found time to devote to those larger public interests that have increased the welfare of his chosen home.
98
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
W ILLIAM WHITMAN, ex-president of the Under his administration the Arlington Mills have developed until they have become one of the largest establishments manufacturing wool and cotton in the United States, employing three thousand hands, and consuming annually ten million pounds of wool and five thousand bales of cotton. The products of the mills are fine worsted and cotton yarns, and ladies' dress goods in great variety. The dozen buildings of the plant have a floor area of more than twenty acres, and are among the finest specimens of mill architecture to be found in the world. The Arlington Mills are a monument to the ability and enter- prise of their direc- tor. In 1887, he be- came a member of the firm of Harding, Colby & Co., of Bos- ton and New York, now Harding, Whit- man & Co. Mr. Whitman married Jane D. Hallett, Jan. 19, 1865, and has four sons and three daughters. He has been prominent in many commercial and social organizations . in Boston. A strong Republican and active in the coun- cils of the party, he 1 has declined all polit- WILLIAM WHITMAN. ical preferment. His public life has been confined chiefly Association of Wool Manufacturers, of which he was president from 1884 to 1892. He has devoted much time to promoting the interests of the woollen manufac- ture in the United States, having made a special study of the revenue system. The results of his study have appeared in the quarterly bulletin of the association and in separate publications, and have placed him in the front rank among the advocates of the protective policy. National Association of Wool Manufacturers and treasurer of the Arlington Mills, is an authority upon all economic questions relating to our national commerce and industries. He was born at Annapolis, N. S., May 9, 1842. He is a descendant in the eighth generation from John Whitman, of Weymouth, Mass. Before the Revolution his great-grandfather moved to Nova Scotia, where his father, John, married Rebecca Cutler, a descendant of Ebenezer Cutler, one of the most con- spicuous of the Loyalists who mi- grated from Boston in 1776. William Whitman attended the Annapolis Acad- emy five years, leav- ing school in his eleventh year and going to St. John, N. B., where he ob- tained employment in a dry goods store. Two years later he came to Boston as entry clerk in the wholesale dry goods house of James M. Beebe & Co., with whom he remained until 1867. In that year he became asso- ciated with the firm of Robert M. Bailey & Co., who were interested in the rebuilding of the Arlington Mills, which had been destroyed by fire the year before. Mr. to economic work in connection with the National Whitman was made the treasurer of the mills in the same year, but in 1869 he resigned this post, purchased a woollen mill in Ashland, N. H., and engaged in the manufacture of flannels. Meanwhile he resumed the treasurership of the Arlington Mills at the urgent solici- tation of the directors, after an interval of but a few months, and he has remained in this position ever since, acting also as the managing director of the mills.
99
BOSTON.
T THE law now upon the statute books of Massachu- setts prohibiting the adulteration of food and medicine has proved in its practical working a great boon. The earliest advocate of this legislation was Charles Eckley Moody, who in the conduct of his wholesale grocery business, had found daily evidence of the growing danger from adulterated and impure food, and who, sacrificing the temporary gain which might have come from silence, began single-handed the agita- tion which resulted in success. Others had spoken, perhaps, before him, of the increasing practice of adulteration, but Mr. Moody not only talked up the matter among the mer- chants, but carried his ideas to Beacon Hill, urged them upon the law-makers, framed a bill of his own, and finally se- cured the enactment of the law, - both the idea and the lan- guage of which are practically his. The life of Charles Eck- ley Moody, could it be told in all its details here, would be good read- ing for the boys of the present day. Born in Bath, Me., the son of John Minot and Mary (Boynton) Moody, he came to Boston to make his own way when he was but fifteen years of age. Two weeks after his arrival here, he obtained employment, unaided, in the store of Silas Peirce & Co., on Elm Street. The same devotion to the work at hand which later found fruition in the contest against impure foods, was characteristic of him as a boy, and after years of appreciated service, he was admitted as a member of the firm of Silas Peirce & Co. Here he continued until 1868, when, withdrawing from
CHARLES E. MOODY.
the firm, he established the house of Charles E. Moody & Co. on the site where it now stands, No. 77 Com- mercial Street. Of Mr. Moody's business methods and success since then, the standing of his firm to-day is its own report. Mr. Moody, until a few years ago, was interested in the sugar trade, as well as in his own grocery house, and in this connection an incident illus- trative of his business practices may be told. During the last week of each year, Mr. Moody's creditors always received letters ask- ing that their bills be submitted at once, these requests by mail being supplemented by personal calls in cases where the cred- itors did not respond promptly. Then on New Year's Eve of each year, Mr. Moody and his part- ner met, and before leaving the office that night every pos- sible claim against the firm had been liquidated. A man of wide sympathies and unostentatious charity, Mr. Moody has devoted not a little oi his time and money of later years to works of benefi- cence. Himself the son of a ship-builder, he is greatly inter- ested in shipping, both foreign and coastwise ; is a mem- ber of the American Shipping and Industrial League ; the Home Market Club, the Pine Tree State Club. the Commercial Club, the Chamber of Commerce, the Wholesale Grocers' Association, and is a director in several corporations. Through his efforts in the direc- tion of practical legislation in the vital matter of pure food and medicine, a question far reaching and lasting in its effects, Mr. Moody has crowned a career that has proved alike useful and honorable.
IO0
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
F EW men who have been conspicuous in Massachu- setts and the United States bear so well at a ripe old age in mind and body the honors they have won as the Hon. Robert Charles . Winthrop. The youngest son of Thomas Lindall Winthrop, he was born in Boston, May 12, 1809, and was graduated at Harvard in 1828. He studied law with Daniel Webster, was admitted to the bar in 1831, and soon after entered public life as a Whig. From 1834 to 1840 he served his State in the House of Represen- tatives, of which he was speaker in 1838, 1839, and 1840. He was elected to Con- gress in the last- named year, and served there with distinction ten years. In 1847-49 he was speaker of the House, but was de- feated for a second term by a plurality of two, after a con- test of three weeks. In 1850, he was ap- pointed by the gov- ernor to Daniel Webster's seat in the Senate, when the latter became Secre- tary of State. His conservatism on the slavery question caused his defeat for the succession by a coalition of Demo- crats and Free Soil- ers in the Legislature, after six weeks' balloting. In 1851, he received a large plurality of votes for the governorship, but the majority rule threw the election into the Legislature. Mr. Win- throp declined to run again, and has since devoted his time to literary, historical, and philanthropic occupa- tions. He did not, however, altogether relinquish his political duties, but spoke eloquently for several candi- dates for the presidency, -Winfield Scott in 1852, Millard Fillmore in 1856, John Bell in 1860, and Gen-
eral Mcclellan in 1864. Four volumes of his " Addresses and Speeches" contain those on the laying of the corner-stone of the national monument to Washington in 1848 and on the completion of that monument in 1885, and the oration on the hundredth anniversary of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown, all by invita- tion of Congress ; the address to the alumni of Harvard in 1857 ; an oration on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims, in 1870; the Boston centennial oration, July 4, 1876 ; and an address on unveiling the statue of Colonel Prescott on Bunker Hill in 1881. Mr. Winthrop is also popularly re- membered for his shorter speeches, particularly those of a patriotic nature, on Boston Common during the Civil War, while his brief trib- utes to John Quincy Adams, John C. Cal- houn, Edward Ever- ett, Daniel Webster, Abraham Lincoln and other eminent men, are character- ized as models of graceful and discrim- inating eulogy. He is the author of "The Life and Let- ters of John Win- throp " (1864), and " Washington, Bow- doin, and Franklin " (1876). He was the counsellor of George Peabody in several of his great benefactions, and has been from the outset the head of the trust for Southern education. He was president for a quarter of a century of the Boston Provident Association, for thirty years of the Massachu- setts Historical Society, and for eight years of the Har- vard Alumni Association. Mr. Winthrop's long and hon- orable career and wide experience of affairs constitutes him a veteran whom Massachusetts delights to honor.
ROBERT C. WINTHROP.
IOI
BOSTON.
G EORGE EDWARD ELLIS, D.D., LL.D., the presi- dent of the Massachusetts Historical Society, was born in Boston, Aug. 8, 1814. He graduated at Harvard in 1833, and from the Divinity School in 1836. He made a year's tour of Europe, and was ordained March II, 1840, as pastor of Harvard Unitarian Church, Charles- town, Mass. From 1857 to 1863 he was professor of systematic theology in Harvard Divinity School. In 1864 he delivered before the Lowell Institute of Boston a course of lectures on the "Evidences of Christianity"; in 1871, a course on the " Provincial History of Massachusetts," and in 1879, a course on "The Red Men and the White Men in North America." He resigned the pas- torate of Harvard Church on Feb. 2, 1869. Mr. Ellis was at one time tempo- rary editor of the Christian Register and afterward joint editor with Rev. George Putnam, D. D., and subse- quently sole editor of the Christian Examiner for several years. He has been vice-president of the Massachusetts His- torical Society, and is now (1892) presi- dent. He was a member of the board of overseers of Harvard College in 1850-54, serving for one year as its secretary. Harvard gave him the degree of D. D. in 1857, and that of LL. D. in 1883. Mr. Ellis was the third person who has received both these degrees from Harvard. He has published lives of John Mason (1844), Anne Hutchinson (1845), and William Penn (1847), in Sparks' American Biography ; "Half Century of the Unitarian Controversy" (1851) ; "Memoir of Dr. Luther V. Bell" (1863) ; "The Aims and Purposes
GEORGE E. ELLIS.
of the Founders of Massachusetts, and Their Treatment of Intruders and Dissentients" (1865) ; "Life of Benjamin Thompson, Count Rumford," in connection with an edition of Count Rumford's complete works issued by the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1871) ; "History of the Massachusetts General Hos- pital " (1872) ; "History of the Battle of Bunker Hill " (1875) ; an "Address on the Centennial of the Evacua- tion of the British Army, with an Account of the Siege of Boston" (1876) ; "Memoir of Charles W. Upham " (1877) ; " Memoir of Jacob Bigelow " (1880) ; " Memoir of Nathan- iel Thayer" (1885) ; and numerous ad- dresses and sermons. He also wrote for the American Academy and the Historical Society, memoirs of Charles Wentworth Upham and Edward Wigglesworth (1877), and of George Rum- ford Baldwin. Mr. Ellis wrote three his- torical chapters for the "Memorial His- tory of Boston" (1880-1) ; "The Red Man and the White Man in North Amer- ica" (1882) ; an "Address on the Eighty-second Anni- versary of the New York Historical So- ciety " (1886) : "The Religious Element in New England," and five other chapters in the "Narrative and Critical History of America " (1826) ; and several articles for the ninth edition of the "Encyclopedia Britannica," and has contributed to periodicals and the daily papers when occasion moved him thus to do. He published in 18So "The Puritan Age and Rule in the Colony of Massachu- setts Bay." He delivered in 1884 the address at the unveiling of the statue of John Harvard at the college.
102
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
F RANCIS . PARKMAN, author and first vice-presi- dent of the Massachusetts Historical Society, the son of Francis Parkman, clergyman, was born in Boston, Sept. 16, 1823, and was graduated at Harvard in 1844. He studied law two years, but abandoned the profession for travel, of which he had become fond after a vacation trip to Europe. In 1845 he set out to explore the Rocky Mountains, and lived several months among the Dakotah Indians and the still wilder and more remote tribes. He there en- dured hardships and privations that made him an invalid. An account of this expe- dition was given in a series of articles in the " Knickerbocker Magazine," which were subsequently collected and pub- lished in book form. He afterward en - gaged in literary work almost exclu- sively, and notwith- standing his impaired health, accompanied by partial blindness, has attained high rank as an historian and essayist. Mr. Parkman visited France in 1858, 1868, 1872, 1880, and 1881, to examine French archives in connec- tion with his histori- cal labors. In 1871-2 he was professor of horticulture in the agricultural school of Harvard. His chief work has been a series of vohimes intended to illustrate the rise and fall of the French power in America, which are distinguished for brilliant style and accurate research. Mr. Parkman has recently completed the New France series, covering the period between 1700 and 1750. This, with a few additions to earlier volimes, completes the series, which forms one continuous work. His publications are "The California and Oregon Trail"
(1849) ; "The Conspiracy of Pontiac " (Boston, 1851) ; " Pioneers of France in the New World " (1865) ; "The Book of Roses" (1866) ; "Jesuits in North America " (1867) ; " La Salle and the Discovery of the Great West " (1869) ; " The Old Regime in Canada under Louis XIV." (1874) ; "Count Frontenac and New France under Louis XIV." (1877) ; " Montcalm and Wolfe " (two volumes, 1884) ; "The Arcadian Tragedy " ("Harper's Magazine," 1884) ; "A Half Century of Con- flict - France and England in North America " (Boston, 1892) ; "Historic Handbook of the Northern Tour" (Boston, 1885); "Our Common Schools " (Boston, 1890) ; "Some of the Reasons against Women Suffrage"; and several other historical works. The "Atlantic Monthly " has re- ceived many inter- esting contributions from his pen. The historic handbook in the enumeration above was suggested to Mr. Parkman by his friend and co- worker of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society, Rev. Dr. George E. Ellis, and has proved of great value to summer tourists to Lake George, Lake Champlain, Ticonderoga and Niagara, as well as the Canadian frontier, giving them true history, well digested, to offset false impressions of the pictur- esque areas so long in dispute between rival claimants, as portrayed by previous careless and unscrupulous compil- ers of the warlike events of past eras. Dr. Parkman has long been prominent in the social, literary, political and club life of Boston. In 1863 he bore an important part with Edward Everett in organizing the Union Chib.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.