USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts of today; a memorial of the state, historical and biographical, issued for the World's Columbian exposition at Chicago > Part 19
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
EDWARD T. HARRINGTON.
151
BOSTON.
B OSTON has been the home of many inventors whose genius has revolutionized the mechanic arts and facilitated industrial progress. B. F. Sturtevant was such a man, and though he has passed away, he has left, in a great industry, an enduring monument to his name. It was about thirty years ago that he constructed his first fan blower, which, in its many applications, has become so important a feature not only in mechanical but in social life. At that time Mr. Sturtevant, having just come to Boston from his birthplace in Maine, where he learned the trade of a shoemaker, was in- venting and experi- menting upon a ma- chine for pegging shoes. This experi- ence revealed the ne- cessity of, and led hím to invent and place upon the mar- ket, a type of small fan blower for remov- ing by suction the fine leather dust and clippings from buffing machines. The call for these fans rapidly increasing, he estab- lished a small shop in Sudbury Street, where he employed seven or eight men. The utility of the fans was quickly ap- preciated, and they came into wide use for the removal of light refuse material from all classes of machines, for the ventilation of apart- ments, and for the blowing of boiler, forge and cupola fires. In 1866 Mr. Sturtevant received the order for the large ventilating fans for the Capitol at Washington, and built what were then the largest encased fans in the country. The subsequent construction of a fan wheel sixteen feet in diameter, for the Danvers Insane Asylum, was at that time looked upon as a remarkable piece of work. Being a man who was never contented until he
was fully master of all matters pertaining to his business, Mr. Sturtevant made, during this period, his extensive and widely known experiments upon the efficiency and capacity of fan blowers. Few men would ever have carried out to such perfection experiments entirely at their own expense. But the time and money thus ex- pended were repaid a thousand times. The results of these experiments were given to the public in a series of elaborate catalogues, containing many tables of great utility. Constructed upon scientific prin- ciples, the fans have proved themselves in- valuable in almost all lines of trade. The lack of room and the inconvenience of a city shop finally com- pelled the removal, in the spring of 1878, of the entire plant to Jamaica Plain, about three miles outside the city proper. Here large and con- venient shops were erected, and addi- tions gradually made until they form at present by far the most extensive works in the world devoted to the manufacture of fan blowers. The buildings, which are all of brick, are gen- erously supplied with light and fresh air, and contain all the modern improve- ments conducive to the welfare of the employees and the production of the best work. The establishment now has about six acres of available floor space, and employs over five hundred men in the various depart- ments. Mr. Sturtevant's strong personality is still evi- dent in designs and unique arrangements. Mr. E. N. Foss is the manager of the B. F. Sturtevant Company, and branch houses and salesrooms are maintained in Boston, New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and London.
B. F. STURTEVANT.
.
152
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
H ENRY· PARKMAN, lawyer and man of affairs, be- lieves with Dr. Holmes that, other things being equal, a family tree is not a bad thing to possess. His family represents a long line of distinguished New Eng- landers. Mr. Parkman's great-great-grandfather was the Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, who was for sixty years a minis- ter of Westboro', Mass. His great-grandfather lived in Dorchester in 1733. The sons of seven generations of this family have graduated at Harvard College, and none of them have reflected discredit upon their birthplace or their alma mater. Henry Parkman, son of the late Dr. Samuel and Mary E. (Dwight) Parkman, was born in Boston, May 23, 1850. He prepared for college at Mr. Dixwell's and other private schools, and graduated from Har- vard in the class of 1870. He studied in the Harvard Law School for three years, graduating in 1874. The same year he was admitted to the bar and prac- tised in the office of William G. Russell for several years. He is now engaged in general practice with offices at No. 53 State Street. He is one of the public administrators of Suf- folk County, and many large trusts are confided to his care. In politics he is a Republican. He represented Ward 9 in the Common Council for six years, was a member of the lower House of the Legislature in 1886, 1 887 and 1888, serving as chairman of several important committees, and was in 1891 a member of the State Senate. He is president of the Boston Athletic Asso- ciation, and a member of the Union and other leading clubs. Mr. Parkman has resided in Boston all his life.
He is earnest and enthusiastic in his political views, and is president of the Republican City Committee, to the work of which he devotes much time and energy. He has been for ten years secretary of the Provident Institution for Savings, the oldest as well as the largest savings bank in Boston. Apart from his legal practice and political and financial work, Mr. Parkman is inter- ested in many philanthropical and progressive institu- tions. He is president of the Boston Training School for Nurses, an insti- tution, the wide- spread usefulness of which is universally recognized. Mr. Parkman is also president of the Adams Nervine Asy- lum. Having gained for himself, early in life, a place at the top of the ladder, Mr. Parkman bears his honors with be- coming modesty. He keeps up his in- terest in athletics with the enthusiasm of a boy, and no more fit man could be se- lected for the presi- dency of the Boston Athletic Association. Although burdened with an extensive law practice, Mr. Parkman finds time for his varied and multifarious interests in outside matters. He is a true Bosto- nian, and is identified with the best interests of the city. Mr. Parkman may properly be classed with that branch of the younger men of New England, who, while not precocious in the ordinary sense of the word, have very carly in life assumed the responsibilities usually devolving upon men of more advanced years. Mr. Park- man is happily married, his wife having been Frances Parker, daughter of Cortland Parker, of Newark, N. J. Mr. and Mrs. Parkman have one child, a daughter.
HENRY PARKMAN.
I53
BOSTON.
T THROUGH his work as an architect, and in the domain of social science and industrial statistics, Horace G. Wadlin is known to the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Like many boys who have since dis- tinguished themselves in the public life of New England, Mr. Wadlin laid the foundation of his education in the public schools. Although he is known as a successful architect, the trend of his mind peculiarly fits him for the statistical determination of economic and social questions, to which he is earnestly de- voted. He is a man of varied attain- ments, and being in the prime of life has many years be- fore him for the pur- suit of his favorite studies, and the working out of those abstruse problems which the science of statistics presents to its votaries. Mr. Wadlin is essentially a man of the Massa- chusetts of to-day, and is one of the co- terie of bright, active thinkers who keep the mental plane of the State at the high altitude it has always occupied. Horace G. Wadlin, chief of the Massachusetts Bureau of Statistics of Labor, was born in South Reading, now Wakefield, Mass., Oct. 2, 1851. He is the son of Daniel H. and Lucy E. (Brown) Wadlin. He was married Sept. 8, 1875, to Ella Frances Butterfield, of Wakefield, and now resides in Reading. After completing his education in the public schools and by private instruction, Mr. Wad- lin studied the profession of architecture, beginning independent practice in Boston in 1874, his special iines of work including school, municipal and domestic buildings. Among , the structures erected under his
supervision are the Thornton Academy at Saco, the fine new high school at Biddeford, the Richard Sugden Library at Spencer, and numerous private residences in the vicinity of Boston. In 1879 he became an attaché of the Bureau of Statistics of Labor, in charge of special economic subjects, and was afterward connected with many of the more important investigations undertaken by the bureau. In the decennial census of 1885 he was chief of the division of libraries and schools. Upon the resignation of Colonel Carroll D. Wright, in October, 1888, Mr. Wadlin was appointed chief of the bureau, retir- ing from the practice of his profession to devote his entire at- tention to his official duties, and was re- appointed in 1891 by Governor Russell. He was supervisor of the United States census in 1890, con- ducting the work of enumeration in Mas- sachusetts. Mr. Wadlin has for many years been a member of the School Com- mittee in Reading, and was for some time its chairman. He is now chairman of the trustees of the public library. He was a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives in 1884, 1885, 1887 and 1888, serving on the commit- tees on the census, woman suffrage, education, and railroads, and being House chairman of the last three. He is one of the vice-presidents of the American Statis- tical Association, a member of the American Social Science Association, and of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, a director of the American Unitarian Association, and a frequent lecturer on sub- jects connected with social science, history and art.
HORACE G, WADLIN.
154
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
T THE high-water mark of the Massachusetts Democ- racy was reached in the year 1883, when the average vote for the Democratic State ticket, excepting the vote for governor, was 145,000. In that year Noah A. Plympton was in charge of the Democratic cam- paign, and to his shrewd management, perhaps as much as to any other cause, General Butler owed his election as governor of the Commonwealth. That political cam- paign will not be forgotten in this generation, at least. Mr. Plympton - he is known everywhere as " Colonel " Plymp- ton, though, as he himself says, he re- ceived his commis- sion as colonel only from the pen of a newspaper writer- was born in Shrews- bury, Mass., Sept. 7, 1841. After attend- ing the common schools, he was, at the age of sixteen years, apprenticed to the watchmaker's trade and worked at it for five years. Until 1878 he was engaged in the watch and jewelry business in Worcester, Mass. He was elected a member of the Democratic State Central Committee in 1880, and was chosen chairman of the Executive Com- mittee in 1882, hav- ing entire charge of the campaigns of 1882 and 1883, when General Butler was the Democratic candidate for governor. Mr. Plympton was elected chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee in January, 1884, but he resigned in the following June, and since that time he has had no active connection with politics. was nominated by Governor Butler in 1883 for the office of insurance commissioner of the Commonwealth, but the nomination was rejected by the Executive Council
on a strict party vote. In May, 1883, Insurance Com- missioner Tarbox appointed him examiner for the Insur- ance Department of Massachusetts, and as such he examined many of the foreign companies doing busi- ness in this State. He resigned this office May 1, 1884. Mr. Plympton had been appointed in 1880 general agent for Massachusetts of the Penn Mutual Life Insurance Company of Philadelphia, and held the position until his appointment as examiner in the State Insurance Department. In May, 1884, he was re-appointed general agent of the Penn Mutual, and was made general man- ager of its New Eng- land department, Nov. 1, 1884. On that date he formed a copartnership with Mr. Bunting, and the insurance firm of Plympton & Bunting, general managers of the New England department of the Penn Mutual, has successfully con- tinued business ever since, with offices at 29 Milk Street. Mr. l'lympton was elected member of the Board of Trustees of the company in January, 1885, and is still a member of the board. He is also chairman of the Committee on Medical Department and of the Committee on Accounts. At the organization of the Butler Club, in May, 1887, Mr. Plympton was chosen president, and has been annually re-elected since that date. He is a member of Athelstan Lodge, F. and A. M., of Worcester, and of Worcester Chapter, R. A. M. In 1862 he was married to Miss Helen M. Flint, of Shrewsbury. They have five children, the eldest son being in business with his father, and a second son a student of law.
NOAH A. PLYMPTON.
155
BOSTON.
H ENRY WALKER, the son of Ezra and Maria A. Walker, was born and educated in Boston. In the Latin School, where he was fitted for college, he won a Franklin medal, and other prizes for scholarship. He was graduated from Harvard University in the class of 1855, with Alexander Agassiz, Phillips Brooks, W. P. P. Longfellow, Theodore Lyman, F. P. Sanborn, and others, as classmates. Upon leaving college he studied law in the office of Hutchins & Wheeler. The bombardment of Fort Sumter be- gan on April 12, 1861, and on the 15th, as adjutant of the Fourth Regiment of Massachusetts In- fantry, he entered the military service of the United States, being the first Har- vard graduate so to do. He remained with the regiment during its term of service, taking part in the battle of Big Bethel. Upon re- turning to Massa- chusetts, he was appointed lieutenant colonel of the regi- ment which, in 1862, was reported by Colonel Amory, chief of ordnance, " to be in a better condition than any militia reg- iment in the State." When not in the field, Colonel Walker was actively engaged in raising troops and in other work relating thereto. In 1862 he was appointed colonel of the Fourth Regiment, and went with it to the Gulf Department, where it took part in all the military operations of 1863, --- the first march to Fort Hudson, the Teche expedition, and the siege of Fort Hudson. At the close of his term of service he was honorably discharged, receiving this endorsement from General Banks: "He was an hon- orable and patriotic officer ; he was an ardent supporter
HENRY WALKER.
of the policy of the war and of Mr. Lincoln's adminis- tration ; he never used his authority for personal pur- poses, and was prompt and faithful in the performance of his duties." Colonel Walker was detained in New Orleans on court-martial duty after his regiment returned home. Upon the promise of the military authorities, of having a regiment raised in Texas, he remained there until the winter of 1864. Circumstances prevented this being done, and, after the loss of much time and labor, the enterprise was abandoned. Upon his return to Boston, Colonel Walker re- sumed the practice of his profession. He was license com- missioner of the city from May 1, 1877, to July, 1878, and police commissioner from April 30, 1879, to April 22, 1882. During 1887 and 1888 Colonel Walker commanded the An- cient and Honorable Artillery Company, the oldest military organization on this continent, and pre- sided with grace and ability on the occa- sion of its two hun- - dred and fiftieth an- niversary, June 4, ISSS. As com- mander, he visited England to partici- pate in the three hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Honourable Artillery Company of London. Colonel Walker has been connected with various societies ; has been for twenty years treasurer of Christ Church, Boston, a member of the Demo- cratic State Central Committee many years, and its chairman ; has been lieutenant, adjutant, lieutenant- colonel, and colonel in the State Militia, serving, in all, seven years ; has been prominent in Grand Army circles, and has travelled extensively.
156
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
W HEN a man gives up a prosperous business to devote himself to working for others, it is be- cause " the things which are seen " are less potent with him than "the things which are unseen," and the real is less than the ideal. William Henry Baldwin is that type of man. He left business to give his time and en- ergies to religio-philanthropic work, especially among young men, and the Boston Young Men's Christian Union, with its membership of over five thousand, at- tests the earnestness and ability with which he has carried on its work for nearly a quarter of a cen- tury, since April, 1868. Born in Brighton, now a part of Boston, Oct. 20, 1826, Mr. Baldwin received his educa- tional training in pub- lic and private schools. His school days being ended, he served as clerk for four years in a dry goods store at Brigh- ton, and after that was engaged until 1850 with two im - porting and dry goods jobbing firms in Boston. In that year (1850) he went into business for him- self, the firm name being Baldwin, Bax- ter & Curry, after- wards Baldwin & Curry (Mr. Baxter (lied in 1858), importers and jobbers of woollens. In 1865 Mr. Baldwin disposed of his interest in the firm and engaged in the dry goods commission business, in which he remained until 1868. That year was the turning point in Mr. Baldwin's life. Hitherto he had been the energetic business man, deeply interested, it is true, in religious and philanthropic subjects, but en- grossed in mercantile affairs. Upon the reorganization of the Boston Young Men's Christian Union in April,
1868 (instituted in 1851), Mr. Baldwin was chosen its president. He was not previously consulted about it, and the appointment surprised him greatly. After some hesitation, however, he accepted, fully intending, as then stated by him, to give his services to the Union for only one year, and then re-engage in business. The work of the Union, however, had such a fascination for him, and he became so deeply interested in its growth and suc- cess, that he has not yet resigned the presidency, and his friends and ad- mirers earnestly hope that it may be many years before he re- tires from the office. Mr. Baldwin is also president of the Children's Mission to the Children of the Destitute; vice- president of the Na- tional Unitarian Church Temperance Society ; trustee of the Franklin Savings Bank ; member of the Bostonian So - ciety and of the Boston Memorial Association and a director in the Mas- sachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Ani - mals. He has also been director and president of the Old Boston School-boys' Association ; presi- dent of the Unitarian Sunday-school Soci- ety, of which he is now a director, and a member of the Boston School Committee. These are some of the directions in which his interests lic, and they indicate how catholic his sympathies arc. Though profoundly interested in the political welfare of his city and State, Mr. Baldwin's other duties have prevented him from accepting public office of a political nature. He was married in 1851 to Mary Augusta Chaffec, of Boston. Of this union were nine children.
WILLIAM H. BALDWIN,
157
BOSTON.
E DWARD EVERETT 'HALE was first licensed to preach more than half a century ago, and he has been hard at it ever since. Preaching by word, deed and pen, and by the multiplied influences of numberless organizations, there is no man in the land who has a larger audience than his. He belongs nearly as much to Texas and Arizona and Australia as to Boston. In a certain sense there is almost gratuitous impertinence in praising Edward Everett Hale. It is like praising the sky or the air or the elms on Boston Com- mon. He is an in- stitution of the city's life, as sincere, as untiring, as uncon- scious as they. Con- cerning himself he has said : " I had the great luck to be born in the middle of a large family. I lived with three brothers and three sisters. I was the fourth, count- ing each way. I was put on my Latin para- digms when I was six years old, and I learned them reason- ably well. Welimped through a Latin ver- sion of 'Robinson Crusoe' when I was eight years old. But I knew nothing of the Latin language, as a language, till I went to the Boston Latin School. I was ninth in a class of fifteen. That is about the average rank which I generally had. I owe my education chiefly to my father, my mother, and my older brother. My father introduced the railway system into New England when I was eleven years old." Dr. Hale graduated from Harvard in 1839. His first regular settlement was in 1846, as pastor of the Church of the Unity in Worcester, where he remained until 1856. In that year he was called to the South Congregational (Unitarian) Church in Boston, where he
still preaches. He has been one of the most active men in our national literature and in many philanthropic movements. His pen has been constantly employed in the latter, while scores of volumes attest what he has done in the former. How he has found time for so much work, in addition to his pastoral duties, is a mystery. He shows the marks of the toil of the scholar in his countenance, but his general health has been sus- tained through it all, and he is in full physical and men- tal vigor after all these years of earn- est work. In "My Double, and How He Undid Me," in the "Man Without a Country," and other short stories, he has achieved a personal immortality in letters. Artist as he has proved himself to be, his work in fiction has never been done for art's sake, but for the sake of all hu- manity. His book, " Ten Times One is Ten," led to the es- tablishment of clubs devoted to charity, which are now scat- tered throughout the United States, with chapters in Europe, Asia, Africa and the islands of the Pacific. At the celebration of Dr. Hale's seven- tieth birthday, in April, 1892, there was gathered a distinguished assembly of Boston's lead- ing men, Oliver Wendell Holmes contributing a poetical tribute, entitled "The Living Dynamo." Nov. 10, 1892, Dr. Hale occupied the pulpit in Berlin, Mass., from which he had preached his first sermon just fifty years before. He was married in 1852 to Emily Baldwin ·Perkins, of Hartford, Conn. They have had eight chil- dren, of whom six are living. Dr Hale resides in Rox- bury.
EDWARD EVERETT HALE.
158
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
B ANKER, writer on public topics, and man of busi- ness, Hosea Starr Ballou is a representative New Englander and a sterling son of Massachusetts. As the name implies, the family is of French extraction. Ma- turin Ballou, Huguenot, the first American ancestor, came to Rhode Island about 1645, and was a landed proprietor with Roger Williams in Providence. Forty years before the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, in 1685 (when the Bowdoins, the Faneuils and so many other honored Hu- guenot families found a refuge in the New . World), Maturin Ballou had already fixed his home in Providence. He had died, and his sons, the second genera- tion of Ballous in America, were al- ready freeholders when the little Narra- gansett settlement was burned in the famous War of King Philip, in 1675. Of the distinguished progeny of Maturin Ballou was Hosea Ballou, the father of modern Universal- ism, who died in Bos- ton in 1852. Another Hosea Ballou, his grandnephew, was also a distinguished Universalist clergy- man and editor. He was the author of " The Ancient His- tory of Universalism," a monumental work which earned for him the degree of D. C. 1. from Harvard College. He was first president of Tufts College, where he died May 27, 1861. Elizabeth Ballou Garfield, mother of the late President Garfield, was a descendant in the sixth generation from the original Maturin Ballou. Hosea Starr Ballou, of Boston, nephew of the second Hosea, represents the eighth generation in America of this eminent family. Son of a Universalist clergyman, who
HOSEA STARR BALLOU.
in the fifties also dealt considerably in Illinois real estate, he was born in North Orange, Mass., Feb. 9, 1857. He was educated at Williston Seminary, Harvard College, the University of Berlin, Germany, and the Collège de France, Paris. In 1870 the business of the Ballou Banking Company was established. Since the incorporation of the institution Mr. Ballou has been the president. He has won for his banking house the implicit confidence of the investing public. The Ballou Banking Company has offices in Boston, Philadel- phia, Baltimore, Sioux City, and in other cities of the United States and Europe. The Boston offices are in the Equitable Building, and it is here that Mr. Ballou gives his personal attention to the direction of the large business of the banking company in municipal, water, gas and street rail- way bonds, mort- gages, commercial paper, central store property, leased for a long term of years, in Chicago, Minne- apolis, St. Paul, Sioux City and Omaha. His intelli- gent discrimina- tion and well- directed efforts have brought these cities and the tributary country much nearer to the Eastern investing public.' But it is not in business and financial circles only that Hosea Starr Ballou is known. He is an original thinker, and has contributed many articles to the press, on European systems of education, and on matters of public polity, covering a wide range of thought. He has travelled extensively, and has pub- lished many short sketches of travel, notably on Southern Italy, and on Sweden, Norway and Denmark.
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.