USA > Massachusetts > Massachusetts of today; a memorial of the state, historical and biographical, issued for the World's Columbian exposition at Chicago > Part 20
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159
BOSTON.
M ASSACHUSETTS stands for many things, but for nothing more distinctly than for popular educa- tion. Her public schools have given her a supremacy in the educational world equal to that held by the Em- pire State in the commercial world. The growth and widening influence of the common school system are in no small measure due to the conservative, yet progres- sive, policy of the State Board of Education. Of this board, John Woodbridge Dickinson is the efficient sec- retary. His early years were passed in South Williamstown, Mass. He was the youngest but one of a family of nine chil- dren. At the age of nine years he was put to work on the farm during the sum- mer months, attend- ing school for a few weeks only during the winter. Having a strong desire for a liberal education, he passed through his preparatory course of studies at Grey- lock Institute, South Williamstown, and at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, and entered Williams College in 1848, graduating with clas- sical honors in 1852. The same year he was appointed assist- ant teacher in the State Normal School at Westfield, and four years later was made its princi- pal. For twenty-one years he performed the duties of his office with marked ability and success, preparing for the service of the State a large number of teachers, well trained in the philosophy and art of teaching, and gaining for the school a national reputation. Mr. Dickinson early became a diligent and successful student of peda- gogical science. He was among the first to introduce those reforms in methods of teaching which have since
JOHN W. DICKINSON.
been working their way into the best schools of the country. He trained his classes in the use of the ana- lytic objective method of study and teaching, in present- ing to their own minds, or to the minds of others, any branch of learning, whether subject or object. In 1877 Mr. Dickinson was called to the office of secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Education. His expe- rience as teacher had well fitted him for the new posi- tion. During his term of service the cause of popular education has made great progress in the Commonwealth. The normal schools have grown strong in pub- lic favor ; the teach- ers' institutes have been made to con- tribute more directly to an improvement in the methods of teaching ; the final abolition of the school district sys- tem has been accom- plished ; the children of the Common- wealth have been provided with free text-books, and the small towns of the State have been aided in supplying them- selves with well- trained school superintendents. Mr. Dickinson's an- nual reports hold a high rank among educational works, on account of their pedagogical value. Through his public addresses be- fore educational associations, and through his manage- ment of the pedagogical department of the Chautauqua University, he has exerted a strong influence upon the teachers of the country. In 1856 Mr. Dickinson was married to Arexina G. Parsons, of North Yarmouth, Me. She was a graduate of Bradford Female Seminary, and a successful teacher. She died in 1892. There are two children, John Worthington and Susie Allen.
160
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
TF THE celebrated reformer and Universalist divine, Alonzo Ames Miner, son of Benajah Ames and Amanda (Carey) Miner, was born Aug. 17, 1814, in Lempster, N. H. He is the grandson of Charles Miner, a Revolutionary soldier, and descendant of Thomas Miner, who came to Charlestown in 1630. His English ancestor, Henry Bullman, in 1356 was honored by Edward III. with a coat of arms. From his sixteenth to his twentieth year, Dr. Miner taught in public schools. He was associated with James Garvin in 1834-35 in the joint conduct of the Cav- endish (Vt.) Acad- emy, and from 1835 to 1839 was at the head of the Unity (N. H.) Scientific and Military Acad- emy. In 1838 he received the fellow- ship of the Universa- list church, and was ordained to its min- istry in 1839. After a three years' pastor- ate in Methuen, Mass., and six years in Lowell, he became the colleague of the venerable Hosea Ballou and successor of the Rev. Dr. E. H. Chapin in 1848, at the Second Univer- salist church of Bos- ton. This pastorate still continues. Dr. Miner has always been closely con- nected with educational work, having served on the school boards of Methuen, Lowell and Boston, and on the Board of Overseers of Harvard College. From 1862 to 1875 he was president of Tufts College, retaining his Boston pastorate. An ardent friend of the college, he made the address at the laying of the corner-stone, and among other donations to it has given forty thousand dollars for a theological hall. He is now serving his twenty-fourth year on the State Board of Education, and
for nearly twenty years has been chairinan of the Board of Visitors of the State Normal Art School, which he was largely influential in establishing. He is a member of the American Academy of Political and Social Sci- ence and of the Executive Committee of the American Peace Society. He was for twenty years president of the Massachusetts Temperance Alliance, and preached the election sermon before the Legislature in 1884, which he handled so severely that it repealed the law providing for the an- nual election sermon. To perpetuate the Prohibitory party work, Dr. Miner per- mitted the use of his name as candidate for governor of the State when the poli- ticians had fright- ened all others from the field. He deliv- ered the civic oration July 4, 1855 ; received the honorary degree of A. M. from Tufts College, 1861 ; S. T. D. from Har- vard, 1863; and LL. D. from Tufts, 1875. He has offi- ciated at nearly twenty-three hundred funerals and solem- nized nearly three thousand marriages. He is also president of the executive com- mittee of the trustees of Tufts College, president of the trustees of the Bromfield School at Harvard, of the board of trustees of Dean Academy, at Franklin, and of the trustees and board of directors of the Universalist Publishing House, now located at No. 30 West Street, Boston, of which he was the originator. Dr. Miner is a man of striking individuality and intense activity. His great capacity for work has enabled him to crowd the labor of several life-times into one, and through his marked originality he is an impressive factor in Boston life.
ALONZO A. MINER.
161
BOSTON.
T' THE man who first predicted the practical use of electricity for street railways must not pass with- out notice in any story of Massachusetts, although death has removed him from the sphere of his work. Calvin Allen Richards was born in Dorchester, Mass., March 4, 1828. He received his education in the public schools in and around Boston, and left school at an early age to assist his father, Isaiah D. Richards, in his business. He soon exhibited the executive ability which was so power- fully felt in his after- life. In 1852 he married Ann R. Bab- cock, daughter of Dexter Babcock, who is now living, an honored, retired merchant, in his ninety - sixth year. Two children were born of this union- a son who died in 1863, and a daughter who survives him. He remained in business with his father and brothers until 1861, when he opened a large es- tablishment on Washington Street, and it was in this location that he amassed the bulk of his fortune. He was in the Common Council of Boston in 1858, 1859, and 1861, and in 1862 he was an alderman. In 1874 he became a prominent director of the Met- ropolitan Street Railroad, and, shortly after, its presi- dent. The Metropolitan Railroad, under his direction, became one of the largest and best managed in the country. He worked most zealously for the interests of the stockholders. In all labor disturbances it was his habit to appear personally before the different organiza- tions and adjust matters amicably. In 1885 Mr. Rich- ards became the president of the American Street
CALVIN A. RICHARDS.
Railway Association, composed of the executive officers of almost all the railroads in the United States and Canada. He was almost the first man to predict the use of electric power for street cars, which he did in a magnificent speech at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, in New York, in October, 1884. He was greatly beloved by his associates in this organization, and always received an earnest invitation to attend the conventions long after he turned aside from railroad life. Mr. Richards be- came associated with the new West End organization under President Whitney, but soon resigned. For a short time afterwards he was connected with the Boston Heating Company, but soon retired to private life after purchasing and remodelling the large office building, No. 1 14 State Street, which bears his name. The con- struction of this building was the closing act of Mr. Richards's business life, as he was stricken with the grip immediately af- ter its completion, in January, 1890. His family and friends saw him fail- ing quite rapidly for about two months before his death. He had been out on Monday morning (Feb. 15, 1892), for a short drive, and had answered a telephone call but a short half hour before he fell dead, his death being instantaneous, without one moment of suffering. His life needs no eulogy for those who knew him -a strong, firm, conscientious business man, who contributed much to the marvellous development of the street railway sys- tem in Boston, achieved a wonderful success, and left an ample fortune.
162
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
N the year 1887, a young man was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives from Mel- rose. No one dreamed at the time that he was going to make an epoch for himself in the Republican politics of the Commonwealth, be chosen for five consecutive years as speaker of the House -the fourth time with absolute unanimity -and be conspicuous among those who were considered worthy of the highest honors within the gift of the party. William Emerson Barrett's rise will long be re- counted among the marvels in the history of Massachusetts pol- itics. He is the most aggressive political fighter in the State, and many a time has snatched a brilliant victory from the edge of defeat. Whatever remains for him of political honors, his fifth year in the chair has brought him an unchallenged place among the memora- ble speakers of the House. Not alone in politics, however, has his career been most striking and exceptional. Taking the charge of a paper injured by poor man- agement, he has placed it on a solid financial basis and regained for it its old-time position in moulding the public opinion of New England. A meagre outline of the life story of Mr. Barrett is as follows : He was born in Mel- rose, Mass., Dec. 29, 1858, the son of Augustus and Sarah (Emerson) Barrett. His education, begun in the public schools of his native town, was continned in the high school of Claremont, N. H., where his father was engaged in manufacture, and completed at Dartmouth College, from which he graduated in 1880. A few months later he went to work on the St. Albans (Vt.) I
WILLIAM E. BARRETT.
Messenger, and remained there two years. In 1882 he came to Boston, obtained a position on the Daily Advertiser, and, after a preliminary experience as special correspondent in Maine during the campaign of that year, was sent to Washington as the regular correspond- ent of the paper. At the capital he developed rapidly, and soon became one of the best-known Washington correspondents in the country, his note and comment on political and other movements being often brilliant, and always bright. During the national campaign of 1884, Mr. Barrett's letters from the " doubtful " States were among the most important and interesting contributions to campaign literature, giving a perfectly unbiassed account of the situation. In June, 1886, Mr. Bar- rett was recalled from Washington and made managing edi- tor of the Advertiser, subsequently becom- ing the publisher and leading owner of the property. He is now president of the Advertiser News- paper Company and publisher of the Advertiser and the Evening Record, the latter-one of the liveliest and most out-spoken Republi- can papers in America - being the first successful Bos- ton cent paper. In 1887 Mr. Barrett was elected to the lower House of the Massachusetts Legislature, and has been re-elected annually ever since, and its speaker since 1889. He is a member of a number of business corporations, of political and social clubs, and of the Masonic Order. He was married in 1887 to Miss Annie 1. Bailey, of Claremont, N. H. They have two children, a daughter and a son.
163
BOSTON.
T HE Boston Symphony Orchestra is conceded by all critics and musicians to be the finest one in this country, and one of the four or five best in the world. Hence the musical rank of its leader, Arthur Nikisch, is undisputed. He was born Oct. 12, 1855, in a small town called Szent-Miklos, in the principality of Liech- tenstein, Germany. His father was head auditor and steward to the prince, and an enthusiastic musical ama- teur. In early childhood the boy showed such extraor- dinary talent that his parents deter- mined to educate him as a musician. He began his studies with the violin, and mastered this instru- ment with such ease, and so completely, that at the age of eight he appeared in public with great suc- cess. When he was eleven years old he entered the Royal Conservatory in Vienna, devoting himself to all the technical branches of composition, and two years later he won the first prize in open competition for a sextet. He remained at the conservatory for eight years. One of his compositions -a cantata for solo, chorus and orchestra -was so successful as to be constantly repeated, and, as a special honor, on the occasion of his graduating from the conservatory, he publicly con- ducted a symphony. He was immensely popular with all his fellow-students, among whom were Motté and Fauré. After graduation, he was appointed one of the first violinists at the Royal Opera in Vienna, and in 1878 he went with Angelo Neumann to Leipsic, as assistant conductor in the Old Opera House, where at that time Anton Seidl was officiating as chief conductor. The
ARTHUR NIKISCH.
following year Herr Nikisch was transferred to the New Opera House, where he remained until 1889, when his services were secured for the Boston Symphony Orches- tra by Henry L. Higginson. Under Herr Nikisch's direction the Leipsic Theatre orchestra gained a Eu- ropean fame which entitled it to an equal, or even supe- rior, place to the Gewandhaus orchestra, which had long been regarded as the best in the world. A performance of the colossal Ninth Symphony, which Herr Nikisch conducted in 1882, was said to have been the most magnificent ever given, while the superb manner in which he conducted the concerts of the Tonkuenstler - Ver - sammlung in 1883 brought him a pro- fusion of orders and decorations from all over Germany. Herr Nikisch has won the rare distinction of being able to con- duct the long Wagner operas without once looking at the notes. On one occasion he was conducting the Ninth Symphony without looking at the score. He sud- denly stopped, and told the players that they were not read- ing the passage right. They assured him it was according to the score, but he insisted that the score was wrong. On looking the matter up they found that Herr Nikisch was right, and that an error had been made in transcribing the notes. Herr Nikisch has fully maintained the high artistic standard which his predecessor, Herr Gericke, set for the Sym- phony concerts. He is married, and has a family of interesting children. His wife was an opera singer of considerable note in Germany, and she has appeared with success on the American concert stage.
164
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
A S soldier, man of affairs and patron of the arts and sciences, Nathan Appleton is one of the active and useful men of his generation. He was born in Boston, Feb. 2, 1843, the youngest son of Nathan and Harriot Coffin (Sumner) Appleton. Graduating at Harvard in 1863, he was commissioned second lieuten- ant in the Fifth Massachusetts Battery, and served in the autumn campaign of 1863 in Virginia. At one of the engagements subsequent to the Wilderness he was severely wounded, and was brevetted captain for gallantry. Resuming his duties as aid on the staff of General Wainwright, he was present at the battle of Five Forks and the sur- render of Lee. As delegate of the Bos- ton Board of Trade, he was present at the opening of the Suez Canal, in 1869, being, with one ex- ception, the only accredited represen- tative of his country on that occasion. He contributed largely to the French representation at the Centennial Exposi- tion in Philadelphia. He has been a direc- tor in the American Metric Bureau, and was present at the Paris Exposition of 1878 as a delegate to several international congresses, representing the American Geographical Society at the Congress of Commercial Geography, attending the Congress for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals as a delegate of the Massachusetts society, taking part in the deliberations for the proposed Franco-American treaty of commerce, and presenting a plan for unifying coinage at the Con- gress for Weights, Measures and Coins. In January, 1879, as representative of the American Geographical
Society, and of the United States Board of Trade, he attended the international congress called by M. de Lesseps to decide upon the best route for a canal. Mr. Appleton was chairman of the Committee on Commer- cial Relations, and he voted with seventy-seven others in favor of the Panama route. In 1880 he accompan- ied M. de Lesseps from the Atlantic coast to the Pacific as his interpreter and the exponent of his views. Mr. Appleton is a member of the Loyal Legion, was com- mander of a Mas- sachusetts Grand Army post for two years, and has been one of the vice-pres- idents of the Society of the Army of the Potomac. He is a vice-president of the Massachusetts Soci- ety of the Sons of the American Revo- lution. He has trav- elled extensively in Mexico, and Central and South America, bringing home many valuable gifts for art and educational in- stitutions. During a recent sojourn in Santo Domingo, he took the initiative in encouraging the people to send an exhibit to the World's Fair. He is the author of two original plays, has been a frequent con- tributor to the press, and has delivered many public addresses, among them an address in the Old South Meeting House, Boston, June 14, 1877, on the occasion of the hundredth anni- versary of the adoption of the American flag by Con- gress, and an oration at the unveiling of the Columbus statne in Boston, Oct. 21, 1892. His paper on " Har- vard College during the War of the Rebellion," read before the Bostonian Society, has attracted wide attention.
NATHAN APPLETON.
165
BOSTON.
E MORY J. HAYNES, D. D., the eloquent pastor of the People's Church, is one of the commanding figures in the Boston pulpit and in the Methodist Epis- copal denomination. He was born in Cabot, Vt., Feb. 6, 1847, the son of Rev. Zadoc S. and Marion W. (Bayley) Haynes. In 1863 he entered Wesleyan Uni- versity, Middletown, Conn. During his junior year at Wesleyan he preached his first sermon, in Royalton, Vt., his father, who was pastor of the church, being among the hearers. In his senior year he preached for the Main Street Church (Methodist Episco- pal) at Norwich, Conn., and after graduating, in 1867, and joining the Prov- idence Conference, he was regularly in- stalled as pastor of the Norwich church, and remained there three years. In 1870 he was called to St. Paul's Church, Fall River, and from there he went to the Hanson Place Meth- odist Episcopal Church in Brooklyn, N. Y. His success here was phenome- nal, the society and congregation rapidly increasing in num- bers under his minis- try. In 1873 the church laid the cor- ner-stone of what is now the home of the largest Methodist Episcopal church and Sunday School in America. It was finished and dedi- cated in January, 1874. Mr. Haynes's next call was to the Seventh Avenue (now Grace) Methodist Episcopal Church in the same city. He had left the Hanson Place society with the mutual understanding that he would return at the end of three years, then the limit of the pastoral term. Before the close of the second year, however, his convictions concerning church government
EMORY J. HAYNES.
and practice had undergone something of a change, and he united with the Baptist denomination, accepting, in 1877, a call from the Washington Avenue Baptist Church, Brooklyn. He remained there until 1885, when he came to Boston as pastor of the Union Temple Church, Tremont Temple. His labors at this "free church of the strangers" for six years were highly suc- cessful, and his position here was one of the most labo- rious and influential in the Christian world, the aggregate audiences gathering at all the services in Tremont Temple each Sunday num- bering ten thousand people. In 1891 Mr. Haynes resigned the pastorate of the Union Temple Church and offered himself to the bish- ops and conference of the New England branch of Methodism who appointed him at once to the Peo- ple's Church, where he has since re- mained. His field of usefulness here is scarcely less broad than it was at Tre- mont Temple, and his hold upon the masses is particularly strong. He is the author of several works of fiction, in- cluding " Dollars and Duty," "A Wedding in War Time," and many short stories. He is president of the Anti-Tene- ment House League. Dr. Haynes has been twice married, his second wife being Grace, daughter of William and Mary E. Forby, of New York. They have five children. Mrs. Haynes owns a beautiful residence on the Hudson River, below Poughkeepsie, N. Y., where, because of long summer sojourns, Mr. Haynes is almost as well known as in Boston. Colby University conferred upon him the degree of D. D. in ISS6.
166
MASSACHUSETTS OF TO-DAY.
E DWARD AVERY has attained his distinguished position in the legal fraternity of Boston by severe attention to his profession and by his great nat- ural ability for its details and intricacies. He was born in Marblehead, Mass., March, 12, 1828, being the son of General Samuel and Mary A. W. (Candler) Avery. Gen- eral Samuel Avery was a native of Vermont, and served in the War of 1812. He subsequently removed to Marble- head, where he commanded the local brigade of militia for fifteen years, served many years as a selectman of the town, and repre- sented it in the Gen- eral Court. Edward Avery's mother was a daughter of Captain John Candler, of English descent. The branch of the family with which Edward Avery is connected is de- scended from Samuel Avery, a civil engi- neer, who received a grant of land in Ver- mont embracing the tracts known as Avery's Gores. Mr. Avery obtained his ! early education in the public schools of 1. Marblehead, finish- ing in Brook's Clas- sical School in Boston. Hle then entered the office of F. W. Choate, and later completed his course in the Harvard Law School. In April, 1849, he was admitted to the bar, and began practice in Barre, Mass. In 185t he removed to Boston, and has since practised continually in that city, a greater part of the time in association with George M. Hobbs, under the firm name of Avery & Hobbs. Early in his career Mr. Avery became interested in politics, and since 1851, with the exception of a few years, he has been a mem- ber of the Democratic State Central Committee, being
several times its chairman. He was once the Demo- cratic candidate for attorney-general of the State, and several times for Congress. In the Democratic national conventions of 1868 and 1876 he was a delegate, and at both represented his State in the Committee on Resolutions. He has frequently presided over Demo- cratic State conventions, and his addresses have always been masterly presentations of Democratic doctrines. He was a delegate to the Democratic National Conven- tion of 1892, where he was a strong sup- porter of Mr. Cleve- land's nomination. In 1867 he was one of the eight Demo- cratic members of the lower House of the State Legislature, and served on the Committee on Pro- bate and Chancery. In the campaign of the next year he was nominated for State senator, and on the night before election he was re-nominated for the House. Elected to both po- sitions, he took his seat in the Senate. Mr. Avery is a mem- ber of the Grand Lodge of Masons of Massachusetts. For four years he was district deputy grand master of the sixteenth Massachu- setts district, and for some time was junior grand warden of the Grand Lodge. In 1852 Mr. Avery married Susan Caroline, daughter of Caleb Stetson, of Boston. His second wife was Mar- garet, daughter of David Greene. There have been two children, a son and a daughter, the former, Albert E., being engaged in the practice of law with his father. Mr. Avery is reckoned among the most valued advisers of of the Democratic leaders in Massachusetts, the safe con- servatism of his counsel proving of great use to his party.
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