Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 101

Author: Herndon, Richard; Bacon, Edwin M. (Edwin Monroe), 1844-1916
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Boston : New England Magazine
Number of Pages: 1036

USA > Massachusetts > Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts > Part 101

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FAXON, WILLIAM OTIS, M. D., of Stoughton, is a native of Stoughton, born October 24, 1853, son of Ebenezer R. and Harriet Newell ( Hoit) Faxon. He is in the ninth generation from Thomas Faxon, an early settler in New England, in 1632, the line running: Thomas.1 Richard," Thomas," Richard,' James," Nathaniel," Nathaniel,? Ebenezer," William ()." His mother was of New Hampshire, daughter of Benjamin and Jane (Burnham) Hoit, of Moultonborough. Ile was educated in the public schools of his native town, and fitted for his profession at the Boston Univer- sity School of Medicine, graduating in 1876. He began practice immediately after graduation, in South Braintree, and continued there until Janu- ary, ISSI, when he returned to Stoughton, which has since been his field of successful work. In 1894 he was appointed medical examiner for the Fifth Norfolk District. He is a member of the Massachusetts Surgical Society of Boston and of the Commercial Club of Brockton. He has taken quite an interest in Masonry, having taken all the degrees as far as Knight Templar; and he is also a member of the order of Odd Fellows. In politics he is a Republican, and has been asked several times by his party associates to allow his

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name to be used as a candidate for office; but on account of demands of his profession he has been obliged to decline. Dr. Faxon was married July

WILLIAM O. FAXON.

10, 1878, to Miss Susan Reed Wales, of Stough- ton. They have had two children : Nathaniel W. (now fifteen years of age) and William Reed Faxon (died in infancy).

FENNO, JOHN BROOKS, of Boston, wool mer- chant, was born in Boston March 3. 1816, son of John and Temperance ( Harding) Fenno: died February 14, 1894. He was descended from Ephraim and Elizabeth Fenno, who were settled in Boston some time during the latter part of the seventeenth century. Their son John married Hannah Capen, of Charlestown, in 1730, and died in Boston in 1790. Among other children John and Hannah had a son Samuel, born in 1745, married Hannah Hiller, of Salem, in 1767. died in 1806. Among the children of Samuel and Hannah was John, born in 1779, married Temperance Harding in June, 1813, and died 1820. This John was the father of John Brooks Fenno. Mr. Fenno was educated in the Boston public schools, graduating from the English High

School, of which Thomas Sherwin was then mas- ter, and winning at different times two Franklin medals. After graduation from school he entered the importing house of Thomas & Edward Motley on India Wharf, and remained there until the dis- solution of that firm. In 184t he became a mem- ber of the firm of Wetherell, Whitney. & Co., dry- goods jobbers, and continued in that business for many years, under various firm organizations, forming in 1844 the firm of Whitney, Fenno, & C'o .. in 1860 that of Fenno, Foster, & Badger, and in 1862 Fenno & Jones. In 1864 he formed the firm of Fenno & Childs, general commission mer- chants, and in 1868 engaged exclusively in the wool business as the head of the firm of Fenno, Abbott. & Co. Six years later this firm was changed to Fenno. Son, & Co .. and so continued until 1879, when he entirely retired from active business. Mr. Fenno never would accept public office, although always deeply interested in the various political events of his time. He was first an ardent Whig, and afterward a consistent Re- publican. He was for many years a vestryman of Trinity Church, and a member of the Bostonian

J. B. FENNO.

Society, of the Massachusetts Horticultural Soci- ety. the Historical Society, the Natural History Society, and the Church Missionary Society. He

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was married August 6, 1844, to Sarah Elizabeth Smith, daughter of Richard Smith of Smithtown, Long Island, N.Y. Their children were : Edward Nicoll, Florence Harding, Lawrence Carteret, and John Brooks, Jr.

FLOOD, THOMAS WILLIAM, of Boston, member of the Board of Aldermen for the South Boston District, is a native of Ireland, born in Lough- brown, County Kildare, November 7, 1857, son of William and Theresa ( Flannigan) Flood. Being obliged to work from early boyhood, his

THOMAS W. FLOOD.

opportunities for an education were limited ; and all the schooling he was able to obtain consisted of two and a half years in the country school of his native place and two years more at the New- bridge National School. His working days began when he was seven years of age, and have con- tinued ever since. He came to America in Octo- ber, 1869, and went to live in Brooklyn, N. Y., where he remained until May, 1870, during which time he worked in the Loomis saw-mill. He arrived in Boston May 31, 1870, and on June 1 went to work for Thomas Johnson, grocer and provision dealer in South Boston. Ile continued there until August, ISS4, when he was appointed

clerk in the street department of Boston by Michael Meehan. The last year in that depart- ment he was chief clerk. He was removed April 5, 1889, by J. Edwin Jones, under Mayor Hart's administration. He was connected with the grocery and provision business for fourteen years; and this, in his judgment, was the best training he received for successful business life. His political career began in 1883, when he aspired to a position on the Democratic ward committee of Ward Fourteen. He was defeated that year, but the next was successful; and he was made chairman of the committee. This was the triumphant Democratie year, when Grover Cleveland was first elected to the Presidency. Mr. Flood has remained on the committee most of the time since,-its most influential member. lle was first elected to the Boston Board of Alder- men in the December election of ISS9, and was re-elected in 1890, 1891, and 1892. Failing of the Democratic nomination in 1893, he ran inde- pendently as a Citizens' candidate, and polled 22,315 votes, being defeated by 3,500 votes. In 1894 he received the almost unanimous Demo- cratic nomination, lacking but seven votes ; and on election day polled 30,700 votes, the highest received by any Democrat on the ticket. Al- though a Democrat, he has independent proclivi- ties, and is naturally liberal, not radical. In the aldermanic board he has served on some of the most important committees, and has been a leader on his party's side of the chamber. Mr. Flood is a prominent member of numerous societies and clubs. He is a past dictator of the City Point Lodge of Knights of Honor ; past regent of Win- throp Council, Royal Arcanum ; a member of Mount Washington Lodge, Ancient Order of United Workmen; member of Division 13, An- cient Order of Hibernians; of the South Boston Council, Knights of Columbus; of the Charitable Irish Society of Boston; a trustee of the City Point Catholic Association, South Boston ; a life member of the Young Men's Catholic Association of Boston College ; a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company; and member of the City Point Athletic Club, the Mosquito Fleet Yacht Club, and the Oak Bluffs Club, Cottage City. He was first married October 20, 1886, to Miss Alice M. McKanna, by whom he had two children : Annie Elizabeth and William Flood (deceased). He married second, February 20, 1895, Miss Catherine G. Gallagher.

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FOURDRINIER, CHARLES WILLIAM, of Bos- ton, manager of the Wheelman, is a native of England, born in Hanley, Staffordshire, March

C. W. FOURDRINIER.

24, 1855, son of George Henry and Jane ( Har- ding) Fourdrinier. His ancestry is traced to llenri Fourdrinier, born at Caen, Normandy, in 1575, an admiral, and bearing the title of viscount. Henri, a grandson, emigrated to Hol- land in 1698 ; and Paul, a great-grandson, in 1693 established the family name in England. Among the names of Mr. Fourdrinier's near ancestors is that of Cardinal John Henry Newman. His edu- cation was acquired in a preparatory school at Headington, near Oxford, England. Failure of health cut his studies short, so that he did not enter college. He was trained for a business ca- reer, and some time in 1871 went into an insur- ance office. He remained in that business, filling various positions of trust, until ISSo, when he took a position with Van Benthuysen, of Albany, and obtained an idea of the practical part of the pub- lishing business. Eight years later, in 1888, he took the management of the Wheelman Company, with which he has since been connected. He is president of the Press Cycle Club, and member of the Boston Bicycle Club, the Boston Camera Club, and the Hull Yacht Club. He is unmarried.

FRANKLIN. ALBERT BARNES, of Boston, manufacturer, was born in Roxbury (Boston), Jan- uary 28, 1852, son of Benjamin and Clara (Stowell) Franklin. His ancestors were among the first settlers of Southern Vermont. going there from Guilford, Conn., and naming their settlement Guilford from their former home. His great-grandparents on both sides were active in the Revolutionary War : one was a captain (David Stowell), and another, Jedediah Darling, was wounded in the battle of Stillwater, N.Y. Ilis grandfather Franklin went back to Connecticut, and, enlisting at New London, served in Connecti- cut. Mr. Franklin was educated in the Boston public schools, and was prepared for college at the Roxbury Latin School; but, his health failing from over-study, he was obliged to give up the college course. .At the age of seventeen, in June, 1869. he entered the employ of J. J. Walworth & Co., now the Walworth Manufacturing Company, and worked four years with tools, learning the trade of a steam-fitter. During the five years next ensuing he was employed by the same concern in making plans and estimates and in contracting for heating

ALBERT B. FRANKLIN.

apparatus. In the autumn of 1878 he started in business on his own account, beginning in a small way at No. 30 Charlestown Street, Haymarket

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Square, Boston, with a capital not above $500, $400 of which sum was invested in the right to use a patent boiler for house-warming, which, how- ever, Mr. Franklin within a short time after aban- cloned. In February, ISS2, he formed a limited partnership with his brother, Benjamin E. Franklin, receiving $5,000 additional capital, which was of great value to him in extending his business. This partnership continued until the first of Janu- ary, 1891, since which time Mr. Franklin has con- ducted the business alone. From the beginning his work has grown yearly, slowly at first, but of late years with marked rapidity. During the busy season he employs about one hundred hands, and his yearly transactions reach a total of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. Mr. Franklin has con- structed some of the largest heating and ventilat- ing plants in New England, among the most nota- ble ones being the apparatus in the New State House Extension, that in the Asylum for Chronic Insane at Medfield, which comprises twenty-four separate buildings, and plants in a large variety of buildings, both public and private, including nu- merous fine residences in other parts of New Eng- land. Mr. Franklin is vice-president of the Mel- rose Young Men's Christian Association, and was chairman of the building committee for the structure just completed for the association at a cost of fifty thousand dollars. He has also been for three years superintendent of the Congrega- tional Sunday-school in Melrose. He is a mem- ber of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, of the Congregational Club, and of the Boston Sunday-school Superintendents' Union. In politics he is a Republican. He was married September 30, 1874, to Miss Helen Frances Jenness, of Roxbury. They have six children : Lillian, Albert B., Jr., Laurence, Ralph Stowell, Isabelle Emily, and Clara Violet Franklin.

FRASER, JonN CHISHOLM, M.D., of East Weymouth, was born in Antigonish, N.S., Au- gust 2, 1853, son of John and Mary (Chisholm) Fraser. Both parents were born in the High- lands of Scotland. On the paternal side the an- cestry is traced back to the eleventh century. His mother is a descendant of "the Chisholms of Strathglass," and was born in Beauly, Inverness- shire. He was educated in the common schools of Nova Scotia and at St. Francis Xavier College, Antigonish. Coming to the United States in

1872, he began the study of medicine at the Har- vard Medical School, and, subsequently entering the Bellevue Hospital Medical College in New

JOHN C. FRASER.

York, graduated from the latter in March, 1876. Immediately after graduation he established him- self in East Weymouth, and has been there en- gaged since, his practice early becoming success- ful and steadily increasing in extent. He has been medical examiner for the Fourth District of Norfolk County since 1893; is a justice of the peace, appointed by Governor Ames in 1888: and has been a member of the Weymouth School Board for six years. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, of the South Nor- folk District Medical Society, and of the Medico- Legal Society of Boston, and belongs also to the Scots Charitable Society of Boston, the Boston Caledonian Club, and to social and literary clubs of Weymouth. Dr. Fraser was married July 20, ISSo, to Miss Mary A. Boyle, of East Weymouth. They have five children: Mary G., Archie Mckay, Catherine E., Somers, and Irene A. Fraser.

FRÉCHETTE, CLEMENT, M.D., of Leominster, is a native of Canada, born in Montreal, Febru- ary 22, 1868, son of Clement and Anathalie

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(Chartrand) Frechette. Louis Joseph Papineau, one of the principal leaders in the rebellion of 1837-38, of whom a writer has said, " His elo- quence caused us [the French Canadians] to be respected as much as did the sword of les D'Iberville, les Montcalm, and les Salaberry," was his great-uncle. He is also related to Louis H. Frechette, Canadian national poet, whose works have been crowned by the French Acad- emy. His education was obtained at the Mon- treal College, Montreal, under the direction of the Sulpiciens : and he was graduated in medicine from the Victoria University, Montreal, in 1890. After graduation he came to Massachusetts, and practised for about two years in the village of Manchaug. Then, removing to Leominster, he has since been established in that town, in the en- joyment of a steadily growing practice. While living in Montreal, he was secretary of Le Cercle National, and was also a member of Le Club St. Denis, of Le Trappeur, a snow-shoe club, of Le Club National, a political organization for young Liberals, and of L'Institut Medical. In Man- chang he was president of La Societe Drama-

CLEMENT FRECHETTE.

tique, and vice-president of the Manchaug Athletic Club ; and in Leominster he is a member of the Leominster Club. He is one of the vice-presi-

dents of Le Club Frémont, a Republican State or- ganization in Massachusetts ; and he also belongs to the St. John Baptiste Society. He is an ear- nest Republican, and has been active in politics since 1893, taking part in every campaign as an effective speaker (in French) on the stump in many cities and towns. Though French by blood, he is American in sentiment. He is an admirer of American institutions ; and he hopes to see his adopted country "the grandest, the richest, and the happiest of countries in the world." One of his greatest desires is to see Canada annexed to the United States. He " abhors fanaticism," and believes in " freedom of conscience."

FRYE, JAMES NICHOLS, of Boston, merchant, is a native of Vermont, born in the town of Con- cord, October 3, 1828, second son of Captain David and Betsy (Joslin) Fryc. In him unite strains of blood which have left their mark upon the development of New England. His genera- tion is the tenth of the name in this country, counting from the John Frye, of Basing, County Hants, England, who sailed from Southampton for America in 1633. His great-grandfather, John Frye, held a captain's commission in the colonial service from 1755 to 1761, and is re- corded as eighth deacon on the roll of the old church at Sutton, Mass. His grandfather, still another John Frye, pushed northward in 1795. moving from Royalston, Mass., to Concord, of which town he was one of the earliest settlers. His father was a prominent man in Concord, and held a commission in the artillery service. Through his mother, Mr. Frye is connected with the old Joslin family of Leominster, Mass .. which counts among its ancestors Sir Ralph Jos- lin, lord mayor of London in 1464. His ma- ternal great-grandfather, whose name he bears. was Captain James Nichols, an early master in the American merchant marine. Mr. Frye's boy- hood was passed upon his father's farm in Con- cord, of which the title to-day stands in his name. Losing his mother in infancy, he found himself, upon the death of his father in 1843, thrown largely upon his own resources. A few years later, having obtained what education could be had from the common schools of that day, he en- tered the well-known academy at St. Johnsbury, in whose catalogue of alumni he is registered with the class of 1849. Perhaps, however, the self-re-

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liance developed by the circumstances of his early life has stood him in better stead than any other part of his education. While studying at St. Johnsbury, he held a position in the post-office at that place ; and it was through acquaintances thus formed that the opportunity was offered him to enter the employ of Montgomery Newell, at that time in the wholesale hardware trade at No. 83 State Street, Boston. Mr. Frye gladly took advantage of this opportunity, and at once left Vermont for the scene of his new labors. He arrived in Boston on the forenoon of April 17, 1849. One o'clock of the afternoon of that day

JAMES N. FRYE.

found him energetically occupied in mastering the details of his unaccustomed calling. His entry upon his business career was characteristic of his determination to succeed in his undertaking ; and, by making his employer's interests his own, he won his way forward, step by step, until within five years from the day he left Vermont he reaped the reward of his unremitting attention to duty by being admitted to partnership in the concern for which he had so faithfully labored. Few firms in the business world of to-day can lay claim to an uninterrupted existence of fourscore years ; but one of these few is that of Frye, Phipps, & Co. The original concern, under the style of Mont-

gomery Newell, was in business for over a third of a century. It was followed by the firm of Wells, C'overly, & Co. (1853); Coverly, Frye, & Co. (1855): Coverly, Frye, & Knapp (1858) ; Coverly, Frye, & Co. from 1860 to 1864, during the latter three years of which period Mr. Frye was sole member of the concern ; Frye, Phipps, & Co. during the thirty-one years from 1864 until the present time (1895). From the earliest days of the century until now this old concern has en- joyed an unbroken reputation for integrity, and after the business trials of so many decades it still stands well to the front among its younger rivals in the trade. Even the "great fire " of 1872, in which the granite store of the concern, then on Federal Street, literally melted out of view, proved only a temporary check to the course of the firm's affairs; for in twenty-four hours it was re-estab- lished in new quarters, undaunted by its misfort- une. Mr. Frye is an active member of the New England Iron and Hardware Association, and is delegate from that body to the Massachusetts State Board of Trade. In the latter organization he holds the position of vice-president and mem- ber of the executive council. Still claiming kin- ship with Vermonters, he was instrumental in forming the Vermont Association of Boston, of which he is vice-president. He has always been devotedly fond of rod and gun. In 1875 he was among those who established the now famous Massachusetts Rifle Association, of which he was later elected president, and in which he now holds the office of honorary life director. He has also been connected with the old Tremont Sportsman's Club and with the Megantic Club, though he has given up his membership in the latter, and now is enrolled in the Winchester Club, whose game pre- serves lie near Caxton, Canada. He has hunted and fished for years past in the Adirondack, Rangeley, and Moosehead regions, and knows by heart every haunt of shore birds along the Massa- chusetts coast. He has been an unswerving ad- herent to the Republican party since its organiza- tion, but has never sought office, although main- taining an active interest in national and local politics. Mr. Frye was married January 1, 1854, to Miss Sabina T. Bacheler, daughter of the Rev. Origen and Charlotte (Thompson) Bacheler. He has had three children : Charlotte M., Alice M., and James A. Frye. Of these the first is de- ceased. The two last-named are married, and reside in Boston.

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GALLISON, JEFFERSON CUSHING, M.D., of Franklin, is a native of Maine, born in Sebec, August 8, 1841, son of John Murray and Sarah Ann (French) Gallison. His paternal grandfather was born in the old Winslow house still standing in Marshfield, and was the eldest son of John Gallison, of Marblehead, who married Abigail Winslow, daughter of Kenelm Winslow, a direct descendant of the Winslows of the "Mayflower." The Gallisons came early to Marblehead, from the island of Guernsey, and are of French descent. llis maternal ancestors were of the Scotch-Irish immigrants who were the early settlers of parts of

J. C. GALLISON.

New Hampshire. His maternal grandfather was a veteran of the War of 1812. He attended the public schools, the Woodstock High School, and the Oxford Normal Institute ; was for three years private pupil of Dr. J. H. Kimball, surgeon of the Thirty-first and Thirty-second Maine Volunteers ; and was graduated from the Boston University (in 1875), Tufts College (1894), and the Harvard Medical School (1895). He has for several years been a post-graduate student at Harvard. In 1893 he entered the regular course as an under- graduate, and was graduated a member of the class of 1895. He was for three years in practice in Medway, nearly one year in Brookline, and has

for seventeen years been in Franklin. During this time he was in Europe several months, and served as interne in the Hospital Beaujon, Paris. Later he was an instructor in surgery in the Bos- ton University Medical School for three years, and lecturer on surgical pathology at Tufts College. In 1890 he was appointed medical examiner for Norfolk County, which office he still holds. Dr. Gallison is also concerned in banking. being a director of the Franklin National Bank, the Benjamin Franklin Savings Bank, and the Franklin Co-operative Bank. He was a director of the Milford, Franklin, & Providence Rail- road. He has served his town as a member of the Franklin School Board for three years, and was for several years member of the local Board of Health. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, of the Massachusetts Medico- Legal Society, of the Thurber Medical Society (president in 1894), of the Alumni Association of Boston University (president in 1875), and of the Alumni Association of Tufts College. He is a Knight Templar and a thirty-second degree Mason, member of Aleppo Temple, Order of the Mystic Shrine, an Odd Fellow, member of lodge and en- campment, and is connected with several other secret societies. Dr. Gallison was married Janu- ary 2, 1864, in Portland, Me., to Miss Ellen S. Bur- nell, daughter of Isaiah M. and Abigail S. (Willard) Burnell. They have one child, a daughter : Annie Louise Gallison (born October 28, 1871).

GARLAND, JOSEPH, M.D., of Gloucester, is a native of New Hampshire, born in Hampton, January 22, 1822, son of David and Mary (Fifield) Garland. His grandfather, Jonathan Garland, deacon of the church, selectman, recruiting officer, and army officer in the Revolutionary War, was the fourth in descent from John Garland, who came from England about the year 1650, settled at Hampton, N.H., and was the progenitor of the Garland families in New Hampshire and Maine ; and descendants of Jonathan Garland still remain upon the homestead of the original families in Hampton. Dr. Garland's early education was in the common district school. He fitted for college at Hampton Academy in his native town, and, after teaching two schools, entered Dartmouth in 1840, where he remained one year. Then he taught again for several months, and the next year (1841) entered Bowdoin in the middle of the soph-

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omore year, and graduated regularly in 1844. After graduation he taught two academies, one in South Hampton and another in Atkinson, N.H., and at the same time studied medicine. Securing funds by teaching, he prosecuted further training for the medical profession. In 1848, after spend- ing several months at the Bowdoin College Medi- cal School, then largely under the care of Profes- sor Edmund R. Peeslee, he attended clinical studies at the Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and in the autumn of 1848 entered the Jefferson Medical College at Philadelphia, and graduated there in March, 1849. He went to

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Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 101

Author: Herndon, Richard; Bacon, Edwin M. (Edwin Monroe), 1844-1916 Publication date: 1896 Publisher: Boston : New England Magazine Number of Pages: 1036

Author: Herndon, Richard; Bacon, Edwin M. (Edwin Monroe), 1844-1916
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Boston : New England Magazine
Number of Pages: 1036