Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 106

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 106

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MILLS, ASA ADAM, of Fall River, merchant, is a native of Rhode Island, born in the town of Albion, November 26, 1864, son of Thomas and

Betsey ( Beaumont) Mills. His parents removed to Fall River when he was a child, and he was ed- ucated in the public schools there. He began work at the age of twelve, employed as general boy in a dry and fancy goods store then con- dueted by Ramsay & McWhirr in Fall River. At the age of seventeen he was advanced to the position of department manager, and from that rose gradually through other positions to assistant manager, and then manager of the entire business, which by that time had grown to large propor- tions, being one of the largest stores in the city. He was holding the latter position with an interest

ASA A. MILLS.

in the business, when the death of Mr. McWhirr occurred in March, 1893. The firm had changed several times during his connection with it, and Mr. McWhirr's death left him the only surviving partner. He then organized the business into a corporation under the title of R. A. McWhirr Com- pany, and was chosen president, treasurer, and manager of the company, which positions he still holds. Under its present management the busi- ness has so grown that it is now regarded as one of the best in its line in South-eastern Massachu- setts. Mr. Mills is a member of the Odd Fellows and of the Royal Arcanum. He was married February 22, 1887, to Miss Sarah E. Godley, of

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Fall River. They have two children : Hazel G. and Everett D. Mills.

FREDERICK MILLS.

MILLS, FREDERICK, of Boston, printer, was born in Newton Lower Falls, April 17, 1834, son of William and Mary Angeline (Cooper) Mills. His grandfather, Luke Mills, and his great-grand- father, Nehemiah Mills, were farmers in the town of Needham. His father was a paper manufact- urer, under the firm name of Wales & Mills, at Newton Lower Falls. He was educated in the public schools and in the Chapman Hall, private school, of Boston. He learned the printing trade when a youth, entering the office of the Boston Daily Times at the age of sixteen, and at nineteen years of age in the employ of the old Boston firm of J. H. & F. F. Farwell, book and job printers. He remained with Messrs. Farwell until 1861, when he went into the printing-office of Alfred Mudge & Son. In 1879 he engaged in the book and job printing business for himself, associated with C. H. Knight, and has since continued under the firm name of Mills, Knight, & Co. During that time the firm has added to its business renew- able memorandum books and leather specialties for advertising purposes, of which it is a pioneer, and now has one of the largest establishments in

the United States in that line. Mr. Mills is an ac- tive member of the Episcopal Church, connected at present with St. Mary's Church, Newton Lower Falls. He is a member of the Franklin Typo- graphical Society, of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, and of the Boston Art and Exchange clubs. He has been a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company for twenty-seven years, and is connected with the Odd Fellow and several other social orders. Mr. Mills was married September 25, 1860, to Miss Josephine C'ate, of Newton Lower Falls.

MILLS, WILLIAM NATHANIEL, of Boston, cooperage business, was a native of Boston, born July 27, 1839 ; died June 1, 1894. He was the fifth son of James Lee and Margaret ( Mountfort) Mills. He graduated from the Boston public schools; and his training for active life began immediately after leaving school, as a clerk in a prominent commercial house in Boston. There he remained until 1862, when he entered into part- nership with W. D. Bush, and engaged in the

W. N. MILLS.

cooperage business, with which he was connected through the succeeding years until his death. In 1866 he formed the copartnership of Mills

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Brothers, succeeding to the cooperage business of James L. Mills & Sons, the latter house har- ing been established by his father in 1823. At the time of his death he was president of the American Stave and Cooperage Company. Mr. Mills was a member of the Ancient and Honora- ble Company from 1875 until his death, holding the rank of lieutenant in 1879 and 18So. He was connected with the Masonic fraternity, Bos- ton Commandery, Knights Templar, thirty-second degree, and was a member of the Bostonian So- ciety, of the Corinthian Yacht Club, of the Algon- quin and Art clubs, and of the Old Eliot School Association. He married December 14, 1860, Miss Annie M. Howe, of Boston. They have had one son : William H. Mills.

MUNROE, WILLIAM, of Boston, senior mem- ber of the firm of Stone & Downer Company, cus- tom-house brokers, import and export agents, was born in Cambridge, November 11, 1846, son of William A. and Mary (Watson) Munroe, daughter of Charles and Naney B. Watson, of Cambridge. He traces his descent directly from William Mun- roe, who was born in Scotland in 1625, and came to this country in 1632, subsequently settling in Lexington. His great-grandfather, William Mun- roe, was born in 1742, was orderly sergeant in Captain Parker's Company on Lexington Green, April 19. 1775, later on a lieutenant in the army at the taking of Burgoyne in 1777, and afterward a colonel in the militia. He kept the famous " Munroe Tavern " at Lexington, which was used as Earl Percy's headquarters and as a British hos- pital on the historie 19th of April, and where Washington dined in 1789, when he visited the first battlefield of the Revolution. Colonel Mun- roe died October 30. 1827. aged eighty-five years. Mr. Munroe's uncle, who is now a retired mer- chant, owns and occupies the old Lexington homestead. William A. Munroe, father of Will- iam Munroe, was a man of striet integrity and nobleness of spirit and character, both unselfish and brave, and was a large giver to all charitable and worthy objects. He was a successful mer- chant, and died in Cambridge at the age of sixty- five years. William Munroe was educated in the public schools of Cambridge, and, after leaving school, took a business course at French's College in Boston. He was reared from youth in the business in which he is now engaged, starting as

an office boy with Stone & Downer in 1865. He soon advanced, becoming book-keeper for the concern, and shortly after, through his energy and

WM. MUNROE.

ability, won his way to a partnership in the firm. Under his management and personal popularity the business has so increased that the firm is now one of the largest of its kind in the country. Mr. Munroe has served as assessor and clerk in the town of Belmont. where he resided for a number of years, and has been obliged by the pressure of his business to decline many flattering offers of political advancement. He is a member and a past master of Belmont Lodge Freemasons. He is also a Knight Templar of Hugh de Payen Commandery of Melrose. He was married Octo- ber 11, 1870, to Miss Helen S. P'easley, daughter of Charles P'easley. of Cambridge. They have two children : Chester and Mary A. Munroe. The son is in the office with his father.

NEWMAN, FREDERICK SAVAGE, of Springfield, architect, with offices in three cities. is a native of Maine, born in Bangor, August 26, 1847, son of Alden and Nancy (Ellis) Newman. His parents were both natives of Maine, his father son of Samuel Newman, who was born in New Hamp-

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shire, and his mother daughter of William Ellis, born in Pennsylvania. He was educated in New Hampshire schools and in draughting schools in Massachusetts. He was fitted for his profession under the direction of A. J. Aldrich, mill architect, and with E. C. Gardner, general architect. Open- ing his office in Springfield, on the first of November, 1882, he at once began active work, and in the course of a few years had designed a variety of important buildings, stores, churches, school-houses, public halls, bank and office build- ings, theatres, and dwellings in various parts of New England and in other States. In March, 1890, he opened a branch office in Hartford, Conn., and in February, 1894, a second branch office in Philadelphia, Penna. : and he is carrying on business in the three offices at the present time. Among his noteworthy structures are : in Spring- field, the Forbes & Wallace dry-goods store, Meekins, Packard, & Co. dry-goods store building, Court Square Theatre Building, Chicopee and Pynchon banks, the Safe Deposit and Trust Company, Fuller Building, Cutler & Porter, Union, Wight, Olmsted, & Kirkham, and Dickin-

F. S. NEWMAN.

son blocks, the Highland Baptist and St. Luke churches, the Buckingham and Pynchon school- houses, the Glendore Hotel; in Chicopee Falls,

the Imperial Hotel; in Holyoke, the Catholic church " Our Lady of Perpetual Help" and parochial school; in Turner's Falls, St. Anne's Catholic Church and Parsonage ; at Hartford, Conn., the Lindon Block, comprising eight stores and fifty-eight flats, and the Balerstein Block; in Reading, l'enna., the Dives Pomeroy & Stewart store ; in Indianapolis, Ind., the New York Dry- goods Store; in Philadelphia, Penna., the great office building of the Fidelity Mutual Life Asso- ciation. Mr. Newman has served in the city government of Springfield as a member of the Common Council. He is in politics a Republi- can and in religious faith a Unitarian. He is prominent in the Masonic fraternity, being a member of Hampden Lodge of Springfield, of Morning Star Chapter, Royal Arch Masons of Springfield Council, Royal and Select Masons of Evening Star Lodge of Perfection, Massasoit Council Princes of Jerusalem of Springfield, Lawrence Chapter of Rose Croix of Worcester, Massachusetts Consistory, Sublime Prince of the Royal Secret, thirty-second degree of Boston, and the Aleppo Temple Nobles of the Mystic Shrine of Boston. He is also connected with the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, a member of Mount Roulstone Lodge of Fitchburg and Agawam Encampment of Springfield ; and with the order of Knights of Pythias, a member of Hillsborough Bridge, N.H., and the Grand Lodge of K. and P. of New Hampshire. His club affili- ations are with the Springfield and Winthrop clubs of Springfield. Mr. Newman was married Sep- tember 22, 1867, in Peterborough, N. H., to Miss Caroline E. Grimes, of that town. He has no children.

NICHOLS, THOMAS PARKER, OF Lynn, printer and publisher, is a native of Lynn, born August 28, 1830, son of Nathan and Harriet (Herbert) Nichols. He is a descendant of the Nichols fam- ily of Malden, first settled there in 1660. He was educated in the Lynn public schools. After leay- ing school, at the age of thirteen, he began to learn the printer's trade ; and he has continued in the printing business continuously from that time (1843) to the present. He started in business ou the 5th of May, 1855, his first printing-office being on Market Square, Lynn. In 1867 he moved to Market Street, and has been established there ever since, occupying three different loca- tions, at present in the Macnair Block, No. 113,

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his quarters covering the second and third floors over the Lynn Safe Deposit and Trust Company and the Lynn National Bank. He now carries on

THOS. P. NICHOLS.

a general book and job printing and publishing business. with the manufacturing of blank books. Book-work of the most difficult nature receiving special care in his office. it has an excellent repu- tation among schools, colleges, observatories, and astronomers in various parts of the country. Mr. Nichols has served three terms in the Lynn Com- mon Council. in 1865-67-68, and is at present a member of the Public Water Board, his term of service, beginning in 1894, extending to 1898. He is a director of the Lynn Mutual Fire Insur- ance Company, and has been a trustee of the Lynn Five Cents Savings Bank since 1884. He is prominent in both the Masonic and Odd Fel- lows orders, being in the former a member of the Golden Fleece Lodge, of the Sutton Royal Arch Chapter, and of the Olivet Commandery. No. 36. Knights Templar; and, in the latter. member of the Bay State Lodge No. 40 and the Palestine Encampment No. 37. He is a director of the Ox- ford Club of Lynn, and member of the Master Printers' C'lub and the Universalist Club of Bos- ton. In politics he defines himself as a " stanch. native American, teetotaler, and Republican."

He was married May 5. 1853. to Miss Caroline Smith, of Lynn. They have had four children. all of whom are living : Carrie Helen (now Mrs. John C. Aborn), Frank Herbert, Fred Hammond, and Sarah Lizzie (now Mrs. Samuel S. Shepard ).

NICKERSON, SERENO DWIGHT, of Boston, merchant, is a native of Boston, born October 16, 1823. son of Ebenezer and Eudoxa (White) Nick- erson. His early education was acquired in some of the best private schools in Boston and at Phil- lips (Andover) Academy, where he was fitted for college. He graduated at Yale in 1845 with the regular degree, and received there the degree of A.M. in 1848. He read law at the Dane (now Harvard) Law School, which he attended for the full term, and received the degree of LL. B. in 1847. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar Janu- uary 21, 1848, after examination by one of the judges of the Court of Common Pleas. He. how- ever, never practised law, but engaged in mercan- tile business until 1864. and from that time until 1872 in real estate and other speculations. Since

SERENO D. NICKERSON.

the last-named date Mr. Niekerson has devoted a large part of his time to Masonic studies and labors, and has held various offices in that frater-

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nity, among them being the highest, that of grand master of Masons in Massachusetts in the years 1872-73-74. Since December. 1881, to the present time, he has served as secretary of the Grand Lodge of the State, which is one of the chief executive offices. Mr. Nickerson was mar- ried October 16, 1883, to Mrs. Louisa R. (Kil- burn) Cheever. They have no children.

OSGOOD, GEORGE LAURIE, of Boston, teacher of music, composer, and conductor, was born in Chelsea, Suffolk County, April 3, 1844, son of John Hamilton and Adeline (Stevens) Osgood. He is a lineal descendant of John Osgood, the Puritan, who landed at Salem in 1632. He was educated at the grammar and high schools of his native city, and graduated from Harvard in 1866. In college he was conductor of the Glee Club and of the orchestra. His inclination and faculties from the start indicated a musical career. In 1867 he went to Berlin for the study of composi- tion under Haupt, and of vocal expression under Sieber. In Halle he formed an intimate friend-

G. L. OSGOOD.

ship with Robert Franz, the great master of Ger- man song. In 1869 he went to Italy, and for three years studied the art of singing with the

renowned Lamperti, in Milan. In 1871 he re- paired to Germany, and gave with great success a series of concerts in Vienna, Leipzig, Dresden, Berlin, and other cities. Returning to America, he engaged with Theodore Thomas, and made a tour of the country in connection with his or- chestra. In 1872 he settled in Boston, where he has become celebrated as a teacher, composer, and conductor. In 1875 he assumed the directorship of the Boylston Club, a promising choral organiza- tion, then in its third year. He refined its singing, aroused its enthusiasm, and gave to Boston one of the most noteworthy and notable clubs in its musi- cal history. Under Mr. Osgood's leadership the perfection of its performances have earned for Boston a reputation for choral art not only national, but European. As a composer, musical critics award high rank to Mr. Osgood. His songs have a wide-spread popularity. Among his many works are : "Guide in the Art of Singing," a volume of two hundred pages, already passed through eight editions ; and numerous choral works for concert and church. Mr. Osgood, be- sides his acquaintance with the classics, has made modern languages a lifelong study, several of which he speaks and writes fluently. He has pub- lished a large number of lyrics translated from the German. He was a student at the Berlin Univer- sity from 1868-69. Mr. Osgood is a member of the St. Botolph and University clubs, for several years was a member of the Union Club, and in ISSo was created an honorary member of the Phi Beta Kappa society of Harvard College. He has been twice married. His first wife was Jeanette Farley, daughter of James P'. and Chloe S. Farley, of Chelsea. Of this union were three children : George Laurie, Farley, and Marie Jeanette. In 1891 he married June Bright, daughter of Horace (). and Junior Howe Bright, of Cambridge. Of this union there has been one child : Lowell, who died during his first year.

PAGE, WALTER GILMAN, of Boston, artist, is a native of Boston, born October 13, 1862, son of Charles Jewett and Kate Chase (Norcross) Page. He is a lineal descendant of John Page, who settled in America in 1630, and of Nathaniel Paige, 1675. Ancestors of his took active part in the govern- ment, in all of the early colonial wars, and in the War of the Revolution, three of his great-grand- fathers being at Bunker Hill. He was educated

MEN OF PROGRESS.

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in the public schools, principally the Boston Latin School. He began the systematic study of art immediately after leaving school, and, going to

WALTER GILMAN PAGE.

Paris, studied there under Boulanger and Lefebvre, Académie Julien. He first exhibited at the Salon in 1887 (on the line): in that of 1888 a portrait of Countess Divonne, and in 1889 two portraits. Among the numerous portraits which he subse- quently painted are : Colonel Marshall P. Wilder, for the town of Rindge, N.H .; Professor Louis Agassiz ; Governor Horace Fairbanks, of Vermont, now in the State House at Montpelier : Moses Merrill, master of the Boston Latin School : Samuel Little, president of the West End Street Railway, Boston : Alpheus P. Blake, founder of the town of Hyde Park : Samuel S. Green, librarian city of Worcester; and others of equal note. Mr. Page is one of the founders and an officer of the Public School Art League; and he has served on the Boston School Committee since 1893. having been elected for one year, and re-elected in 1894 for three years. He is especially interested in the question of drawing in the public schools. In politics he is Republican, and served one year as a member of the Ward Twenty-two committee. He is a member of the board of managers of Sons of the Revolution, and was the organizer

of the society in Massachusetts: is a charter member and one of the council of the Society of Colonial Wars; a member of the Unity Art Club, of which he was president for two years ; and member of the Twentieth Century Club. He was married June 9, 1891, at the Church of the Heavenly Rest, Fifth Avenue, New York, by Rev. D). Parker Morgan, to Miss Helen Kelso, of that city. They have one child : Courtenay Kelso Page (born in New York, October 13, 1893).

PATTEE, ASA FLANDERS, M.D., of Boston, is a native of New Hampshire, born in Warner, March 5, 1835, son of Asa and Sally (Colby) Pattee. He belongs to one of the old families of New England, in which have been several noted physicians. Peter Pattee, the first of the family in the country, who came from England, and settled in Virginia in 1658, was son of Sir William Pattee (or "Petty," as it was then spelled), physician to Oliver Cromwell and King Charles 11. Dr. Pattee's great-grandfather, Asa Pattee, was at the taking of Quebec under Gen- eral Wolfe in 1759 : and his grandfather, on his mother's side, was a captain in the Revolutionary army. His education was derived from the pub- lic school in his native town up to the age of six- teen, when he received private instruction in Latin, mathematics, and medicine. In the all- tumn of 1854 he entered the Dartmouth Medical School, and the following year became private pupil of the fate Professor E. R. Peaslee. In 1857 he received his degree of M.D. from Dart- mouth, and in 1887 received the honorary degree of A.M. As the practice of medicine was his chief object and aim in life, his training lay wholly in that direction. He became the assistant of several well-known physicians, and made careful dissections of a large number of the lower ani- mals, with physiological experiments. He spent much time in practical botany and chemistry, and thus became much better prepared for the multi- tudinous duties of the physician than generally fell to the lot of medical students of that period. He began his professional duties in his native town in 1858, and after a year there went to Amesbury, Mass., which was his home for seven years. His spare time was devoted to the study of botany and materia medica, and he ultimately became known in that department as among the best in the country. In the autumn of 1864 he

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entered the army as acting assistant surgeon, carrying to President Lincoln letters of recom- mendation from John G. Whittier, the Hon. John Evans, Yorie G. Hurd, M.D., Judge Carter, and others. He returned to Amesbury in 1865, re- mained there one year, then removed to Boston, in which city he soon acquired a lucrative prac- tice. In 1859 60 he had charge in an epidemic of small-pox in Amesbury of one hundred and fifty cases, out of which there were but three deaths. In 1867-68 he was lecturer on chemistry and pharmacy in the New England Medical Fe- male College, Boston. In 1883 he was elected

ASA F. PATTEE.

professor of materia medica and therapeutics and lecturer on nervous diseases at the College of Phy- sicians and Surgeons, Boston, which chair he occu- pied four years. He was president of the Boston Therapeutical Society during 1888-89-90, and on his resignation from that office was tendered a banquet by its members and friends, at which a number of prominent persons were present as guests. In 1891 he was necrologist of the Amer- ican Medical Association. He is now professor emeritus of special therapeutics of the College of Physicians and Surgeons. One of the sources of Dr. Pattee's success lies in his treatment of obscure and obstinate diseases,- those which

have been considered incurable or given up by the practitioner as fit only for the surgeon's table,- cases which he has entirely cured by therapeu- tical means alone. In 1885 he made a remark- able cure of senile gangrene in the foot of a man of seventy years. The toes of the left foot had sloughed away, the line of demarkation being just below the tarso-metatarsal articulation. Nature did the whole work of amputation. The patient lived six years after, and died of cerebral hem- orrhage. In 1887 he patented a catheter attach- ment for irrigating the bladder. His contribu- tions to medical literature have been more or less constant throughout his entire professional ca- reer, and for a number of years he has read a paper on his methods of treating certain difficult and obscure diseases at the yearly meeting of the American Medical Association, the subject for 1895 being "Therapeutics of the Senile Heart." Among his contributions, the list of which num- bers upwards of fifty, are the following : " A Plea for Pure Air, Pure Water, and Cleanliness in the Management of Medical and Surgical Cases, and as a Prophylaxis in Child-bed Fever," read be- fore the Essex North Medical Society, October, 1862; "Chemical Laboratory of Plants : how and where Acids, Alkaloids, Sugars, Glucosides. Starches, and Oil are formed: the Cause of the Beautiful Colored Tints of Autumn Leaves "; " Cactus grandiflorus, Night-blooming Cereus, its Habitat. Therapeutic Uses in Diseases of the Heart, with Cases"; " Diseases of the Stomach, including Cancer, Gastric Ulcer, and Dyspepsia : with Cases showing the Advantage of Washing out the Stomach " : " Persica vulgaris, Syn. (Com- mon Peach): a Tincture made from Peach Kernel, Valuable for Many Stomach Disorders "; " l'hos- phide of Zinc : in Facial Neuralgia and Nervous Exhaustion, with Select Formula for its Adminis- tration," read before the Suffolk District Medi- cal Society ; "Pleasant Medicines : How to make Medicines Agreeable to the Palate of Fastidious Patients, with Numerous Formul": "Bright's Disease : a New Treatment with Citrullus vulga- ris" ; " Hemi-chorea: St. Vitus Dance, on one side in a Woman of seventy-six and a Man of seventy-eight : Recovery "; "Salicinum : in Ty- phoid Fever, Dysentery, and Blood Poisoning : very Successful "; " Address to Graduating Class, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Boston, Mass. "; "A Lecture on Heart Tonics and Heart Sedatives : Treatment of the Senile Heart " ; " Po-

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tassium Chloride : its Use in Chronic Pelvic Indu- rations," read in section on General Medicine, American Medical Association, St. Louis, 1886 ; " Headaches : their Nature, Cause, and Treatment, a Lecture delivered at the College of Physicians and Surgeons, 1883, revised, with Notes on An- tipyrine, Antifebrine, and Salol"; "Two Hun- dred Cases of Fibroid Tumors of the Uterus," read at the Ninth International Medical Con- gress, Washington, D.C., September 7, 1887 ; "Treatment of Consumption," read in the sec- tion of the Practice of Medicine and Physiology at the Forty-second Annual Meeting of the Amer- ican Medical Association held at Washington, D.C., May, 1891; "The Modern Treatment of Diseases of the Kidneys." Dr. l'attee is a mem- ber of the American Medical Association, of the Manchester Medical Society, and the Boston Therapeutical Society. He is connected with the order of Odd Fellows, a member of Mt. Hobar Lodge, and of Boston Encampment, with the Royal Arcanum, and the American Legion of Honor. In politics he early dropped all official honors and aspirations, concluding that the per- fect performance of duties of public office and those attending the conscientious practice of med- icine were incompatible for one and the same person to execute. Dr. Pattee was married first, April 22, 1860, to Miss Ellen M. Allison, of Amesbury ; and second, January 18, 1865, to Miss Sarah Adelaide Gunnison, of Amesbury.

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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 106

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