Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 111

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 111

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ernor of New Hampshire in 1717, which office he held until his death in December, 1730. In 1741. when New Hampshire was allowed a governor,

GEORGE L. WENTWORTH.

Benning Wentworth, son of John, was appointed to the office ; and he held it until 1767, after which another John Wentworth, nephew of Benning, was appointed. The length of service of Benning Wentworth as governor, twenty-five years, was longer than any other governor in America ever served under a royal commission. While in office, he presented to Dartmouth College five hundred acres of land, on which the college buildings are erected. George L. Wentworth was educated in the public schools in Brewer, Me., until sixteen, and then under private tutor, fitting for college, but never entering. He studied for his profession at the Boston University Law School, and gradu- ated in 1881 with the degree of LL.B. In the law school he was president of his class, and was appointed by the faculty class orator. He was admitted to the bar in September following his graduation, and since that time has been in active practice in Boston. In Weymouth, where he has resided since 1885, he has been influential in town affairs, for three years a member of the School Committee, 1887-So ; and he has represented his district in the Legislature in 1894 and 1895,

in the latter body serving on the committees on the judiciary and on rules. From 1890 to 1893 he was special county commissioner for Norfolk County. Mr. Wentworth is connected with the order of Odd Fellows, now past grand of Wildey Lodge, of South Weymouth, and past high priest of Pentalpha Royal Arch Chapter, and has held prominent positions in Orphans' Hope Lodge of Freemasons and the South Shore Commandery, Knights Templar. In politics he is a Republican. Ile was married November 5, 1881, to Miss .An- nette Small, of Belfast, Me. They have four chil- dren : Marian Seabury (aged eleven years), Marjorie (nine), Laura Annette (seven), and Stacy Hall Wentworth (five).

WEST, HENRY DANIELS, M. D., of Southbridge, was born in Templeton, March 19, 1828, son of Clark and Mehitable (Pike) West. He received his education in the district school, which he at- tended till he was eighteen years of age, and after that at a school in Hopkinton. He began the study of medicine in Lawrence in the autumn of

H. D. WEST.

1851, and graduated, after attending two courses of lectures, from the Worcester Medical College in 1854. He was with Dr. Ordway in a drug store

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one year and with Dr. Charles Snow, of Lawrence, about two years. After this training he began practice, settled in Southbridge, October 17, 1854. He has had a most successful career, building up a large practice, and is now retired as much as his old patients will allow him to retire. During his long practice he has had over two thousand cases of childbirth, with assistance of only one case. Although he had much to contend against in carly life, he surmounted every obstacle, and to-day stands high in the estimation of his townsmen. lle is a physician of the eclectic school and an original thinker. He is a member of the Massa- chusetts Eclectic Medical Society and of the Na- tional Eclectic Medical Society. He is a trustee of the Methodist Episcopal church in South- bridge, and has been superintendent of the Sun- day-school for about six years. In politics he has been a Republican. He has held no public office and sought none, devoting his life fully to study and the cause of medicine. Dr. West was mar- ried June 3. 1850, to Miss Susan Hastings Moul- ton, of Oxford. They have had three children : George (died when five months old). Alice Jane (died when five weeks old), and Florence Belle (died August 9, 1882, at the age of thirteen years and five months, of valvular disease of the heart).

WHITNEY, SAMUEL BRENTON, of Boston, or- ganist, was born in Woodstock, Windsor County, Vermont, June 4. 1842, son of Samuel and Amelia (Hyde) Whitney. His early education was ob- tained in the public schools, and he subsequently attended the Vermont Episcopal Institute, Bur- lington. He studied music first with local teachers, afterward with Carl Wels in New York. and later still with Professor John K. Paine, of Harvard University, taking lessons on the organ, and pianoforte in composition and instrumenta- tion. He was organist and director of music in Christ Church, Montpelier, Vi., for some time, then at St. Peter's, Albany, N.Y., then at St. Paul's Church, Burlington, Vt. ; and for the past twenty-four years he has been organist at the Church of the Advent, Boston, the choir of which church has become quite celebrated under his direction. He has frequently been engaged as conductor of choir festival associations in Massa- chusetts and Vermont. He has also been con- ductor of many choral societies in and around Boston, and has the reputation of being very suc-

cessful in training and developing boys' voices. In this position he has been identified with litur- gical music, vested choirs, and a reverent per- formance of church music. As an organist, he belongs to the strict school, and but for his mod- esty would be much oftener heard of outside of his own church. His services, however, have been in constant demand in and around Boston, wherever a new organ was to be introduced to the public. It has been said of him that he has a wonderful faculty of getting a great deal of music out of a small instrument. The late Dr. J. H. Wilcox once said in this connection, after hearing

S. B. WHITNEY.

Mr. Whitney play a very small organ, "It takes a much more gifted organist to play a small organ than it does a large one, where every resource is at hand." Another musical authority in Boston has said, " Mr. Whitney by his wonderful mastery of the preludes, fugues, and toccatas of Bach, most of which are so impressed upon his remark- able memory that he rarely uses notes, by his style so brilliant and pleasing, and his improvisa- tions so solid and rich, has won much credit in and beyond professional circles." Mr. Whitney was for a time a teacher of the organ in the New England Conservatory of Music. He also estab- lished in that institution for the first time a church

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music class, in which were not only the vocal pupils taught how properly to interpret sacred music, but the organ pupils as well were in- structed as to the management of the organ in church music. He has written church music quite extensively, also piano and miscellaneous music. Among his compositions are a trio for pianoforte and strings, many solos, and arrangement for both pianoforte and organ, as well as several church services, te deums. miscellaneous anthems, and songs both sacred and secular. He is first vice- president and one of the organ examiners of the American College of Musicians.

WHEATLEY, FRANK GEORGE, M.D., of North Abington, is a native of Vermont, born in Wood- bury, July 6, 1851, son of Luther and Eunice C. ( Preston) Wheatley. His preparatory education was received in the common schools, at the Ran- dolph Normal School, Vt., the Methodist Semi- nary, Montpelier, the Northfield lligh School, and through a private tutor. He graduated from Dartmouth in the class of 1879. He then studied

FRANK G. WHEATLEY.

for his profession at the Dartmouth Medical Col- lege, and graduated there in 1883. Taking up his residence in North Abington, he has practised

there for eleven years. Since August, 1893, he has been professor of materia medica and ther- apeutics in the Tufts College Medical School. Dr. Wheatley is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society and of the Plymouth County Club. In politics he is Republican. He was married October 14, 1886, to Miss Nellie J. Hol- brook. They have had three children: Robert F. (deceased), Frank E., and George D).

WOODWORTH, ALFRED S., of Boston, mer- chant, was born at Cornwallis, N.S., April 24, 1836, son of Eben F. and Ann (Skinner) Wood- worth, whose ancestors moved from Connecticut to Nova Scotia in 1770, and settled in the British Provinces for church reasons. His father moved to and settled in Boston in 1840, and he was edu- cated and has lived here, since that time. He at- tended the Washington Grammar School in Rox- bury, and then took a more advanced course of study at the Pierce Academy in Middleborough : but he did not go to college. . After he had finished his school days, he entered the counting- room of Israel Whitney; and in 1858 he started what proved to be the most lucrative tea-broker- age business that existed in Boston. Mr. Wood- worth gave his attention to this business until 1875, when he formed, with the late Josiah S. Robinson, the firm of Robinson & Woodworth, tea importers. Mr. Robinson died in 1888 ; but Mr. Woodworth and his eldest son, Herbert G. Woodworth, still continue the business under the original firm name. Mr. Woodworth served the National Eagle Bank as a director for many years, and in February, 1894, was elected president of that institution to succeed Robert S. Covell, who died suddenly that winter. He was for a long period one of the trustees of the State Reform School, and was for ten years president of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association. It was during his incumbency of the latter office that the present fine building of the association on Boylston Street was erected, and to every detail of that important work he gave most valuable aid. In politics Mr. Woodworth has been a lifelong Republican, sustaining all the good work of that party, but not backward in criticising its deeds when he has thought that the leaders were going astray. Mr. Woodworth has been successful both in the business and in the social world. His aims are high, and he gives himself heart and soul

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to the duties that confront him. Himself an able and successful merchant, his counsels and assist- ance have been of inestimable value to many

A. S. WOODWORTH.

young men at the outset of their careers. His business engagements have called him twice to Japan and China, and he returned from the first of these visits by way of Europe. His reading has been extensive and solid, and he is a fluent and ready speaker in public assemblies. Mr. Woodworth has been married twice, first, in 1857, to Miss Anna G. Grafton, by whom he had five children, three sons and two daughters, one de- ceased, and one now married to Mr. Frank E. James ; and second, in ISS6, to Mrs. Sara E. Tucker, the issue of this second union being one son.

WORCESTER, JOHN FONERDON, M.D., of Clinton, was born in Gloucester, May 3, 1864, son of Samuel Howard and Elizabeth A. (Scott) Worcester. He is a descendant of the Rev. Will- iam Worcester who came to Salisbury from Eng- land in 1638, and of a family in which profes- sional men in theology, medicine, and the law have been numerous. His great-grandfather, Noah Worcester, D.D., was a founder of the

American Peace Society and editor of the Friend of Peace. His grandfather, the Rev. Samuel Worcester, was a minister of the New Church, and edited a large number of school books. His father. the Rev. Samuel H. Worcester, M.D., de- voted himself in church work more to translating and re-editing Swedenborg's works than to the active ministry ; and the New Church not afford- ing a livelihood for his large family, he engaged also in the study and practice of medicine. Dr. Worcester's paternal grandmother, Sarah Sargent Worcester, was a daughter of Fitzwilliam Sargent, of Gloucester. His maternal grandfather was Townsend Scott, of Baltimore, Md .; and his ma- ternal grandmother, Edith Bullock (Stockton) Scott, of the New Jersey Stocktons. The family on his mother's side were Quakers. His early education, begun in the public schools of Salem and of Bridgewater, was interrupted by a year's sickness in bed when he was eleven years old. and two years more devoted to regaining his strength. Then in 1878 he entered the Bridge- water High School, and, spending portions of the following four years there, graduated in 1882.

JOHN F. WORCESTER.

Meanwhile he also studied at home under his father, and read considerably. Working much out of doors at this time and after leaving the

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

High School, he recovered his health, and in the autumn of 1884 went to Philadelphia, where he entered the employ of J. E. Caldwell & Co., jewellers. But, while enjoying the beautiful things which he handled here, the work was not congenial to him ; and after a while he decided to return home, and take up the study of medi- cine. Accordingly, he began his studies with his father, and in October, 1885, entered the Boston University Medical School. Graduating there- from in June, 1888, he spent a year abroad in further study, mainly in the hospitals at Prague, Vienna, and Freiburg, Baden. Upon his return he practised a few months with his uncle, Dr. Ed- ward Worcester, of Waltham, and then in July, 1889, removed to Clinton, where he took the office and good-will of Dr. Charles A. Brooks. Here he has since remained, with short interruptions, in active practice. In his work and treatment of his professional brethren he has endeavored to live up to a high standard,-allow no pecuniary or other motive to influence him to do otherwise than what a high code of medical ethics would de- mand. From 1890 to 1893 he was a member of the Board of Health of Clinton. He is a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy, of the

Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society, the Surgical and Gynæcological Society, the Worcester County Homeopathic Medical Society ; a member of the Prescott Club of Clinton (one of the board of managers from 1890 to 1894), of the Clinton Lancaster Athletic Association (on the board of government during organization), of the Home Market Club, and of the Royal Arcanum (a trustee of Lodge 792). He is also an honor- ary member of the Massachusetts Volunteer Mili- tia. In politics he is a Republican on national issues, and on all points where he thinks party lines should be drawn ; but in town affairs he is unpartisan. He is a member of the Clinton School Committee, having been elected to that board in 1895. He is liberal in his beliefs, desir- ing for others the full freedom which he demands for himself in civil and religious rights. Dr. Worcester was married November 14, 1889, to Miss Anna Jackson Lowe, daughter of Dr. Lewis G. and Joanna (Jackson) Lowe, of Boston and Bridgewater, and grand-daughter of Abram Lowe, founder of the First National Bank of Boston, and president of it till a few years before his death in 1889. They have one child: John F., Jr. (born December 6, 1890).

PART X.

ALLEN. MONTRESSOR TYLER, of Woburn, mayor of the city 1895, was born in Woburn, May 20. 1845, son of George Washington and

MONTRESSOR T. ALLEN.

Mary Lawson (Tyler) Allen. He was educated in the public schools, at the Warren Academy, and at the College of Liberal Arts of Boston University. His studies were interrupted by the Civil War, in which he served as a member of the .Fifth Massachusetts Regiment in 1864. Upon his return he read law, and graduated from the Boston University Law School in 1878. In October following he was admitted to the Suffolk bar. His practice has been general, largely crim- inal cases. In Woburn he has served in numer- ous important positions. He was on the Board of Registrars for five years, and chairman of that body for two or three years in the carly eighties.

In 1888-89 he was sent to the Legislature. and was there chairman of the committee on railroads. He became mayor of his city on January 7. 1895. Mr. Allen is a Knight Templar of Cambridge Commandery. In politics he is a Republican. He has been twice married. His first wife was of New Hampshire; his second is from Kentucky.

ANDERSEN, CHRISTIAN PEDER, of Boston. real estate operator, is a native of Denmark, born in Svaneke, Isle of Bornholm, December 6, 1864. son of Hans Koffod and Anna Marie (Dahl) Andersen. He is of Danish ancestry on both sides. He came with his parents to America in 1867, and lived seven years in St. Johnsbury, Vt. Returning then to Denmark, he remained there till 1876, at which time he came back to this country, where he has since remained. He was educated in the public schools of St. Johnsbury. and from 1874 to 1876 in the schools of Svaneke. thus mastering both the English and the Danish languages. He was fitted for college at St. Johns- bury Academy, graduating therefrom in 1885, and. entering Dartmouth, graduated in 1889. He learned the trade of metal polishing, and was for some time employed in that occupation in the works of E. & T. Fairbanks & Co. at St. Johns- bury. After graduation from college he spent one year in the publishing house of M. W. Hazen & Co., New York City. He came to Boston in 1891, and has since been engaged in the real estate business. He has taken an active interest in the development of Kearney. Neb., and is now developing several tracts of land in and around Boston. He has also been interested in the de- velopment of several quarry properties in Mas- sachusetts, and is a director of the Weymouth Seam Face Granite Company. He is a member of the order of Odd Fellows, connected with Mas- coma Lodge, No. 20, Lebanon, N.H., and mem- ber of the Mercantile Library Association of

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Boston. Mr. Andersen was married November 13, 1890, to Miss Bertha May Bates, of Lancaster, Penna. They have had one child : Marguerite

CHRISTIAN P. ANDERSEN.

Andersen (born January 31, 1894, died May 28, 1895).

ANDREWS, EDWARD REYNOLDS, of Boston, president of the Security Safe Deposit Company, is a native of Boston, born December 22, 1831, son of William Turell and Fanny Mackay ( Rey- nolds) Andrews. His grandparents on the pater- nal side were Ebenezer Turell and Hermione (Weld) Andrews, and on the maternal side Ed- ward and Deborah (Belcher) Reynolds. He at- tended Boston private and public schools, fitting for college at the Boston Latin School, and gradu- ated from Harvard in the class of 1853. After graduation he spent two years in Europe, and upon his return entered a crockery store in Boston, where he was engaged for two years. Then he devoted eight years to farming on the Home Farm in West Roxbury. In 1866 he again went abroad, and became a banker and commission merchant in Paris, with an office on Place Vendôme. He remained there in the conduct of a successful business for nearly ten years, from 1866 to 1875, when he returned to this country, and resided

for some years in New York City. In 1886 he returned to Boston to fill the post of manager for Eastern Massachusetts of the Equitable Life As- surance Society, and in 1891 was elected to his present position of president of the Security Safe Deposit Company in the Equitable Building. Mr. Andrews is a member of the Algonquin, Ex- change, Merchants', University, New Riding, and Camera clubs of Boston ; the Country Club, Essex County Club, and Manchester Yacht Club, and of the Harvard Club of New York. In politics he is a steadfast Republican. He was married De- cember 6, 1855, to Miss Sarah H. Addoms, of

EDWARD R. ANDREWS.

New York. lle has a son and two daughters : William Turell, Sarah Gale, and Mary Townsend Andrews.

ANTHONY, SILAS REED, of Boston, banker, is a native of Boston. born August 5, 1863, son of. Nathan and Clara James (Reed) Anthony. His paternal grandfather was Edmund Anthony, of Taunton and later of New Bedford, founder of the New Bedford Standard, his paternal grandmother, Ruth (Soper) Anthony, of Taunton ; and his maternal grandparents, Silas Reed, M.D., of St. Louis, Mo., born at Deerfield, Ohio, and Hen- rietta Maria (Rogers) Reed, a native of Gloucester,

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Mass. His father, Nathan Anthony, was of the old Boston firm of Bradford & Anthony. He was educated in the Boston public schools, finishing at

S. REED ANTHONY.

the Roxbury Latin School. His business career began as clerk in the banking house of Kidder, Peabody, & Co., which he entered in December, 1SS1. He remained with this house for eleven years, and then left to engage in the same business on his own account, in May, 1892, entering into partnership with William A. Tucker, and estab- lishing the present house under the firm name of Tucker, Anthony, & Co. Mr. Anthony is a mem- ber of the Boston Athletic Association, and of the Boston Art, Algonquin, Exchange, Puritan, and Essex County clubs. He was married June 1. 1887, to Miss Hattie Pitts Peirce Weeks, daughter of Andrew G. Weeks, of Boston. They have two children : Andrew Weeks and Ruth.

BABCOCK, JAMES FRANCIS, chemist, was born in Boston, February 22. 1844, son of Archibald 1). and Fanny F. (Richards) Babcock. His an- cestors were among the earliest settlers of Mas- sachusetts. His education was acquired in the Quincy Grammar and the English High schools of Boston and at the Lawrence Scientific School

of Harvard University, where, under the direction of the late Professor E. N. Horsford, he gave spe- cial attention to chemistry. On completing the course, he took up the professional practice of chemistry, which he still pursues in his native city. He early won a high reputation as a chem- ical expert, and has been called in many impor- tant trials both of criminal and patent causes. From 1869 to 1874 he was professor of chemistry in the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, and from 1874 to 1880 occupied the chair of chemistry in Boston University. In 1875 he was appointed State assayer of liquors by Governor Gaston, and was continued in office by every administration till 1885. In that year he was appointed by Mayor ()'Brien to be inspector of milk for the city of Boston, which office he held for four years. Several important features in legislation relating to the adulteration of food and liquors are due directly to his suggestion. As milk inspector. he greatly increased the efficiency of the office, and his methods have been very generally adopted in other cities. He was for many years a director in the board of government of the old Mercantile

JAMES F. BABCOCK.

Library Association. He has been president of the Quincy School Association, and in 1894 was elected president of the Boston Druggists' Asso-

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

ciation. He is favorably known as a lyceum lect- urer on scientific subjects, which he treats in an extremely interesting and popular manner. He is the inventor of a chemical fire-engine which has come into very general use. Professor Babcock has been twice married. His first wife was Mary P. Crosby. His present wife was Marion B. Gench (born Alden). By his first wife he had three chil- dren : Walter C., Frank C., and Marie C. Babcock. His eldest son, Lieutenant W. C. Babcock, is a graduate of the United States Military Academy at West Point.

BACON, EDWIN MUNROE, Boston, editor, was born in Providence, R.I., October 20, 1844, son of Henry and Eliza Ann ( Munroe) Bacon. He is of English and Scotch ancestry. His father, born in Boston, son of Robert Bacon, a native of Barnstable, of an early Cape Cod family, and prominent in his day as a manufacturer at Bacon- ville (now part of Winchester), was a Universalist clergyman and editor, who died in Philadelphia when the son was a lad of twelve years. His mother was a native of Lexington, and two of her ancestors fought in the fight on Lexington Green. She was a descendant of William Munroe, from Scotland, settled in Lexington in 1660. His early education was mainly attained in private schools in Providence, Philadelphia, and Boston. He finished his studies in an academy at Fox- borough, a private and boarding school, which flourished for many years under James L. Stone as principal, and which fitted many boys for col- lege. Prepared for college, he determined not to enter, but at once to engage in the work of his chosen profession. At the age of nineteen he became connected with the Boston Daily .Idver- tiser as a reporter, Charles Hale at that time being editor of the paper. Here he remained for several years, and then resigned to take the editorship of the Illustrated Chicago News in Chi- cago, Ill.,- an enterprise which enjoyed a very brief but reputable career. From Chicago he re- turned East, and in the spring of 1868 became connected with the New York Times, first as as- sistant night editor, subsequently becoming night editor, and later managing, or news editor, as the position was then called. He was most fortunate in securing employment on the Times during the life of Henry J. Raymond, its founder. Under Mr. Raymond and the late S. S. Conant, general news editor during Mr. Raymond's later years, and

subsequently managing editor of Harper's Weekly. he thoroughly learned the journalist's trade. He became general news editor during the editorship of John Bigelow, who immediately succeeded Mr. Raymond. In 1872 Mr. Bacon resigned this posi- tion on account of ill-health produced by overwork, and returned to Boston, where he established him- self as the New England correspondent of the Times. Subsequently he returned to the staff of the Adver- tiser, first serving that paper for several months as its special correspondent in New York City, and then becoming general news editor. In 1873 he was chosen chief editor of the Boston Globe, and

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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 111

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