Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 118

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 118

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an older brother, James M. Henderson, under the firm name of Henderson Brothers, he moved to Everett, and then began the work of suburban de- velopment through the erection of moderate-cost houses and their sale on easy terms, in which he has since been engaged. His firm was among the pioneers in this line of business, and in the rapid upbuilding of Everett in recent years it has taken a prominent part. Since the beginning of their enterprise here the brothers have built up- ward of seven hundred houses, of modern style, fully equipped with modern conveniences, and have opened up an extensive territory. They now have their own lumber-yards, saw-mills, planing-mills, paint-shops, and other works for the preparation of material used in house-build- ing, and, with their large force of regular work- men and mechanics, perform all the labor of erecting their houses, from the breaking of ground for the cellar to the finish. In 1891 Mr. Hender- son was elected a member of the Board of Over- seers of the Poor, receiving the largest vote ever cast in Everett for a candidate for that office, and was re-elected in 1892. During his first term he

served as chairman of the board, but the second year declined that position. He was one of the town committee which in 1892 secured the city charter, and was elected a member of the first Board of Aldermen of the city of Everett. He is a member of Palestine Lodge of Freemasons, past grand master of Everett Lodge of the order of Odd Fellows, and a member of Assawomsett Tribe of Red Men. He is a prominent member of the Glendon Club. Mr. Henderson was mar- ried in 1879 to Miss Emily S. Thring, of Boston.

HILL, GENERAL HOLLIS BOARDMAN, of Bos- ton, of the National Law and Collection Ex- change, was born in Stetson, Me., May 31, 1845, son of Hezekiah and Emily Maria ( Hill) Hill. On the paternal side he is of good old New Eng- land stock, and on the maternal side of notable military stock. His maternal grandfather was an officer in the Fourth Regiment, United States regular army, and died immediately after the battle of Tippecanoe : General Hill possesses the last letter he wrote, in which he said that as soon

HOLLIS B HILL.

as he recovered he would give an account of the battle. At one time during the Civil War General Hill himself, when nineteen years old, with rank

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of lieutenant in the volunteer service, commanded the same army post that his grandfather had com- mand of in ISio and 1811. His great-grand- father on his mother's side was an officer in the French and Indian wars : and his mother's brother, and the latter's son, were graduates of West Point. Hollis B. Hill was educated in the common school at Stetson, at Corinth (Me.) Acad- emy, and at the commercial college in Portland, Me. His training for active life was in mercantile business. He was for some years in the whole- sale grocery trade as a member of the firm of W. & C. R. Milliken in Portland, Me. In 1888, having lost his health, he withdrew from business, and for the next four years was in the South, where he was interested in a blast furnace and other enterprises. In 1892, his health then being restored, he associated himself with Colonel Joseph W. Spaulding in the law and collection business in Boston, forming the National Law and Collec- tion Exchange, which he has since conducted, the business extending over the United States, and into the Canadas and Europe. General Hill has served on the staff of Governor Davis, of Maine, as aide-de-camp, with the rank of lieutenant colo- nel; on Governor Bodwell's staff, as commissary general, with the rank of colonel; and on Gov- ernor Marble's staff, as inspector-general, with rank of brigadier-general. He is a member of the military order of Loyal Legion, and of Burn- side Post, Grand Army of the Republic, Auburn. Me. While residing in Portland, he served in the Common Council in 1886-87. He was also a director of the Cumberland National Bank of Portland, and of the Northern Banking Company. and one of the founders of the Portland Club. In politics Mr. Hill has always been a Republi- can. He was married October 27, 1870, to Miss Harriet Morrill Quinby, daughter of the Rev. George Quinby, D.D., of Augusta, Me. They have one son : George Quinby Hill.

HODGES, EDWARD CARROLL, of Boston, banker, was born in Roxbury, December 24, 1855, son of Almon D. and Jane (Glazier) Hodges. He was educated in the common and High schools of Roxbury. In the battallion of the latter he was major in 1874. lle began active life in the hardware business, with Dodge, Gilbert, & Co .. in Boston. In ISSo he became a member of the firm of Emery & Hodges in the banking

business, and in iSg1 formed the present firm of E. C. Hodges & Co. He was appointed to the Boston Park Commission by Mayor Curtis in

E. C. HODGES.

1895, and is now chairman of the board. In poli- tics he is a Republican. He is a member of the Algonquin, Athletic, and Country clubs, and of the Corinthian, Eastern, and Manchester yacht clubs. Mr. Hodges was married May 12. 1891. to Miss Ethel A. Davis, of San Francisco. They have two children : Charles D. and Sibyl A. Hodges.

HOLMES. OLIVER WENDELL, of Boston, pro- fessor, essayist. and poet, was born in Cambridge, August 29, 1809 : died in Boston October 7, 1894. His father, the Rev. AAbiel Holmes, was pastor of the First Parish Church of Cambridge from 1792 to 1832, and a valued writer upon historical sub- jects, publishing as early as 1805 the " American Annals " (republished in 1827 under the title of " Annals of America. 1492-1826 "), a chronologi- cal history, and contributing frequently to the Collections of the Massachusetts Historical So- ciety: and his mother was a daughter of Oliver Wendell, a merchant of Boston, later judge of pro- bate for Suffolk County, a selectman during the siege of Boston, and a member of the corporation

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of Harvard College from 1778 to 1812. On the paternal side he was a direct descendant of John Holmes, from England, who settled in Woodstock. Conn., in 1686. His grandfather, David Holmes, grandson of John, was a captain of British troops in the French war, and subsequently served as a surgeon in the Revolutionary army. His mater- nal ancestors were Dutch, the first in America being Evert Jansen Wendell, who came to Al- bany in 1645 from Embden, in East Friesland, on the border between Germany and the Nether- lands. His great-grandfather, Jacob Wendell, moved from Albany to Boston in the eighteenth century, and became one of the wealthiest mer- chants of the town, served in the town govern- ment, and was colonel of a Boston military com- pany. He married a daughter of Dr. James Oliver, and had twelve children, one of whom, the youngest daughter, married John Phillips, and became the mother of Wendell Phillips. Dr. Holmes's maternal grandmother was a daughter of Edward and Dorothy (Quincy) Jackson. His great-grandmother Quincy was the " Dorothy Q." celebrated in his famous poem of that name, and her niece became the wife of John Hancock. His mother reached the venerable age of ninety- three, and his father died at seventy-four. Dr. Holmes was educated in Cambridge private schools, at Phillips (Andover) Academy, where he was fitted for college, and at Harvard, graduating in the class of 1829. Among his classmates were Benjamin Peirce, subsequently the eminent mathe- matician and astronomer, James Freeman Clarke, Chandler Robbins, afterward long pastor of the Second Church, Boston, William H. Channing, George T. Bigelow, who became judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Court, Benjamin K. Curtis, later justice of the United States Supreme Court, and Samuel F. Smith, who wrote " Amer- ica ": and other college mates were the historian Motley, Charles Sumner, and Charles C. Emerson, brother of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Ile shone early as the poet of his class, and was chosen class poet. He delivered the poem before the Hasty Pudding Club, and had some lines at Com- mencement. Also while in college he was joint author with Park Benjamin and John O. Sargent of a little volume of satirical verses entitled " Poetical Illustrations of the Athenaum Gallery of Paintings." After leaving college, he gave a year to the study of law at the law school, and then took up medicine at the medical school.

While a law student, he was a regular contributor to the Collegian, a college periodical conducted by a group of clever undergraduates, printing in all twenty-five light humorous poems, a half-dozen of which are preserved in his volumes of complete works ; and during this same period he wrote his stirring lyric " Old Ironsides," inspired by the an- nounced decision of the department to break up the historic frigate "Constitution," which was printed first in the Boston Advertiser, then ran through the newspapers of the country, and was cir- culated in Washington in hand-bills, and saved the brave old ship. Later, in 1833, he contributed a

O. W. HOLMES.

number of anonymous verses to a volume entitled " The Harbinger," published for sale at a fair in Faneuil Hall for the benefit of Dr. Samuel G. Howe's Institution for the Education of the Blind. In the spring of 1833 he went abroad further to pursue his medical studies, and the following two and a half years were spent mainly in Paris, at the Ecole de Medecine, and in various European hospitals. Returning home in 1836, he took his medical degree at the Harvard Medical School. The same year, in August, he delivered before the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa his long poem, " Poetry, a Metrical Essay," which was published in the autumn following, with a number of other verses,

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among them the exquisite "The Last Leaf," in the first collection of his poems, which at once established his reputation. In 1838 Dr. Holmes was appointed professor of anatomy and physi- ology at Dartmouth College, which position he held for two years. Then, resigning, he returned to Boston, and, marrying, established himself in general practice. He immediately acquired a position as a fashionable physician, and continued a successful practitioner for nearly ten years. In 1847 he was appointed to the chair of anatomy and physiology in the Harvard Medical School, succeeding Dr. John C. Warren, and in 1849 with- drew from practice, to devote all his time to his medical lectures and to literary pursuits. He held his professorship in the medical school continuously for thirty-five years, and was then (in 1882) made professor emeritus. In 1838 he published his second volume, consisting of his " Boylston P'rize Dissertations," essays which won the prizes of 1836-37 from the Boylston fund for medical dis- sertations ; and other professional publications fol- lowed in 1841 and 1848, with various articles in medical journals, all scholarly productions. But his vers d'occasion during this period, delivered at various professional, social, and college gather- ings, gave him wider fame. In 1846 he delivered a poem before the Boston Mercantile Library As- sociation, - " Urania, a Rhymed Lesson, " -- and in 1850 the Phi Beta Kappa poem at Yale,- " Astræa : The Balance of Illusions," - and also in 1850 the poem at the dedication of the Pitts- field Cemetery, which was his contribution as a resident of Pittsfield. his country house being there, on a fair estate on the Housatonic, rich in natural beauty, which he had inherited from his maternal ancestors, the Wendells, and had been in the family from 1735. After his work as professor at the medical school was well under way, Dr. Holmes entered the lyceum lecture field, his first notable series being on "English Poets of the Nineteenth Century," given in various cities in 1852. In this field he was much in demand, and for the next six or eight years he travelled exten- sively during the lecture seasons. In December, 1855, he delivered the oration before the New England Society of New York at the semi-cen- tennial anniversary, which was subsequently pub- lished in the society's report of the celebration. In 1857, with the start of the Atlantic Monthly. under the editorship of James Russell Lowell, his most famous " Autocrat of the Breakfast Table "

papers were begun, and their publication contin- ued regularly through the first year of the maga- zine, the chief feature of a brilliant array of feat- ures. These were constructed from the slender foundation of a series of slight papers under the same title which the author had contributed to Buckingham's New England Magasine, when he was a law student in 1831-32. The " Autocrat " was first published in book form in 1858, with illustrations ; and nearly twenty-five years after a new edition appeared, with many interesting notes. " The Professor at the Breakfast Table " followed the " Autocrat " in 1859. The same year, and in 1860, his first novel " Elsie Venner, a Romance of Destiny," which excited much attention as a psychological study, appeared in the pages of the Atlantic, under the title of " The Professor's Story," issuing in book form in 186t. Six years later his second and last novel. "The Guardian Angel," made its appearance. During the Civil War he published a number of stirring war poems, contributed numerous patriotic articles to the magazines, and delivered the annual Fourth of July oration before the city authorities of Boston in 1863, with the war and the principles underly- ing it as his theme. One of the most effective of his papers during this period, at once lively and touching, was the account of " My Hunt after the Captain." describing his journeys to the battle- field and home again, after the wounding of his son. Oliver Wendell. Jr., at Ball's Bluff in 1862. Dr. Holmes's first publications after the war were "The Guardian Angel," before mentioned, and " Teaching from the Chair and the Bedside," the latter the introductory lecture before the Har- vard Medical School in 1867. Then followed the "Atlantic Almanac for 1868." of which he was joint editor with Donald G. Mitchell ; " The Med- ical Profession in Massachusetts," a lecture in the Lowell Institute course, 1869 ; " Valedictory Address delivered to the Graduating Class of the Bellevue Hospital College." New York, 1871 ; " Mechanism in Thought and Morals," address before the Harvard Phi Beta Kappa Society in 1870, with "Notes and Afterthoughts " (1871): "The Claims of Dentistry," address at the com- mencement of the Harvard Dental School, 1872 : the third of his inimitable " Breakfast Table" series, in "The Poet at the Breakfast Table," first brought out in the Atlantic. and in book form in 1873: " Professor Jeffries Wyman : A Memo- rial Outline "; a new volume of collected poems.

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" Songs of Many Seasons, 1862-1874." in 1874; and " An Address delivered at the Annual Meet- ing of the Boston Microscopical Society, 1877." In 1879, on the seventieth anniversary of his birth- day, Dr. Holmes was given a complimentary breakfast by the publishers of the Atlantic, on which occasion a rare company of literary folk were brought together, and he read as his con- tribution toward the literary feast " The Iron Gate," one of the finest of his many poems of oc- casion. The same anniversary was celebrated by a similar breakfast in New York, given him by the Rev. Dr. Henry Potter. During the latter part of his life Dr. Holmes's publications were less fre- quent than before, but none the less brilliant. They included his fine memorial addresses on Longfellow and Emerson, contributed to the Mas- sachusetts Historical Society and published in the society's " Tribute to Longfellow and Emerson " (1882); a number of poems; " After Breakfast Talk" in the Atlantic, and his ripe and mellow "Over the Tea-cups " papers, after the fashion of his " Autocrat " papers, and with not a little of their sparkle. His retirement from the Parkman professorship at the medical school in November, 1882, was made the occasion of a demonstration by the students and others attending his closing lecture, when he was presented with a " Loving Cup" inscribed with his own lines : " Love bless thee, joy crown thee, God speed thy career." The summer of 1886 was spent in London, where the poet received an almost constant succession of dis- tinguished courtesies. Upon his return he settled into a quiet, serene life, writing his " Over the Tea- cups " papers and occasional poems, his winters passed in his pleasant city home on the water side of Beacon Street and his summers at Beverly Farms, His birthday was regularly observed by the literary world as a literary event, the eightieth anniversary being especially marked. Dr. Holmes was a member and some time a vice-president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, president of the Boston Medical Library Association, member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and member of the famous Literary or Saturday Club. He was married June 16, 1840, to Miss Amelia Lee Jack- son, daughter of the Hon. Charles Jackson, judge of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court 1813- 24. They had two sons and one daughter: Oliver Wendell, Jr., now judge of the Massachusetts Su- preme Bench, Amelia Jackson (now Mrs. John Turner Sargent), and Edward Holmes.

HOPKINS, FREDERICK STONE, of Boston, member of the Suffolk bar, was born in New Bedford, November 27, 1860. His father was

FREDK. S. HOPKINS.

John Hopkins, a merchant of that city, whose birthplace was Framingham ; and his mother was Louisa l'arsons (Stone) Hopkins, a native of New- buryport, a writer and educator of wide reputation, and for many years - until just prior to her recent death - holding, among other positions, that of the woman supervisor of Boston schools. The an- cestry of Mr. Hopkins is typically New England. In the paternal line he is a descendant in the ninth generation from Stephen Hopkins, one of the " Mayflower's" original hundred passengers, and a familiar figure in the earliest days of the Plymouth colony. The maternal line includes the names of many who fought, preached, or labored for this country during its growth : Stone, Parsons, Gyles, Griswold, Wolcott, Norton, Goodwin, and others. Mr. Hopkins received his earlier educa- tion in New Bedford, where he fitted for college in the Friends' Academy, entering Harvard in the class of 1881. At the end of his college course he began the study of law in the office of Morse & Stone in Boston, and continued there two years, then taking the regular course in the Boston Uni- versity Law School. After graduating therefrom,

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he returned to New Bedford, was admitted to the bar in Bristol County, and entered the office of the Hon. George Marston, attorney-general of the State, where he remained until after the latter's death. Coming then to Boston, Mr. Hopkins began to devote himself more particularly to such branches of the law as pertain directly to real estate: and he soon connected himself with the Massachusetts Title Insurance Company. Dur- ing the six years prior to his leaving that company he transacted law business of various kinds, or examined titles, in every county in this State, and in many counties in Maine, New Hampshire, Ver- mont, Rhode Island, and Connecticut. He re- sumed general practice in February, 1893, and opened an office in the Equitable Building, Bos- ton, where he has since remained. He has not actively concerned himself in politics. He resides in Boston at No. 21 Chestnut Street, and is un- married.

JONES, ARTHUR KARI., of Boston, member of the Suffolk bar, was born in Greenfield, August 7. 1846, son of Leonard Smith and Sophia Karl

ARTHUR E. JONES.

(Gould) Jones. He was fitted for college at E. S. Dixwell's Private Latin School in Boston, and graduated from Harvard in the class of 1867.

Then, entering the Harvard Law School, he was graduated there in 1869, and further read law, first with the late Richard H. Dana, and later with Henry W. Paine. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1870. and, opening his office in Bos- ton, has since been steadily engaged in general practice. He has served two terms (1882-83) in the city council of Cambridge, where he has re- sided since 1850. but beyond that has held no public station, devoting himself exclusively to his profession. He is a member of the Union and St. Botolph clubs. He was married February 13, 1879. to Miss Elizabeth B. Almy, of Boston. They have two daughters : Pauline and Elizabeth .A. Jones.

HENRY G. JORDAN.

JORDAN, HENRY GREGORY, of Boston, coal merchant, is a native of Boston, born July 22, 1849, son of Dr. Henry Jordan and Pamela Selby (Daniell) Jordan. He is a descendant of Lieu- tenant Colonel Nathaniel Jordan, who served in the Revolutionary War. His education was begun in the Boston public schools, and finished at the Leicester Military Academy. from which he graduated in April, 1864. In 1865 he entered the employ of Fuller & Dana, iron merchants, Boston, and continued in the iron business until 1872. when he connected himself with Colonel Austin C.

MEN OF PROGRESS.

Wellington in the coal business, in which he has since been engaged. He remained with Colonel Wellington for twelve years, and then in July, ISS4, formed the present firm of H. G. Jordan & Co. He has held a leading position in the busi- ness since the organization of his firm, and is now president of the Coal Club of Boston and vicinity. Mr. Jordan was connected with the Massachusetts militia from 1864 to 1878,-appointed adjutant of the Fifth Regiment in 1875, elected major in 1876, resigned in 1878 ; and he has since been a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company, elected first lieutenant in 188o. He is prominent in the Masonic order, having been a past master of the Lodge of St. Andrew, past junior grand warden of the Grand Lodge of Mas- sachusetts, grand warden of the Grand Com- mandery of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and past commander of De Molay Commandery, Knights Templar, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Mr. Jordan was married September 16, 1873, to Miss Annie Kendall Adams, of Boston.

THOMAS F. KEENAN

KEENAN, THOMAS FRANCIS, of Boston, jour- nalist, was born in Boston, March 11, 1854. He was educated in the Boston public schools. He began work at the age of fifteen, being employed

in the editorial department of the Daily Adver- tiser, where he subsequently became a reporter. Thence he went into the service of the Herald as a reporter; and he has since worked in the vari- ous fields of the reporter, editor, and publisher. In 1889 he founded the Boston Democrat, and was for four years its editor and publisher. Then he returned to the staff of the Globe with which he had previously been connected, having first joined it in 1884. He has been active in political life since 1876, serving on Congressional and other district committees of the Democratie or- ganization of Boston. He has never filled any salaried political office by appointment, but he has occupied various public elective offices. He has served in the Boston Common Council two terms, 1888 and 1889 ; in the Board of Aldermen two terms, 1891 and 1892; and in the lower house of the Legislature, as one of the Boston members, in 1895. During his public service he has advocated and shaped much legislation in- tended to advance the social and educational con- dition of the masses. He has especially advo- cated for several years a free university course of instruction, under public school supervision, for the city of Boston. While a member of the Bos- ton City Council, he served on a number of the most important of the joint standing committees, and in his second term as an alderman was chair- man of the committee on finance, the leading committee of the body. He is not a club man, and belongs to few organizations. He married January, 1878, in Cambridge, Miss Alice M. Cal- lahan. They have five children : George F., Alice M., Thomas H., Frederick M., and Mary Keenan.

KELLOGG, WARREN FRANKLIN, owner and publisher of the New England Magazine, was born in Brooklyn, N.Y., November 24, 1860, only child of Loyal Porter and Augusta (Warren) Kel- logg. He was educated in the private and public schools of Cambridge, and was graduated from Harvard in the class of 1883. He began at once in his chosen career at the lowest round, in the employ of James R. Osgood & Co. ; and by rapid advancement in that and other Boston publishing houses he came in January, IS89, to be business manager, and, later, treasurer, of the Boston Post, which then stood for everything fine and inde- pendent in journalism. These positions he held with credit to himself and profit to the paper until

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January, 1891. Upon the failure of the corpora- tion publishing the New England Magasine, Mr. Kellogg, in 1893, bought the property from the

WARREN F. KELLOGG.

assignee, and in spite of the " hard times " of the last two years has placed it on a profitable basis and in an enviable position, both in a business and a literary aspect. During his college and subsequent life Mr. Kellogg has edited, compiled. and written a number of articles and books pub- lished in various forms, some with and some with- out his name attached. Matrimony and politics he has carefully avoided. He is a member of the Union Club, of the Eastern Yacht Club, and of the Union Boat Club of Boston (vice-president of the latter), and of the Harvard Club of New York.

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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 118

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