Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 123

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 123

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CLARENCE W. ROWLEY.

when on the homeward voyage with oil, but escaped. He retired from sea after the Civil War, and in 1871 moved to Dedham, where he lived till 1889. He now resides at Edgartown. Mr. Rowley's mother is also living, aged sixty- seven. The family is a race of "six-footers," strong, healthy, and long-lived. Their average age has been nearly eighty. Clarence W. Row- ley attended the common schools at Dedham, entering at the age of four. At eleven he passed examination for the High School. He graduated therefrom on July 2, 1886, and later took a course at the Berlitz School of Languages in Boston, and studied under private tutors. He began the study

of law immediately after his graduation from the High School, entering the Boston law office of William B. Gale, with whom were associated at that time the late Charles G. Pope, some time mayor of Somerville, John P. Gale, and Senator James W. McDonald. From them he received his legal instruction. He remained in this office until after his admission to the bar. In the win- ter of ISS8-89 he went to Florida, and in the winter of 1891-92 he was in California with John P. Gale. During the seasons of 1890 and 1891 he taught evening school in Boston. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar February 10, 1893, and subsequently to the bar of the United States Circuit and District Courts and the United States Circuit Court of Appeals. He tried cases before his admission to the bar, and since his admission has tried many important causes, civil and crimi- nal. Among the latter was the case of Ina Dar- ling for manslaughter in killing Madeline Baudet, March 24. 1894, convicted and sentenced to twenty years,- the only case where the maximum penalty has been imposed for manslaughter; the case of Dr. C. J. Eastman, for abortion, 1893. sentenced to five years ; that of Dr. Mary J. Hen- derson, for the same crime, 1893, sentenced to eight years ; and many others in which he was counsel for the defence, and his clients were acquitted. He is said to have the largest practice of any lawyer in Boston of his age and time at the bar, and to have tried and won more cases than any lawyer of his years. At the present time he devotes himself especially to civil busi- ness, taking criminal cases only in exceptional instances. Mr. Rowley has never held public office, but has on two occasions stood as a candi- date of his party. In 1893 he was a candidate for the Common Council in Ward Eighteen, but was defeated at the polls; and 1894 he was Dem- ocratic candidate for the lower house of the Legis- lature in the same ward, and was again defeated, his party being the minority party in the ward. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, belong- ing to Webster Lodge, of the Knights of Malta, Boston Commandery, of the Young Men's Demo- cratic Club of Massachusetts, of the Mercantile Library Association, and of other minor clubs and societies. Mr. Rowley is unmarried.

SAMPSON, COLONEL AUGUSTUS NEWMAN, of Boston, managing director of the New England

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Phonograph Company, was born in Boston, August 8, 1839, son of George R. and Abby J. ( Lemoyne) Sampson. He is of l'ilgrim stock, directly de- scended from Henry Sampson, whose name ap- pears on the Plymouth monument as having been of the " Mayflower " band. He received his edu- cation almost entirely at the Chauncy Hall School, Boston, under Thayer & Cushing, but finished under private tutors, one of whom was the late Bishop Brooks. In carly life Colonel Sampson gave much time to art, of which he was very fond, and at one time was a pupil of Peter Stephenson, the celebrated sculptor of the " Wounded Indian," with whom he made a trip abroad in 1856. At the close of his school life he entered the office of Sampson & Tappan, mer- chants, and remained with them until the opening of the Civil War, when he enlisted in the United States service. He had previously served some time in the State militia, having joined the Boston City Guards in March, 1856. He was elected fourth lieutenant of Company B, Fourth Battalion Rifles, March 29, 1861 ; a month later, on April 23, was elected third lieutenant of his company. and on July 16 he was commissioned second lieu- tenant of Company B, Thirteenth Regiment Mas- sachusetts Volunteers. He was promoted to a first lieutenancy of Company A, same regiment, June 28, 1862, which rank he held to the close of his service. After the war he found various employ- ments until the autumn of 1867, when he entered the employ of the Merchants' Union Express Company and afterward the American Express Company. He continued in the express business for about four years, and then became connected with the house of Marshall, Son, & Co., importers of and dealers in bookbinders' and paper-box makers' machinery and supplies, where he re- mained for fourteen years, leaving it to accept the position of city clerk in Boston, to which he was elected in 1885. He served acceptably two years as city clerk, and then re-entered business in Octo- ber, 1888, becoming general manager and later managing director of the New England Phono- graph Company, which position he still holds. Colonel Sampson served on the military staff of Governor Rice as lieutenant colonel and assistant inspector-general, to which he was appointed May 6, 1876. On the 5th of July, 1882, he was ap- pointed by General Peach as captain and aide- de-camp on the staff of the Second Brigade, where he served until January 6, 1887, when he was ap-

pointed by Governor Ames colonel and assistant inspector-general upon his staff. He served dur- ing the entire term of Governor Ames's adminis- tration. He is a past commander of the Edward W. Kinsley Post, No. 113, Grand Army of the Re- public ; companion of the Massachusetts Com- mandery, Loyal Legion : member of the Second Brigade Staff Association : fine member of the First Corps of Cadets ; member of the Thirteenth Regiment Association ; of the Old Guard of Mas- sachusetts ; of Governor Rice's and Governor Ames's staff associations : and president of the Threottyne Club, composed of members of the old

A. N SAMPSON.

Thirteenth Regiment. He is also connected with numerous fraternal organizations,- the Royal Ar- canum (past dictator), the Knights of Honor (past regent), and the Ancient Order of United Work- men : is a life member of the American Unitarian Association, and a member of the Boston Art Club, the Unity Club. and the Minot J. Savage Club. In politics he is an independent Republi- can. He has never sought office or political pre- ferment, but has been always ready to do the bidding of the public. Colonel Sampson was married June 4, 1863, in Brookline, to Miss Georgi- anna T. Walker, daughter of Samuel A. and Mary C. T. Walker, of Brookline.

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SAWVER, E. THOMAS, of Easthampton, manu- facturer, was born in Lancaster, January 4, 1829, son of Ezra and Eliza Houghton Sawyer. He is

E. THOMAS SAWYER.

a descendant of Thomas Sawyer, one of the orig- inal settlers of Lancaster. His education was attained in the public schools. After leaving school, he learned the machinist trade of Otis Tufts, in Boston. From 1850 to 1857 he was a locomotive engineer, engaged on the Worcester & Nashua ( Mass.), the Macon & Western Macon (Ga.), the Erie & Hudson River ( N. V.) railroads, and the next two years was employed as marine engineer on the Vanderbilt line to Europe. He came to Easthampton in 1859, and was employed by the Nashawannuck Manufacturing Company. Then he entered the employ of the Goodyear Elastic Fabric Company (now the Glendale Elas- tic Fabrie Company), as superintendent and agent. He remained there until 1873, when he was chosen treasurer and general manager of the Easthampton Rubber Thread Company. In 1891 he became president and general manager of the latter company, which position he still holds. Mr. Sawyer has served as selectman of East- hampton for three years. He is now president of the Gas Company of Easthampton, director of the Glendale Elastic Fabric and Nashawannuck

companies, and in other offices of trust. He is a member of the Algonquin and Temple clubs of Boston, and of the New York Club of New York. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Saw- yer is married, and has two children: a son, Frank E., now lieutenant in the United States navy, and attached to United States ship, " Phila- delphia "; and a daughter Marion Sawyer, resid- ing at home.

SIMPSON, FRANK ERNEST, of Boston, manu- facturer, was born in Boston, February 5, 1859, son of Michael H. and Elizabeth T. (Kilham) Simpson. He was educated in Boston private schools and at Harvard, graduating in the class of 1879. The year of his graduation he became con- nected with the Roxbury Carpet Company. with which he has ever since been identified. He was

FRANK E. SIMPSON.

for several years treasurer of the corporation, and since 1885 has been its president. Mr. Simpson is unmarried.

SMITH, ARTHUR VINCENT, M. D., of Middle- borough, is a native of Maine, born in Bowdoin- ham, July 8, 1868, son of Henry Sutton Burgess and Ophelia (Ripley) Smith. He is a descendant of Thomas Smith, one of the earliest settlers of

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Gloucester, Mass. His great-grandfather, Isaiah Smith, in the fifth generation from Thomas Smith, born about the year 1774, died 1845. married

A. VINCENT SMITH.

Mary Chapman, and had eleven children. His grandfather, Perley D., born in 1805. died in 1846, married Louisa Burgess, and had four chil- dren. His father. Henry S. B .. also had four children, two of whom are now living, Arthur Vin- cent and Orrin Ripley. Dr. Smith's father was also a physician. The latter was graduated from Bowdoin College in 1861 : studied medicine while teaching school in Brunswick, where he was prin- cipal of both grammar and high schools: after passing his examinations, was commissioned. April 20. 1864. assistant surgeon of the Thirty- second Regiment. Maine Volunteers: at the close of the war returned to Maine. attended a course of lectures at Berkshire Medical College, and received his diploma and degree of M.D. in 1865 ; established himself in Bowdoinham, and main- tained a large and successful practice there for thirteen years; in 1878, owing to ill-health, re- moved to Middleborough, Mass., where he built up an extensive practice. and died at the age of fifty-six. Arthur Vincent received his early edu- cation in the common schools of his native town and of Middleborough, fitted for college at the

Eaton Family School, and graduated from Bow- doin, where his father had graduated before him, in the class of 1890. The year previous his brother Orrin also graduated from the same col- lege. Immediately after graduation he entered the Harvard Medical School, and graduated there- from in 1894. Settling in Middleborough, he was early engaged in a lucrative practice, and upon the death of his father added the latter's large busi- ness, which he has since successfully conducted. Dr. Smith is a Freemason. member of the May- flower Lodge of Middleborough. In politics he is a Republican, and in religious faith a Congrega- tionalist. member of the Congregationalist church of Middleborough. He was married November 15. 1893. to Miss Lillian Monroe, of Middlebor- ough.

SPANHOOFD, ARNOLD WERNER, of Boston. editor of Germania, was born in Lehe, Province of Hanover, Germany, May 7, 1860, son of Her- mann and Wilhelmine ( Ramsthal) Spanhoofd. His ancestors came from Holland, and were mer- chants and ship-owners. His father was in the same business, was also burgomaster of the town for twenty-five years, and founder and president of the local savings-bank. He was educated in the public and Latin schools of his native place, and in college at Oldenburg and Bochum. graduating in 1876. Subsequently he studied architecture and engineering, graduating in 1879. For a year he was actively engaged in railroad work in Germany, and then again took up his studies, which he pursued diligently for another year. Next he entered the army as a " one year's free volunteer," and became an officer of the Re- serve. He emigrated to America in (88), and in due course of time became a United States citi- zen. Speaking with ease five languages, he was not long in finding occupation as a teacher of modern languages. After a season of varied ex- periences he became principal of a private school of languages in Washington, D.C., and later in Brooklyn, N.Y. For six years he was at St. Paul's School, Concord. N.H .. as instructor in modern languages. He founded Germania, a monthly magazine for the study of the German language and literature. in 1889. first publishing it in Manchester, N.II. It has met with marked success, reaching every college in the country, and in many of them used in the regular course. It is edited entirely by himself and his brother,

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E. Spanhoofd, on original lines. The publication office was established in Boston in May, 1894. in connection with the New England College of

A. W. SPANHOOFD.

Modern and Ancient Languages, of which Mr. Spanhoofd is one of the directors. While in Man- chester, Mr. Spanhoofd also founded and edited a German local paper, the Post, and wrote for numerous other journals and magazines. He is the author of a German grammar ( New York, Holt & C'o.), and of other text-books. He is an Independent in politics, intensely interested in using his pen with vigor and spirit whenever there is a call for it. He is an earnest and loyal Amer- ican. Mr. Spanhoofd is unmarried.

SPENCELEY, CHRISTOPHER JACKSON, of Bos- ton, general manager of Golden Rule Alliance, is a native of Maine, born in Wiscasset, August 16, 1840, son of Christopher and Catherine (Colby) Spenceley. His father was born in London, Eng- land, and lived there till 1824, when he came to America, settling in Boston. His mother was a native of Westport, Me., of English ancestry. He received an excellent common-school education, attending the public schools of his native town. At the age of seventeen he came to Boston, and

learned the trade of a carpenter. Six years later, in 1863, he started out on his own account as a carpenter and builder, and subsequently engaged in the general building business, building and sell- ing at the South End and Roxbury. In 1880 he, with others, originated the Golden Rule Alliance, a fraternal beneficial association ; and he has acted as general manager and secretary since its insti- tution. He served for three years, 1875-76-77, as a member of the Boston Common Council, representing Ward Nineteen, and was for two years a trustee of the City Hospital. While in the city government, he was the first to agitate the plan of an annual vacation for the firemen of Bos- ton and the establishment of the patrol police boat in the harbor. His name is especially iden- tified, however, with two of the notable institu- tions of the Tremont Temple Baptist Church, of which he is a leading member. He was the originator, and for seven years the leader, of the widely known "Tremont Temple Service of Song," a service held every Sunday afternoon in the Temple; and he is the teacher of the C. J. Spenceley Young Men's Bible Class, with over four hundred members, having increased to this large size within ten years from a very small be- ginning, the number in 1885 having been but twelve. It is now the largest young men's Bible class in New England. Out of it one hundred and forty-eight have united with the church, and of its present members ten are studying for the ministry. Of the " Tremont Temple Service of Song," which has been as notable in its develop- ment, Dr. George (. Lorimer, the pastor of the church, has given this description : " It was com- menced September 11, 1887, with five hundred people as a congregation, and with Mr. C. J. Spenceley as the leader, and $18.54 as a collec- tion to defray expenses. The committee was ex- ceedingly happy in the selection of a chief. Mr. Spenceley has presided, directed, and managed from the beginning of the experiment until now. He is a man of the people, rugged, massive, mag- netic, with a commanding presence, and a voice of rich, persuasive quality and of fine carrying power. He has a large frame, large head, and a larger heart, and, though not a ereation of the schools, is singularly intelligent and well informed. While he is essentially a man of affairs, he is endued with a poetic temperament and with genuine and profound Christian sympathies and instincts. Ile must impress the people with the fact that he is

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

in earnest, that he is not on the platform conduct- ing the exercises to wile away an hour of a tedi- ous Sabbath day. . . . While there are vast congre- gations, excellent music, attractive solos, and magnificent congregational singing, with the great organ and stringed instruments, not forgetting cornets, clarinets, flutes, and cymbals, - 1 am not sure about the cymbals,-there is manifest over and above all a settled and concentrated purpose to bring souls to Christ. In my opinion, it is this, rather than the orchestra and the sing- ing, that accounts for the hold this service has on the popular heart. . .. To judge of the growth of this great service in public esteem, the following figures are helpful. There were present during the first four services ever held 2,300 people, and the total collections amounted only to $63.32. Contrast with these four afternoons the four Sun- day afternoons in February, 1892, of the present year. The attendance aggregated 12,000, with collections amounting to $315.06. Upwards of 100,000 people have attended these meetings the past year, nearly 500 have requested prayer. and the entire sum of money received during this

C. J. SPENCELEY.

period has been $2,477.67, of which less than $1,000 has been necessary to defray actual run- ning expenses, the surplus going into the treasury

of the church. Last Sunday, at 2.50 P.M., the doors had to be closed against hundreds who could not be accommodated. This, then, is a notable success." Mr. Spenceley was for two years grand councillor of the United Friends of Massachusetts; has been supreme councillor of Conclave Knights and Ladies; is a Freemason, member of Mt. Lebanon Lodge, and an Odd Fel- low, member of Washington Lodge, No. 5. He was married .August 16, 1863, to Miss Rebecca J. Staples, of Truro, N.S. They have three children : Joseph Winfred, Fred, and Mincola Spenceley.

SPRAGUE, EDWIN LORING, of Boston, mer- chant, was born in Athol, July 6, 1838. son of George and Nancy ( Knight) Sprague. He is a descendant of Edward Sprague of Upway, Dorset County, England (whose stone "fulling " mill, probably erected at the beginning of the seven- teenth century, is still standing in Upway), and in direct line from William, youngest son of Edward, one of the first planters in Massachusetts, who ar- rived in Naumkeag (Salem) in 1628, with his two brothers, Ralph and Richard (afterward promi- nent in Charlestown affairs), and later became one of the first settlers of Hingham, going there from Charlestown with his father-in-law, Anthony Eames, in 1636. William Sprague was a leading man in the Hingham settlement, a selectman in 1645, and constable in 1661 ; and his father-in- law, Eames, was a deputy, frequently a town officer, and the first commander of the militia or " train band " of Hingham. Mr. Sprague is also collaterally descended from Richard Warren, one of the " Mayflower" passengers to Plymouth in 1620, whose grand-daughter, Elizabeth Bartlett, daughter of Robert (who came to Plymouth in 1623) and Mary (Warren) Bartlett, married Anthony, William Sprague's eldest son. Mr. Sprague was educated in the Athol public and private schools. His business career was begun at the age of sixteen in 1854. when, upon the or- ganization of the Miller's River Bank of Athol, he was made clerk of that institution. He remained there four years. Resigning this position in 1858, he came to Boston, and was for upward of two years book-keeper for Clement, Colburn, & Co., a prominent shoe manufacturing house, at the end of that period being obliged to resign his position and to take a long vacation, because of trouble with his eyes, which, in the opinion of physicians,

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

threatened loss of sight. But in the latter part of 1861 he again entered the shoe business, becom- ing junior partner in the shoe manufacturing firm of George N. Spear & Co., and he has been con- tinuously engaged in this trade from that time. Later the firm name was changed to Spear, Sprague. & Co., subsequently it became Sprague & Walker, next Sprague & McKey, then E. L. Sprague & Co., and has so remained for twenty years. Although never having held a public of- fice, Mr. Sprague has been instrumental in carry- ing through many important reforms, municipal and political, local and State, has advanced many good works, and exerted a strong influence upon affairs in an unostentatious way. His first nota- ble service in Boston was in connection with the Boston Young Men's Christian Union, of which he was elected a director in 1863, shortly before the temporary discontinuance of its work. In 1867, believing that the time was ripe for the es- tablishment of a society of a similar character for young men, but on a more liberal and attractive basis than any then in operation, he secured the co-operation of other young men, chief among them Henry H. Sprague, George G. Crocker, and Samuel Wells, in an attempt to reorganize the Union. A plan of operation submitted by a committee, of which he was chairman, to a meet- ing of life members, was at first deemed by the more conservative members too chimerical, and the views advanced too " rose-colored " to be prac- ticable, and met with strong opposition : but after several months of agitation this plan was adopted, and in April of the following year the Union was launched upon its new career, under the presi- dency of William H. Baldwin, its present head. Mr. Sprague took a prominent and active part in the work of the society until 1876, when ill health necessitated a relinquishment of his labors for a period of about two years, the larger part of which was spent in Europe and on the southern shore of the Mediterranean. He resigned, in consequence, the office of vice-president, to which he had been elected in 1868. In 1870 he was elected a trus- tee of the Permanent Fund of the Union, which position he still holds. In 1872, while actively engaged in Union work, his attention was called. through some published remarks of the Rev. Ed- ward E. Hale, to the evils of the tenement system in Boston : and. investigating the subject with a view to the betterment of the system, he con- eluded that the remedy lay in the establishment of

a city Board of Health. Thereupon he went sys- tematically to work to bring this about. He brought other young men into association with him, and together they secured the co-operation of the press and the medical profession, and the support of the public through petitions eight to ten thousand strong, all working to the same end. The result desired was accomplished, in face of a determined and powerful opposition : and the health matters of the city, which had been in the hands of the Board of Aldermen, changing from year to year, was placed under the control of an appointed board. whose term of office extended

E. L. SPRAGUE.

over several years, the first board or commission of its kind in Boston. In 1873, after the great fires, when wide distrust existed in the fire de- partment, and especially in the existing system, it being then directed, as health matters had been, by a committee of the Board of Aldermen, he was instrumental in bringing to bear the same forces and methods which had been enlisted in the movement for the city Board of Health, to secure the establishment of a fire commission on a basis similar to that of the Health Board. Success was obtained in spite of an opposition even stronger than in the previous case. Prior to 1876 Mr. Sprague was active and influential in party com-

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mittees and conventions. But after his return from abroad he took comparatively little interest in political matters until 1889. when he happened to be elected a member of the Republican committee of Ward Eleven. As a member of that body. his attention was directed to the defects of the then existing caucus system : and, obtaining the co- operation of his associates on the committee, he secured the trial of a new system, among the main features of which was the use of the Australian ballot in caucuses, and the lengthening of the time during which the primaries should be kept open. The experiment was watched with much interest, was warmly indorsed by the press, and generally met the publie favor. Re-elected to the committee, Mr. Sprague was appointed chairman of the committee on rules in the Republican ward and city committee, and as such took the principal part in drafting the report, which incorporated as a part of the rules the system which had been tried experimentally in the Ward Eleven caucus. This report. although making a most radical change in the conduct of caucuses, was adopted with little opposition. The system which it es- tablished has since been known both as the " Bos- ton Caucus System " and the " Australian Caucus System "; and, after having been voluntarily adopted to a considerable extent in cities of the Commonwealth, it was in 1894 incorporated into law, mandatory in the city of Boston and optional in other cities and towns. As president of the Election Laws League, and as a member of a special committee of that body, Mr. Sprague took a leading hand in framing the provisions of the act of 1894, which embodied the " Boston Caucus System." and in procuring its adoption. The notable " Corrupt Practices Act " enacted in 1892. or. to speak more explicitly, " An act to prevent currupt practices in elections, and to provide for publicity in election expenses," was largely the work of Mr. Sprague, and owes its adoption to measures instituted by him. It was partially to spread a knowledge of the provisions of the act, and to aid in its enforcement during the first year that it became operative, that the Election Laws League, referred to above, was formed, with Mr. Sprague as president. The Massachusetts act. the first elaborate act of its kind enacted in the United States, has been followed in several other States, and in most of them forms the basis of the acts adopted. Another important public work. the most far-reaching in financial effect that Mr.

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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 123

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