Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 14

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 14

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WHITING, FRED ERWIN, assistant business manager of the Boston Herald, is a native of Brookline, born December 21, 1857, son of George Frederick and Harriet Louisa (Learned) Whiting. He is a lineal descendant of Nathan- iel Whiting, of Dedham, who married Hannah White, daughter of John White, in 1643. Na- thaniel and Hannah Whiting had twelve chil- dren. The youngest, Jonathan, married Rachel Thorp in 1689 ; and they had ten children. One of the sons, Ithamar, married Mary Day in 1765. Their son, Ezek, married Lydia Goodridge in 1797; Ezek and Lydia's son, Charles Horace, married Plooma S. Barnard in 1825 ; and their son, George F., one of seven children, was the father of Fred E. Mr. Whiting received his early educational training in private schools and the Cambridge High School, and, entering Har- vard. graduated in the class of 1880. For a year after graduation he was connected with the Boston Knob Company, of which his father was president. He then became the private secretary of the late R. M. Pulsifer, at that time the busi- ness manager of the Herald. While serving in this capacity he was called to the oversight of a number of outside interests in which Mr. Pulsifer was concerned, especially when the latter was abroad, in which he displayed marked ability. Subsequently, in March, 1888, he was admitted

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to a partnership in the firm of R. M. Pulsifer & Co., which then owned and published the Herald ; and in May the same year, when the Herald prop-

FRED E. WHITING.

erty was transferred to the Boston Herald Com- pany, he became a member of the new organiza- tion. He was made clerk of the corporation and a director, and also assistant business manager of the paper, which position he has since held. He is also a director of the Hotel & Railroad News Company and of the Tuxpan Oil Company. He is a life member of the Young Men's Chris- tian Union ; a member of the order of Free Masons ; member of the Press Club (president 1893-94), the University Club, and the Athletic Club of Boston, of the Newton Club of Newton, and of several of the leading yacht clubs. Mr. Whiting was married in Cambridge, October 10, 1883, to Miss Amy Estelle Ferguson, daughter of Thomas T. and Clara Ophelia ( Rolfe) Ferguson, a lineal descendant of Captain Rolfe who married Pocahontas. They have two children : Royal Goodridge and Philip Erwin Whiting.

WILLARD, JOSEPH AUGUSTUS, clerk of the Superior Court, was born in Cambridge, Septem- ber 29, 1816, son of Sidney and Elizabeth

(Andrews) Willard. His father was some time librarian, and professor of Oriental languages and Latin in Harvard College ; his grandfather, Jo- seph Willard, was president of the college from 1781 to 1804; and his great-great-grandfather, Samuel Willard, was "vice-president," acting as president from 1701 to 1707, at the same time minister of the Old South Church in Boston. On the maternal side his great-great-grandmother was Anne ( Dudley) Bradstreet, wife of Governor Simon Bradstreet. His early education was ac- quired in the Westford Academy and the Cam- bridge Latin School, and he was prepared for college under the tuition at different times of James Freeman Clarke and Ralph Waldo Emer- son. He did not, however, enter college, but instead went to sea. Returning in 1838, after eight years' absence, he resumed his studies under his father, who had resigned his professorship at Harvard. In 1846 he entered the office of the clerk of the Courts of Common Pleas, then exist- ing ; and two years later to his duties as an assist- ant to the clerk here were added those of a deputy sheriff under Sheriff Joseph Eveleth.

JOSEPH A. WILLARD.

In 1854 he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and the following year was made assistant clerk of the court then known as the Superior Court of the

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County of Suffolk, the Court of Common Pleas for Suffolk being abolished. Four years later, upon the establishment of, the present Superior Court of the Commonwealth, he was appointed assistant clerk of that court ; and in 1865 he was appointed clerk by the court to fill a vacancy caused by the death of the clerk. At the next regular election he was elected to the position for the full term of five years, and has been re- elected every term since. Mr. Willard is a promi- nent member of the Masonic order, and of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He was married September 5, 1841, in Cambridge, to Miss Penelope Cochran, a great-grand-daughter of Mary Faneuil, a sister of Peter Faneuil. They have had six children: Elizabeth Anne, Edward Augustus, Mary Mitchell, Penelope Frances, Sid- ney Faneuil, and Edith Gertrude Willard. Ilis term expires in January, 1897 ; and, should he live until March, 1896, he will then have been con- nected with the courts in his several capacities for fifty years.

WOLCOTT, ROGER, lieutenant governor of the State, 1893-94, was born in Boston, July 13. 1847, son of J. Huntington and Cornelia ( Frothingham) Wolcott. He is a descendant of the Roger Wol- cott who was second in command in the expedi- tion of Sir William Pepperrell against Cape Bre- ton in 1745, which resulted in the capture of Louisburg. Another ancestor was Oliver Wolcott, one of the signers of the Declaration of Indepen- dence, who fought in the Revolutionary army against Burgoyne, and was brigadier-general on the battlefield of Saratoga. Both of these Wol -. cotts were governors of Connecticut. One of his ancestors, on his mother's side, was active and prominent during the Revolutionary period as a member of the Charlestown Committee of Safety, and another took part in the Boston Tea Party. Roger Wolcott was educated in Boston private schools and at Harvard College, from which he graduated in the class of 1870. In col- lege he ranked well, and was the choice of his classmates for class orator. During 1871-72 he was a tutor at Harvard, while taking the course of the Law School. Graduating therefrom in 1874, he was admitted to the Suffolk bar in the same year. He has, however, practised his pro- fession but little, his time having been largely occupied by his duties as trustee of various es-

tates and in the management of financial matters. Mr. Wolcott's public career began as a member of the Boston Common Council, in which he served three terms ( 1877-78-79). Then in ISS2 he was elected to the lower house of the Legisla- ture. Here also, through repeated re-elections, he served three terms ( 1882-83-84), early taking a position among the leaders and winning distinc- tion as a hard and trustworthy worker. In 1891 he was made president of the Young Men's Re- publican Club. that year organized. The following year he was nominated to the lieutenant governor- ship on the Republican State ticket, and in the

ROGER WOLCOTT.

November election was elected with the Demo- cratic candidate for the governorship, William E. Russell. In 1893 he was renominated, and this time returned with the election of the entire Re- publican ticket. Mr. Wolcott has always been a Republican ; but in the campaign of 1884 he opposed his party's candidate for the presidency, and voted for Grover Cleveland. On other occa- sions he has displayed an independent spirit, both in public speech and action. He belongs to a number of reform organizations, among others the Boston Citizens' Association and the Civil Ser- vice Reform Association ; is a trustee of the Mas- sachusetts General Hospital. and an overseer of

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Harvard University. He is also a member of the St. Botolph, Somerset, Union, Athletic, and New Riding clubs of Boston. Mr. Wolcott was married in Boston, September 2, 1874, to Miss Edith Pres- cott, grand-daughter of William H. Prescott, the historian, and great-grand-daughter of Colonel William Prescott, who commanded the provin- cials at the Battle of Bunker Hill. They have four sons and one daughter now living.

WOODBURY, CHARLES LEVI, member of the Suffolk bar for nearly half a century, is a native of Portsmouth, N. H., descendant of the earliest

CHARLES LEVI WOODBURY.

settlers of Cape Ann. He was born on May 22, 1820, son of Levi and Elizabeth Williams (Clapp) Woodbury. His father was an eminent practi- tioner at the New Hampshire bar, contemporary of Mason, Webster, Bartlett, and Fletcher, also judge, governor, senator, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of the Treasury, and justice of the Su- preme Court; and his mother was daughter of the Hon. Asa and Eliza Wendell (Quincy) Clapp, of Portland, Me. In the direct line Mr. Woodbury traces to John Woodbury, an old planter who set- tled at Cape Ann 1623-24, and at Nahumkeik, now Salem, 1626-27. His other ancestral lines all trace to settlers of Massachusetts, Plymouth,

and New York before 1650. He was educated in Washington, D.C., the family moving to that city when he was a lad of eleven, and studied law there in the offices of the Attorney-General of the United States, the Hon. Benjamin F. Butler, of New York, and in that of Richard S. Coxe. He was admitted to the bar in the District, and there began practice. Moving in 1840 to Alabama, he practised in that State for about four years from the following May, 1841, and came to Boston in 1845, where he has ever since been established. For years his practice has chiefly been in the Circuit Courts of the United States and the Su- preme Court at Washington, where, as in Boston, he has long been a familiar figure. lle is recog- nized as one of the ablest expounders of constitu- tional law and an authority on international law, and his contributions to legal literature have been important. He was one of the compilers of " Woodbury and Minot's Reports," three volumes, editor of the second and third volumes of " Levi Woodbury's Writings," and author of pamphlets on the fisheries question, and treating other ques- tions involving the diplomatic relations between the United States and Great Britain. He also has delivered several orations on subjects of Masonic history. In politics he has been a life- long Democrat, devoted to the principles of Jeffer- son and Jackson, with the latter of whom he was personally acquainted, from early manhood a leader in his party, holding foremost positions in Democratic organizations, national and State. But he has never aspired to office, and has held few publie stations. In 1853 the mission to Bolivia was tendered to him by President Pierce (who had been a law student in his father's office), but this he declined. In 1857 he was elected to the lower house of the New Hampshire Legislat- ure, as a member from Portsmouth. The same year he was appointed United States district attor- ney for Massachusetts ; and in 1870 and 1871 he was a member of the lower house of the Legislat- ure of this State, from Boston. Mr. Woodbury is an authority on antiquarian, historical, and Ma- sonic, as well as legal subjects. He is a member of the New England Historic Genealogical So- ciety, an honorary member of the Historical societies of New Hampshire and Maine, and prominent in Masonic organizations. He has held high office in the York and Scottish Rites, and is now second officer in the Supreme Coun- cil of the latter body. lle is also a member of

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the Board of Trustees for the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts, and of the board for the Supreme Council. Mr. Woodbury never married.

WOODS, EDWIN HUTTON, business manager of the Boston Herald and president of the corpo- ration, is a native of Boston, born October 6, 1843. son of John and Abby Ann (Fessenden) Woods. He received a common-school educa- tion, supplemented by a course in Comer's Com- mercial College, and at fourteen was at work. He began active life as clerk in a hardware store .- that of Allen & Noble, then well known in Boston ; and here he remained until 1862, when he enlisted in the Fortieth Regiment, Massachusetts Volun- teers, and, as sergeant of Company B, went to the front. On September 11, the same year, while on the march to Miner's Hill, Va., he received a se- vere sun-stroke, which caused a partial paralysis of the lower limbs, and so disabled him that in the following spring of 1863 he was discharged from the army. Then, returning to Boston in Septem- ber of that year, he found a place in the count- ing-room of the Herald as book-keeper in the circulating department ; and since that time he has been closely identified with the business in- terests of the paper. To his energy and genius the development and expansion of the Herald's circulation are in no small degree due. When he began his work in this department, it was the cus- tom of the office to sell the Sunday edition of the Herald to three wholesale dealers in Boston, who supplied the retail dealers. This, at his sugges- tion, was soon changed, and the retailers served direct from the office for cash over the counter, to the profit and advantage of all concerned. Sub- sequently he introduced the ticket plan, under which dealers are sold tickets in small or large quantities, which they exchange for papers in the delivery room, no cash there being received. Mr. Woods was the first in Boston to adopt this sys- tem ; and it worked so well in the Herald office, effecting a saving of time, trouble, and expense, that its use soon became general in Boston news- paper offices. He was also the first to estab- lish the system of running special Sunday trains throughout New England for the prompt and thor- ough distribution of the Sunday Herald. In 1888 Mr. Woods became a partner of the firm of R. M. Pulsifer & Co., then proprietors of the Herald, admitted on the ist of March ; and on May ist,

the same year. when the firm was changed to a corporation. under the title of the " Boston Herald Company," he became one of the principal holders of stock, and was elected vice-president and busi- ness manager. Four months later he was made president and business manager, the position he still holds. He is now president of the Boston Publishers' Association. vice - president of the American Newspaper Publishers' Association, and director of the Boston Hotel and Railroad News Company, of which he was vice-president for ser- eral years, and one of the original promoters. He is a member of Joseph Warren Lodge of Free Masons : is a charter member of Post 7, Grand

E. H. WOODS.

Army, in which he has held all the offices in suc- cession to that of commander : and a member of the Algonquin and Press clubs in Boston, and of the Hull Yacht Club. For three years he was first lieutenant of Company E, Seventh Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteer Militia ; and in 1889 he was appointed assistant adjutant-general, with the rank of colonel, on the staff of Governor Ames. For three terms (1873-75) he represented Ward S in the Boston Common Council. Colonel Woods was married in Boston, August 20, 1868, to Miss Mary Francis Smith, daughter of Pardon and Mary (Parkinson) Smith. They have two children : Walter Hutton and Fred Lester Woods.

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WOOLF, BENJAMIN EDWARD, editor of the Boston Saturday Evening Gasette, was born in London, England, February 16, 1836. He is of Jewish ancestry. His father, Edward Woolf, was a musician, artist, and littérateur of repute in Lon- don before his removal to this country in 1839, when the son was but three years old, and here became one of the best known orchestra leaders of his time, conductor for many years of the or- chestra at Barton's theatres and Mitchell's Olym- pie in New York, and the author of a large num- ber of musical compositions. The elder Woolf was also one of the founders of Judy, which was

BENJ. E. WOOLF.

among the earliest of the comic weeklies in New York, making most of the sketches for it himself, and writing a large portion of the letter-press. It was a clever venture, but ahead of the times, and unprofitable. Benjamin E. was the eldest of a re- markable family of brothers, among them M. A. Woolf, the widely known caricaturist and painter, Professor Solomon Woolf, instructor of mathe- matics in the College of the City of New York, also an artist and critic, and Albert Woolf, an ar- tist and a well-known electrician. He was edu- cated in the New York public schools, and early trained in music, especially orchestral, by his father. He was also well instructed in the art of

wood engraving. Coming to Boston as a young man in 1859, he shortly after joined the orchestra at the Boston Museum under the late Julius Eich- berg, and while here made his first notable venture in dramatic writing in the text of the operetta "The Doctor of Alcantara," the music of which was composed by Mr. Eichberg. This was suc- cessfully produced on the Museum stage, and sub- sequently became a favorite feature in the reper- tories of travelling companies. A long series of plays and adaptations from Mr. Woolf's pen fol- lowed this first production, the most popular among the number being " The Mighty Dollar," for many seasons the leading card of the Flor- ences, through whom "the Honorable Bradwell Slote" and "Mrs. Gilflory" became intimate friends of countless theatre-goers. His operetta of " Pounce & Co.," of which he wrote both text and music, was another notable composition ; and its first production at the Bijou Theatre, during the season of 1882-83, on which occasion the au- thor led the orchestra, was a brilliant affair. Al- together he has written over sixty plays and six operas. In 1864 Mr. Woolf left Boston to assume the leadership of the orchestra of the Chestnut Street Theatre, Philadelphia. After two seasons there he went to New Orleans to lead the Gravier Street Theatre. He returned North in 1871, and received a call from the late Colonel Henry J. Parker, then the conductor of the Saturday Evening Gasette, to join its staff. Accepting, he returned to Boston, and then began his long service as a leading critical writer, deal- ing especially with music and the drama. With the exception of a brief connection with the Bos- ton Globe, covering its first eighteen months (1872-73), as musical and dramatic critic, Mr. Woolf's entire journalistic career has been spent in the service of the Gazette; and his critical work early gave that paper a high standing in this par- ticular field. He became the chief editor upon the death of Colonel Parker, which occurred on May 13, 1892. Besides his work as a playwright and musical composer, he has published a series of parodies of leading poets, under the name of "Our Prize Album," written numerous sketches, and has been a frequent contributor to various magazines. Mr. Woolf was married April 15, 1867, to Miss Josephine Orton, a favorite mem- ber of the Museum stock company from 1860 to the time of her marriage, when she retired from the stage. They have no children.

PART II.

ABBOTT, JOSIAH GARDNER, lawyer, jurist, and statesman, was born in Chelmsford, November 1, 1814, son of Caleb and Mercy ( Fletcher) Abbott : died at his country seat, Wellesley Hills, June 2, 1891. He was a descendant on both sides of English Puritans : in the seventh generation from George Abbott, of Yorkshire, who migrated to Massachusetts in 1640, and was a first settler of Andover ; and from William Fletcher, of Devon- shire, a first settler of Chelmsford in 1653, who owned a large part of the territory which in 1826 was incorporated as the town of Lowell. Both of his grandfathers fought under Prescott at Bunker Hill, and were in the War of Independence. His father was a country merchant at Chelmsford C'entre. He attended a classical school at Chelmsford, where he was fitted for college, his excellent teachers being Ralph Waldo Emerson, the Rev. Abiel Abbott, D.D., and Cranmore Wal- lace successively. He entered Harvard in 1828, and graduated with distinction in 1832, the young- est of his class. For a time thereafter he taught the Fitchburg Academy. He studied law first with Joel Adams of Chelmsford, and then under Nathaniel Wright of Lowell, and, admitted to the bar in January, 1837, began practice at Lowell in partnership with Amos Spaulding. The same year he served in the House of Representatives, the youngest member of that body. In 1840 he edited the Lowell Advertiser, a Democratic tri- weekly journal, with ability and vigor, giving it a decided literary as well as political flavor : and at the same time delivered occasional lyceum lectures. In 1842, having some time previously dissolved the connection with Mr. Spaulding, he formed a copartnership with Samuel A. Brown, which continued till his elevation to the bench in 1855. In 1842 and 1843 he was a State senator for Middlesex, in his second term serving as chair- man of the committees on the judiciary and on rail- roads. In 1843, also, he was attached to Governor Morton's staff as senior aide-de-camp. In 1850

he was appointed master in chancery, and served as such for five years. In 1853 he was a delegate from Lowell in the Constitutional Convention, in which he advocated an elective judiciary, and making the jury judges of law as well as of fact in criminal cases. In 1855 he was appointed a justice of the Superior Court for the county of Suffolk, that year established. This position he held till the first of January, 1858, when he re- signed to re-enter practice and enjoy its profits. In 1859 he was chosen one of the overseers of Harvard College, and in this office continued six years, when he was dropped from the board be- cause of being a Democrat. In 1860 he was offered a place on the Supreme Bench, but de- clined it, unwilling to relinquish his profitable and important practice. In 1861 he removed from Lowell to Boston, and from that time till his death he was among the leaders of the Suffolk bar. During the Civil War, from the first shot to the last, he gave his voice, purse, and pen to the Union cause. Three of his sons rendered distinguished services as officers in the Union army, and two of them perished in the struggle. Captain and Brevet-major Edward G. Abbott, the eldest son, fell at Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862; Major and Brevet-brigadier General Henry L. AAbbott, in the Wilderness, while gallantly leading his regiment. In 1874 Judge Abbott was elected a representa- tive in Congress ; but, his seat being contested, he was not admitted till near the close of the first session in the early part of 1877. He was made a member of the special committee sent to South Carolina to inquire into the alleged irregularities attending the presidential election of 1876 in that State, and prepared the committee's report. Hc opposed the bill creating the Electoral Commission, which was introduced during his absence from Washington and without his knowledge; but after it had been proposed by the Democrats, accepted by the Republicans, and enacted, he felt it to be his duty to see that its provisions were

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carried out. . Is originally planned, one place on the commission was to be filled by one of the Democratic representatives from New York who had been longest in Congressional life. But New York had two candidates for this place, Fernando Wood and Samuel S. Cox; and, neither being altogether satisfactory, friends of Judge Abbott, without his knowledge, resolved to propose his name to the Democratic Congressional caucus. This was done with the warm approval of Speaker Randall, and he was selected. He was accorded the leadership of the Democratic minority of the commission, and opposed the decisions of the

J. G. ABBOTT.

majority in the four contested States, - Florida, Louisiana, Oregon, and South Carolina. He wrote by request the address to the country on behalf of the minority, protesting against the decisions of the majority, which was approved, put in type, and one copy printed for signatures, but never signed, some of the members doubting the wisdom of its publication at the time. The original manuscript of this address was destroyed; but the proof- sheets, with Judge Abbott's corrections, were pre- served, and were subsequently placed on private deposit in the Boston Public Library. Judge Abbott was a delegate to seven national Demo- cratic conventions, and in six of them was chair-

man of the Massachusetts delegation. Outside of the law and politics Judge Abbott participated in many large enterprises, and was president or director of numerous manufacturing, railroad, water-power, and other companies. He was for fifteen years president of the Atlantic Cotton Mills at Lawrence; for thirty-five years a director of the Hill Manufacturing Company of Lewiston, Me., and from 1874 till his death its president ; for three years president of the Hamilton Manu- facturing Company at Lowell ; for twenty-eight years a director of the Boston & Lowell Rail- road, and president for five years ; a director of the North American Insurance Company of Boston from its organization in 1872 till his death ; and president of the Water Power Com- pany at Lewiston, of which he was the principal promoter, from 1870 till his death. In 1862 Williams College conferred upon him the honorary degree of LL.D. Judge AAbbott was married, July 21, 1838, to Miss Caroline Livermore, daughter of Judge Edward St. Loe Livermore, of Lowell. She died in 1887. Five sons and one daughter of their family of eight children survive them : Fletcher Morton, Samuel A. B., Franklin P., Grafton St. L., Holker W. Abbott, and Mrs. Sarah Abbott Fay, widow of William P. Fay.

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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 14

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