Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 20

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 20

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tinued till the close of 1886, when he became as- sociated with Charles J. Mclntire, now judge of the Probate Court of Middlesex County, the part- nership still holding, Mr. Hunt taking charge of all the active work. He has been connected with a number of important cases involving novel points, among them that of the City of Cambridge 7'. The Railroad Commissioners in writ of certio- rari, where the commissioners attempted to enforce upon the city an overhead crossing at the Front Street crossing, Cambridge ; and that of the Bos- ton & Albany Railroad 7. The City of Cambridge, where he raised the point that the making a rail- road pay for cattle-guards, gates, and other addi- tional safeguards when a new crossing was laid over the railroad was not such damage as the railroad could recover against the city or town laying the new crossing, as it was not a taking by eminent domain. He has also been prominent in the litigation against the Iron Hall, and drafted the bill in equity which wound up the order. He has served several terms on the School Commit- tee of Cambridge (1883-87), and one term in the Cambridge Common Council (1888), and in 1890 he was a member of the State Senate. In the latter body he served on the committees on the judiciary, elections, contested election cases, and bills in the third reading (chairman); and he was principally instrumental in getting the Harvard bridge project through. He held the seat in the Senate which his uncle, the late Dr. Ezra Par- menter, of Cambridge, and his grandfather had occupied before him. Mr. Hunt was married on June 8, 1887, in Cambridge, to Miss Abbie Brooks, daughter of Sumner J. Brooks. They have one child : Edith Brooks Hunt.

HUNTRESS, GEORGE LEWIS, member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of Lowell, born April 4, 1848, son of James Lewis and Harriett Stinson (Paige) Huntress. He is descended on the pa- ternal side from the Huntress and Chesley fami- lies of New Hampshire, and on the maternal from the Stinson, Stark, and Paige families, also of New Hampshire. His early education was at- tained in the public schools, and he was fitted for college at Phillips (Andover) Academy. Entering Vale, he graduated therefrom in the class of 1870 with honors. He began his law studies in the Harvard Law School in 1871, and subsequently read in the Boston law office of Stephen B. Ives,

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Jr., and Solomon Lincoln. Admitted to the Suf- folk bar in May, 1872, he joined Messrs. Ives & Lincoln, and in 1876 was admitted to partnership,

GEO. L. HUNTRESS.

the firm name becoming Ives, Lincoln, & Hun- tress. This relation continued till 1881, since which time he has practised alone. In politics he is Republican, and in 1881-82 was an influ- ential member of the Boston Common Council, on the Republican side, representing Ward Eleven. His present residence is in Winchester. He was married September 30, 1875, to Miss Julia A. Poole, of Metuchen, N.J. They have two chil- dren : Harold Poole and George L. Huntress, Jr.

JOHNSON, BENJAMIN NEWHALL, member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of Lynn, born June 19, 1856, son of Rufus and Ellen M. (Newhall) John- son. He is a descendant of Richard Johnson, one of the earliest settlers in Lynn, and on the maternal side of Thomas Newhall, the first white child born in Lynn. His maternal grandfather, Benjamin F. Newhall, was for years prominent in Essex County as county commissioner and other- wise. He spent his early boyhood in the town of Saugus, was fitted for college in Chauncy Hall School, Boston, and at Phillips (Exeter) Academy,

and graduated from Harvard in the class of 1878. Subsequently he took the full course at the Law School of Boston University, and read two years in the office of the late eminent lawyer. Stephen B. Ives. Admitted to the bar on the 31st of March, 18So, he opened an office in Boston, where he has since continued, engaged in a considerable and increasing general practice. His aims and ambitions being mostly in the line of his profes- sion, the work of which he has followed closely, he has held no public office except that of mem- ber of the School Committee of Lynn for three terms (1890-93). In politics he has always been a Republican. He is a member of the University and Exchange clubs of Boston, and of the Oxford and Park clubs of Lynn. He was president of the Oxford, the largest social club in Lynn, in 1890-93, the years of his service on the School

BENJAMIN N. JOHNSON.

Board. Mr. Johnson was married June 15, 1881, to Miss Ida M. Oliver, of Saugus. They have two children : Romilly and Marian Johnson.

JONES, LEONARD AUGUSTUS, member of the Suffolk bar since 1858, one of the editors of the American Law Review since 1884, and author of a number of important legal works, is a native of

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Templeton, born January 13, 1832, son of lu- gustus Appleton and Mary ( Partridge) Jones. He is of the seventh generation in descent from his earliest ancestor in this country, who came from England, and settled in Roxbury about 1640. His great - grandfather was one of the original proprietors and earliest settlers of Templeton. His mother's family was formerly of Walpole and Medfield. In the last-named town the earliest of the family in America settled about 1650. He was educated at the Lawrence Academy, Groton, and at Harvard College, graduating from the

LEONARD A. JONES.

latter in the class of 1855. In his senior year at Harvard he was awarded the prize for the best Bowdoin dissertation. Directly after graduation he obtained the position of teacher of the classics in the High School of St. Louis, Mo. There he remained until the summer of 1856, when, after declining an appointment as tutor in Washington University, he returned to Massachusetts, and entered the Harvard Law School. While here, he obtained the prize open to resident graduates of the university, and a law school prize for an essay. Graduating in 1858, he continued his law studies for a few months in the Boston law office of (. W. Loring, and then was admitted to the bar. He began the practice of his profession by him-

self, occupying an office at No. 5 Court Street with Wilder Dwight. Shortly after he moved to No. 4, the same street, sharing an office with George Putnam. In 1866 he formed a partner- ship with his classmate, Edwin Hale Abbot, which a year or two later was joined by John Lathrop, now Judge Lathrop of the Supreme Court of the Commonwealth, the firm name be- coming Lathrop, Abbot, & Jones. Alter an ex- istence of several years this firm was dissolved, and since 1876 Mr. Jones has practised alone. His literary work began early in his career with contributions to the literary periodicals, among them the Atlantic Monthly, the North American Review, and the Old and New, - the magazine which Edward Everett Hale founded in 1869, and conducted for some years. Subsequently he became a frequent contributor to the law periodi- cals. His legal publications in book form in- clude " Mortgage of Real Property " (two volumes, editions 1878, 1879, 1882, 1889, 1894), " Mort- gages of Personal Property " (1881, 1883, 1888, 1894), "Corporate Bonds and Mortgages " (1879, 1890), " Pledges including Collateral Securities " (1883), " Liens, Common Law, Statutory, Equi- table, and Maritime " (two volumes, 1888, 1894), " Forms in Conveyancing" ( 1886, 1891, 1892, 1894), and " Index to Legal Periodical Literature" ( 1888). These works are used everywhere in Amer- ica, and many of these have passed through several revised editions. In 1891 Mr. Jones was appointed by Governor Russell commissioner for Massachu- setts for the promotion of uniformity of legislation in the United States. He was married December 14, 1867, to Miss Josephine Lee, daughter of Colo- nel A. Lee, of Templeton. They have no children living.

KEELER, CORNELIUS PEASLEY, merchant, Bos- ton, head of the furniture house of Keeler & Co., is a native of Vermont, born in Hyde Park, Sep- tember 20, 1825, son of Anson and Mary Keeler. He was educated in the public schools. At the age of eighteen he was in business, engaged in buying furs in Canada, which he shipped to Bos- ton, and for some time was one of the largest sup- pliers to the old fur house of Martin L. Bates & Co. At the age of twenty-one, he went into the retail dry goods and grocery business with his brother, Colonel N. P. Keeler. They did the buying of butter and cheese for the large house of Delano & Co., of Boston, and also the buying

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of hops for Bennett. This kept him busy till 1852, when he sold out. The next year he came to Boston, and entered the hotel business, taking

C. P. KEELER.

what was then the Massachusetts House, a well- known resort for Vermonters, and terminus of the Concord, N.H., stage line, which he carried on successfully till 1860, when he started a wholesale grocery and wine business in Blackstone Street. In 1872, after closing out the latter business, he became a trustee for the Geldowsky Furniture Company, and eleven years later purchased the entire plant and business, which has since been widely known to New Englanders under the firm name of Keeler & Co. This concern was the first one in America to ship hard wood furniture to Great Britain in large quantities. Mr. Keeler has always taken a hearty interest in sports; has been a well-known shot; and between 1855 and 1870 raised and was interested in several of America's finest trotters. He is a member of the Suffolk Club of Boston. In politics he is a Democrat. He was married July 11, 1848, to Miss Lucy Jane Nye, daughter of Judge George Nye, of Irasburg, Vt. She died in 1876. Of their children, two daughters died in early youth, and one son is liv- ing, Colonel George A. Keeler, the present pro- prietor of the American House, Boston.

KITTREDGE, CHARLES FRANKLIN, member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of New Hampshire, born in Mount Vernon, February 24, 1841, son of Franklin Otis and Mary Ann (Dutton) Kittredge. He is of English descent, from the Kittredges of Suffolk County, England, the first of the family coming to this country in 1632. A long line of his ancestors on the paternal side were physi- cians, but his father was a merchant. His early training was in the common schools and at Apple- ton Academy in his native town, where he was fitted for college ; and, entering Dartmouth in 1859, he graduated therefrom with the class of 1863. During his college course and a part of the time at the academy he taught school. From August, 1863, the year of his graduation, to August, 1864, he was in the ordnance bureau of the War Department in Washington, and at the same time served in the regiment of the War Depart- ment Rifles as a private. Then, returning East in October, 1864, he began his law studies in the office of the Hon. John P. Healy, corporation counsel (or city solicitor, as the office was then known) of Boston. Three years later, in October,

CHARLES F. KITTREDGE.

1867, he was admitted to the Suffolk bar, and he has practised in Boston ever since. In April, 1868, he was made second assistant city solicitor

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in the law department of the city of Boston, and was soon promoted to first assistant, in which posi- tion he continued by yearly reappointment eleven years. Early in his professional career he was engaged in the trial of important causes involving questions of taxation, public betterments, land damages, and municipal powers, rights, and duties ; and since his retirement from the law department of the city, in pursuing a general practice, he has given special attention to municipal, banking, and other branches of law. Just previous to his ad- mission to the bar, when holding his legal resi- dence in New Hampshire, he served a term in the Legislature there, being elected to the House of Representatives from Mount Vernon in March, 1867 ; and from June to October, that year, when he removed to Boston, he was on the military staff of Governor Walter Harriman as aide-de- camp with rank of colonel. In national and State politics he is Republican, and non-partisan in municipal politics. He is interested in all ques- tions affecting public improvements, as a citizen and an owner of real estate in Boston. He is not a club man, and belongs to few societies. He was married September 24, 1872, in Groton, to Miss Adelaide L. Lee, daughter of George Hunt- ington and Mary J. (King) Lee. They have four children : Mabel Lee, Florence Parmenter, Louise Pierce, and Charles Lee Kittredge.

LINCOLN, JOSEPH BATES, of Boston, sole proprietor of the shoe jobbing house of Batch- elder & Lincoln, was born in North Cohasset, July 3, 1836, son of Ephraim and Betsey (Bates) Lincoln. He was reared on a farm, and educated in the public schools, graduating from the Cohas- set High School at the age of seventeen. After leaving school, he spent three months at Comer's Commercial College in Boston, and then began his business career as a clerk in a Boston retail boot and shoe store. After a few years here he entered the employ of A. Esterbrook, also a retail shoe dealer, on Merchants' Row, and in 1859, forming a partnership with George C. Richards, under the firm name of Richards & Lincoln, ac- quired Mr. Esterbrook's business. About three years later he purchased his partner's interest, and conducted the business alone till 1866, when he formed a copartnership with George A. Mans- field and Edward E. Batchelder, under the name of George A. Mansfield & Co., and entered the

shoe jobbing trade. In 1869, Mr. Mansfield re- tiring, the firm name was changed to the present style of Batchelder & Lincoln. Messrs. Batch- elder and Lincoln continued together till the death of the former, in 1878, when his interest was purchased from the heirs by Mr. Lincoln. Since that time Mr. Lincoln has been the sole proprietor and manager of the business, which has grown to great proportions, extending to all parts of the country. Until 1874 the house was es- tablished in Faneuil Hall Square. That year removal was made to the present quarters on Federal Street, where six floors of one large build- ing and two of an adjoining building are occu- pied, and a force of nearly one hundred and fifty persons is employed. Mr. Lincoln was one of the earliest to adopt in the conduct of his busi- ness the principle known among shoe jobbers as the New England method, and his house has long been recognized as a distinctive New England house. He personally supervises the several de- partments of the business, which are thoroughly systematized, and follows every detail. He has few outside interests, the only one of magnitude

J. B. LINCOLN.

being the Dennison Land and Investment Com- pany, of which he has been a director since its organization. In politics he has always been a

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Democrat, but has been reluctant to enter public life. In 1891, however, upon the urgent solicita- tion of his friends, he accepted the Democratic nomination for representative in the Legislature for the Fourth Plymouth District, a strong Re- publican quarter. Although defeated, he received a flattering vote ; and, renominated the next year, he was elected, the first Democrat ever sent to the house from this district. In the Legislature he served on the important committee on mercan- tile affairs. He was one of the founders of the Boot and Shoe Club of Boston, and since its or- ganization has served as chairman of the execu- tive committee, declining the position of president of the club. He is a past president and now vice-president of the Narragansett Boot and Shoe Club, and is a member of the executive board of the New England Shoe and Leather Association.

LITCHFIELD, GEORGE ALLEN, one of the founders of the Massachusetts Benefit Life Asso- ciation, is a native of Scituate, born August 21, 1838, son of Richard and Xoa (Clapp) Litchfield. His early education was attained in the local pub- lic schools, and he was fitted for college in the Hanover Academy. He entered Brown Univer- sity, but through stress of circumstances was able to complete but part of the college course. Upon leaving college, he studied for the ministry, and in 1861 began regular preaching, settled as pastor over the Baptist church in Winchendon. Here he remained for five years ; and then, on account of ill health, he was obliged to relinquish his pro- fessional work. Subsequently, turning his atten- tion to the insurance business, he successfully en- gaged in the conduct of a large life insurance agency for Western Massachusetts. Then from 1874 to 1879 he was engaged in the tack and nail manufacture under the firm name of Brigham, Litchfield & Vining, having purchased a half-in- terest in the manufactory in South Abington, es- tablished by Brigham, Whitman, & Co. Again interesting himself in insurance matters, in the autumn of 1879 he joined in the organization of the Massachusetts Benefit Life Association, the leading company in New England engaged in the natural premium insurance business, having on its books the names of thousands of business men in Boston and other great cities in the country. He has continued in the active management of this company from its establishment to the present

time, and is now its president ; and he has been most influential in securing legislation in Massa- chusetts favorable to natural premium insurance.

GEORGE A. LITCHFIELD.

He is also a director of the Lincoln National Bank of Boston. During his residence in Win- chendon he was chairman of the school board ; and in Quincy, where he now resides, he was for some time chairman of the Republican city committee, and has occupied various other offices. Mr. Litchfield was married November 21, 1861, in South Abington, to Miss Sarah M. Gurney, daughter of David and Eliza (Blanchard) Gurney. They have three children : Cannie Zetta, Everett Starr, and Frederick Ellsworth Litchfield.

LIVERMORE, JOSEPH PERKINS, of Boston, patent solicitor and expert in patent cases, is a native of Clinton, born February 19, 1855, son of Leonard Jarvis and Mary Ann Catherine (Per- kins) Livermore. He is a descendant of Jonathan Livermore, of Wilton, N.H., who lived in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries (born 1700, died 1801); and on the maternal side, descend- ant in the third generation, of Joseph Perkins, of Essex, Mass. His father, paternal grandfather, and great-grandfather were all graduates of Har-

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vard College,- the father in 1842, the grand- father in 1802, and the great-grandfather in 1760. He also graduated from Harvard, in the class

JOSEPH P. LIVERMORE.

of 1875. His early education was acquired in the primary and grammar schools of Lexington (1860-67) and the High School of Cambridge (1867-71), where he was fitted for college. After graduation from college he entered the Lawrence Scientific School, and graduated as civil engineer in 1877. He was employed a few months that year, without pay, on the Newton Water-works : then during the autumn and winter of 1877-78 he taught in the Lexington High School; in November and December, 1878, he was in the ex- amining corps in the United States Patent Office at Washington ; and on the first of January the following year he entered the office of Crosby & Gregory, Boston, and began practice as a patent solicitor. Here he remained until 1885, when on the first of March he opened an office of his own. Since that time he has been largely em- ployed as an expert witness in patent cases. He has acted in that capacity in litigation of the Mckay & Copeland Lasting Machine Company, of the Simonds Counter Machinery Company, the Reece Button-hole Machine Company, the Wheeler & Wilson Manufacturing Company,

Goodyear Shoe Machinery Company, General Electric Company, Municipal Signal Company, and Gamewell Fire Alarm Telegraph Company. In politics Mr. Livermore is classed as a " Demo- cratic Mugwump." He is a member of the New England Tariff Reform League, of the Massachu- setts Reform Club, and of the University, Ath- letic, and Colonial (Cambridge) clubs. He was married in 1880, and has three children.

LOWELL, JOHN, JR., member of the Suffolk bar, eldest son of John and Lucy B. Lowell [see Lowell, John], was born in Boston, May 23, 1856. He was fitted for college at William N. Eayr's private school, and was graduated from Harvard in the class of 1877. His law studies were pur- sued at the Harvard Law School two years, and afterward in the Boston offices of Thornton K. Lothrop and Robert R. Bishop, now a justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts; and he was admitted to the Suffolk bar in the spring of 1880. He practised alone until 1884, when he went into partnership with his father, the Hon. John Lowell. For upwards of ten years he has had a large ac-

JOHN LOWELL, Jr.

tive practice in the courts and in connection with business corporations and firms. In politics he is an Independent. He is a member of the

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Union and Tavern clubs of Boston. Mr. Lowell was married October 24, 1883, to Miss Mary Emlen Hale, of Philadelphia. They have four children : Mary Emlen, John, Ralph. and James Hale Lowell.

MCCLINTOCK, WILLIAM EDWARD, Boston, civil engineer, who has been engaged in numer- ous important engineering works, is a native of Maine. He was born in Hallowell, July 29, 1848, son of Captain John and Mary Bailey (Shaw) McClintock. On his father's side he is of Scotch- Irish ancestry, his ancestor William McClintock, one of the defenders in the memorable siege of Londonderry, 1689, coming to this country from Londonderry in 1730, and settling in Medford, Mass. : and on his mother's side he is descendant of that early Puritan divine, the Rev. John Bailey. He inherited his taste for engineering from both his father's and mother's family. His father was a well-known navigator, familiar with every ocean, who crossed the Pacific with a school atlas for a chart and a watch for chronometer. His grandfather, William McClintock, after re- tiring from the sea, was an expert land surveyor ; and some fine samples of his work are now on file in the State archives. William E. McClin- tock's early education was acquired in the Hallo- well graded schools. Afterward he took a four years' course at the Hallowell Academy, and spent one year at Kent's Hill Seminary. He was trained for his profession in office and field work, and received instruction under a private tutor. While a student, he taught a district school for one term. His first field work, as civil engi- neer, was with the United States Coast Survey, with which department he was engaged, from 1867 to 1876, on work in Maine, Massachusetts, New York, North Carolina, South Carolina. Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, and Louisiana. In 1876-79 he was employed in the survey of the city of Portland; in 1877-79, in the survey of Boston Harbor. From 18So to 1890 he was city engineer of Chelsea. His special engineering works have included surveys for the South Pass jetties at the mouth of the Mississippi River, sewer systems for Chelsea, Revere, Gardner, Westfield, Easthampton, Andover, and Natick, Bennington. Vt., Bath, Me., Calais, Me., St. Ste- phens, N.B., and Milltown, N.B. He has also been in consultation on sewer or water-works with the city of Holyoke and the towns of Spencer,

North Brookfield, North Attleborough, and sev- eral smaller places. He has been a member of the Massachusetts Highway Commission since 1892, and was the first president of the Massachu- setts Highway Association. He is instructor of highway engineering in the Lawrence Scientific School, to which position he was appointed in 1893. He is a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, of the League of American Wheelmen. and of the Chelsea Review Club, and is con- nected with the Masonic order, a member of Robert Lash Lodge of Chelsea, where he resides.

WILLIAM E. MCCLINTOCK.

He is associated with the Church of the Re- deemer, of which he was treasurer from 1889-93. In politics he is a Republican on national ques- tions, and an Independent on State and city issues. He was married June 17. 1873, to Miss Mary Estelle Currier. They have five children : William James. Francis Blake, Samuel, Paul, and Dorothy Mcclintock.

MARDEN, OSCAR AVERY, member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of Maine, born in Palermo, Waldo County, August 20, 1853. son of Stephen P. and Julia A. (Avery) Marden. His earliest

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known ancestors on the paternal side were of southern New Hampshire, and on the maternal side of Ipswich, Mass. He was educated in dis- trict schools, with an occasional term at the High

OSCAR A. MARDEN.

School, and in Westbrook Seminary. Born on a farm, he lived the life of a farmer's boy till seventeen years of age, beginning at fifteen to teach school in the winter months. In 1871 and (872 he had charge of the English department of Dirigo Business College at Augusta, Me. In the spring of 1872 he came to Boston, and took the position of book-keeper for the New England office of the Victor Sewing Machine Company of Middletown, Conn. Here he remained till the au- tumn of 1874, when he entered the law office of Samuel K. Hamilton in the old Barristers' Hall, Court Square, as a student, and at the same time entered the Boston University Law School. He received his degree of LL.B. in June, 1876, and the following autumn was admitted to the bar. He began practice in Boston, and in September, 1877, removed to Stoughton, where he has since lived. From 1877 to 1891 he held a commission as trial justice there. In the latter year he was appointed judge of the District Court of Southern Norfolk, having jurisdiction in Stoughton, C'anton, Sharon, and Avon, which

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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 20

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