Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 22

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 22

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Morse, were cousins respectively in the second and third degree of Peter Morse, the father of George W. Peter Morse was a native of Chester, N.Il., born in the year 1800, and for nearly thirty

GEO. W. MORSE.

years was a follower of the seas, -- captain for a long time of a Mediterranean trading-vessel and later of an East Indiaman owned by Robert G. Shaw of Boston. On the maternal side Mr. Morse is a lineal descendant of Nathaniel Page, who set- tled at Bedford, Mass. ; and the original residence known as the " Page Place " is still owned by the family. Ensign Page of this family carried the colors at Lexington and Concord. Later Captain Page commanded one of the companies which fought at Bunker Hill; and the Pages, like the Morses, were well represented on the Continental side in most of the important battles of the Revo- lution. George W. Morse passed his childhood on the paternal farm, and at ten years of age was placed under the charge of President Finley at the preparatory school of Oberlin College. Here he remained something less than two years. Then, his parents in the mean time having moved to Massachusetts, he came East, and here at- tended school in Haverhill, at Andover, and at Chester (N.H.) Academy, till the spring of 1861. On the 11th of May following, in his sixteenth

year, he enlisted as a private in the Second Massachusetts Infantry, a regiment which became historic, and which is one of the two especially commemorated in the new Boston Public Library. He served till 1865 continuously in this regiment ; and, of the original thousand men who left the State in it in 1861 (being the first three years' regiment in the field from Massachusetts), he was one of less than one hundred who returned with it in 1865. A majority of the regiment, including Mr. Morse, re-enlisted upon the field, at the end of their three years' term, for the remainder of the war. In the Shenandoah campaign of 1862 the Second covered the celebrated retreat known as "Banks Retreat" ; and what remained of the rear-guard or skirmish lines, in which Mr. Morse was stationed, was captured. He was prisoner of war four months at Belle Isle and other prisons, when he was discharged, and was one of the few who were able to return immediately to service. With the exception of that carried on during his absence as prisoner of war, he was in every cam- paign and battle participated in by his regiment. He early became sergeant and first sergeant of his company, and at the close of the war was first lieutenant, commanding Company I of the regi- ment, at the age of nineteen. This was the com- pany which General A. B. Underwood went out in command of ; and the story of its defence of a bridge against Stonewall Jackson's army in the Banks Retreat is one of the most thrilling remi- niscences of the war. Mr. Morse was the only original member of Company H that ever received a commission, although the youngest in the ranks by some two years. The Second served in all the important campaigns with the Army of the Potomac till September, 1863. A third of its members fell at Cedar Mountain, together with more than half of the officers. Again at Antie- tam it passed through a severe ordeal. Its losses at Chancellorsville were large; and at Gettysburg half of a regiment fell in less than ten minutes of contest in carrying the Confederate works at the base of Culp's Hill on the right, near Spangler's Spring, over which the regiment charged. The officers subsequently erected at their own expense the first regimental monument on the field of Gettysburg, Mr. Morse being an active member of the committee carrying out the work. In Sep- tember, 1863, the Second, as a part of the Twelfth Corps, sent with the Eleventh Corps, under the command of General Hooker, to the South-west

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to relieve Rosecrans, was in the celebrated battle of Lookout Mountain; and, later as part of " Hooker's Corps," participated in all the cam- paigns of Sherman. At the fall of Atlanta, in the battles about which the regiment took a conspicu- ous part, it was assigned to be the first to enter the city, and to act as the provost-guard during the occupation. It had charge of the destruction of the public buildings previous to the evacuation and the " March to the Sea," and was the last regi- ment to leave the city. Mustered out of the ser- vice in July, 1865, young Morse resumed his stud- ies. He spent nearly a year at Phillips (Andover) Academy, and in the autumn of 1866 entered the Chandler Scientific Department of Dartmouth College in the junior year, where he remained two years. Then, leaving college before graduation, he began the study of law in the office of Charles G. Stevens of Clinton, Mass., and finished in that of Chandler, Shattuck, & Thayer in Boston, from which he was admitted to the bar in 1869, not long after his class graduated. (Later Dartmouth conferred upon him the degrees of Master of Science and Master of Arts.) Taking the Boston office of George Bemis, who was counsel for the government in the matter of the " Alabama " claims, and opening an evening office in Ashland, where he was then living, he began practice; but, this not being at once remunerative, he started a local newspaper, the Ashland Advertiser, and subse- quently a printing-office. Both of these enterprises were successful, and a year or so later he sold them out at a profit. For the first few years of his practice the most important part was bankruptcy. He took up the Boston, Hartford & Erie litiga- tion ; later was the counsel of N. C. Munson, the great railroad contractor, whose failure involved several millions; and among other important liti- gation he had charge of that of F. Shaw & Brothers, which with other failures in its wake (in all of which he was counsel upon one side or the other) involved ten millions of dollars. The years 1887-88 and 1889 he spent in travel with his family, mostly in Europe; and upon his return and resumption of practice he also took much corporation work. He organized the several street railways now operating in Newton, Wal- tham, and Watertown, and reaching out toward Boston, of which he was president during the legal stages. He is also one of the special coun- sel of the Thomson-Houston Electric Company. In politics he is an active Republican ; and for

two terms, 188 1 and 1882, represented Newton in the lower house of the Legislature. He is a member of the Charles Ward Post, G. A. R., of Newton ; member of the Massachusetts Com- mandery of the Loyal Legion ; is a Thirty-second degree Mason ; and member of the Newton Club, Boston Art Club, several minor clubs organized to encourage special work, and the Clover Club of New York. He was married October 20, 1870, to Miss Clara R. Boit, of Newton Lower Falls. They have six children : Harriet C., Gertrude E., Rosalind, Henry B., Samuel M. B., and Genevieve Morse.

MORTON, MARCUS, member of the Suffolk bar, was born in Andover, April 27, 1862, son of Marcus and Abby Bowler (Hoppin) Morton. He is the third of this distinguished Massachusetts name. His grandfather, Marcus Morton, was a member of Congress from 1817 to 1821, lieuten- ant governor of the State in 1824, associate jus- tice of the Supreme Court 1825-39, governor in 1840 and again in 1843, first elected by one vote

MARCUS MORTON.

over Edward Everett, collector of the port of Boston 1845-48, and, originally a Democrat, a Free Soiler from 1848. His father, Marcus Mor-

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ton, 2d, was on the bench of the Superior Court from 1859 to 1869, and on the Supreme bench from 1869 to 1890, chief justice from 1882 ; and both father and grandfather were members of the State Constitutional Convention of 1853. He is descended on both paternal and maternal sides from early New England colonists, his father's first ancestor in America, George Morton, having come from England to Plymouth in 1623, and his mother's ancestry being traced to Will- iam Bradford, governor of Plymouth Colony. He was educated in private schools, at Phillips (An- dover) Academy, and at Yale, where he graduated in the class of 1883 ; and his law studies were pursued in the Harvard Law School and in the office of the Hon. Robert M. Morse, of Boston. Admitted to the bar in 1885, he began practice in Boston, where he has been established since. His business has been largely in filling the duties of auditor, receiver, and special administrator of estates. He was one of the special administra- tors of T. O. H. P. Burnham, the old Boston bookseller. He is a member of the Boston Bar Association, of the Young Men's Democratic Club of Massachusetts (secretary of the elections committee), of the Union, the University (on the executive committee), and the Episcopalian (a member of the council) clubs of Boston, and of the Reform Club of New York. He was married October 26, 1892, to Miss Maria Eldridge Welch, daughter of Wilson Jarvis and Elizabeth Fearing (Thatcher) Welch. They have one child : Mar- cus Morton, Jr.

MUNROE, WILLIAM ADAMS, member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of Cambridge, born No- vember 9, 1843, son of William W. and Hannah F. (Adams) Munroe. His parents were also natives of Cambridge, the mother of old West Cambridge, now the town of Arlington. He was educated in the Cambridge schools and at Harvard College, from which he was graduated in the class of 1864; and studied law in the Harvard Law School (1866 and 1867), and afterwards in the office of Chandler, Shattuck, & Thayer, Boston. He was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1868, and subsequently became a member of the bar of the Supreme Court of the United States. He began practice in the autumn of 1869, and in February, 1870, formed a partnership, still existing, with George O. Shattuck (originally of the firm of

Chandler, Shattuck, & Thayer, which had been dissolved). Judge Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., was a partner from 1873 until his appointment to

WM. A. MUNROE.

the bench in 1882, the firm name during this period being Shattuck, Holmes, & Munroe. Mr. Munroe is a member of the Boston Bar Associa- tion and of the American Bar Association. In politics he is Republican. He resides in Cam- Since bridge, and is prominent in its affairs.

1869 he has been five times elected a member of its School Committee ; he was one of the commis- sioners to revise the Cambridge city charter in 1890 ; is now (1894) a member of the Cambridge Club, and was its president in 1890; a member and one of the incorporators of the Colonial Club of Cambridge ; and a trustee of the Avon Home in Cambridge. In religion he is Baptist,- a mem- ber of the First Baptist Church of Cambridge, a trustee of the Newton Theological Institution, and a member of the Boston Baptist Social Union, president of the latter in IS82. Mr. Munroe was married November 22, 1871, to Miss Sarah D. Whiting, a native of Salem. They have one daughter : Helen W. Munroe.

NOYES, CHARLES JOHNSON, speaker of the House of Representatives in 1880-81-82 and

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1887-88, is a native of Haverhill. He was born August 7, 1841, son of Johnson and Sally (Brickett) Noyes, who came from Canaan, Grafton County, N.H. His ancestors on his father's side emigrated from England, and were among the earliest settlers of New England, landing in 1634, near the site of Newburyport ; and his ancestry on his mother's side extends back to the mother country in direct line. His early education was attained in the public schools of his native town ; and he was fitted for college in the old Haverhill Academy, the predecessor of the Haverhill High School. from which he graduated in 1860, the

CHAS. J. NOYES.

valedictorian on graduation day. He first en- tered Antioch College at Yellow Springs, Ohio, and there spent the freshman and sophomore years. Then, with a large number of his class, he entered Union College as a junior, and took the regular course, graduating in the class of 1864. While at Union, he was orator on several occasions. He began his legal studies during his second year in college in the office of Judge John- son, of Schenectady; and these were so far ad- vanced when he graduated that a few months after he was practising his profession. He was admitted to the bar in Providence, R.I., where he completed his studies in the office of John E.

Risley, Jr. ; but his practice was begun in Haver- hill and Boston, in both of which cities he opened offices. At the age of twenty-four he entered public life, being elected from Haverhill to the lower house of the Legislature, session of 1866. Here he took rank with older and more experi- enced members, and was given place on important committees. Declining a re-election, he became a successful candidate for the Senate in the Third Essex District. In that body he was the youngest member ; but, as in the house the year before, he took leading parts. He was chairman of the. committee on library and member of sundry other committees, and he was not infrequently heard in debate on the floor. Declining to serve a second term, the next few years were devoted entirely to the pursuit of his profession. Then, in 1876, he was again elected to the Legislature, this time sent to the lower house from the Fourteenth Suf- folk District, having in 1872 removed from Haverhill, and become a citizen of South Boston ; and, through repeated re-elections, he served here six consecutive terms (1877-82). During the session of 1877 he was on the committees on mercantile affairs (chairman), and the Hoosac Tunnel, Troy & Greenfield Railway; in that of 1878 he was chairman of the Hoosac Tunnel committee, and prominent in the committee on harbors; in that of 1879 he was chairman of the committee on constitutional amendment; and in 1880 he was first made speaker, elected on the fourth ballot by a vote of one hundred and twenty- five. The next year he was unanimously re-elected to the speakership, and again in 1882. Also in 1887 and 1888, returned for the seventh and eighth times, he was re-elected to the chair with no opposing votes. Mr. Noyes has long been an active member of the Masonic fraternity, and prominent also in the order of Odd Fellows. He is past master of Adelphi Lodge and past com- mander of St. Omer Commandery of Knights Templars. He has taken all the Scottish rites up to the thirty-second degree, and is a member of the Lafayette Lodge of Perfection, of the Giles F. Yates Council of Princes of Jerusalem, of the Mount Olivet Chapter of Rose Croix, and the Massachusetts Consistory. In the Odd Fellows he has passed all the chairs of the lodge and en- campment ; is past grand and past chief patriarch, and has served on the grand board of the Grand Encampment of Massachusetts. He is a mem- ber of the New England, Norfolk, and Middlesex

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(dining) clubs, and a prominent member of the Zeta Psi, college fraternity. Mr. Noyes was mar- ried in Providence, R.I., March 9, 1864, to Miss Emily Wells, daughter of Colonel Jacob C. and Fannie C. Wells, of Cincinnati, Ohio. They have three children : Fannie C., Harry R., and Grace L. Noyes.

OSBORNE, WILLIAM HENRY, member of the Plymouth bar, United States pension agent 1890- 93, is a native of Scituate, born September 16, 1840, son of Ebenezer and Mary (Woodman) Osborne. On the paternal side he is a descend- ant of George Osborne, early of that part of Pembroke now Hanson, and on the maternal side of Richard Mann, of Scituate, who was one of the proprietors of the "Conihasset Grant " in 1633. His great - grandfathers, George Osborne and John Mann, were soldiers of the Revolution, the former on the alarm-list at Lexington, April 19, 1775 ; and two of his great-uncles were on board ship with Captain Luther Little in the Revolution. He was educated in the public schools of Scituate and of East Bridgewater, to which his parents moved when he was a lad of ten, at the East Bridgewater Academy and the Bridgewater State Normal School. Graduating from the latter in July, 1860. he taught school during the autumn of that year and the following winter, and was prepared to enter Bowdoin Col- lege when the Civil War broke out, and he joined the Union army. He enlisted May 18, 1861, at East Bridgewater, as a private in Company C of the Twenty-ninth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, which was assigned to the depart- ment of South-eastern Virginia. He was in the engagement of the 8th and 9th of March, 1862, at Newport News, and the expedition at Norfolk and Portsmouth ; and in the following June and early July, his regiment having joined the Army of the Potomac as part of the Irish Brigade under General Thomas Francis Meagher, was at the front nearly every day for several weeks, and constantly under fire. On June 15 he was in a sharp skirmish, when his company suffered its first loss. On the 27th he was in the battle of Gaines' Mill; on the 29th in that of Peace Orchard and Savage Station; the next day at White Oak Swamp Creek and Charles City Court-house ; and on the ist of July at Malvern Hill. In the last-named battle he was struck by

a musket-ball in the chest, and, rendered uncon- scious, was carried by some of his comrades a short distance to the rear, and left, as they sup- posed, to die. Restored, however, to conscious- ness an hour later by the efforts of the surgeons, he took the gun and cartridge box from a dead soldier lying near him, and in the darkness found his way to the front, and rejoined his brigade. He had been in the ranks but a short time when an exploding shell shattered his left leg. Crawl- ing on his hands and knees to the edge of a forest, he there lay, bleeding and unattended, until near midnight, when a party of stretcher-bearers dis-

WILLIAM H. OSBORNE.

covered him, and carried him to the field hospital at the famous old Malvern House. By early morning the army had fallen back to Harrison's Landing on the James River; and, with many others of the wounded, he fell into the hands of the enemy. Three weeks later, released on parole of exchange, he was conveyed to St. Luke's Hospital, New York City, from which he was finally discharged in January, 1863, unfit for fur- ther service. For his bravery and heroism at Malvern Hill, Lieutenant Colonel Joseph H. Barnes of his regiment caused his name, with others, to be sent to Governor Andrew with commendatory remarks, and subsequently recom-

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mended him to the Secretary of War as a proper person to receive a medal of honor. After his return home Mr. Osborne engaged again in teaching in the village of Elmwood, East Bridge- water, and began the study of law with the Hon. B. W. Harris. He was admitted to the Plym- outh bar at the October term of the Superior Court in 1864, and has been in active practice ever since in all the courts of the State, largely as a jury lawyer. From 1865 to 1876 he was trial justice, and for several years commissioner of insolvency for Plymouth County. He is now one of the three examiners for Plymouth to pass upon the qualifications of applicants for admission to the bar, appointed by the justices of the Supreme and Superior courts. He has held the position of town treasurer, town clerk, and member of the School Committee of East Bridge- water, and was representative in the lower house of the Legislature two terms (1872 and 1884), serving his first term on the committee on probate and chancery, and his second term on the judiciary committee. He was appointed United States pension agent for the Massachu- setts district by President Harrison, May 28, 1890. He is a member of the Grand Army, for many years commander of the post of East Bridgewater. He has published a "History of the Twenty-ninth Regiment." Mr. Osborne is unmarried.

PAGE, GEORGE HERBERT, proprietor of the Langham Hotel, Boston, was born in Constanti- nople, Turkey, June 15, 1863, where his parents, William R. and Juliette (Churchill) Page, were at the time residing. His father was a native of Hallowell, Me., and was engaged in the ice busi- ness ; and his mother was born in England. His early education was acquired in French schools in Constantinople and Port Said, Egypt, and at a German school at Jaffa, Palestine. Then, com- ing to America with his parents, he attended the Wiscasset (Me.) public schools, and finished at the Hallowell (Me.) Classical School. He .began active life in Boston, in the summer of 1879, as errand boy in the wholesale hardware house of B. Callendar & Co. After a short time here he went into the employ of Pierce, Tripp, & Co., mill supplies, and subsequently became book- keeper for the Tucum Manufacturing Company, Boston. He first entered the hotel business, in

1881, as clerk in the Norfolk House, Roxbury District; and he opened the Langham Hotel, for-

GEO. H. PAGE.

merly the Commonwealth, as proprietor in Decem- ber, 1888. Mr. Page is unmarried.

PAUL, ISAAC FARNSWORTH, member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of Dedham, born Novem- ber 26, 1856, son of Ebenezer and Susan (Dresser) Paul. He is of English descent. He was educated in the Dedham public schools and at Dartmouth College, graduating in the class of 1878. He studied law in Boston in the office of Farmer & Williams, and one year in the Boston University Law School ; and he was admitted to the bar in 1883. The following year he became associate editor of the United States Digest, and so served through 1885 ; then he was made sole editor, serving through 1886, 1887, and 1888. From 1886 to 1892 he was head-master of the Boston Evening High School, and in 1893-94 a member of the Boston School Board. In politics he is Republican. He has been engaged in gene- ral practice in Boston since his admission to the bar, and attorney for the Board of Police of the city of Boston from 1889 to 1894. He is a mem- ber of the Dartmouth Club of Boston (president

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in 1893 and 1894), of the University and of the Boston Art clubs. He was married March 22,

ISAAC F. PAUL.

1883, to Miss Ida Louise Batcheller, daughter of Philip Batcheller of Fitzwilliam, N.H. They have three children : Philip Batcheller, Richard Farnsworth, and Katherine Paul.

PERKINS, GEORGE ARTHUR, member of the Middlesex bar, is a native of Cambridge, born September 4, 1856, son of Levi and Elizabeth (Sands) l'erkins. His father and mother were both natives of Maine, of old families, his father's family going from New Hampshire to Maine in the eighteenth century. He was edu- cated in the Cambridge schools, and fitted for his profession at the Boston University Law School, entering the latter in the autumn of 1874 and graduating in May, 1876. After gradu- ation he kept books for a large brewery for ten months, having charge of the banking and ship- ping, till of sufficient age to be admitted to the bar. Admitted in 1878, he has been in active practice in Boston ever since, having till the au- tumn of 1893 been associated with Charles J. McIntire, now judge of Probate Court for Mid- dlesex County. He has been connected with

numerous large and important cases, and has practised before all the courts, both State and United States, having for some years been a member of bar of the United States Court. He has served three terms in the lower house of the Legislature (1886-87-89), member of the committees on the judiciary and on probate and insolvency, acting as clerk of each. He is con- nected with the Masonic and Odd Fellows orders, member of the Mount Olivet Lodge, the Cambridge Royal Arch Chapter, and the Cam- bridge Lodge, No. 13, Odd Fellows. He has been president of the Alumni Association of the Boston University Law School; has held offices in a number of clubs of a social nature, and in several bicycle clubs ; and has been a member of the League of American Wheelmen for ten years. He has held the several offices in the last-mentioned organization, at present being chief consul of the Massachusetts Division, and second vice-president of the national body. He has been a strong advocate of good roads, and in 1892 was appointed chairman of the Massachu- setts Highway Commission, which position he still holds. In politics he is a Democrat. He

GEO. A. PERKINS.

has for many years been actively identified with his party, and has been a member of nearly all

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the committees. He is unmarried. He has al- ways resided in Cambridge.

PERRY, BAXTER EDWARD, member of the Suf- folk bar, is a native of New Hampshire, born in Lyme, April 26, 1826, son of the Rev. Baxter E. and Lydia (Gray) Perry. On both sides he is connected with early Worcester (Mass.) families. The Perry family migrated from Watertown to Worcester in 1751 ; and the Gray family settled there soon after their arrival in the country, in 1718. His great-great-grandfather on the ma-

BAXTER E. PERRY.

ternal side, Matthew Gray, and his great-grand- father, Matthew Gray, 2d, were Scotch-Irish Pres- byterians, of the large company who came out that year. His father, a graduate of Harvard in 1817, and of Andover in 1820, was pastor of the church at Lyme from 1821 till his death in 1830; and his mother previous to her marriage was a notable school-teacher in Worcester, later con- ducting a select school in Cambridge, under the shadow of the college. He was educated in the country schools, at Thetford (Vt.) Academy, and at Middlebury (Vt.) College, from which he grad- uated in 1849. He began active life as a teacher, and was engaged in this occupation for several years, mainly as principal of the Chester

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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 22

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