Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 38

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 38

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Michigan, and Wisconsin, from 1845 to 1849. In 1854 he and his brother Henry entered into part- nership at Norwich, Conn., in the subscription pub- lishing business. A year later Gurdon Bill removed to Springfield, which has since been his home, and carried on the same business there for sixteen years. In the course of this active career he published many books of importance, among them Headley's "Life of Washington," Dr. J. G. Hol- land's "Life of Abraham Lincoln," and J. S. C. Abbott's " History of the Civil War in America." Mr. Bill has taken no prominent part in politics, and seldom accepts public office, although he might easily have had such honors. He has served in the City Council of Springfield, and was in 1871 a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. In business, since he closed his connection with publishing, he has held many important positions. He has been president of the Springfield & New London Railroad, is now president of the Second National Bank of Spring- field, and president and director of various manu- facturing companies. He is a man of positive and tenacious character, persistent and successful

GURDON BILL.

in his undertakings. He does the duty of a citizen with no personal ambitions to serve, and his ser- vices to the public are performed without ostenta-

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tion. He gave to the city of Springfield in 1885 its soldiers' monument .- a granite shaft bearing the names of battles on its sides, and surmounted by the figure of a private soldier at parade rest .- which stands in Court Square in the heart of the city. In 1893 he joined with his brothers, Henry and Frederick, in giving to Ledyard, Conn., the beautiful library building on the common. Mr. Bill was married in 1852 to Miss Emily A. Deni- son, of Groton. They have had five children : Nathan D .. Harriet E., Mary A., Edward E., and Charles G. Bill. Nathan D). and Edward E. are now established in business life in Springfield.

field Knitting Company ( 1892). He is now presi- dent of the Platner and Porter Paper Company. president of the National Envelope Company,

BILL, NATHAN DENISON, of Springfield, manu- facturer, is a native of Springfield, born October 12. 1855, son of Gurdon and Emily Avery ( Deni- son) Bill. His earliest ancestors in America were John and Dorothie Bill, who appeared in Boston in 1638. Among his early English ances- tors was Dr. Thomas Bill, who was physician to Henry VIII. and Edward VI., and also to Prin- cess Elizabeth : and William Bill, LL.D., who was the first Dean of Westminster Abbey, 1560. He was educated in Springfield private and public schools. At the age of twelve he worked on a farm for two summer months, receiving as wages NATHAN D. BILL. $2.50 a month ; at the age of fifteen he was at sim- vice-president of the Springfield Envelope Com- pany, treasurer of the Springfield Knitting Com- pany, treasurer and director of the Union Water Power Company, director of the Warwick Cycle Company and of other companies, and trustee of the Mutual Fire Insurance Company of New York. He is a director also of the City Library Associa- tion of Springfield. His public service other than that in connection with the City Library has been confined to one term as a member of the Springfield Board of Aldermen (1893). He is very fond of hunting and fishing, and with all his business inter- ests finds time each season to indulge more or less in these alluring pastimes. He is a member of the Union League, the New York Yacht, and the Al- dine clubs of New York, and of the several Spring- field clubs. He was married April 22, 1885, to Miss Ruth Elizabeth Wight, daughter of ex-Mayor Emerson Wight, of Springfield. They have one daughter : Beatrice Bill. ilar work three months, receiving Sio a month ; the following winter and spring, when he was sixteen, he taught school in Ledyard, Conn., for $25 a month : and at the end of the school term, which covered four and a half months, he engaged in canvassing in Maine and on Prince Edward Island, devoting three months to this business,- all of this being part of his education as outlined and planned by his father. When he reached the age of eighteen years. he went into a wholesale paper and sta- tionery concern, where he served an apprenticeship of two years, and then, at twenty, entered busi- ness on his own account under the style of the Union Envelope and Paper Company. Two years later he consolidated with P. P. Kellogg and George A. Russell under the name of the National Papeterie Company; and this partnership continued for eleven years, when he retired from detail manage- ment of business. Meanwhile in 1887 he organ- ized with others the Springfield Envelope Com- pany ; and subsequently the Platner and Porter Paper Manufacturing Company (in 1889), the Na- BLACKMER, JOHN, M.D., of Springfield, long tional Envelope Company (1892), and the Spring- a Temperance and Prohibitory party leader, was

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born in Plymouth, July 18, 1828, eldest son of John and Esther ( Bartlett) Blackmer. His early education was acquired in the common schools, and, after fourteen years of age, through private tuition under the Rev. John Dwight. He was fitted for college at Phillips (Andover) Academy, and took a select course at Brown University. Subsequently he studied medicine in the Harvard Medical School. and graduated March 4, 1854. The course of education which he pursued was of his own choice, in accordance with an agreement made with his father, who told him, when he reached the age of fourteen, that the money to

JOHN BLACKMER.

meet the cost of any educational course that he might select would be forthcoming, with the under- standing that it should be returned as soon as cir- cumstances would allow, - his father adding that it was his purpose to give all his boys an equal chance, and that he should make the same offer to each of the other two upon arriving at the age of fourteen years. When he was about eighteen years old he began teaching, and continued in this occupation during vacations and as circum- stances would allow until his graduation from the medical college, taking common schools at first, and afterward select schools. He began the prac- tice of medicine in the autumn of 1854, in the

town of Effingham, N. H. He remained there five years, and then, receiving the appointment of assistant physician in the Maine Insane Hospital at Augusta, removed to that city. After an expe- rience of a year in that institution he accepted a similar position in the McLean Asylum in Somer- ville, Mass., where he served two years. In October, 1862, he was commissioned assistant surgeon of the Forty-first Regiment, Massachu- setts Volunteers, and began a service which continued through the Civil War. He first went into camp at Boxford to examine recruits, and just before the regiment was filled he was or- dered to Boston for examination for promotion. On November 4 he was made surgeon of the Forty-seventh Regiment, which speedily reported for duty to General Banks at New Orleans, having received marching orders on the 29th of that month. After the close of his army service he received an appointment for medical and surgical service in the navy, and continued there till the close of the war. Upon his retirement from this service he was called to take charge of the New Hampshire Asylum for the Insane during the absence of its superintendent, Dr. Bancroft, in England. This work finished, he entered general practice in the town of Sandwich, N.H., where he remained seven years. He came to Springfield in 1877, and has since continued in general practice there. In politics he has been a radical Prohibi- tionist for more than a quarter of a century. When in New Hampshire, he was chairman of the Prohibition State Committee, editor of the Prohibition Herald, and for three years candidate of the party for governor. In Massachusetts he has also been chairman of the Prohibitory State Committee, editor of The Public Good, then the organ of the party, five times candidate for lieu- tenant governor, and twice candidate for governor, for the latter office receiving the highest vote with one exception that a "straight" Prohibitionist candidate has ever received in the State. He is now, and has been since 1884, editor of the Domestic Journal, an unsectarian family news- paper published in Springfield, devoted to tem- perance and religion. He has written extensively for papers and periodicals for many years, enough probably to fill a large octavo volume. He has lect- ured somewhat extensively, both in New Hamp- shire and in Massachusetts, on temperance, pro- hibition, and other themes. He was some time superintendent of schools in New Hampshire, and

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gave courses of lectures at teachers' institutes and before other educational bodies. He was for two years and now is (1892-94) chairman of the temperance committee of the Association of Con- gregational Churches of Massachusetts, of which he has long been a member. In Springfield he be- longs to the North Congregational Church, and since 1879 has been leader of a large Bible class in the church. Dr. Blackmer was married October 22, 1863, to Miss Ellen S. Dearborn, of Effingham, N.H., a graduate of Bradford Academy, Mass. They have one daughter and one son : the daugh- ter, Helen I)., now wife of Dr. George F. Poole, who occupies the chair of physical director in the School for Christian Workers, Springfield; and the son, John A. Blackmer, now connected with the Boston Post.

BOWLES, SAMUEL, of Springfield, editor-in- chief and publisher of the Springfield Republican, was born in Springfield, October 15, 1851, eldest son of Samuel Bowles, the founder of the daily Republican, and Mary S. Dwight (Shermerhorn) Bowles. He is of early Massachusetts and New York stock. On the paternal side he comes of the English family of Bowles or Bolles mentioned in the records of the Genealogist Burke, and of a line of notable New Englanders. His first ances- tor in America was John Bowles, an elder in the Roxbury First Church in 1640, one of the foun- ders of the Roxbury Free School, and a member of the Artillery Company. The next in line, John, 2d, married the grand-daughter of John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, was a Harvard graduate in 1671, subsequently a ruling elder in the church, a representative in the General Court, and speaker of the House. John, 3d, was also graduated from Harvard (1703), was long a lead- ing man in Roxbury town affairs, was a major in the militia, and for ten successive years sat in the General Court for Roxbury. John, 3d's, son, Joshua, was a carver of furniture in Boston, de- scribed as a very benevolent, pious man. Two of Joshua's sons served in the Revolution, as ser- geant and captain respectively : the third, Samuel, a boy of thirteen, when the war broke out, first worked at the pewterer's trade in Boston, then moved to Hartford, Conn., where he kept a grocery store some time, and prospered moderately. His son, Samuel, was early apprenticed to a printer, worked some years as a journeyman and

foreman in Hartford and New Haven, and in 1824 came to Springfield, and started the weekly Springfield Republican; and his son was Samuel, 3d, the eminent editor, "the pioneer and leader of independent journalism in the United States," as he has been pronounced, who brought the Republican into national prominence, and fixed it there. On the maternal side Mr. Bowles is a descendant of General Henry K. Van Rensselaer, a distinguished soldier of the Revolution. His maternal grandfather, Henry Van Rensselaer Schermerhorn, was a prominent lawyer and farmer of Geneva, N.Y .; and his maternal grandmother

SAM'L BOWLES.

was a native of Springfield, daughter of James Scutt Dwight. Mr. Bowles was educated in pub- lie and private schools in Springfield, through extensive travel in the United States and abroad, and at college. To travel, supplementing the school training, two years and a half were de- voted. Two years, from 1871 to 1873, were spent in special study at Yale, and half a year, or one term, at Berlin (Germany) University. After leaving college, he wrote letters of travel for the Republican for a few months ; and then, entering the Republican office, he was for two years con- nected with the editorial department under his father, getting some training also in the business

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end. In 1875 he became business manager of the Republican ; and in 1878, upon the death of the elder Bowles, editor-in-chief and publisher, which position he has held from that time. Under his administration the paper has continued along the lines marked by his distinguished father, and developed new features which have held it in the front rank of the best journalism of the day. In 1878 the Sunday Republican was started, and early became a strong addition to the establish- ment. It is wholly different from other Sunday papers, and has marked literary and local qualities of its own. The several editions of the paper have, of late, been repeatedly enlarged to meet the demands of its steadily growing and prosper- ous business. The mechanical plant has been twice renewed within the last dozen years. In 1888 the Republican took possession of an admi- rably arranged and equipped new building of its own, located in the centre of Springfield's busi- ness section. Since 1878 Mr. Bowles has been a director in the City Library Association of Spring- field. He was married June 12, 1884, to Miss Elizabeth Hoar, daughter of Judge E. Rockwood Hoar, of Concord. They have two children : Samuel and Sherman Hoar Bowles.

BRICK, FRANCIS, M.D., of Worcester, was born in Gardner, Mass., March 16, 1838, son of Alfred Harrison and Lucy (Scollay) Brick. He is of English ancestry, his earliest ancestor in this country on the paternal side coming about the year 1640 and settling in Dorchester, and the Scollays appearing early in Boston. His great-grand- father, Jonas Brick, served throughout the Revolu- tionary war on the patriot side ; and his great- grandfather, David Comee, was in the Lexington and Concord fight. The family name was Breck, the older English being " Brecke," Brick being a perversion in spelling. He was educated in the common schools of his native town, at the Cas- tleton (Vt.) Seminary, and the Appleton (N.H.) Academy; and was fitted for his profession at the Homeopathic Hospital College, Cleveland, Ohio, where he graduated in February, 1861. He had as preceptors E. J. Sawyer, M.D., of Gardner, and James C. Freeland, M.D., of Fitchburg. Settling in the town of Winchester, N.H., he began prac- tice there in the autumn of 1861. Subsequently, in the spring of 1864, he moved to Keene, N. H., and in January, 1875, came to Worcester, where he

has since been established. While in New Hamp- shire, he was a member of the State Homeopathic. Society, and of the American Institute of Homce- opathy ; and after his removal to Worcester he be- came a member of the Worcester County Homceo- pathic Society, later becoming its president. He has also been vice-president of the Massachusetts Surgical and Gynacological Society, president of the Worcester Dispensary and Hospital Associa- tion, and is now vice-president of that organiza- tion. He is prominent in the Masonic order, receiving his first three degrees in 1863 ; later he became a charter member, and past master of

FRANCIS BRICK.

Lodge of the Temple of Keene, N.H., and is now an honorary member. He is a life member of the Cheshire Royal Arch Chapter ; a Knight Templar. Of the Scottish rite : past most wise and perfect master of Lawrence Chapter ; a life member of the Massachusetts Consistory, thirty-second degree ; a member of Aleppo Temple, A. A. O. Nobles of the Mystic Shrine ; and past exalted ruler of the Worcester Lodge of Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks. No. 243. He is also a member of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, and of numer- ous other literary associations. He is medical director of the Boston Mutual Life Association. Dr. Brick was married June 3, 1862, to Helen F.

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Guild, of Attleboro, Mass. They have one son : Lu Guild Breck (spelling his name according to the form used in colonial times).

BROOKS, WILLIAM HENRY SEWARD, of Hol- yoke, member of the Hampden County bar, is a native of New York, born at Schuyler's Lake, a part of Richfield Springs, Otsego County, Jan- uary 5. 1855. son of Reuben Palmer and Margaret (Eliot) Brooks. He was fitted for college at the ('linton Liberal Institute, Clinton, N. Y., and, en- tering Dartmouth, graduated there in 1876. His

WILLIAM H. BROOKS.

law studies were pursued in the office of Warren C. French at Woonsocket, Vt. Admitted to the bar in 1878, he established himself in Holyoke, forming a law partnership with Edward W. Cha- pin. This association continued till 1882, when he withdrew, and has since practised alone, with offices in both Holyoke and Springfield, the county seat, in which much of his legal work centres. His practice is general, civil and criminal, in both of which branches he excels. In recent years he has been counsel in a number of capital cases, and has also successfuly conducted numerous civil suits of note. He is now counsel for many of the principal corporations in Western Massachusetts,

among them the Boston & Maine, the Boston & Albany, and the Connecticut River Railroad Com- panies. In 1881-82-83 he was city solicitor of Holyoke, and in 1889 was nominated for the dis- trict attorneyship, but failed of election, falling short a few votes only. For the past three years he has been senior counsel of Holyoke. In poli- tics he is a steadfast Republican, and has done effective campaign work, especially in his Congres- sional district. In 1884 he was the Republican candidate for mayor of Holyoke, and was defeated by a small majority, although the city is in general elections strongly Democratic. In 1892 he was nominated for Congress, but declined to stand. He is a member of the Holyoke Masonic Lodge, of the Springfield and Nyasset clubs of Spring- field, and of the University Club of Boston. He has been twice married: first, in 1887. to Miss Mary. French, daughter of Warren C. French, of Woodstock, Vt., who died in ISS1 ; and second, in 1884, to Miss Jennie Chase, daughter of the late Edwin Chase, of Holyoke. He has five children : three by the first union : William Steele, Eliot Palmer, and Mary Brooks : and two by the second, Chase Reuben and Rachel Margaret Brooks.

BULLOCK. AUGUSTUS GEORGE, of Worcester, president of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company, was born in Connecticut, in the town of Enfield, June 2, 1847, son of Alexander Hamil- ton and Elvira (Hazard) Bullock. His grand- father was Rufus Bullock, of Royalston ; and his father, the late Governor Bullock, who immediately succeeded Governor Andrew, serving through the years 1866-69, was member of the Legislature, speaker of the House, and mayor of Worces- ter. He was educated at the Highland Mili- tary Academy. Worcester, the Leicester Acad- emy, and Harvard College, where he was grad- uated in the class of 1868. After graduation he travelled some time in Europe, and upon his return began the study of law in the office of the Hon. George F. Hoar, and subsequently with the Hon. Thomas L. Nelson, now judge of the United States District Court, at Worcester. He was admitted to the bar of Worcester County in 1876. and practised for seven years, retiring in January, 1883, when he became president and treasurer of the State Mutual Life Assurance Company of Worcester, which office he has since held. He

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has also been for some years president of the State Safe Deposit Company ; a director of the Worcester National Bank, and of the Worces-

A. G. BULLOCK.

ter County Institution for Savings; a director of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad, of the Providence & Worcester Railroad, of the Worces- ter Traction Company, of the Worcester Consoli- dlated Street Railway Company, and of other cor- porations. He is connected with numerous his- torical societies, a member of the American Anti- quarian Society, of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and of the Archaeological Institute of America ; is a member of the Ameri- can Bar Association, of the Worcester Club, the University and Exchange clubs of Boston, and the Democratic, Reform, and University clubs of New York. He was one of the eight commissioners at large to the World's Columbian Exposition of 1893. chairman of the committee of the exposition on fine arts, and a member of the committee on edu- cation. In 1868 he was private and military sec- retary to his father, Governor Bullock, with rank of lieutenant colonel. In Worcester he has served as a director of the Public Library, and a trustee of the Worcester Lunatic Hospital. Colonel Bul- lock was married October 4. 1871, to Miss Mary Chandler, daughter of George and Josephine R.

Chandler, of Worcester. They have had four children : Chandler, Alexander Hamilton, Augus- tus George (deceased), and Rockwood Hoar Bul- lock.

CARPENTER, FRANK EATON, of Springfield, member of the bar, was born in Monson, August 29, 1851, son of Daniel and Elizabeth Colton (Grout) Carpenter. He was educated in the Mon- son Academy. He studied law in Hartford, Conn., in the office of Francis Fellowes & Son, and was admitted to the Hartford County bar on the first of July, 1873. The same year, in October, he came to Springfield, and opened his law office. He practised at first alone, but early became a partner of the late Mayor John M. Stebbins, under the firm name of Stebbins & Carpenter, which relation held till 1877. His practice has been of a mer- cantile character in courts of probate and insol- vency. Soon after his establishment in Spring- field he became prominent in politics as a Demo- crat ; and in the municipal election of 1882 he was elected to the Common Council. He served in this body two terms ( 1883-84), and was then

FRANK E. CARPENTER.

elected to the lower house of the Legislature for IS85. In ISgt he was a State senator for the First Hampden District, ordinarily Republican,

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which he carried by a good vote ; and in 1892 a member of the Springfield Board of Aldermen. During his term in the House he served on the committee on railroads ; and in the Senate he was chairman of the committee on bills in the third reading, and a member of the committees on elec- tion laws and on constitutional amendments. He is a member of the Springfield Commandery. Knights Templar, and of the Winthrop and Ny- asset clubs. Mr. Carpenter was married March 1. 1875. to Miss Elizabeth M. Lombard, of Brimfield. She died in November. ISSO.

CHAMBERLAIN, GENERAL ROBERT HORACE, sheriff of Worcester County, is a native of Worces- ter, born June 16, 1838, son of General Thomas and Ilannah ( Blair) Chamberlain. On both sides he is of old Worcester County stock. His ances- tors on the paternal side first came to Worcester from Newtowne, now Cambridge, in 1740 ; and the Blairs were early settled in the county. His pater- nal grandfather was a selectman of the town, and so was his father at a later period ; and both were substantial citizens in their day. He was edu- cated in the public schools and at the Worcester and Westfield academies, and at the age of eigh- teen was at work, apprenticed to a firm of ma- chinists. Having mastered his trade, he worked at it till the Civil War broke out. Then he en- listed as a private in Company A, Fifty-first Regi- ment, Massachusetts Volunteers. Soon after he was made sergeant ; and later, re-enlisting in the Sixtieth Regiment, he was commissioned captain of Company F. After the war and his return to Worcester he resumed his trade, and followed it till 1870, when he was appointed by Mayor Blake superintendent of sewers. This position he held for eighteen years, during which period the system was developed and widely extended. In 1888 he was made master of the House of Correction, and in 1892 was elected to his present position of sheriff by a large majority. For twelve years suc- ceeding the war he was active in the State militia, and in this service received his commission as gen- eral. He reorganized the Worcester City Guards, and was the first captain of the company: also organized a battery of artillery in Worcester, which still bears the name of Chamberlain Light Battery : was major and afterward colonel of the Tenth Regiment, and was made brigadier-general of the militia in December, 1869. In 1876 he resigned,

and retired from the service. Before his appoint- ment as superintendent of sewers he served two terms (1869-70) in the City Council. General

R. H. CHAMBERLAIN.

Chamberlain is an Odd Fellow and a Mason of high degree, -- a past commander of Worcester County Commandery of Knights Templar, and past grand commander of the Grand Commandery of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. He is con- neeted with the Grand Army, a charter member of Post 10. He is a member of the Worcester Board of Trade, of the Worcester County Mechanics' Association (president for three years ), and of the Hancock Club. In polities he has always been a Republican, but not a politician. He was married January 10. 1865, to Miss Esther Browning, of Hubbardston. They have two daughters : Flora Browning and Mabel Susan Chamberlain.

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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 38

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