Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 39

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 39

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CHAPIN, EDWARD WHITMAN, of Holyoke. member of the bar, is a native of Chicopee. born August 23, 1840, son of Whitman and Theodocia (MeKinstry) Chapin. He was educated at Willis- ton Seminary, Easthampton, and at Amherst, grad- uating from the former in the class of 1859. and from the latter in the class of 1863. He studied

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law with Beach & Stearns in Springfield and at the Harvard Law School. He was admitted to the bar in December, 1865 ; and from that time to the

EDWARD W. CHAPIN.

present he has practised in Holyoke, attaining a foremost position in his profession. He was the first city solicitor of Holyoke ( 1875) ; was for nine years a member of the School Committee. and in 1873 was chosen as representative in the State Legislature. He is a director of the City National Bank, of the Holyoke & Westfield Railroad, and of two manufacturing corporations : namely, the Beebe and Holbrook Paper Company and the Farr Alpaca Company. He has been the secretary and attorney of the Mechanics' Savings Bank since its organization in 1872. Having had charge of the settlement of many important estates. his legal prac- tice has been largely confined to probate business. He is now the senior special justice of the Hol- yoke Police Court, which office he has held for several years. In politics Mr. Chapin is a Repub- lican ; and in religion, a Congregationalist, deacon in the Second Congregational Society of Holyoke. He was married May 16, 1866, to Miss Mary L. Beebe, daughter of Jared Beebe, of Springfield. They have had four children : Arthur B., Anne ('. (now Mrs. William F. Whiting), Alice M., and Clara M. Chapin,

CLARK, COLONEL EMBURY P., of Springfield, high sheriff of Hampden County, is a native of Buckland, Franklin County, born March 31, 1845, son of Chandler and Joanna (Woodward) Clark. He was educated in the public schools of Charle- mont and in those of Holyoke, to which his par- ents removed when he was a boy of thirteen. After leaving school, he worked in a store till 1862, when at the age of seventeen, he enlisted in Com- pany B, Forty-sixth Regiment, Massachusetts Vol- unteers, and served in North Carolina and with the Army of the Potomac. At the expiration of his service he returned to Holyoke, and was suc- cessively a drug clerk, shipping clerk, book-keeper, and paymaster till 1876, when he was elected water registrar of the city of Holyoke. In this office he was retained by repeated elections for sixteen years, finally retiring to accept his present position of sheriff of Hampden County, to which he was elected in 1892. He has been prominent in the State militia since the close of the war. Starting in 1868 as sergeant of Company K, Sec- ond Regiment, he was elected captain a year later, commissioned major August 14, 1871, and lieu-

EMBURY P. CLARK.

tenant colonel August 31. 1875. For the purpose of reorganizing the militia, in 1876, he was honor- ably discharged with all other officers ranking

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above captain ; he then re-entered the service De- cember 23, 1878. as captain of Company D), Second Regiment ; was the next year ( August 2) promoted to the lieutenant colonelcy, and on the 2d of Feb- ruary, 1889, made colonel of the regiment, which position he still holds. He is a member of the Military Service Institution of the United States, and a charter member of Kilpatrick Post, No. 71, Grand Army of the Republic, of which he was for eight years commander. He has always taken great interest in educational matters, and was a continuous member of the School Board of Hol- yoke for fifteen years, up to the time of his re- moval to Springfield. Colonel Clark was married August 23, 1866, to Miss Eliza A. Seaver, daugh- ter of l'erley and Julia M. (Field) Seaver, of Holyoke. They have four children : Kate E .. Edward S., Frederick B., and Alice M. Clark.

COPELAND, ALFRED MINOTT, of Springfield. member of the bar, is a native of Connecticut, born in Hartford, July 3, 1830, son of Alfred and Emma A. (Howd) Copeland. He is descended in the direct line from Lawrence Copeland through his son William, born in Braintree, November 15, 1656, and married April 13, 1694, to a grand- daughter of John Alden of the "Mayflower." Their son Jonathan married Betty Snell, daughter of Thomas Snell, of Bridgewater ; their son Daniel, born in 1741, married Susannah Ames, daughter of Joseph Ames, of West Bridgewater ; their son Daniel, born in 1767, married Abigail Shaw, daughter of Gideon Shaw, of Raynham, April 28, 1791 ; and their son Alfred, born April 17, 1801, married Emma Augusta Howd, daughter of White- head Howd, of New Hartford, Conn., September 5, 1829. Alfred M. was educated in the public schools and in academies in part, and in part by private tuition. He attended public and some- times private schools until the age of twelve. At the age of thirteen he was at work at wood-turning and other wood-working, which he continued, with schooling winters, until he reached eighteen. After that he spent several terms, with interrup- tions, at academies, taught school some time, and at the age of twenty-two began reading law. He was admitted to the bar in December, 1855, and in January following began practice, established in the town of Huntington, Hampshire County, Mass. He remained there until June, 1863, when he moved to Chicopee. The following year, in

March, he moved to Springfield ; but, his health failing. he returned to Huntington in September, 1865. In January, 1872, he re-established him-

ALFRED M. COPELAND.

self in Springfield, and the following spring formed a copartnership with Judge Henry Morris, which continued for ten years. Since its dissolution he has practised alone. He was a special justice of the Police Court of Springfield for about twenty years, and during his residence in Huntington he was some time a trial justice. In Huntington also he was for one year town clerk, and served several terms on the School Committee. He also served one term on the School Committee in Springfield. In 1875 he was a representative for Springfield in the lower house of the Legislature. In politics he has usually acted with the Democratic party ; but he revolted against General Butler in 1883, and went over to the Republican party, where he remained until Blaine was nominated for the Presidency. That year, and in the two Presidential campaigns following, he voted for Cleveland. He has served in political conventions, and made political speeches in national and State campaigns. In religious faith he is a Unitarian, and has served on the parish committee in the Unitarian society in Springfield eleven years. He is a member of the Masonic order. four years master of the local

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Masonic lodge ; and member of the Connecticut Valley Historical Society. He is the author of the history of the former town of Murrayfield, which included the present towns of Chester and Huntington in Western Massachusetts. Mr. Cope- land was married at Huntington, December 31, 1857, to Miss Emyra A. Bigelow. They have two children : Alfred B. and Mary E. Copeland.

CRANE, ELLERY BICKNELL, of Worcester, lumber merchant, is a native of New Hampshire, born in Colebrook, Coos County, November 12, 1836, son of Robert Pruden and Almira Paine (Bicknell) Crane. He is in the seventh genera- tion among the descendants of Henry Crane, of Wethersfield and Guilford, Conn., and in the eighth generation in descent from Zachary Bick- nell, of Weymouth, Mass. Both ancestors came from Old England to the New, the former about the year 1640, and the latter 1636. His father was one of the original settlers of Beloit, Rock County, Wis., arriving there in the winter of 1836-37 ; and his mother followed with him, a babe of nine months, in August, 1837. He was educated in the common schools of Beloit, at the Beloit Seminary, and in the Preparatory Depart- ment of Beloit College. After leaving this depart- ment, not entering the college, he took a position as book-keeper in the office of a lumber merchant in the town. Not long after his employment here, however, as a result of the financial depression beginning in 1857, which was severely felt in the West even into and through the year 1859, the credit system was abandoned by his employer ; and in 1860 he took a trip overland to California. That fall he cast his first presidential vote for Abraham Lincoln while crossing the Sierra Moun- tains, at a station called Strawberry Valley. After spending about two years in California and Oregon, he returned by way of the isthmus, to New York, and was soon re-established in the lumber trade as book-keeper and salesman for a lumber merchant in Boston. He continued in this capacity for several years, when the business was sold out. Then in April, 1867, he estab- lished himself in Worcester as a lumber merchant on his own account, where he has since remained, steadily successful, having met no interruptions or disturbances in his business from the start. Al- though this has demanded much the larger part of his time, he has found opportunities to devote

some spare moments to literary work in the line of local history and genealogy, having compiled and published the "Revised Rawson Family Memorial" in 1875, and in 1887 " The Ancestry of Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay." He is now, and for a number of years has been, engaged in collecting materials for and compiling a history of his own family, "The Cranes in America and in Old England." He was among the early members of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, one of its corporate members in 1877, was at the first meeting after incorporation, on March 6, that year, elected second vice-president, and was president for twelve years from January, 1881, declining the annual election given him for 1893. He has served in the Worcester Common Council two terms, from January, 1876, to January, 1880, and on the Board of Aldermen two years, 1886 and 1887, declining to be a candidate for further service on account of the demands of his busi- ness. During the entire time of his service in the City Council he was an active worker on impor- tant standing and special committees. He is a

E. B. CRANE.

prominent member of the Worcester County Mechanics' Association, elected to the board of directors in 1884, vice-president 1887-89, presi-

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dent in 1890 91 and he delivered the historical address at the fiftieth anniversary of the asso- ciation, on the 5th of February, 1892. He was also for three years president of the Worcester Builders' Exchange, and for the same length of time was president of the Sons and Daughters of New Hampshire. He is the compiler of the " Memoirs, Sons and Daughters of New Hamp- shire, Worcester, 1880 to 1885," giving the history of this association, with its transactions during the period covered by the above dates. In politics he has been a steadfast Republican from the time of his first vote, and has voted reg- ularly at every election. Mr. Crane was married May 13, 1859, to Miss Salona Aldrich Rawson, a descendant in the eighth generation of Edward Rawson, secretary of the Massachusetts Bay Col- ony from 1650 to 1686. They have had but one child : Morton Rawson Crane.

DEWEY, FRANCIS HENSHAW, of Worcester. member of the bar, is a native of Worcester, born March 23, 1856, son of Francis H. and Sarah B. (Tufts) Dewey. He comes of a family distin- guished in the annals of the Massachusetts judici- ary, his father having been a judge of the Supe- rior Court for twelve years, and his grandfather, Charles A. Dewey, a judge of the Supreme Judi- cial Court for twenty-nine years, - from 1837 until his death in 1866. Francis H. was educated in private schools, fitting for college at St. Mark's School, Southboro. He graduated at Williams College in the class of 1876, receiving the degree of A.M. three years later. His preparation for his profession was made at the Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1878, and in the law office of Staples & Goulding, of Worcester ; and he was admitted to the bar in February, 1879. He has practised at Worcester since that time, and engaged also in financial, railroad, and other interests. He has been solicitor of the Worcester Mechanics' Savings Bank since 1880, clerk of the bank since 1882, and trustee since 1888; has been president of the Mechanics' National Bank since April, 1888 ; for several years a director of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad Company, of the Worcester Gas Light Company, of the Worces- ter Traction Company, of the Worcester Con- solidated Street Railway Company : director and treasurer of the Proprietors of the Bay State House, and of the Worcester Theatre Association ;

and trustee of several large estates. He is a member of the American Antiquarian Society and of the Worcester Fire Society, and belongs to the

FRANCIS H. DEWEY.

leading clubs of Worcester,-the Worcester, the Hancock, and the Quinsigamond Boat clubs. In politics he is Republican, but is not active, having no time or inclination for political work. He was married December 12, 1878, to Miss Lizzie D. Bliss, daughter of Harrison and Sarah Howe Bliss. They have one daughter, Elizabeth Bliss, and one son, Francis Henshaw Dewey, Jr.

DODGE, THOMAS HUTCHINS, of Worcester, lawyer, inventor, and manufacturer, is a native of Vermont, born in Eden, Lamoille County, Septem- ber 27. 1823, fourth son of Malachi F. and Jane (Hutchins) Dodge. His ancestors were Malachi F.". Enoch", Elisha", Joseph", and Richard1, who settled in Salem, Mass., in 1638, from England. His father was a substantial farmer, first in Eden, and afterwards in Lowell, Vt., moving to the latter place when Thomas H. was a child. Here the boy lived, until about fourteen years of age, a free farm life, attending the district school during the winters. Then, his eldest brother having secured a position with the Nashua (N.H.) Manufacturing

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Company, the family moved to Nashua, where his schooling was continued in the public schools. While yet in his teens, determining to become a lawyer and a manufacturer, and desiring to act for himself, he agreed with his father upon a sum to be paid for his time during the remainder of his minority ; and, when the papers were duly executed and signed, he set out to prepare himself for his chosen vocations. His first aim was to master the business of manufacturing cotton cloth ; and to this end he began at the beginning, finding a place in one of the carding-rooms of a mill as a roll carrier. Meanwhile he read many books and papers bear- ing on the subject. When he had earned sufficient funds, he left Nashua, and entered the Gymna- sium Institute at Pembroke, N.H., where he made rapid progress, ranking among the foremost in his class. After leaving Pembroke, he returned to Nashua, and secured a place in the spinning and weaving departments of the Nashua Manufacturing Company. Remaining in this position till he had acquired a full knowledge of the processes, and again had a small capital in hand saved from his earnings, he took up a course of study in the Nashua Literary Institute. This completed, he returned to the mills, and was soon made second in charge of the warping, dressing, and drawing-in departments. Subsequently he was promoted to the full charge of these departments, the youngest person who had ever held this position. In the mean time he had been pursuing a course of study in elementary law, and continuing his studies in Latin under a private tutor. He also compiled a " Review of the Rise, Progress, and Present Im- portance of Cotton Manufactures of the United States: together with Statistics, showing the Com- parative and Relative Remuneration of English and American Operatives," which he published in the year 1850. While in charge of departments of the Nashua Manufacturing Company's business he was enabled, through his exact knowledge of de- tails, considerably to reduce expenses, and by his ingenious inventions to improve the character of the work. He made numerous other experiments and improvements ; and in 1851 a patent was ob- tained for a printing-press of his invention, to print from a roll of cloth or paper, and cut the material into the desired lengths after the impres- sion was made and while in motion, which was the beginning of the revolution in machinery for print- ing paper, culminating in the lightning presses of the present day. In 1851 he turned his attention

directly to preparation for the law, entering the office of the Hon. George Y. Sawyer and Colonel A. F. Stevens, of Nashua; and on the 5th of December, 1854, he was admitted to the New Hampshire bar. He immediately began practice in Nashua ; but soon after, in March, 1855, being offered by the Hon. Charles Mason, then United States commissioner of patents, a position in the examining corps of the patent office, he moved to Washington. He remained in the patent office nearly four years, the greater portion of the time serving as examiner-in-chief, having been early appointed to that position, and the last year as

THOMAS H. DODGE.

chairman of the permanent board of appeals estab- lished in December, 1857. While in the patent office, he invented the important improvement in the mowing machine, by which the finger bar and cutting apparatus are controlled by the driver from his seat, now in almost universal use, and estimated to save the labor of over one million of laborers during the harvesting season in this and foreign countries. Resigning from the patent office in November, 1858, to resume the practice of law, he was admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States, and opened an office in Wash- ington ; and for twenty-five years thereafter he enjoyed a large and lucrative practice in patent

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cases, both in the East and West, ranking among the first in that branch of the profession. It is due to the efforts of Mr. Dodge, while a resident of Washington, that letters, uncalled for. are re- turned to the writers, he having in 1856 fully elaborated the plan and details thereof, and pre- sented them in writing to the then Postmaster- General. Judge Cambell. Early in the sixties Mr. Dodge became one of the active managers of the Union Mowing Machine Company, established in Worcester, and also opened a branch law office here : and in 1864 he took up his residence in this city. In 1881, while still engaged in his ex- tensive law practice, he joined Charles G. Wash- burn in the organization of the Worcester Barb Fence Company, with himself as president and Mr. Washburn as secretary and manager. and began the manufacture of the four-pointed cable barbed fence wire of their invention. now made by the Washburn & Moen Manufacturing Com- pany, which subsequently purchased their entire plant and patents. In 1884 Mr. Dodge retired from active professional work, and has since given much of his time to his extensive farm interests in Worcester and Western lowa, where he owns one of the largest farms west of the Mississippi, and to his extensive grounds about his town residence. During his residence in Worcester he has been a public-spirited and generous citizen. having given to the city a tract of thirteen acres for a public park ; presented to the trustees of the Odd Fel- lows' State Home the tract of land covering thir- teen acres on which the Home stands, and land for Odd Fellows' Park, though himself not a mem- ber of the order : materially aided the Worcester Natural History Society in its efforts to maintain summer schools for the young; and assisted lib- erally in building Union. Piedmont. and other churches in Worcester. With the exception of service on the first city council of Nashua, when a law student in the early fifties. he has held no elective office. He was married June 29, 1843. to Miss Eliza Daniels, of Brookline. N.H. They have no children.

DOUGLASS, FRANKLIN PIERCE, of Worcester. proprietor of the Bay State House. is a native of Lynn, born February 7, 1853, son of Franklin J. and Semantha A. (Stiles) Douglass. His father was a well-known citizen of Lynn, at one time a member of the city government ; and his mother

was of Bethel. Mainc, daughter of Andrew J. Stiles. His grandfather, Samuel Douglass, was a native of York, Me .. was a merchant, also a hotel-keeper there, and was largely interested in the Southern coastwise trade, running schooners and other craft sailing north and south. His edu- cation was attained in the Lynn common schools, at the Littleton (N.H.) High School, and at Thet- ford Academy, at Thetford Hill, Vt. His first experience in hotel life was obtained when yet a boy, at the old Union House, Littleton, N.H. He was next employed at the Profile House, White Mountains. Thence he went to the office

F. P. DOUGLASS.

of the United States Hotel, Boston, when but seventeen years of age. He remained there till 1875. when he leased the Mettakesett Lodge at Katama, Martha's Vineyard, which he conducted one season. In the autumn of the same year he came to the Bay State as its chief clerk, and from that time has been connected with this house. He continued as chief clerk until ISSS. when, in connection with a partner, he bought the lease and furniture, and became proprietor. After four years of partnership he bought the interest of his partner, and has since conducted the house alone, making it a prosperous one. He has spent many thousand dollars in modern furnishings and re-

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pairs, and put the large house in thorough condi- tion. Mr. Douglass is connected with the Ma- sonic order, a member of the Quinsigamond Lodge, Eureka Chapter, Hiram Council, Worcester Lodge of Perfection, Lawrence Chapter Rose Croix, and the Worcester County Commandery Knights Templar, all of Worcester; of the Boston Con- sistory of Boston, thirty-second degree, and of Aleppo Temple, Mystic Shrine of Boston. He is also a member of the Gesang Verein Frohsinn, of the Elks, of the Worcester Council No. 12, Royal Arcanum, and of the Hancock Club. He was married in 1880 to Miss L. Etta Wilcox, a daughter of Alfred W. Wilcox, of Worcester. They have one child : Grace W. Douglass, born in IS82.

EARLE, STEPHEN CARPENTER, of Worcester, architect, was born in Leicester, January 4, 1839, son of Amos S. and Hannah (Carpenter) Earle. He is a lineal descendant of Ralph Earle, born near Exeter, England, who came to New England about the year 1630, and soon after settled in Rhode Island. His great-great-great-grandfather Ralph, grandson of the first Ralph, was one of the original settlers of Leicester ; and Steward South- gate and Nathaniel Potter, also original settlers of Leicester, were ancestors of his father's mother. On the maternal side he descends from the Car- penters and Tafts, early settlers in the southern part of Worcester County. He was educated in the Leicester district school, the Friends' Boarding School, Providence, R.I., and the High School, Worcester. He subsequently took a short course in architectural design in the Massachusetts Insti- tute of Technology. After leaving school, he was for five years a book-keeper. Then he pursued the study of architecture in various architects' offices in New York and Worcester, broken by eleven months' service in the Union army (1862, 1863). For one year he was draughtsman at the Hoosac Tunnel, and in 1865-66 seven months were devoted to the tour of Europe, with study along the way. Upon his return from Europe he began work as an architect, opening his office in Worcester in February, 1866. In March of the same year he was joined by James E. Fuller, and the firm of Earle & Fuller was established. This continued for ten years. Afterwards Mr. Earle was alone till 1891, when on the first of July he entered into partnership with Clellan W. Fisher, under the firm name of Earle & Fisher, which re-

lation still continues. From 1872 to 1885 he had a Boston office as well as a Worcester one. His work has been of a general character, public and private, including many fine churches, among them All Saints', Saint Matthew's, Saint Mark's, Central, Pilgrim, South Unitarian, and others of less importance in Worcester ; the new building for the Worcester Free Public Library and many fine libraries elsewhere ; the buildings for the Worcester Polytechnic Institute ; the Slater Memo- rial, Norwich, Conn., lowa College Library, Good- now Hall, for the Huguenot Seminary, in South Africa, and numerous other school and college buildings in various parts. He is a member of the American Institute of Architects, of the Worcester Chapter of the American Institute of Architects, and of the Boston Society of Archi- tects. In addition to his professional work he is interested in the Worcester Co-operative Bank, of which he has been a director from its foun- dation, was vice-president from 1885 to 1888, and has been president since 1888. In politics he is an ardent Republican, but without ambition for office, and in religious faith an Episcopalian.

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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 39

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