Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 44

Author: Herndon, Richard; Bacon, Edwin M. (Edwin Monroe), 1844-1916
Publication date: 1896
Publisher: Boston : New England Magazine
Number of Pages: 1036

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governor ; and in 1893 he was on the committee appointed to draft resolutions on the death of General Butler. He established the Worcester

JAMES H. MELLEN.

Daily Times, as an evening Democratic labor paper, in 1879. and was its editor for upwards of ten years. For seven years he was identified with the " moral suasion " temperance movement ; he is an advocate of tax-reform; and he has some time been State master workman of Massachu- setts Assembly of Knights of Labor. Mr. Mellen was first married in 1867 to Julia A. Mooney, by whom he had seven children : William R., John F., Katie, Annie, Margaret, James, and Richard Mel- len. He married second. in 1888, Mary O'Ha- gan, of Ogdensburg, N.Y. They have one child : Mary Mellen.

MERRILL, CHARLES AMOS, of the Worcester bar, was born in South Boston, September 23. 1843. He is a son of the Rev. John W. Merrill, 1).1), of Concord, N.H., who was the second president of McKendree College, Ill., and after- wards, for more than thirty years, professor in the Methodist General Biblical Institute at Concord before it became a department of Boston Univer- sity. His mother was Emily Huse Merrill,

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

daughter of the late Enoch Huse, of Newburyport, Mass. Mr. Merrill is of English ancestry, his progenitor having been born at Salisbury, Eng- land, in 1610, and died at Newbury, Mass., in 1655. He prepared for college at the Concord (N.H.) High School, entered Dartmouth College in 1860, left at the end of the second year of his course on account of severe illness, and after- ward entered Wesleyan University, where he graduated in 1864. He was for a time principal of Bacon Academy at Colchester, Conn., and afterward of Brainard Academy at Haddam, Conn. In 1865 he was a paymaster's clerk in the

CHARLES A. MERRILL.

army, and in 1866 an examiner of referred claims in the paymaster-general's office at Washington. In 1867-68 he was private secretary of the ser- geant-at-arms of the United States Senate and of the late Senator J. W. Patterson, of New Hamp- shire. He graduated from Columbian Law School at Washington in 1868, and from the Harvard Law School in 1869. He was admitted to the bar in 1868 by the Supreme Court of the Dis- trict of Columbia, and in 1869 by the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. He was subse- quently admitted to the United States Circuit Court at Boston. In 1870 he was partner of the Hon. Isaac Atwater, an ex-justice of the Supreme

Court of Minnesota, at Minneapolis. The next year he returned to Massachusetts, and was part- ner of W. A. Gile at Worcester till 1879, when this relation ceased, since which time he has been constantly engaged in practice at the last-named city. He received the degrees of A. B. and A.M. in course from Wesleyan University, and the de- gree of LL.B. from Columbian and Harvard Law Schools. He edited the Supplement to the Public Statutes of 1882-88. Other than as stated he has held no political office, and has devoted himself exclusively to his profession. He was married April 15, 1873, to Miss Ellen Elizabeth Shuey, of Minneapolis, a daughter of the late John H. Shuey, of that city. They have no children.

MONOM, REV. PHILIP STAFFORD, D.D., of Springfield, pastor of the South Congregational Church, was born in Markham, Canada, August 10, 1848, son of Job Hibbard and Annie ( Turner) Moxom. His father was born in 1816 in Wilt- shire, England, not far from Salisbury ; was edu- cated in a military school ; served over six years in the Queen's Grenadiers; came to Canada under Lord Durham during Mckenzie's Rebell- ion; afterward left the army; entered the Wes- leyan ministry, but became a Baptist minister after several years; moved to the States, settling in Illinois in the late fifties; served in the Civil War in the Fifty-eighth Regiment Illinois Infantry, as second, then first lieutenant, promoted to the latter rank for honorable service on the field of Shiloh, and was wounded three times; is still living in Kansas, at the age of seventy-eight years. His mother was a native of Yorkshire, England, born in 1819, and came to Quebec in childhood. She was a woman of remarkable character, quiet, patient, eager to learn, of invin- cible integrity, an earnest and progressive Chris- tian. She died May 21. 1893. Mr. Moxom's education was begun in the common and high schools of De Kalb, Ill., and was interrupted by the Civil War, to which he went first, in the winter of 1861-62, with the Fifty-eighth Illinois Infantry, - his father's regiment,- as "boy" to Captain Bewley. In this capacity he was at the battle of Fort Donelson. On October 3, 1863, he enlisted in Company C, Seventeenth Illinois Cavalry, and served until the 29th of November, 1865. Upon his return from the war he resumed his studies, entering the preparatory class of Kalamazoo

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

(Mich.) College on the ist of January, 1866. He studied there and later in Shurtleff College, Upper Alton, Ill., but did not graduate then. During this period he also had some experience as a teacher both in Illinois and in Michigan. In IS71 he began the study of law in the office of May & Buck in Kalamazoo, but in the summer of that year he was called to the ministry. In September following he was ordained in Bellevue, Mich. He served a short pastorate in Bellevue, and a little more than three years in Albion, Mich. In 1875 he went to the Mt. Morris, N. Y. (Livingston County), Baptist church. In Septem-

PHILIP S. MOXOM.

ber, the same year. he entered the Rochester Theological Seminary, and took the full three years' course, graduating in May. 1878. meantime serving as pastor of the Mt. Morris church till the last of March, 1879. In July that year he took the degree of A.B. in the University of Roches- ter, and in 1882 A.M. in course in the same col- lege. From the Mt. Morris church he went to the First Baptist Church in Cleveland, Ohio, be- ginning his pastorate there on the ist of April. 1879. In August, 1885. he became pastor of the First Baptist Church, Boston, and served there till the ist of January, 1894; and on the ist of April following he began his service in Springfield

as pastor of the South Congregational Church. In June. 1892, while in Boston, where he took rank among the foremost clergymen of that city, he received the degree of D.D. from Brown Uni- versity. Dr. Moxom has written and published various articles on social and religious questions. and in 1894 published a volume of addresses to young people under the title of "The Aim of Life " (Boston, Roberts Brothers), which passed rapidly into the second thousand. He also wrote a paper entitled an "Argument for Immortality " for the World's Parliament of Religions, and preached the sermon, on " Moral and Social Aspects of War, " before the World's Peace Con- gress in Chicago in 1893. He has preached much at Cornell. Harvard. and Vale Universities, at Dartmouth College, Wellesley College, Vassar College. and other educational institutions. He is a member of the American Peace Society, and has been a delegate to International Peace Congresses in London in 1890, Berne in 1892. Chicago in 1893, and Antwerp in 1894: is a mem- ber of the American Economic Association, of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. of the council of the Andover House Association ; honorary member of the Dartmouth Alumni Association : member of the University Club of Boston, and of various other clubs : was president of the Appalachian Mountain Club 1894: and president of the Browning Society. Boston. 1894-95. In politics he has been a Republican, in later years an independent Re- publican. He takes much interest in political as well as in social questions. He has travelled much abroad. having made five trips to Europe. Dr. Moxom was married September 6. 1871. to Miss Isabel Elliott, daughter of the Hon. Adam Elliott, of Barry, Mich. They have four children living : Philip W. T. (now in Brown University), Howard Osgood. Edith Knowles, and Ralph l'en- dleton Moxom.

NEWMAN, LOUIS FRANK, of Springfield. real estate operator, is a native of the South, born in Montgomery, Ala .. December 19. 1857. son of Rebeka and Seeman Newman. His father was a German emigre as a result of the Revolution of 1848. The boy lived in Montgomery until the close of the Civil War: and then his father. fear- ing the effects upon business of the changes of the reconstruction period, took the family abroad.

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

He was there educated, at Segnitz, in Bavaria, a famous boys' school, where he spent four years, from 1867 to 1871. In 1871, after travelling through Germany, he returned to this country. and at the age of fourteen entered the store of his father, re-established in Montgomery, to learn the dry-goods business. This business, however, was uncongenial to him : and after three years experience in it he set out for New York, work- ing his way from Norfolk, Va., on an Old Dominion steamship. In New York he found temporary employment in making picture frames, though he lacked every preparation for the work.

LOUIS F. NEWMAN.

A year later, in 1876, the Centennial Exhibition drew him to Philadelphia, where he secured employment as entry clerk with Sharples & Sons, then the leading dry-goods house in that city. Here he remained until 1880. Meanwhile he had come under the influence of the Young Men's Christian Association; and he was so impressed by the adaptability of this institution to reach young men, and to train and preserve them, that he finally resigned all idea of business life for at least ten years, and in October of 1880 entered its employ, being appointed general secretary of the association at Richmond, Va. He was then, with one exception, the youngest secretary in

America. After organizing the Richmond associa- tion and putting it in good condition, in February. 1883, he was transferred to Detroit, Mich., to occupy a similar position. Here the organization had been reduced by poor management and a lack of knowledge as to its proper sphere. He at once re-established it on a business basis; and when he resigned in December, 1890, after eight years' work, what was a disrupted, homeless, and bankrupt organization, when he assumed charge, had become a flourishing institution, with a membership of nearly two thousand, an income of twenty thousand dollars a year, and a building of its own, valued at one hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, free of debt. During this time he became widely known as a forceful speaker on social and religious topies, having occupied some of the leading pulpits and platforms in the West. He is what might be called a bookworm. He owns a fine library and one of the best collec- tions of etchings in the country. Since his retire- ment from the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion work Mr. Newman has devoted his attention to real estate, making his home in Springfield, and his ventures during the three years from 1891 to 1894 have reached into millions of dollars. As a sample of his energy, it may be mentioned that in May, 1893, in the face of the financial panic which characterized that year, he, with others, purchased a fifty-acre traet of land in Springfield. At the end of one year he had built a dozen fine houses upon it, opened wide boulevards and terraces, laid out drives, erected statuary and the like, and greatly increased the value of the prop- erty. His chief characteristics are executive ability, tact in dealing with men, centralized energy and perseverance. In the first year of his Springfield business experience, despite the fact of being unknown to a single business man in the city, he has succeeded in identifying with him in his numerous enterprises some of the leading conservative bank presidents. Mr. Newman was married May 11, 1893, to Miss Lura Barden, the famous elocutionist, of Detroit, Mich. They have one son : Gwendel Barden Newman.

NICHOLS, CHARLES LEMUEL, M. D., of Worces- ter, is a native of Worcester, born May 29, 1851, son of Lemuel B. and Lydia C. (Anthony) Nichols. His father and father's father were also physicians, the former one of the founders of the

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Worcester County Homeopathic Medical Society, and its first president in 1866. His mother was a daughter of James Anthony, a prominent manu- facturer of Providence, R.I., and connected with one of the oldest families of that State. He was educated in the Worcester public schools, the Highland Military School of Worcester, and at Brown University, where he graduated A.B. in 1872 and A. M. in 1875. During the year 1872- 73 he was assistant instructor in chemistry at Brown. He took the regular course of the Harvard Medical School, graduating in 1875, and after a year as interne in Ward's Island (N.Y.)

CHAS. L. NICHOLS.

Homeopathic llospital went abroad, where he further pursued his studies through the year 1877. Returning to Worcester, he entered upon the general practice of his profession, in association with his father. This partnership continued till the death of the latter in 1883, when he succeeded to the entire practice. He was largely instru- mental in establishing the Worcester Homeopathic Dispensary (dating from 1880; incorporated :885), and has been treasurer of the Dispensary Associa- tion from its beginning. He is also much inter- ested in the Associated Charities, of which he is secretary. He has been a member of the Mas- sachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society since

1878, and of the Worcester County Homeopathic Medical Society since 1877. He married, first, June 14, 1887, Miss Carolina Clinton Dewey. daughter of Judge Francis H. Dewey, who died December 22, 1878, leaving one child, Caroline 1). Nichols ; and, second, November 25, 1884, Miss Mary Jarette Brayton, daughter of the Hon. John S. Brayton of Fall River : they have three children, Charles L., Jr., Harriet B., and Brayton Nichols.

NORCROSS, ORLANDO W., of Norcross Broth- ers, building contractors, Worcester. is a native of Maine, born in Clinton, October 25. 1839. younger son of Jesse and Margaret (Whitney) Norcross. When two years old, his parents moved to Salem, Mass. He was educated in the schools of Salem. He learned the carpenters' trade, and came naturally by his calling, his father, Jesse S. Norcross, having been a man of unusual ability, whose chief business had been setting up saw-mills in the woods of Maine. In 1864, after his return from the war, he started, with his brother, James A. Norcross, business in Swampscott, as Norcross Brothers, carpenters and builders. The beginning was modest, with little promise of speedy expansion. Two years later, however, they were given the contract to build the Congregational church in Leicester; and in 1867 they found their opportunity in Worcester, which had entered upon a stage of extensive improve- ments. From that time their progress was rapid. and their work became of the first importance. Within the three years 1868-70 they built the Crompton Block on Exchange Street, the First Universalist Church, and the Worcester High School building, and had begun operations in Springfield, building there the South Congrega- tional Church. In 1872 they took the contract for building the Hampden County Court House, Springfield ; and in 1873 began Trinity Church in Boston, the masterpiece of Richardson, subse- quently executing other notable work of Richard- son's design. In the period between 1873 and 1879 they built the Norwich Congregational church ; the beautiful All Saints' Church, Worces- ter ; the Cheney Block, Hartford ; the Latin and English High School buildings, Boston ; the Gym- nasium and Sever Hall, Harvard College; the Woburn Library ; the AAmes Library, North Easton. and the North Easton Town Hall ; Trinity Church parsonage, Boston ; and the Newport villa of

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Mrs. Annie W. Sherman. During the eighties they extended their operations to more distant places, building the Albany City Hall ; the Alle- gheny County Court House and Jail, Pittsburg ; the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce ; the How- ard Memorial Library, New Orleans; the Turner Building, St. Louis, Mo .; the Marshall Field Building, Chicago; the New York Life Insurance Building, Omaha, Neb. ; the New York Life Insur- ance Company Building, Kansas City, Mo .; the Lionberger Building, St. Louis, Mo. ; the Presby- terian church, Albany; Lawrenceville School Building, New Jersey: and the Crouse Memorial

O. W. NORCROSS.

College, Syracuse, N. Y. Within the same period they built in New England the Memorial Building, Yale College ; the Harvard College Law School building ; a Vermont University building ; the Dur- fee High School building, Fall River ; the Crane Memorial Hall, Quincy ; and the Malden Library ; the Fiske Building, the State Street Exchange, and other business structures in Boston; the First Spiritual Temple ; the Boston Art and Algonquin Club houses; the Burnside Building, Worcester ; the Framingham and Springfield stations on the Boston & Albany Railroad ; and the Hartford (C'onn.) station of the New York, New Haven & Hartford line; in New York city, the Union

League Club House, the Union Theological Seminary, St. James Episcopal Church, and Holy Trinity Church; Grace Church, New Bedford ; Newton Baptist church ; and numerous costly private residences in various cities. Their work of later years includes the tall Ames Building, Washington and Court Streets, Boston, and the Boston Chamber of Commerce. They also built the Ames Memorial Monument at Sher- man, Wyoming Territory, on the highest ele- vation of the Rocky Mountains crossed by the Union Pacific Railroad ; and the soldiers' monu- ment at West Point. They have now extensive wood and iron working shops in Worcester, and large stone-working plants in Boston and in Cleve- land, Ohio; and own granite, sandstone, and marble quarries. Mr. Norcross served in the Civil War three years, enlisting in the Fourteenth Massachusetts Infantry, which became the Mas- sachusetts Heavy Artillery. As a resident of Worcester, he has taken an active interest in local affairs ; and he is an earnest supporter of the tem- perance cause. In 1875 he was a member of the commission of experts appointed to investigate the condition of the Federal Building in Chicago, whose findings were all sustained by subsequent events. Mr. Norcross was married in May, 1870, to Ellen P. Sibley, of Salem. They have had two sons and three daughters, the daughters only now living.

OLMSTED, JOHN, of Springfield, manufacturer, president of street railways, and concerned in numerous other business interests, was born in Enfield, Conn., June 1, 1820. That John Olm- sted at seventy-four years of age is a foremost factor in the life of Springfield, respected for what he is and has done, is a statement which he would decline to father. It comes by authority of the Springfield Republican, speaking for the com- munity where he has lived since 1860. He was born of good New England stock, his father being George Olmsted, a farmer, and his mother the daughter of Ensign Russell, who had been a Revolutionary soldier. The lad, thoughtful and self-respecting by nature, went to the local school, and then attended the Wilbraham and Westheld academies. He wished to go to college, but the way was not open except by mortgaging his fut- ure, and this he did not feel justified in doing. So he took up the business of life with a very good equipment, for those old rural academies did

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

much for their pupils ; and ever since Mr. Olm- sted has read books much, and studied men and affairs more. Striking out for himself, at twenty years of age he became a manufacturer of tin- ware and dealer in paper stock. His talent for business was so obvious that the local magnates, like the late Colonel Hazard, encouraged and gave him advice, which he put to good use, for the old and honorable principles governing trade are good always. In 1854 his health gave out and he sold his business, and retired to a farm in Somers. Outdoor life brought back his vigor, and he moved to Springfield six years later. Mr. Olmsted's

JOHN OLMSTED.

early interest in public affairs appears in the fact that he took the New York Tribune and the Springfield Daily Republican from their first issues, - the one established in 1841 and the other in 1844, -and that he embarked in the anti- slavery movement in boyhood. He attended every anti-slavery State convention held in Con- necticut before his removal to Massachusetts, and knew to a man the faithful three hundred of that State who always turned out at these annual rallies ; and we may well believe that they were "a mighty respectable body of men." He came to know Lovejoy and Giddings well, saw them in their homes, and threw himself without reserva-

tion into the battle for freedom.

waste and paper stock business with the late first venture in Springfield was in the cotton summate that splendid contest. Mr. Olmsted's early cast in his fot with the man who was to con- field, Ill., and so came to know and measure and nomination Mr. Olmsted chanced to be in Spring- After Lincoln's

Lewis H. Taylor. They also manufactured cot-

field. Mr. Taylor retired in 1866, and for four- ton batting on Mill River, and twines in West-

Chicopee, reorganized on a stock company basis, dozen years ago the business was removed to under the name of Olmsted & Tuttle. Some half partnership was formed with Frank E. Tuttle stock and cotton waste business alone. Then a teen years Mr. Olmsted conducted the paper

and it is a very prosperous concern. Meantime

system is proved by the fact that it is so regarded The statement that he has given the city a model has built up Springfield's street railway system. scope in the thoroughly sound way in which he vate business life is added a distinction of wider the local life. To the steady success of his pri- thirty-four years, until they branch out widely into ships have been steadily enlarged during the Mr. Olmsted's business investments and relation-

States. He took charge of a small, unprofitable. such by delegations from cities all over the United by experts in street railway matters, and visited as

provements planned to the extent of an expendi- Indian Orchard, with other extensions and im- extended to Chicopee, West Springfield, and ment thoroughly good, and its lines have been Its patronage is phenomenal, its electric equip- ily commanded popular confidence and favor. such an adequate servant of the people as speed- and poorly managed company, and has made it

owned a controlling interest in the company, or ture of $200,000. At no time has Mr. Olmsted

cared to; and he has rejected all propositions looking to outside syndicate ownership which would have had no care for the local service. He has had genuine pride in doing the best possi- ble thing for the company and the people, holding

that the interests of both are one. The success

and solidity of his method has led Northampton and Holyoke people to seek his aid, and he now (1894) has the practical oversight of the street railway companies in both these cities. His fair- mindedness. close knowledge of matters under his care, tact, power of clear statement, and reason- able disposition, make him almost a model advo-

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

cate when questions of railway franchises come before the city government of these places. The comforts of home have always outweighed in Mr. Olmsted's mind the attractions of public life. He has served for two terms in the Common Council, four terms an alderman, and was a member of the House of Representatives in 1883. It is an open secret that he could have been mayor, had he so desired. All his life Mr. Olmsted has been a good citizen and a contributor to the common welfare. It is owing to his efforts in raising the funds that Springfield has her unique and beauti- ful Art Building, to which Mr. Olmsted was also one of the large contributors. It is a part of his philosophy that those who have been prospered in fair dealing owe something to their fellows and the community, and he has been and is paying the debt in quiet and effective ways not to be cat- alogued. Mr. Olmsted is president of the Spring- field Street Railway Company and the North- ampton Street Railway Company; of the First National Bank of Springfield, and of the Olmsted & Tuttle Company; vice-president and director of the City Library Association ; director of the United Electric Light Company, the Indian Or- chard Company, the Holyoke Street Railway Company, the Oak Grove Cemetery Association, the Metallic Roll Company of Indian Orchard, and the Western Massachusetts Mutual Insurance Company; and trustee of the Hampden Savings Bank. Mr. Olmsted was married in 1842 to Rhodelia E. Langdon, of Somers, Conn .; and their union was an ideally happy one until Mrs. Olmsted's death, September 29, 1891. Two of their children are living: Mrs. Henry J. Beebe and Mrs. Frank H. Goldthwait, both of Spring- field.

PARKER, HENRY LANGDON, of Worcester, member of the bar, is a native of Acton, born October 7, 1833, son of Asa and Margaret Ann (McCoristone) Parker. He was educated in the Lawrence Academy, Groton, and at Dartmouth, graduating in the class of 1856 ; and prepared for the law in Milford and in Worcester. Admitted to the bar in 1860, he began practice at Hopkin- ton. Five years after he moved to Worcester, where he has since been established. From 1862 to 1865 he was trial justice in Middlesex County. Since early in the eighties he has been prominent in municipal and State matters, his public service beginning on the School Board of Worcester, of

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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 44

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