Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 5

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 5

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DAMRELL, JOHN STANHOPE. inspector of buildings of the city of Boston, was born in the

JOHN S. DAMRELL.

North End of Boston, June 29, 1828, son of Samuel and Ann (Stanhope) Damrell. He was educated in Boston and Cambridge public

schools, working during the summers on a farm in Haverhill. Obliged to leave school early, he was apprenticed at fourteen years of age to Isaac Melvin, of Cambridge, to learn the carpenter's trade. After serving four years as a 'prentice, he came to Boston, and hired out as a journeyman, but was soon made foreman for D. P'. Gross, car- penter and builder in the city. In 1856 he began work as a master-builder. Ten years later he formed a partnership with James Long, under the firm name of Damrell & Long, which continued until 1874. For twenty-eight years he was con- nected with the Boston fire department, follow- ing in the footsteps of his father, first as a mem- ber of " Hero Engine Company No. 6," then established on Derne Street, at the corner of Tem- ple Street. When, upon the demolition of the engine-house to make way for the great granite Beacon Hill Reservoir in 1849 (which occupied the site now covered by the State House Ex- tension till 1885) the company disbanded, he be- came a member of " City Hose," then on Tremont Street. In 1860 he joined "Cataract Engine Company No. 4," at that time housed on River Street, passing in this company through all the grades of official position. When serving in the capacity of foreman, he was elected to the Com- mon Council from Ward 6. The following year he was chosen assistant engineer. He served in this position until 1866, when he became chief engineer ; and he continued at the head from that time to 1874, when the department was reorgan- ized, and placed under a commission. He has held his present position as chief of the city de- partment of inspection of buildings since 1877. During his long and conspicuous service as an en- gineer in the fire department he was connected officially with numerous organizations. He was the first president of the Massachusetts State Firemen's Association ; has served long terms as president of the Firemen's Charitable Associa- tion, of the Boston Firemen's Mutual Relief Asso- ciation, of the Boston Veteran Firemen's Associa- tion, and of the Boston Firemen's Cemetery Asso- ciation ; and is to-day actively connected with these and kindred organizations. While at the head of the Boston fire department, he was a close student of the science of the extinguishment of fires, and was an earnest advocate of advanced theories and methods, which the city was slow to adopt until after the experience of the "Great Fire " of 1872. At the convention of chief engi-

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neers in Baltimore in 1874, called in consequence of the sweeping and disastrous conflagrations in the cities of Portland, Chicago, and Boston, he was unanimously elected president of that body, and took a leading part in its proceedings. Mr. Damrell was also for many years connected with the State militia, serving as lieutenant of the old Mechanic Rifles of Boston. He has been a member of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company for more than twenty years, and is now an honorary member of the National Lancers. He was also a member of the Fusiliers. During the Civil War he performed substantial service, under Governor Andrew and Mayor Lincoln, in filling the quota of men allotted to Boston. At that time he was chairman of the committee of twenty of Ward Six. He is a Mason of the thirty- second degree, a member of the Knights of Honor, member of the Royal Arcanum, of the Odd Fellows, and of the Good Templars ; and he has been president of the supreme parliament of the Golden Rule Alliance since its organiza- tion. For the past seventeen years he has been trustee of the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-Minded. His church connections are with the Methodist Episcopal denomination, and he has served for twenty-five consecutive years as super- intendent of a Sunday-school. In 1891 he was elected president of the National Association of Commissioners and Inspectors of Public Build- ings, and re-elected at the convention of the asso- ciation held in Boston in 1894. Mr. Damrell was married April 11, 1850, at Cambridge, to Miss Susan Emily Hill, daughter of John and Susan (Snelling) Hill. They have had five children : Eliza Ann, John E. S., Carrie M., Charles S., and Susan Emily Damrell, of whom only the two sons are now living.

DEVITT, REV. EDWARD IGNATIUS, S. J., presi- dent of Boston College, is a native of Boston, born December 13, 1841, son of George Devitt, of County Tipperary, Ireland, who emigrated to America in 1830. His education was begun in Boston public schools, and completed in Catholic colleges. He was a Franklin medal scholar of the Eliot Grammar School in 1854, and graduated from the English High in 1857. After a course of Latin and Greek in the College of the Holy Cross at Worcester, he entered the Society of Jesus early in 1859, and then spent the customary

two years on probation at Frederick City, Md. Thereafter he devoted some time to a further study of the classics ; and from 1863 to 1869 he

E. I. DEVITT.

taught in Gonzaga College, Washington, D.C. The following seven years were spent at the Col- lege of the Sacred Heart, Woodstock, Md., three of which he gave to the study of philosophy and four to theology. He was ordained in 1875 by the Most Rev. James R. Bayley, archbishop of Baltimore. Having completed the regular course of studies required by the Institute of the Society. he returned to Holy Cross, Worcester, as pro- fessor of rhetoric. The following year he was also a lecturer on philosophy in the same institu- tion. In 1879 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy in the College of the Sacred Heart. where he had made his principal study of this branch. After four years in this professorship he went to Georgetown University, and there also lectured on philosophy. Two years later he re- turned to Woodstock College, being appointed to the chair of theology, which had been held by Father Camillus Mazzella, afterward elevated to the rank of cardinal. In 1888 he again returned to Holy Cross, this time as professor of philoso- phy : and in 1891 he was appointed to his present position at the head of Boston College. The

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president of Boston College is also, by virtue of his office, rector of the adjoining Church of the Immaculate Conception and president of the Young Men's Catholic Association.

DICKINSON, MARQUIS FAVETTE, JR., member of the Suffolk bar, is a native of Amherst, born January 16, 1840, son of Marquis F. and Hannah (Williams) Dickinson. His paternal ancestor in the eighth generation was Nathaniel Dickinson, one of the early settlers of Wethersfield, Conn., who twenty-three years later became one of the original "adventurers" who settled the town of

M. F. DICKINSON, Jr.

Hadley in 1658. Two of his sons were killed in King Philip's War, and a third was carried into captivity. The great-grandfather of Mr. Dickin- son was Nathaniel Dickinson, Jr., of Amherst, who was graduated from Harvard in 1771, being the first boy from Amherst who went to college. He studied law at Northampton under Major Joseph Hawley, the distinguished Revolutionary leader, was admitted to the bar in 1774, and prac- tised at Amherst until his death in ISoo. He was prominent in Revolutionary politics, chairman of the Amherst Committee of Correspondence, and a member of several of the Provincial Con-

gresses. Three of Mr. Dickinson's ancestors

served in the Revolutionary army. His early education was obtained in the common schools of his native town and in Amherst and Monson academies. He was fitted for college in the famous Williston Seminary at Easthampton. Graduating from Williston in the class of 1858, he entered Amherst College the same year, and graduated therefrom in 1862, having one of the three highest of the Commencement appoint- ments. Three years were next spent as a teacher of classics at Williston (1862-65) ; and then he took up the study of law, first in the office of Wells & Soule in Springfield, and afterwards at the Harvard Law School (1866-67) and with the late George S. Hillard, of Boston. AAdmitted to the bar in 1868, he began practice in Boston. In 1869 he was appointed assistant United States attorney, which position he held for two years. In 1871 he formed a law partnership with Mr. Hillard. and Henry D. Hyde, his college mate, under the firm name of Hillard, Hyde & Dick- inson, which continued till the death of Mr. Hil- lard, when it became Hyde, Dickinson & Howe (Mr. ]lowe having been admitted in 1879). In 1871 he became a lecturer on law as applied to rural affairs, in the State Agricultural College at Amherst, published a pamphlet on "Legislation on the Hours of Labor," became a member of the Boston Common Council, and by appoint- ment of Mayor Gaston a trustee of the Boston Public Library. The next year, returned to the Common Council, he was made president of that body. Then he retired from public service, and, with the exception of his law lectures at the Am- herst Agricultural, which continued until 1877, he has devoted himself exclusively to his profession, early entering upon an important and lucrative practice. He has had charge of an unusually large number of important assignments made by merchants for the benefit of creditors, and in this line of practice is recognized as one of the most successful men at the Boston bar. At present he is almost constantly engaged in the trial of tort cases, particularly for the West End Street Rail- way Company. Since 1872 Mr. Dickinson has been a trustee of Williston Seminary, and since 1877 one of the overseers of the charity fund of Amherst College. In 1876, by invitation of the town of Amherst, he delivered the "Amherst Centennial Address," which was afterwards pub- lished in pamphlet form. Mr. Dickinson was

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married November 23, 1864, at Easthampton, to Miss Cecilia R. Williston, adopted daughter of Samuel and Emily (Graves) Williston. They have had three children: Williston, Charles, and Florence Dickinson,- but one of whom, Charles, is now living. They have an adopted daughter, Jennie Couden Dickinson, daughter of a deceased sister of Mr. Dickinson. Mr. Dickinson's winter residence is Brookline. In summer he lives on the Jerusalem Road, North Cohasset.

DODGE, JAMES HALE, city auditor, Boston, was born in South Boston, September 22, 1845.

JAMES H. DODGE.

son of the late William Bradford and Mary Smith (Leavitt) Dodge. He was educated in the public schools, graduating from the Latin School in 1862. He entered the service of the city, in the department of which he is now the head, at the age of twenty-two, after an experience of three or four years in general business, most of that time in the house of Hodges & Silsbee, manufacturers of chemicals, and has remained in that depart- ment ever since. Beginning in 1867 as junior clerk to the city auditor, in 1873 he was made chief clerk of the office, and in 1881 became audi- tor, succeeding Alfred T. Turner, that year made

city treasurer. Since 1881, also, he has been secretary of the board of commissioners of the sinking funds for the payment or redemption of the city debt. It is the lot of but few in public life to witness the growth of public business and at the same time to be intimately connected with it for so long a period as he has served. The census of 1865 of the city of Boston, comprising only what was known as the city proper, East Bos- ton, and South Boston, showed a population of only 192,318 : in 1890 the Boston of 1865, with its additions of Roxbury, Dorchester, West Rox- bury, Brighton, and Charlestown, showed a popu- lation of 448,477, of which 59 116 per cent. were in the city of 1865. In the financial year of 1866-67 the payments through the auditor's office were $4,660,533.62 : in 1893-94 they were $34,712,- 018.23. The valuation of 1865 was $415.362,- 345 : the valuation of 1893, $924,093,751. Mr. Dodge is a member of the New England Historic Genealogical Society, and of the American So- ciety of Biblical Literature and Exegesis. For several years he has been clerk of the Central Congregational Church of Jamaica Plain, West Roxbury District. He was married October 8, 1867, to Julia M. Read, daughter of the late Nelson S. and Hannah (Beals) Read. There have been born to them seven children, of whom but three boys survive: William B., J. Herbert. and Edgar R. Dodge.

DODGE, COLONEL THEODORE AYRAULT, of the United States army, was born in Pittsfield. May 28, 1842, of old New England stock, tracing his descent to several ancestors who came over with the first settlers. His father was N. S. Dodge, the well-known writer, and his mother Emily Pomeroy. Sent abroad at ten years old, he was at school in Belgium, received a thorough military education in Berlin, studied at Heidel- berg, and was graduated at the University of London in 1860. He is also an LL.B. of Colum- bian University. On the outbreak of the Civil War young Dodge returned home, enlisted, and served in every rank from private to the command of a regiment. With the Third and Eleventh Corps he went through all the battles of the Army of the Potomac from Fair Oaks on, and was wounded at Manassas and at Chantilly, and lost a leg at Gettysburg. At Manassas his regiment, the One Hundred and First New York Volun-

MEN OF PROGRESS.

teers, lost the third highest percentage in killed, wounded, and missing in one engagement of any regiment during the war,- seventy-four per cent. Being ordered to duty in the war department on recovery from his last wound, Colonel Dodge was given a commission in the regular army, received four brevets for gallant service, and was finally placed on the retired list for wounds received in the line of duty. Colonel Dodge has devoted the leisure thus earned to literature. He has lectured at the Lowell Institute, Boston, and at Harvard. He has been a constant contributor to magazine literature for many years, and has, up to 1894, pub- lished the following eleven volumes, not counting parts of several others, all of which have been received at home and abroad with exceptional favor, namely : " The Campaign of Chancellors- ville," " \ Bird's-eye View of Our Civil War," " Patroclus and Penelope : a Chat in the Saddle," " Great Captains," " Alexander " (two volumes), " Hannibal" (two volumes), "Cresar " (two vol- umes, and " Riders of Many Lands." It has fallen to Colonel Dodge's lot to travel extensively.

THEO. A. DODGE.

He has crossed the Atlantic over thirty times, is familiar with every part of Europe, has repeatedly gone through the Orient, and has once circum- navigated the globe. In writing his histories of

the Great Captains, it has been his habit to pass over the ground covered by their campaigns, and to make his own sketches of battlefields. writing " Hannibal," he crossed and recrossed the Alps a score of times, with Polybius in hand, to determine the route of the great Carthaginian : in writing "Casar," he journeyed around the entire basin of the Mediterranean; and he has been able to correct many errors which, from unfamiliarity with the topography, have crept into history. Colonel Dodge is now occupied with Gustavus, Frederick, and Napoleon, whose biogra- phies will complete his " History of the Art of War." He is a member of many military and historical societies, of the St. Botolph, Country, and Papyrus clubs of Boston, and has been presi- dent of the last. He has been a noted expert in horsemanship, but is perhaps better known as a military critic and historian. Colonel Dodge mar- ried in 1865 Miss Jane Marshall Neil, who died in 1881, and by whom he had five children. Three now survive : Robert Elkin Neil, Theodora, and Jane Marshall Dodge. In 1892 he married Miss Clara Isabel Bowden, who has been his collabora- tor in most of his books. He resided for many years in Brookline.

ELDER, SAMUEL JAMES, member of the Suf- folk bar, is a native of Rhode Island and a gradu- ate of Yale ; but his early education and prepara- tion for college were obtained in Massachusetts, and here he has practised his profession. He was born in the village of Hope, R.I., January 4, 1850, son of James and Deborah Dunbar ( Keene) Elder. He is a lineal descendant of Robert Elder, eldest son of Robert Elder, of Cameronian de- scent, who emigrated from Scotland, and settled at Paxtang (now Harrisburg, Penna., ) in 1730, and brother of the Rev. John Elder, minister at Pax- tang for fifty-six years, who in the French and Indian War commanded the defences from the Easton to the Susquehanna, with rank of colonel from the Provincial authorities, and, when up- wards of seventy years of age, raised a company one Sunday morning in church which joined Washington during the disastrous retreat through New Jersey. On his mother's side he is de- scended from Jacob Keene, who settled at Thom- aston, Me., about 1780. His father was a native of Baltimore, Md. He attended the public schools of Lawrence, Mass., and there fitted for

MEN OF PROGRESS.

college. He graduated from Vale in the class of 1873. and afterwards studied law in Boston with John H. Hardy, now associate justice of the municipal court of Boston. Admitted to the Suf-

SAMUEL J. ELDER.

folk bar in 1875, he at once engaged actively in professional work. He is now associated with William C. Wait and Edmund A. Whitman, under the firm name of Elder, Wait, & Whitman, in the Ames Building. To copyright law he has given special attention, and he was selected to act with the International Copyright League before the United States Senate on the international copy- right bill. His principal work, however, is in jury trials in Suffolk and Middlesex Counties. In poli- tics Mr. Elder is Republican, He served one term in the lower house of the Legislature ( 1885), de- clining a re-election, as a representative of the Fourteenth Middlesex District (Winchester and Arlington), being chairman of the committee on bills in the third reading and member of the com- mittee on taxation. He also declined a position on the Superior Court bench. Since 1891 he has been State commissioner on portraits of governors. He is a member of the Boston Bar Association (member of the council); of the Vale Ahimni Association (president in 1893): of the Union, University (member of the committee on elec-

tions). Papyrus. Curtis (president), Middlesex, and Taylor clubs of Boston, and Calumet of Winchester (vice-president) ; and of the William Parkman Lodge, Free Masons, of Winchester. He has done much after-dinner speaking, and has the reputation of being always ready and graceful in these efforts. His interest in college ath- letics is unflagging. Mr. Elder was married at Hastings-upon-Hudson, N.Y., May 10. 1876, to Miss Lilla Thomas, daughter of Cornelius W. and Margaret J. (Wyckoff) Thomas. They have two children : Margaret Munroe and Fanny Adele Elder. Ile has resided in Winchester since 1877.

ERNST, GEORGE ALEXANDER OFIs, member of the Suffolk bar, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, November S. 1850. His father, Andrew H. Ernst, was a native of Germany ; and his mother. Sarah (Otis) Ernst, was daughter of George Alex- ander Otis, well known in the early literary world of Boston. His education was begun in the Cincinnati private schools, and continued in the Mount Pleasant Military Academy, Sing-Sing. N.Y., and the Eliot High School in Jamaica Plain, where he was fitted for college. He en- tered Harvard, and graduated with the class of 1871. His law studies were pursued in the office of Ropes & Gray, Boston, for two years, then in the Harvard Law School, and later in the office of James B. Richardson, now a justice of the Supe- rior Court. In his practice he has given much attention to corporation matters and to the laws relating to women. He was prominently men- tioned for the new judgeship of the Probate Court established by the Legislature in 1893. In this connection the Boston Transcript in an editorial note spoke of him as follows: "Mr. Ernst is a man of high legal attainments, conservative, yet kindly, honorable, high-minded, and independent. He has made a special study of Massachusetts law in its bearing on the property rights of women, and his appointment would give great satisfaction both to the profession and the public. No nomination could be made which would cause more general satisfaction than that of Mr. Ernst. or confer more credit on the executive of the Commonwealth. It would be an ideal appoint- ment." In 1883 and 1884 he was a member of the lower house of the Legislature, serving on im- portant committees, -- as those on elections (of which he was chairman), street railways and rail-

MEN OF PROGRESS.

roads,-and having an influential part in the legislation of the sessions, helping to frame the first civil service law passed in Massachusetts. In ISSo he was at the Republican National Con- vention in Chicago as one of the committee repre- senting the Massachusetts Young Republicans to secure a civil service reform plank in the party platform. An ardent Republican, but with an independent spirit, he has been active in various reforms, notably that of woman suffrage, in which he is a warm believer. While devoted to his pro-

GEO. A. O. ERNST.

fession, he has given some time to literature, con- tributing to periodical publications and translating from the French. In 1879 he wrote for and won the first prize offered by the Boston Christian Union for an essay upon the "True Political In- terests of the Laboring Classes." He has pub- lished translations of two novels " The Widow Lerouge " (Boston, James R. Osgood & Co.) and " The Clique of Gold " (published as a serial in the Boston Courier). Three plays, " AA Christmas Supper." " The Double Wedding," and "Our Friends," have been produced at the Boston Mu- seum, in all of which the great comedian, William Warren, had leading parts. Mr. Ernst was mar- ried in Brooklyn, N.Y., on December 11, 1879, to Miss Jeanie C. Bynner, sister of the late Edwin

Lassetter Bynner, the novelist. They have two children : Roger and Sarah Otis Ernst. Their home is in Jamaica Plain, where Mr. Ernst has been for several years chairman of the standing committee of the Unitarian church of which Rev. Charles F. Dole is pastor.

FAXON, HENRY HARDWICK, of Quincy, emi- nent as an independent leader in the cause of Prohibition, is a native of Quincy, born Septem- ber 28, 1823, son of Job and Judith B. ( Hardwick) Faxon. He is of an old New England family. a descendant in the eighth generation of Thomas Faxon, a man of substance, who came from Eng- land, with his wife, daughter, and two sons, some time previous to 1647, and settled in that part of Braintree now Quiney, where the family has ever since lived. His father, Job Faxon, was an exten- sive farmer, and for many years owned and man- aged a stall in Quincy Market, Boston, in connee- tion with his farm in Quincy. He lived ninety- two years and ten months ; and it is related that ten days before he died he was in the field haying. Henry H. Faxon was the fourth of a family of seven children, six of whom reached adult estate. His boyhood was spent on the farm and in the country school ; and at sixteen he was appren- ticed to learn the shoemaker's trade. After five years as an apprentice he engaged in the manu- facture of boots and shoes on his own account, with his brother John as a partner. The goods of the firm found market in Boston and Baltimore principally, and he prospered ; but in less than three years he withdrew from this enterprise, and opened a retail grocery and provision store in Quiney, subsequently adding a bakery. In this business he continued about seven years, the latter part of the time engaging also in that of a real estate and merchandise auctioneer. Then he transferred his operations to Boston, where he opened a retail grocery store at the corner of South and Beach Streets, with two partners, under the firm name of Faxon, Wood, & Co. Two years later, reorganizing the firm under the name of Faxon Brothers, & Co., and changing the business from retail to wholesale, he moved into Commer- cial Street, where he remained till 1861, when he retired from the partnership with a modest fortune made in these enterprises and also in real estate operations, which he had begun while keeping store in Quiney. Upon his withdrawal from the

MEN OF PROGRESS.

grocery trade he began a system of shrewd specu- lation, from which his profits were quick and large. First he went to New Orleans, just before the outbreak of the Civil War, and there made large purchases of molasses, which he shipped to his former partners in Boston, profiting by the transaction. Then the following year returning to Boston and establishing himself in Chatham Street, but soon after moving to India Wharf, he engaged during the remainder of the war period in speeu- lation in merchandise, operating extensively in chiccory, raisins, and various spices, in sago, kero- sene oil, and fire-crackers, thereby clearing nearly $50,000. At one time, anticipating a rise in the price of liquors from the increased customs duty about to be laid, he purchased several hundred barrels of whiskey and rum, which he finally dis- posed of at a handsome profit. It was upon this transaction that, when he became an ardent Pro- hibitionist, his opponents based their assertion that he had " made his money out of rum." His next field of operation was the stock market, where he was not successful : and before his losses had become heavy he drew out, and turned his atten- tion again to real estate dealings, through which he made the larger part of his fortune. He is now the largest real estate owner in Quiney, and owns much property also in Boston and Chelsea. He has in all more than two hundred tenants : and among his holdings is the estate in Quincy on which his early grocery store and bakery stood. Mr. Faxon's public life began in 1864, when he represented his native town in the lower house of the Legislature ; and his active temperance work dates from his second term in the House of Repre- sentatives in 1871. As a rule, Mr. Faxon has af- filiated with the Republican party : but he always exercised the right of bolting bad nominations, and in consequence received the severe censure of the party leaders. In 1884 he was induced to run for lieutenant governor on the Prohibitory ticket, and has often contributed generously to the party treasury. He has prepared and circulated many campaign documents, and for three years he issued ingenious "ratings " of the Legislature, showing the position of each member on the ques- tion of Prohibition as disclosed by yea and nay votes on anti-liquor measures, the trustworthy Prohibitionists being indicated by three stars, the unreliable by one star, and the enemies of temper- ance by a dash (-); and this record was used with effeet in the legislative canvasses. For more

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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 5

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