USA > Massachusetts > Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts > Part 52
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HALL, EBEN ALLEN, of Greenfield, editor and proprietor of the Gazette and Courier, is a native
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of Taunton, born December 20, 1839. son of Rufus and Lydia W. (Tobey) Hall. He is in line of descent sixth generation from George Hall, who came from England in 1636-37, and was one of the original proprietors and a founder of the town of Taunton in 1639. He was educated in the Taunton public schools. Early giving evidence of a natural taste for the printer's art and the publishing business, he entered the office of the Bristol County Republican in Taunton when seven- teen years of age, and there learned his trade. In the second year of the Civil War he left his place, and joined the Union Army. Enlisting in Company F. Thirty-ninth Regiment, commanded by Colonel P. Stearns Davis, in August, 1862, he served until discharged at the close of the war in June, 1865, ranking as sergeant. He participated in many of the principal battles of the Army of the Potomac,-the Wilderness, Spottsylvania, North Anna, Bethesda Church, Cold Harbor, the siege of Petersburg,- was captured at Hatcher's Run in February, 1865, and confined in Libby Prison ; but, soon paroled and exchanged, joined the regi- ment soon after Lee's surrender. Upon his dis-
EBEN A. HALL.
charge from the service he returned to the Bristol County Republican office, and for a few months. while the editor was serving a elerkship in Wash-
ington, took charge of the paper. Desiring to enlarge his sphere of work, he went to Greenfield in 1866, and made an engagement with the Gasette and Courier, then owned by S. S. East- man & Co. Three years later, upon the death of Colonel Ansel Phelps, one of the partners, he bought a third interest in the paper : and in 1876 he became sole proprietor, and has been the owner and publisher since. In his conduct of the Gasette, as has been well said by one of his ablest contemporaries, he has kept " the old ideals un- tarnished." He has given it character, and has made it "a model of what a country newspaper ought to be." Mr. Hall has served one term in the Legislature (1879), representing the First Franklin representative District ; and he was a member of the Executive Council with Governor Butler in 1883, and with Governor Robinson in 1884. His politics are Republican. He is a di- rector of the Franklin County National Bank and a trustee of the Greenfield Savings Bank in Greenfield, a vice-president of the Massachusetts Press Association, a member of the council of ad- ministration of the Massachusetts Department of the Grand Army of the Republic, and a member of the Greenfield Club. He was married June 2. 1861, to Miss Bashie L. Tisdale, of Taunton. They have had four children : Jessie Allen (who married Frederick L. Greene), Albert Tisdale. Nina Elliot, and Agnes Lincoln Hall (deceased ).
HANSCOM, SANFORD, M.D., of Somerville, is a native of Maine, born in Albion, January 28, 1841, son of James and Mary (Frost) Hanscom. He was prepared for college at the Waterville (Maine) Classical Institute, and entered Colby University in 1863, but left college in his sopho- more year to enter the army for service in the Civil War. Subsequently, however, in 1885, his alma mater conferred upon him the degree of A. M. He went to the front as first lieutenant of the Eighth unassigned company of Maine Volunteers, which, when ready for service, was assigned to the Eleventh Maine Infantry, then in the Twenty- fourth Army Corps, Army of the James. Soon after this assignment he was commissioned adju- tant of the regiment. It was in active service around Richmond and Petersburg in the spring of 1865, until the surrender of those cities; and its last engagement was at Appomattox Court-house the morning of the day of General Lee's surrender.
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After his return from the army he entered the Harvard Medical School, from which he gradu- ated in 1868, and began practice in the spring of 1869, established in Somerville, where he has since resided. He has been interested in edu- cational matters, serving as a member of the Somerville School Committee for the past four- teen years. He was also for six years a trustee of the Somerville Public Library. For a period of ten years he has been State medical examiner for the Royal Arcanum in Massachusetts. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical So- ciety and a former member of the Boston Gyne-
SANFORD HANSCOM.
cological Society. He belongs to the Grand Army of the Republic and the Massachusetts Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion, and is a Freemason, member of the Soley Lodge. He was married October 26, 1874, to Miss Beulah A. Hill, daughter of Cyrus and Cynthia (Morse) Hill. They have one daughter : Aline Louisa Hanscom.
HARRIS, ROBERT ORR, of East Bridgewater, district attorney for the South-eastern District, was born in Boston, November 8, 1854, son of the Hon. Benjamin W. and Julia A. (Orr) Harris.
On the paternal side he is a lineal descendant of Arthur Harris, who came to this country from England in 1640, settled first in Duxbury, after- ward was one of the original purchasers and pro- prietors of Bridgewater, under what was called the "Duxbury Purchase," and moved to that part of Bridgewater now East Bridgewater. On the maternal side he descended from the Hon. Hugh Orr, who came from Scotland in 1730, settled first in Easton, and then removed to Bridgewater,-a leading man of his time, and the first man in this country to manufacture cotton spinning machinery. Ilis ancestors on both sides have been identified always with the best life of the community, and actively interested in all matters looking toward progress. His father was district attorney for the South-eastern District from 1858 to 1865 ; after- ward member of Congress from the Second (now the Twelfth) District, from 1872 to 1882; and is now judge of probate and insolvency, Plymouth County. His mother died October 5, 1872. Robert O. received his primary education in the public schools of East Bridgewater and in the Dwight School in Boston. In 1865 the family moved to Dorchester, and lived there until 1872, during which time he attended the Boston Latin and Chauncy Hall schools. In 1872 he went to Phillips ( Exeter) Academy, from which he entered Harvard in June, 1873. Immediately after his graduation, in 1877, he began the study of law in the office of his father's firm, Harris & Tucker, taking also special courses in the Boston Univer- sity Law School. He was admitted to the bar at Plymouth, March 4, 1879. He practised in Brockton with Judge W. A. Reed, under the firm name of Reed & Harris, until his father retired from Congress in March, 1883, when he became a member of the firm of Harris & Tucker. Upon the appointment of his father as judge of probate, he began practice on his separate account, and has since practised alone. As district attorney, it fell to his lot to be the first affected by the change in the law in regard to the trial of capital causes, and to have to try two murder cases in his first year without the assistance and counsel of the attorney-general. The district which he now serves is the same served by his father from 1858 to 1865. As a lawyer, he is considered a sound and safe adviser, and, as a trial lawyer, has an excellent reputation. In trial he is cool and ready, and is very effective with his juries. Mr. Harris has always been interested and active in public
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affairs in his town, and has served for a number of years on the School Committee, of which he is still a member. He was a member of the Legis-
ROBERT O. HARRIS.
lature of 1889, and made a reputation as a debater and a man of practical good sense. In politics he has always been a Republican, and for many years active in the councils of the party in his county. He has been a frequent and effective platform speaker in important campaigns, having a pleasant manner and a logical and convincing way of pre- senting his arguments. He is a member of the University Club of Boston, of the Massachusetts Republican Club, of the Odd Fellows' order, of the Knights of Honor, and of the local Social and Improvement Association. Although quiet and domestic in his manner and tastes, fond of reading and study, spending most of his spare time in his library, he likes society, and has many warm, social friends. He was married April 21, 1880, at Newport, R.I., to Miss Josephine D). Gorton. They have four children : Anne Winslow, Alice Orr, Elizabeth Cahoone, and Louise Chilton Harris.
HASTON, ERASMUS, of North Brookfield, farmer, was born in Belchertown, April 18, 1812, son of l'hilip and Rebecca ( Ranger) Haston.
His mother died when he was a child of two years. and he was but seven years old when his father died. Then he was put out to live with one Timothy Work, and remained on the latter's farm till he was nearly twenty-one years old, re- ceiving when he left, as full compensation for his labors, a cheap suit of clothes. His schooling was confined to a few months each year, when there was no farm work to be done, in the village school, during his early boyhood. His first em- ployment after he left Timothy Work was on an- other farm at twelve dollars and a half a month. Then he learned the trade of filing and finishing augers and bits; but, as this proved detrimental to his health, after working at it about two years, he abandoned it, and learned the trade of bottom- ing shoes, which he followed, in connection with farming, for upwards of a quarter of a century. In the panic of 1837 he lost six hundred dollars of the few hundred he had managed to save from his earnings at his trade and at farming. There- after he worked out by the day on farms until the summer of 1838, when he engaged to work twenty- two acres of land on shares, he to receive one-half
ERASMUS HASTON.
the crop. Out of this he realized about two hun- dred and fifty dollars for seven months' work, meanwhile working at his trade through the win-
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ter. The following spring he purchased a farm of between three and four hundred acres in Greenwich, and, after working it some time, sold the land at an advance, and returned to his shoe work. A year or so later he purchased another farm, situated on the Spencer road in North Brookfield, known as the " Bush place ": and this he carried on, at the same time pursuing his trade, for six years. Then he disposed of this property at a good bargain, and again turned his attention exclusively to shoe work. His next venture was on a farm of about twenty-seven acres in North Brookfield, where he now lives, which he pur- chased in 1847. Gradually the village grew up around him; and in course of time he sold the greater part of his land in lots which yielded him a competence for his declining years, and he is now one of the wealthy men of the town. Since 1861 his main occupation has been that of a farmer, having that year retired from work in the shoe factory. He has been a good citizen, and interested in the welfare of North Brookfield. In 1892 he and his wife presented to the town the fine new granite Library Building. He was first married in 1847 to Miss Abigail Whiting of North Brookfield, who died the following year. He mar- ried second, in 1849, Miss Elvira Shedd, a na- tive of Vermont, daughter of Zachariah and Lydia ( Proctor) Shedd, natives of Massachusetts and Vermont respectively. They have had two chil- dren, both of whom died in infancy.
HAWKINS, WALTER FOXCROFT, of Pittsfield, member of the Berkshire bar, is a native of Pitts- field, born July 12, 1863, son of William J. Hawkins, an Englishman by birth and ancestry. and Harriet E. (Foxcroft) Hawkins, daughter of George A. Foxcroft, of Boston, and Harriet E. (Goodrich) Foxcroft, a native of Pittsfield. He received a thorough education in private schools, the High School at Pittsfield, and Williams Col- lege, where he was graduated in the class of 1884; and was fitted for his profession at the Columbia College Law School, New York, graduating there- from in the class of 1886. He was at once ad- mitted to the New York bar, and in October fol- lowing to the Berkshire bar. In ISSS he formed a partnership with Henry J. Ryan, a graduate of the Boston University Law School, under the firm name of Ryan & Hawkins, which still continues. Their practice has been a general civil one. Mr.
Hawkins has also held the office of city solicitor of Pittsfield since the adoption of the city form of government in January, 1891. He is interested
WALTER F. HAWKINS.
in the Stanley Electric Manufacturing Company of Pittsfield, and is one of the directors of the corporation. In politics he is a Republican, and a member of the executive committee of the Berk- shire Republican Club. In college he was a member of the Chi Psi and the Phi Beta Kappa fraternities. Mr. Hawkins was married October 7, 1891, to Miss Helen A. Rich, of Brooklyn, N.V.
HAYDEN, JOSEPH ORLIN, of Somerville, treas- urer of Middlesex County, was born in Blandford, Hampden County, July 8, 1847, youngest son of Elizur B. and Lucinda E. (Simmons) Hayden. When a boy, his father, who was a schoolmaster, removed to Granville, and became a farmer of comfortable means. Mr. Hayden attended the district school, and afterwards the Granville Acad- emy and the High School in Chicopee. At the age of seventeen he went West, and acted as clerk in a law, real estate, and insurance office in Minne- apolis, Minn., for two years, leaving the position to become manager and part owner of the Star, a newspaper printed in Minneapolis. Disposing of
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his interest in the concern, he returned to the East. and in the autumn of 1868 became connected with a wholesale house in Boston, making his home in Somerville. After a year in this business he re- turned to newspaper work, holding the position of cashier and treasurer of the Times Publishing Company, a corporation printing the daily and Sunday Times, where he remained for seven years. In 1876 he purchased the Somerville Journal, at that time a small weekly paper, and by wise busi- ness policy and careful management he has made it a leading suburban paper in Massachusetts. In 1891 the Somerville Journal Company was or- ganized, and he became manager and treasurer of it. Mr. Hayden was first elected treasurer of Mid- dlesex County in 1885, and has since held the position through repeated re-elections. In Somer- ville he has held many offices of responsibility and trust. In 1882 he became president of the Somer- ville Mystic Water Board, serving in that position until 1890; and to his energy and persistence is largely due the introduction of the high service system which the city now enjoys. When the Somerville Improvement Society was formed, he
..
J. O. HAYDEN.
was chosen president of that organization. Dur- ing his term of office the association placed me- morial tablets upon historic spots within the city
limits. He is now president of the Somerville National Bank, a trustee of the Somerville Say- ings Bank, and a trustee of the Somerville Hospi- tal Association. From 1886 until 1891 he was treasurer of the Somerville C'entral Club, and from 1891 until 1894 was treasurer of the Subur- ban Press Association. He is now president of the latter association, and is also treasurer of the Massachusetts Republican Editorial Association. He is a member of John Abbot Lodge, Frec Masons, Somerville Royal Arch Chapter, and Orient Council, R. & S. M., is secretary of the Prospect Council, American Legion of Honor, and a member of the Manomet Club. He was married in 1870 to Miss Mary Elizabeth Pond, of Somerville.
HIGGINS, GEORGE CLEAVELAND, of Lynn, con- veyancer and trustee of estates, ex-mayor of the city, was born in Orleans, November 19. 1845. son of Jonathan and Mary (Doane) Higgins. He is of early Cape Cod stock. He was educated in the public schools of his native town. Coming to Lynn in 1862, at the age of sixteen, he learned the trade of morocco dresser in the factory of Pevear & Co. In 1864 he enlisted in Company 1), Eighth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, and went with the regiment on its third campaign in Maryland. At the end of this service he re- turned to his trade, and followed its various branches, serving several years as foreman, until 1883, when he became a book-keeper and sales- man in the Boston leather house of H. A. Pevear & Sons. Here he remained until 1892, since which time he has been engaged in conveyancing. probate business, and the care of estates. His connection with municipal affairs began in the early eighties. He was a member of the Common Council in 1881-82-83. serving on important committees, including those on claims and drain- age, and was elected mayor for the term of 1888. In 1893 and 1894 he represented the Nineteenth Essex District in the State Legislature, serving in that body on the committees on probate and in- solvency and on rules both sessions, and as clerk of the committee on liquor law in 1894. He has served some time on the Board of Overseers of the Poor of Lynn. and was its chairman in 1893. He is in politics a stanch Republican, and has for a long period been connected with the Lynn Republican city committee. He is a member of General Lander Post, No. 5. of the Grand Army
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of the Republic : is a Royal Arch Mason, Sutton Chapter, and member of the Mt. Carmel Lodge : and an Odd Fellow, member of the Providence
GEO. C. HIGGINS.
Lodge. As a member of the Lynn Board of Trade, he is interested in numerous movements for the welfare of the city. Mr. Higgins was married on the ist of January, 1868, to Miss Ellen S. Irving, a native of Waterville, Me. They have three children: Arthur J., George Henry. and Mabel C. Higgins.
HILL,, DON GLEASON, of Dedham, member of the bar and town clerk of Dedham, was born in Medway. July 12, 1847, son of George and Sylvia (Grout) Hill. He traces back to first settlers of Rhode Island: Thomas Angel (who came with Roger Williams), Christopher Smith, Roger Mowry, John Field, Thomas Olney. Thomas Barnes, and Nicholas Phillips : to early settlers of the Massa- chusetts Colony: Captain John Grout. Edward Dix, John Barnard, John Putnam, through Thomas and Ann (Carr) Putnam of witchcraft memory. Ed- ward Holyoke, George Carr, Edward Elmer, who went with the Rev. Thomas Hooker's company to settle Hartford, and James Hamlin ; and to Hugh Calkins, of Gloucester, but early in the Plymouth
Colony. He was educated in Wilbraham Acad- emy and at Amherst College, where he spent two years in the class of 1869. Then he entered the law school of the University of Albany, from which he received his degree of LL.B. in May, 1870, and was admitted to the New York bar the same year. Returning to Medway, he read further in the office of Charles H. Deans; and in June, 1871, removing to Dedham, he entered the office of the late Hon. Waldo Colburn, with whom he remained until the latter was elevated to the Superior Bench (in June, 1875). He was admitted to the Massachusetts bar in September, 1871. In October, 1875, he formed a law partnership with Charles A. Mackintosh, another of Judge Colburn's students, under the firm name of Hill & Mackintosh, which continued about ten years, since which time he has practised alone, devoted mostly to probate law and conveyancing. He has been attorney for the Dedham Institution for Savings for nearly twenty years, and some time attorney for the Dedham Co-operative Bank, the Norwood Co-operative Bank, and the Braintree Savings Bank. He is also a trustee of the Ded- ham Institution for Savings and a director of the Dedham Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Ile has held the position of town clerk of Dedham since 1880, and has served the town in various other capacities, during several years member of the boards of selectmen, assessors, overseers of the poor and health, a trustee of the Dedham Public Library, serving as a member of book com- mittees, and a member of the committee appointed to distribute the income of the Hannah Shuttle- worth Fund for the relief of the needy poor ever since it was bequeathed to the town in 1886. He is much given to antiquarian pursuits, and has published a number of valuable volumes of ancient records, the list embracing the following: (1) " The Record of Births, Marriages, and Deaths, and Intentions of Marriage in the Town of Ded- ham, 1633-1845," pp. 286 (Dedham, 1886); (2) " The Record of Baptisms, Marriages, and Deaths, and Admissions to the Church and Dismissals therefrom, transcribed from the Church Records in the Town of Dedham, Mass., 1638-1845, with Epitaphs in the Cemeteries," pp. 347 (Dedham, 1884); (3) " The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Mass .. 1636-1659," illustrated, pp. xvi. 237 (Dedham, 1893) ; (+) "An Alphabetical Ab- stract of the Record of Births in the Town of Dedham, Mass., 1844-1890," pp. 206 (Dedham,
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1894); (5) " The Early Records of the Town of Dedham, Mass., 1659-1673. with Appendix con- taining Transcript from the Massachusetts State Archives," and from the General Court Records 1635-1673 and a list of Deputies to the General Court prior to 1696, pp. 304 (1894) : (6) " An Alphabetical Abstract of the Record of Deaths in the Town of Dedham, Mass .. 1844-1890." 217 pp. (1895). Mr. Hill's careful and accurate work in these transcripts of records hitherto inaccessible to most investigators, to which he has added admirable introductions and indices, has been warmly commended, especially by historical and literary periodicals, which have given them exten- sive review. Special reference has also been made to his work in the report of the Massa- chusetts State commissioner on public records of parishes. towns, and counties. Mr. Ilill is now president of the Dedham Historical Society and member of the council of the New England His- toric Genealogical Society, member of the Ameri- can Historical Association, and corresponding member of the Worcester Society of Antiquity and of the Western Reserve Historical Society.
DON GLEASON HILL.
He received the honorary degree of A.M. from Amherst College in 1894. In politics he is a Democrat. He was married in December, 1876,
to Miss Carrie Louisa Luce, of Dedham. They have six children : Carrie Frances, Helen Florence. Don Gleason, Jr .. Maria Louisa, Alice Laura, and George Hill.
HILL, WHAMAM, of Easthampton, proprietor of Hill's Mansion House, was born in Charlton, Worcester County, June 12, 1821. son of Hanson and Polly (Clemans) Hill. At the age of seven he was bound out to a Connecticut farmer for seven years, the conditions being his board and clothes with twenty-five cents in money per year. He had little regular schooling, and acquired his education through observation, experience, and reading after reaching manhood. From the age of fourteen to eighteen he worked in a boarding- house, and learned to cook. Then he started out to look for a better place, and secured a position as cook at the hotel in East Douglas. At this trade he worked for a year. His next experience was as a clerk in a country store at Webster for two years. From here he went into a large boarding-house, where he was employed a number of years. In 1852 he made his first venture in the hotel business, leasing the Nonotuck Hotel in Northampton for a year. At the end of the lease he retired, and became agent at the railroad station. In 1859 he made his second venture, leasing the famous old Mansion House in Northampton, which dated from 1827 and stood where the Catholic church now stands ; and since that time with the exception of a few months he has been continu- ously in hotel life. He kept the Mansion House for ten years, which period he recalls as the most interesting in his long career. The Supreme Court then held about three sessions each year in Northampton, and at his house the judges and many distinguished men of the bar stopped. Among his guests were numbered Chief Justice Bigelow, E. Rockwood Hoar, Dewey, Chapman. Charles Allen, Rockwell, Vose, Devens ; Governors Andrew, Bullock, and Claflin, and Thomas Tal- bot, who afterwards became governor : Presidents Barnard of Columbia College and Strong of Princeton : Professors Peirce and Agassiz of Har- vard and Loomis of Vale; Martin Van Buren, Theodore Parker. Henry Ward Beecher, and many others of like prominence and fame. From North- ampton Mr. Hill went to Easthampton, in April. 1870, and took the direction of the hotel. since known as Hill's Mansion House. Here he was established till 1886, taking at the same time an
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active and influential part as a citizen in town affairs. He was president of the Village Improve- ment Society for twelve years, was moderator of town meetings for nine years, a justice of the peace by appointment of Governor Rice. He also kept other hotels in other places during part of this period: the Creighton House in Boston four years, the Hotel Warwick in Springfield two years, the Strickland House, New Britain, Conn., one year. Subsequently he built the Norwood Hotel in Northampton, and kept it four months, then sold out to Henry F. Barnard, and built the new hotel for Dwight 1. Moody at Northfield,
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