Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 8

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 8

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

the firm was Hurd & Houghton). Referring to the date of birth of the oldest of the concerns to which the present partnership is successor, the house of Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. is traced back to 1811, through its successorship to the business of Crocker & Brewster. Besides the merging of the business of the several houses above enu- merated into that of the present house, important accessories to its plant and franchises have been attained through successorship to the business of J. G. Gregory, & Co., and of Albert Mason, of New York, and of Brown, Taggart, & Chase, of Boston. Besides the manufacture and publica- tion of valuable books, Mr. Houghton's firm pub- lishes the Atlantic Monthly, which was purchased by Hurd & Houghton in 1873, the zIndover Review, the Journal of American Folk-Lore (quar- terly), and the New World (quarterly). The firm as now composed consists of Henry (). Houghton, L. H. Valentine, George H. Mifflin, James Murray Kay, Henry (. Houghton, Jr., Oscar R. Houghton, and Albert F. Houghton, the last two nephews of Mr. Houghton. The premises of the Riverside Press at present occupy a piece of ground about 450 feet in length by 360 feet in breadth, attractively laid out, a well-kept lawn spreading over the north-east corner, with a handsome fountain in the middle, which was ded- icated on Mr. Houghton's fiftieth birthday, April 30, 1873. The main building, four stories high, with a tower, has a frontage on the east of 170 feet, and on the north by nearly as much, with an extensive wing. That devoted to lithographic work is 200 feet long by 75 feet in width for half its length, and 45 feet for the remainder, with a high basement and one lofty story lighted by mon- itor roof. The employees of the Press number about six hundred. The old-time custom of ap- prenticeship is still in vogue here, with some mod- ifications : and long service is the rule. Some of the members of the force were with Mr. Hough- ton when the Press was founded. Those con- nected with the establishment enjoy the use of the Riverside library, which contains a large num- ber of excellent books. As printers, binders, and electrotypers, Houghton, Mifflin, & Co. conduet business under the title of H. (). Houghton, & Co. From the first Mr. Houghton has been the controlling spirit of the Press. His purpose in its development, as has been shown by re- sults, was to do here the very best work in book- making,- to make books that should satisfy the

artistic feeling as well as the literary sense. Many warm tributes to the excellence of Riverside work- manship have been received from those most competent to pass judgment, and it has won high compliment abroad as well as at home. Since the establishment of his printing business, Mr. Houghton has made his residence in Cambridge : and in 1872 he was mayor of the university city. The Boston office of the house is at No. 4 P'ark Street, in the old-time mansion house of Josiah Quincy, Jr., mayor of Boston from 1845 to 1849 : and in Mr. Houghton's office here the regular weekly consultations of the members of the firm and heads of departments are held. Mr. Hough- ton was married in 1854 to Miss Nanna W. Man- ing, daughter of William Maning, of Cambridge. They had four children : Henry O., Elizabeth H .. Alberta M., and Justine F. Houghton.

JACKSON, WILLIAM, city engineer of Boston, is a native of Brighton (now the Brighton District of Boston), born March 13, 1848, son of Samuel

WM. JACKSON.

and Mary Wright (Field) Jackson. His father was of Brighton, and his mother of Conway. His first ancestor in this country was Edward Jackson. who settled in Newton in 1639. His early educa-

MEN OF PROGRESS.

tion was obtained in the public schools; and he was fitted for his profession as a civil engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which he entered in 1865. From the Institute he went directly to a position at the Chestnut Hill Reservoir, where he was employed from 1868 to 1870. Then he was assigned to the Water-Works survey and the extension of the sys- tem in Brighton and West Roxbury. With this work, and with the private practice of engineer- ing. he was occupied until 1876, when he was appointed assistant engineer on the Boston Main Drainage Works, the most formidable piece of engineering construction ever undertaken in the city. He continued in this department until April, 1885, and then was elected city engineer in place of Henry MI. Wightman, deceased, which position he has held since. During the construc- tion of the Harvard Bridge over the Charles River, from 1887 to 1891, he was engineer for the bridge commissioners ; and he was a member of the Boston Rapid Transit Commission in 1891-92. He is a member of the American So- ciety of Civil Engineers, of the Boston Society of Civil Engineers, of the New England Water Works Association, and of the Union, Exchange. and Art clubs of Boston. Mr. Jackson was mar- ried April 27, 1886, to Miss Mary Stuart Mac- Corry, of Boston. They have one child : William Stuart Jackson.

JEFFERSON, JOSEPH, of Buzzard's Bay, player, the third Joseph Jefferson known to the American stage, was born in Philadelphia, Penna., February 20, 1829, son of Joseph and Cornelia Francis (Burke) Jefferson. He comes of sterling dramatic stock. His great-grandfather, Thomas Jefferson, was an eminent English actor, long con- nected as comedian with Drury Lane, London, and sometime manager of the playhouse at Rich- mond. His grandfather, the first Joseph Jeffer- son (born in Plymouth, England, in 1774, died in Harrisburg, Penna., in 1832), was also a distin- guished comedian, called in his day "one of the brightest ornaments of the stage," who made his American début in Boston at the Federal Street Theatre in 1795, was afterwards a favorite player in New York, and for twenty-seven years was permanently engaged in Philadelphia ; and his father, the second Joseph (born in New York, 1814, died in Mobile in 1842), trained for a

scene painter, early became an actor, especially excellent in "old men" parts, and manager of playhouses. His mother was a native of New York, of French descent, in the twenties a popu- lar comic actress and stage vocalist, with an ex- quisite voice, "which," says Ireland, in his " Records of the New York Stage," " in power. purity, and sweetness was unapproached by any contemporary." His earliest recollections are of the theatre, and " behind the scenes " was his first playhouse. "The door from our back entry," he says in his Autobiography, "opened upon the stage, and, as a toddling little chap

JOSEPH JEFFERSON

in a short frock, I was allowed full run of the place." This was in the theatre in Washing- ton, which his father took soon after his birth ; and here he made his first appearance, taken on to do duty in long clothes, a babe in arms. At the age of three he appeared as the child in " Pizarro, or the Death of Rolla," and the same season in " Living Statues," a series of tableaux. From Washington the family moved to Baltimore, and thence to New York, where during the years 1835-37 the father was connected with the Franklin and Niblo's Theatres. In that city he attended the public schools; and there, also, he made his first appearance out of the juvenile

MEN OF PROGRESS.

supernumerary ranks (at the Franklin Theatre in 1837), taking part in a "celebrated combat " with "Master Titus," dressed to represent a Greek pirate, "Master Titus " representing an American sailor. In 1839 his father took the management of the theatre in Chicago, then a bustling village, and thither the family went with a little company, acting along the way. After a short season here, with varying success, the com- pany, under his father's lead, went "on the road," going first to Galena, travelling in open wagon over the prairie. Thence they journeyed on the frozen river in sleighs to Dubuque ; and, after taking in several of the towns then spring- ing up along the river, they tarried a full season in Springfield, Ill., the management building a tem- porary theatre there. Bad business closed the house, and the Jeffersons next found themselves in Memphis in straitened circumstances. For a while the father "turned from scene-painter to sign-painter " for a livelihood. Then they moved on to Mobile, where an engagement had been se- cured at the local theatre, taking a steerage pas- sage by one of the river steamboats. Upon their arrival, October, 1842, the yellow fever was raging in the town ; and two weeks later the elder Jef- ferson was stricken with the malady, and died, leaving the family without resources. Young Jefferson and his sister found employment at the theatre in children's parts, appearing in fancy dances and comic duets; and he also worked in the paint-room, grinding colors. After a time he was given subordinate parts, and during his en- gagement here acted with Macready and the elder Booth. At about the age of sixteen he left Mobile and travelled in various parts of the South with companies of strolling players. The next year or so he was "barn-storming" in Mis- sissippi, playing small parts in Galveston and Houston ; in a band of comedians, following up the American army in the war with Mexico; and stranded in Matamoras with his mother and sis- ter, the manager having disappeared with the cash and back salaries, running a pie and coffee stand in the "Grand Spanish Saloon," catering to the gamblers and camp-followers, who then largely constituted the population of the place. Subsequently getting back to civilization, he came North, and for several seasons was in W. E. Burton's company at the Arch Street, Philadel- phia, acting second and then first comedy. In 1847 he had a brief experience as a country man-

ager, and that year also played his first " star " en- gagement in Cumberland, Penna. The next sea- son he was low comedian of a melodramatic theatre in Philadelphia, the Amphitheatre. In 1849 he was a member of the Chatham Theatre (New York) company. Part of 1850 he managed a company in the South, playing in Macon. Savan- nah, and Wilmington. N.C .; and again the next season in Wilmington and Charleston, S.C. In 1852 he was first comedy, under the stage man- agement of John Gilbert, at the Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. In 1853 he was stage manager at the Baltimore Museum for Henry C. Jar- rett ; the next year manager of the Richmond Theatre for John T. Ford : and the next at Ford's Washington Theatre. In 1856 he made his first trip to Europe, visiting London and Paris. In 1857 he was installed as comedian of Laura Keene's Theatre, New York, opening in September as Dr. Pangloss in " The Heir-at-law." On October 8, 1858, "Our American Cousin " was first produced, and its success, he writes in his Autobiography, "proved the turning-point in the career of three persons, - Laura Keene, Sothern, and myself." In the character of Asa Trenchard he won wide fame, and became a star performer. After a season at the Winter Garden Theatre, New York, in 1859, when he acted Newman Noggs, Caleb Plummer, and Salem Scudder, he appeared in his first version of " Rip Van Winkle," playing a short season in Wash- ington. Then in 1861 he struck across the con- tinent, and, after a short and unsatisfactory engagement in San Francisco, sailed in Septem- ber for Australia. There he spent four profit- able years, presenting " Rip Van Winkle," "Our American Cousin," and " The Octoroon." Pro- ceeding next to England by way of South Amer- ica, he made his first appearance before a London audience in September, 1865, bringing out " Rip Van Winkle," reconstructed and re- written by Boucicault; and the success of the play with his matchless delineation of the hero secured for it a brilliant run of one hundred and seventy nights. From London he took it to Manchester and to Liverpool, playing successful engagements in both cities, Then he returned to America by clipper ship. For nearly a quarter of a century " Rip Van Winkle " only was produced by him, played throughout the country, and again abroad (in 1875) in London, Glasgow, Dublin, and Belfast, never losing its freshness or its charm.

MEN OF PROGRESS.

Later in the eighties he revised " The Rivals," reconstructed by himself,-condensed from five acts into three, several characters cut out, and an epilogue added,- making of Bob Acres his star part, which had a brilliant run through sev- eral seasons. In private life he is distinguished as a devoted angler and as a painter of notable landscapes in oil. He was one of the original members of the Players' Club, New York, of which he is now the president. For many seasons he spent the mid-winters on his sugar plantation on the Bayou Teche, La., and the mid- summers on his farm in New Jersey; but his principal residence is now his country place at Marion on Buzzard's Bay, a near neighbor of President Cleveland's summer home. Mr. Jeffer- son was first married in 1849 to Miss Margret Lockyer, an actress. She died in March, 1861. His second wife was Miss Sarah Warren, whom he married in Chicago, December 20, 1867. Mr. Jefferson has seven children living : Charles, Margret, Thomas, Josephine, Joseph, William, and Frank Jefferson.

JONES, JEROME, merchant, Boston, is a native of Athol, Worcester County, born October 13, 1837, youngest son of Theodore and Marcia ( Es- tabrook) Jones. His maternal grandfather, the Rev. Joseph Estabrook, was the second minister of Athol, a graduate of Harvard College, and a noted clergyman there for forty years. He was educated in the common schools of Athol, and when yet a boy was at work as a clerk in a coun- try store and post-office in the adjoining town of Orange. At sixteen he came to Boston, and entered the establishment of Otis Norcross, & Co., then the leading importers of crockery in the United States, as an apprentice, and there received a thorough commercial training, and early rose to positions of responsibility. At twenty-four he was admitted to partnership in the firm, and at twenty-seven he became its Eu- ropean buyer. His name first appeared in the firm of Otis Norcross, & Co., in 1861, then in 1868 in the firm of Howland & Jones, Mr. Nor- cross (that year elected mayor of Boston) retiring from the business ; and it was placed at the head, after the death of Ichabod Howland, in 1871, the firm name then becoming Jones, McDuffee, & Stratton, as it has been known since. Mr. Jones is also a director of the Third National Bank of

Boston and of the Massachusetts Loan & Trust Company, and vice-president of the Home Sav- ings Bank. He has long been prominent in num-

JEROME JONES.

erous local commercial organizations of influence in the community,-president of the Boston Earthenware Association, president of the Boston Associated Board of Trade, a member of the Bos- ton Merchants' Association, and of the Commer- cial Club. In politics he is a Democrat, influen- tial in his party. He was one of the original members of the New England Tariff Reform League, and has served on its executive commit- tee since its organization. Among other posi- tions which he has held is that of president of the Worcester North-west Agricultural Society at Athol. He is a trustee of Mount Auburn Ceme- tery, and commissioner of the sinking fund of the town of Brookline where he resides; and is a member of the National Association of Whole- salers in Crockery and Glass Ware. He belongs to the Union and the Unitarian clubs of Boston, and the Thursday Club of Brookline. Mr. Jones was first married February 11, 1864, to Miss Eliza- beth R. Wait, by whom were four children : Theodore, Elizabeth W., Marcia E., and Helen R. Jones. His first wife died July 10, 1878.

MEN OF PROGRESS.

He was married again February 16, 1881, to Mrs. Maria E. Dutton, of Boston.

KEMBLE, EDWARD, president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce, is a native of Wenham, born October 12, 1836, son of Edmund and Mary W. (Beckford) Kimball. It having been found by his father that the true spelling of the family name was Kemble, he and his brothers and sis- ters were brought up to spell it that way. He is descended from the Campbells of Scotland. Early and well prepared for college, he entered Amherst at sixteen, and was graduated there at the age of twenty. His father, a graduate of Harvard and a lawyer, - who studied law with Daniel Webster, was afterwards junior counsel with Webster in some cases, and prominent also in public life, at one time a State senator, - in- tended him for the legal profession, and accord- ingly he read law for a short time, but very soon he determined upon a mercantile life, and en- tered a counting-room to learn business. In 1862

EDWARD KEMBLE.

he established in Boston the firm of Kemble & Hastings, for the purpose of carrying on a com- mission business in the products of the country.

The firm made business connections in Europe in 1871, and in the fall of that year loaded the first grain ever loaded in bulk at the port of Bos- ton for Europe. This was shipped by the Cu- nard steamship " Samaria." The firm also loaded the first sailing vessel ever loaded at this port with grain in bulk,- a bark with a full cargo of wheat which was cleared for St. Malo, France ; and about that time it loaded the largest cargo of grain in bulk ever loaded at this port even to this day,-a full cargo of Indian corn cleared hence for London. Mr. Kemble was vice-presi- dent of the Boston Board of Trade in 1877, a director of the old Boston Insurance Company which was carried down by the great Boston fire of 1872, a vice-president of the old Boston Corn Exchange, and president of the Boston Commer- cial Exchange; and he was made president of the Boston Chamber of Commerce (in which the Commercial Exchange was merged) in 1892. He is now a director of the Cape Cod and Interior Canal Company, which was chartered by the Leg- islature of 1892, and is concerned in other im- portant interests. He has been connected with several clubs, but is now a member only of the Boston Commercial and the Eastern Yacht clubs. For two terms ( 1878-79 and 1879-80) he served in the Board of Aldermen of the city of Salem, and was then nominated for mayor by a citizens' caucus by about six hundred voters, called with- out distinction of party ; but he declined to stand for the office. Mr. Kemble was married Septem- ber 5, 1860, to Elizabeth Tilton Abbott, only daughter of the Rev. Dr. Abbott and Margaret. his wife, of Beverly. They had three children : Laurence Grafton (now a physician in Salem), Abbott Spraston (deceased), and Margaret Kem- ble. Mrs. Kemble died in 1878.

KIMBALL, GENERAL JOHN WHITE, State auditor, is a native of Fitchburg, born February 27, 1828, son of Alpheus and Harriet (Stone) Kimball. He is a lineal descendant, on the pater- nal side, of Peregrine White, the first child born in New England of English parents, born on board the "Mayflower " about December 10 (O). S.). 1620. He was educated in the Fitchburg public schools, and learned his trade of scythe-making in his father's shop. He began business life in 1857 as a partner with his father and brother in the manufacture of agricultural implements,

MEN OF PROGRESS.

and he was engaged in this occupation until the outbreak of the Civil War. At that time he was captain of the Fitchburg Fusiliers, having been a member of the State militia since his eighteenth year. He was adjutant of the Ninth Regiment from 1858 to 1860, when he was for the second time elected captain of the Fusiliers (Company B) of this regiment. His company volunteered, and went into camp at Worcester on the 28th of June, 1861. The Ninth Regiment being broken up, Companies A, B, and C became the nucleus of the Fifteenth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, of which General, then Major, Charles Devens

JOHN W. KIMBALL.

was made colonel, and Captain Kimball major, commissioned on the ist of August. After ser- vice a part of 1861-62 in the Corps of Observa- tion at Poolesville, Md., the regiment became a part of the Army of the Potomac; and on April 29, 1862, Major Kimball was promoted to the rank of lieutenant colonel. His colonel being absent, having been wounded in the battle of Ball's Bluff, he commanded the Fifteenth in all of the battles of the Peninsula Campaign, Second Bull Run, South Mountain, Antietam, and down to Fredericksburg. In November. 1862, he was commissioned colonel of the Fifty-third Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, and ordered to Massa-

chusetts to take the command. the assault, on June 14, Colonel Kimball was the siege of Port Hudson in 1863; and during Department of the Gulf, the Fifty-third was in Attached to the

of enlistment of this regiment expiring September dangerously wounded in the left thigh. The term

2, that year, it returned to Massachusetts. Sub-

sequently, on May 13. 1865. Colonel Kimball was

brevetted brigadier-general for " gallant and dis-

sula Campaign, he was appointed by Governor Fifty-third, while with the Fifteenth in the Penin- Before his assignment to the command of the tinguished services in the field during the war."

but the request for his return to the State to take Andrew colonel of the Thirty-sixth Regiment ;

be permitted to leave the Army of the Potomac general order to the effect that no officer should that command was denied in accordance with a for purpose of promotion. After the close of the August. 1876) he was commissioned colonel of again became its captain ; and ten years later (in war he reorganized the Fitchburg Fusiliers, and

covered an exceptionally long period. From 1865 Kimball's record in the civil service has also of almost continual military service. General September 21, having had thirty - two years 1878 he retired, being honorably discharged on the Tenth Regiment, Massachusetts Militia. In

to 1873 he was tax collector of the city of Fitch-

burg, and at the same time a member of the State police force, three years one of the State police of July, 1877, when the office was merged into Massachusetts, and held this position until the ist States pension agent for the western district of commissioners. In 1873 he was appointed United that at Boston. Later that year he was custodian at the United States Treasury Department in

Washington of the rolls, dies, and plates of the

bureau of engraving and printing. This place he held until 1879, when he was appointed post- master at Fitchburg. Here he remained through

two administrations, until March 12, 1887. He was first elected to the State auditorship in 1891 elections of 1892 and 1893. He has also served for the term of 1892, and was returned in the (1864-65, 1872, 1888-91), there acting on leading seven terms in the lower house of the Legislature

committees, in 1890-91 chairman of the railroad committee. He is a member of the Loyal Legion, Grand Army of the Republic (in 1874 department commander of Massachusetts), and of the Masonic order, with which he has been

MEN OF PROGRESS.

connected since 1861, during 1877-78 eminent commander of Jerusalem Commandery Knights Templar of Fitchburg. He has also been long connected with the Fitchburg Board of Trade, and a trustee of the Fitchburg Savings Bank. General Kimball was married July 15, 1851, to Miss Almira M. Lesure, daughter of Newell Mer- rifield and Almira Lesure. They have three chil- dren : Emma Frances, Mary Elizabeth, and Ed- ward Franklin Kimball.

LANE, JONATHAN ABBOTT, merchant, Boston, was born in Bedford, May 15, 1822, son of Jonathan and Ruhamah (Page) Lane. His father was a descendant of the sixth generation, in direct line, from Job Lane, who came to this country in 1635 ; and his mother was one of the large l'age family descended from Nathaniel Page, who came over in 1680. His father, who was a farmer and fish merchant in comfortable circumstances, moved from Bedford to Boston in 1824, which enabled the son, Jonathan A., to attend the old Boylston Grammar School, from which he graduated in 1834 at the age of twelve, and the English High, where he graduated in 1837. Entering the employ of the dry-goods job- bing house of Calvin, Washburn, & Co. as boy, on fifty dollars a year, he slowly worked his way up, and in 1849 obtained control of the business, with Charles A. Whiting as special partner, and con- ducted it in his own name. The firm has since been through several changes of membership and title, having been known as Lane & Washburn, then Allen, Lane, & Washburn, then for forty years, from 1854 to 1894, as Allen, Lane, & Co .. and now incorporated as the Allen-Lane Com- pany, but is still carrying on a dry-goods busi- ness, and is said to be the oldest woollen commis- sion house in Boston. Although not a member of any secret societies, Mr. Lane has been active in many social and philanthropie organizations. In war times he was president of the old Ward Two branch of the Union League and a private in the Home Guards. In 1875 he was induced to accept the presidency of the old Mercantile Library Association, founded originally to afford educational facilities for young business men, and which had done good work in that direction until the growth of the Boston Public Library had caused it largely to outlive its usefulness. Dur- ing the four years of Mr. Lane's management

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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 8

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