Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 85

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 85

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J. W. CONVERSE.

that day the first engine over the completed road entered the city amid great rejoicings, the ringing of bells, and the booming of cannon. Later on he helped to establish many of the now thriving man- ufacturing companies there, and served as presi- dent and director of a number of them. He also aided in the building of churches and in founding various religious enterprises. In 1861 Mr. Con- verse was chosen a director of the Boston Rubber Shoe Company, and in 1863 became its president, which office he held till his death. In 1867 he was one of the organizers of the Boston & Col- orado Smelting Company of Denver, Col., and was its president from that time until his death,

a period of twenty-seven years. Upon his retire- ment from the firm of Field & Converse, in 1870, he had more outside interests than ever before; and these increased in the succeeding years, His energy and recuperative powers were a marvel to all who knew him. "It was his habit," one of his near friends has related, " of retiring at about nine o'clock ; of awaking at about three; of thinking out the plans of the day until about five, when he would dress, go to his writing-table, and there do a large amount of work before breakfast. Though at times very tired at night he would rise with all the energy and enthusiasm possible for the busi- ness activity of another day. His faith and tenacity for carrying through an enterprise were very remarkable; and, the more care and business activity in hand, the happier he was." With all his great and varied interests Mr. Converse found time fully to attend to religious and benevolent enterprises in fields all over the world, to which he also gave hundreds of thousands of dollars in a very modest way. He was an ardent and prom- inent member of the Baptist denomination from early manhood, first joining the Charles Street Baptist Church, Dr. Daniel Sharp then pastor, in October, 1821, when he first came to Boston, a lad of thirteen. He was one of the original mem- bers of the Federal Street Baptist Church, organ- ized in 1827. For nearly fifty years he served in various churches as deacon, being first elected to this office July 5. 1837, by the Federal Street Church. In December, 1845, he moved his place of residence to Jamaica Plain, and joined the Bap- tist Church there. Returning to Boston in 1865, he united with the Shawmut Avenue Baptist Church, afterward the First Baptist Church. During his stay in Jamaica Plain he was part of the time connected with the Tremont Temple, Boston. He also changed his membership later on from the Shawmut Avenue Church to Tremont Temple, and subsequently back again to the First Church, of which he was a member at the time of his death. For many years he was an honored and able member of the executive committee of the American Baptist Missionary Union.

CUMNER, ARTHUR BARTLET, of Boston, mer- chant, of the firm of Cumner, Craig, & Co., was born in Manchester, N.H., July 30, 1871, son of Nathaniel Wentworth and Harriet Elizabeth (Wad- ley) Cumner. He is of the fourth generation in

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

direct descent from Robert Francis Cumner, seized by a press gang in 1774 in London, and carried on board H. M. S. " Somerset." llis father was a prominent tailor in Manchester, N.11., and was one of the proprietors of the National Hotel, Washington, D.C., during the Civil War; founder of the firm of Cummer, Jones, & Co., tailors' trimmings, Boston. His mother was of Bradford, N.H. Both parents are dead. lle was educated in the public schools of Man- chester and of Boston. Always interested in machinery and in electricity, he joined the Holtzer- C'abot Electric Company in 1892, and in January,

A. B. CUMNER.

1893, formed the present partnership with J. Hally ('raig. The firm now represents the Crocker- Wheeler Electric Company in New England. Mr. Cumner has been devoted from boyhood to all kinds of athletics,- bicycling, canoeing, and driv- ing,-and is much interested in the breeding of dogs. He is a member of the Boston Athletic Club, of the Massachusetts Yacht Club, of the Framingham Boat Club, and of the Gridiron Club, one of the founders and a director of the last men- tioned. In 1895 he received his election to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers. Mr. Cumner was married in Boston, October 18. 1892, to Miss Mabel Jordan, daughter of N. W.

Jordan, of the American Loan & Trust Company. Boston. lle has two children : a daughter, Mil- dred (born January 7, 1894), and a son, Jordan Cumner (born March 14, 1895).

CUSHING, ALVIN MATTHEW, M. D., of Spring- feld, is a native of Vermont, born in the town of Burke, September 28, 1829, son of Matthew and Risia (Woodruff) Cushing. His grandfather. Noah Cushing, was of Putney, Vt., and his great- grandfather, Matthew Cushing, of Rehoboth, Mass., a son of Jacob Cushing, of Hingham, Mass., direct descendant of Matthew Cushing, who settled in Hingham in 1639. Dr. Cushing was educated in district and private schools and at the Newbury (Vt.) Seminary. His preparation for his profession was most thorough, beginning with attendance upon lectures at the Dartmouth Medical School, and continuing at the Ver- mont Medical College at Woodstock, Vt., the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, the Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, and at the Homeopathic Medical College, Philadelphia, where he graduated March 1, 1856. He also took special lectures on Materia Medica under Con- stantine Herring before entering the Homo- pathic Medical College. He began practice in Bradford, Vt., and remained there five years. Then he was for four years in Lansingburg, N. V., then sixteen in Lynn, Mass., three in Boston, and then in Springfield, moving each time on account of sickness in his family. He has been estab- lished in Springfield for eleven years steadily in active practice, and holding a leading position among practitioners of Western Massachusetts. He is the author of " Diseases of Females, and their Homeopathic Treatment," in two editions : and a monograph on " Dioscorea Villosa," having made an exhaustive proving on himself of the same. He has also proved upon himself and pre- sented to the profession bromide of ammonium, artemesia abrotanum, morphine, rhatany, salicylic acid, verbascum oleum, homarus and phaseolus diversiflora ; and he introduced to the profession mullen oil, now recommended by all schools of medicine as a remedy for deafness and earache and urinary troubles. He was the first homceo- pathic physician invited to talk to "old school " students. He is often called long distances in consultation, and is a firm believer in Similia. He is a member of the American Institute

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

of Homeopathy and the Society of Seniors of the Institute ; a member and an ex-president of the Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society ; an ex-vice-president of the Massachusetts Surgical and Gynacological Society, and member of the Hahnemanian Club of Boston ; an ex-member and ex-president of the Essex County Homeopathic Medical Society: ex-member of the Boston Homeopathic Medical Society ; was twice presi- dent of the Boston Academy of Medicine; is a member of the Homeopathic Medical Society of Western Massachusetts; member of the Worces- ter County Medical Society; and an honorary

A. M. CUSHING.

member of the Vermont Homeopathic Medical Association and of the Connecticut River Medi- cal Association. Dr. Cushing was married Febru- ary 14, 1860, at Hartford, Vt., to Miss Hannah Elizabeth Pearsons. She died January 17, 1880. They had three sons: John Pearsons, Alvin Matthew, Jr., and Harry Alonzo Cushing. The eldest son was born in Lansingburg, N.Y., Sep- tember 5, 1861. He graduated from Amherst in ISS2, taught ten years as vice-principal in the Holyoke High School, received the degree of Ph.D). in the University of Leipzig, Germany, in 1894, and is now a professor of economics and history in Knox College, Galesburg, Ill. Alvin

M., Jr., was born in Lynn, January 10, 1866, grad- uated From the Boston Latin School in 1885, and died soon after. Harry Alonzo was also born in Lynn, September 15. 1870, graduated from Amherst in 1891, taught two years in Beloit (Wis.) College, received the degree of A.M. from Columbia College in 1894, and is now (1895) tak- ing a post-graduate course there. He has been elected prize lecturer for three years in Columbia and Barnard Colleges. He is president of Col- lege Graduate clubs. Dr. Cushing's wife was a sister of Dr. D. K. Pearsons, formerly of Chico- pee, Mass., Chicago's generous millionaire, who has already given nearly two million dollars to hospitals, colleges, and schools. John P. Cush- ing married Miss Alice Bullions, grand-daughter of Rev. Mr. Bullions, author of Bullions's " Latin Grammar" and other educational books.

CUTLER, CECIL, STEVENS, M.D., of Northamp- ton, was born in Sheffield, Berkshire County, June 12, 1851, son of Rodolphus J. and Sarah l'. (Stevens) Cutler. His grandfather, Benjamin Cutler, born in Vermont, lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and one years, six months, and three days. He comes of a family of phy- sicians, an uncle and four cousins having followed the profession of medicine. He was educated in the Cooperstown Seminary, Cooperstown, N. Y., and took a business course at Brown's Business College, of Brooklyn, N.Y. After graduation therefrom he was cashier for Charles Knox, " The Hatter," corner of Broadway and Fulton Street, New York, for a while, and thence was called to the Atlantic Bank of Brooklyn, as assistant re- ceiving teller, which position he subsequently left to study medicine. His medical studies were pursued in the University Medical College of the City of New York, and he was graduated there in the class of 1877. During his college course and subsequently he was connected with various hos- pitals, among them the Bellevue, Jersey City, Roosevelt, St. Luke's, the Charity, and the Woman's Hospital of New York. In 1876 he was appointed surgeon of the First Company of the Governor's Horse Guard of Hartford, Conn., under Governor Ingersoll. He has been estab- lished in Northampton since ISSo as a physician. surgeon, and specialist, engaged in a large prac- tice extending over a wide field, and has intro- duced a number of new methods of treating

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

chronic diseases. He is connected with the

Masonic fraternity, the Benevolent Protective Order of Elks, the Improved Order of Red Men,

C. S. CUTLER.

and the Knights of Pythias, captain and assistant surgeon of the First Massachusetts Regiment, uniform rank of the latter order. Dr. Cutler was married February 9, 1876, to Miss Isadore P. Holcomb, and has two children : Mina A. and Edna M. Cutler.

DEAN, WALTER LOFTHOUSE, of Boston, artist, was born in Lowell, June 4, 1854. His parents moved to Boston when he was a child, and his general education was attained there in the public grammar and high schools and in evening draw- ing schools. After leaving school, he entered a mill in Tilton, N.H., to learn the business of cotton manufacture ; and, in order to gain a thor- ough knowledge of all of its details, he worked in succession at every machine in the factory and in every branch of the establishment. But this occupation was not to his liking, and, finally. he determined to abandon it for art. Accordingly, he returned to Boston in January, 1873, entered an evening drawing school, and studied archi- tecture awhile, under Professor William R. Ware,

at the Institute of Technology, and became a student of the Massachusetts Normal Art School. In September, 1876, he went to Indiana as art instructor at the Purdue University in Lafayette. Returning East in 1877, he decided to devote all his day-time to painting, but taught drawing in the Boston free evening drawing school for two seasons. In 1878 he was appointed teacher of drawing in the Boston free evening drawing school. He spent a year in study with M. Achille Oudinot, an accomplished landscape painter, then resident in Boston, and next went to Paris, where he studied another year figure drawing and paint- ing in the Julien Academy, under Lefebvre and Boulanger. These studies completed, he gave a year and a half to sketching trips through Brittany, Belgium, Holland, Italy, and England, meanwhile painting a number of pictures, mostly of coast or sea subjects. Coming back to Bos- ton in the fall of ISS4, in 1885, he fitted up a yacht of twenty-six tons, and set out on a four months' sketching cruise along the New England coast, visiting every port between Boston and Eastport, acting as his own skipper and pilot.

W. L. DEAN.

Later he made more extended voyages on the barkentine "Christiana Redman " and the bark "Woodside," for the purpose of becoming famil-

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

iar with square-rigged vessels. He had, however, been used to the sea and acquainted with ships from boyhood, so that this was no new experience with him. Early in his teens, through his love of adventure and fondness for the sea, he had made a cruise of a month on a Gloucester fishing- vessel to the Banks ; and, when a school-boy, he passed every possible moment out of school hours on the water. His cat-boat, " Fannie," was long the fastest boat of her size, and took first prize in many races. He has for many years been an ardent yachtsman, and is now rear commodore and on the regatta committee of the Boston Yacht Club, of which he is a life member. His principal paintings include " Peace," a large canvas repre- senting the White Squadron at anchor in Boston Harbor, " The Open Sea," and " Return of the Seiners," which were exhibited at the Chicago Exposition ; " The Dutch Fishing Fleet," " Sum- mer Day on the Dutch Shore," "Stormy Day, North Sea," " Grand Banker Homeward Bound," "Little Good Harbor Beach, Gloucester," " The Market Boat, Capri," " Racing Home," " Beach at Scheveningen," " Old Ferry Landing," " In the Yacht's Cabin," " Breton Interior," and " The Game Warden." He has received medals at Boston and Philadelphia. The " In the Break- ers" was purchased by the Boston Art ('lub from its annual exhibition in ISSS. Mr. Dean is an officer of the Boston Society of Water-color Painters and of the Paint and Clay Club, and he has served on the board of management of the Boston Art Club for three years. For ser- eral years he was also a member of the Fish and Game Association.

DEARING, HENRY LINCOLN, M. D., of Brain- tree, is a native of Braintree, born February 16, 1866, son of Dr. T. Haven and Mary Jane (Jen- kins) Dearing. His father is a physician of prominence, having a very large practice in Brain- tree, who for several years was dean and profes- sor of surgery; and his grandfather, Captain Roger Dearing, was long engaged in commercial business at Kittery Point, Me. His mother was a daughter of Deacon Solon Jenkins, of Boston. On the paternal side he descends from a family among the early settlers of what is now Maine, coming to this country from England, and for whom the town of Deering, N. H., was named. Into this family Governor Wentworth, of New

Hampshire, married. Members of the family in England have sat in Parliament, and held high offices. Dr. Dearing received his academic and classical education at the Thayer Academy, Brain- tree, and at Boston University; and his medical education in Boston, New York, and Germany, graduating from the Bellevue Hospital Medical College, New York, in March, 1890. He has now a large and successful practice in Braintree, where he began immediately after his graduation From the medical college, and is examiner for several insurance companies, associations, and orders. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, of the American Medical Association, of the Boston Gynecological Society, and of the Norfolk South District Medical Society. lle is also interested in town affairs, and is at present serving on the School Board. For some years he was connected with the State militia, some time first lieutenant of Company K, Fifth Regi- ment. He is musical in taste and training, and has held the position of tenor singer in the choir of the First Congregational Church of Braintree For several years. In politics he is

H. L. DEARING.

a stanch Republican, and is a member of the Norfolk (political dining) Club. Dr. Dearing is not married.

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

DODGE, JOHN LANGDON, of Great Barrington. banker, was born in New Marlborough, October 7, 1814, son of John and Lucy ( Langdon) Dodge.

J. L. DODGE.

His great-grandfather, Abraham Dodge, and his grandfather. moved from Eastern Massachusetts to New Marlborough, with which town the family have since been identified. Abraham Dodge was born in 1730, and died in 1810, aged eighty years ; and John Dodge died in 1814, aged fifty- nine years and ten months. Abigail Dodge, grandmother of John Langdon Dodge, was a rela- tive of General Joseph Warren; and Mr. Dodge had a brother named Warren Trumbull Dodge. His mother, Luey Langdon, was a near relative of Governor Trumbull, of Connecticut ; and Mr. Dodge has in his possession some silverware marked "Sara Trumbull." His grandmother Dodge died October 10, 1827, aged seventy- three years. His father died April 9, 1862, at the age of seventy-six ; and his mother died April 5, 1846, aged fifty-four years. His grandfathers and grandmother. as well as his father and mother, are all buried in New Marlborough. Mr. Dodge was educated in common and select schools, and remained on the home farm until nearly twenty-one years old. Then he went West. and was there ten years, a portion of the time en-

gaged in mercantile business. Returning to Berk- shire County. he subsequently engaged in bank- ing. He is now president of the Great Barrington Water Company, president of the Everett Woollen Company of Great Barrington, and president of the Great Barrington Gas Company, and has for over fifteen years been treasurer of the Peters & Calhauln Company of Newark, N.J. lle has also been president of the National Mahaiwe Bank of Great Barrington for upwards of forty years, and a director forty-seven years. In poli- ties. Mr. Dodge is a steady Republican. He was married April 17, 1839. to Miss Laura Stevens, of New Marlborough. She died August 30, 1870, aged fifty-five years. Their children were : Henry Langdon (born in Greenfield, Ohio, in 1841, died August 25, 1856), Lucy Langdon (born in Sheffield, Mass., December 2, 1850, mar- ried to G. Willis Peters, of Newark, N.J., No- vember 15. 1876), and John Stevens Dodge (born in Great Barrington, February 27, 1853. died Feb- ruary 21, 1892). Lucy L. (Dodge) l'eters has four children : Sara Dodge (born December 31, 1877). John Dodge (born November 19, 1879). George Willis (born October 7. 1881), and Aline Laura Peters (born August 22, 1883). John Stevens Dodge left one child: Laura Stevens Dodge (born March 27, 1886); Emily Lindley Dodge (born March 1, 1887, died September 11, 1 SS9 ).

EDGEREY, JULIEN CAMPBELL, of Boston, pro- prietor and manager of the Boston College of Oratory, is a native of New Hampshire, born in the town of Haverhill. April 22. 1865. He was the son of General Andrew J. Edgerly, and a nephew of the late Colonel M. V. B. Edgerly, president of the Massachusetts Mutual Life In- surance Company. He is of English ancestry. His early education was acquired in the common schools, and he fitted for college at Haverhill Academy. He was graduated from the classical course at Tufts College with the class of 1888. While in college, he manifested much interest in oratorical matters, and in his junior year won the Greenwood prize scholarship for the greatest im- provement in oratory. Before leaving college. he became interested in newspaper work, and gave his spare time to work as a reporter on the Boston Globe. About this time he became acquainted with Miss Clara Tileston Power, then the head of the department of Delsarte in the Boston School

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

of Oratory. Their acquaintance resulted in mar- riage in 1891, shortly after which Mrs. Edgerly resigned her position in the Boston School of

J. G. EDGERLY.

Oratory, and joined with her husband in found- ing a new school. which was called the Boston College of Oratory. This school has flourished from the start, and in the first three years of its existence attained a size which exceeded that of many schools four or five times its age. It took its place at once as a high - class national insti- tution. Mr. and Mrs. Edgerly drew about them some of the leading teachers of New England, men and women who stood at the head of their profession. Pupils have been drawn from nearly every State of the Union, and even from Europe. One of the special attractions of the school is the prominence which has been given to the teach- ings of the French philosopher, François Delsarte. Much of the mystery which has attached to this subject heretofore has, through the work done at this school, been cleared away. Mr. Edgerly is deeply interested in the advancement of the standard of elocutionary work. In 1892 he es- tablished a series of contests in every State in New England, open to the best speakers in the publie schools, the prizes consisting of scholar- ships in the Boston College of Oratory ; and

to-day many young men and women are fitting themselves for the life-work to which they are best adapted at this college without any cost to themselves.

EDMONDS. Lovis, M.D., of llarwich, is a native of England, born in Manchester, February 18, 1846, son of James and Jane (Price) Edmonds. He was educated in the English national schools. At the age of twelve he was apprenticed to the trade of a printer, and at nineteen went to Lon- clon, where he worked in various printing-offices for three years. At twenty-two he went to Paris, France, and remained there about seven years, He came to the United States the year after the close of the Franco-Prussian War. For ten years he held the position of a proof - reader on the Boston Herald. Then, entering the Harvard Medical School, he continued this occupation during his medical training three nights a week, - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,- devoting the remainder of each week to his studies. He took the regular four years' course, graduating in 1893. For twelve months he was medical and surgical

LOUIS EDMONDS.

house officer of the Worcester City Hospital, and began practice in Boston in February, 1894. He moved to Harwich the following July, and is now

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

actively following his profession there, to which he is ardently devoted. He is prominent in the Masonic fraternity, being a Scottish Rite Mason. a Royal Arch Mason (member of St. Andrew's Chapter. Boston), and member of Aleppo Temple. noble order of the Mystic Shrine. In politics he is an Independent, preferring principles and men to party.

ENDICOTT. CHARLES, of Canton, State tax commissioner and also commissioner of corpora- tions, was born in Canton, October 28, 1822, son of Elijah and Cynthia (Child) Endicott. He was educated in the local common schools, and trained for active life in work on his father's farm and at boot-making. In 1846, when he was but twenty- four years of age, he was appointed a deputy sheriff of Norfolk County, and thus began a career in the public service notable for length and char- acter. After serving as deputy sheriff for seven years, he took up the study of law in the office of the late Ellis Ames, of Canton, and in 1857 was admitted to the bar. Soon after, in 1859, he was elected county commissioner, which office he held for six years ; in 1855 he was appointed by the governor a commissioner of insolvency, and later elected to the office by the people ; in 1851, and again in 1857 and 1858, was a representative for Canton in the General Court : in 1866 and 1867 a State senator for his senatorial district ; and in 1868 and 1869 a member of the Executive Coun- cil. While serving his second term in the latter capacity, he was nominated on the Republican State ticket for State auditor, and elected in the ensuing election ; and thereafter his name regu- larly appeared on that ticket for nearly a dozen years, six years of this period as candidate for the auditorship, and five for treasurer and re- ceiver-general of the Commonwealth, his election following invariably with a generous majority. His services as auditor, therefore, covered the years 1870-71-72-73-74-75, and as treasurer 1876-77-78-79-80, the constitutional limit of five years. He was appointed deputy tax commis- sioner and commissioner of corporations upon his retirement from the treasurership in IS81. His experience in these several financial offices made him a recognized authority on all matters relating to the finances of the State. Mr. Endicott is also a director of the Norfolk Mutual Fire Insurance Company, a director of the Neponset National Bank of Canton, and president of the Canton In-

stitution of Savings, of which he had previously been a trustee for forty years. He was married first. September 30, 1845, to Miss Miriam Webb,

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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 85

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