Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 91

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 91

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Edwards, Nichols, & Richards, which succeeded Ammidown & Co. This continued until 1867, and with marked success. Mr. Richards then

DEXTER N. RICHARDS.

retired, and spent a year and a half in foreign travel. Upon his return he entered the banking and note business. About two years later he turned his attention to manufacturing interests, taking the treasurership of the Bates Manufactur- ing Company of Lewiston, Me., which position he has held continuously ever since. He is also president of the Manchester Mills, Manchester, N.H., and of the Edwards Mills, Augusta, Me., and director of the Lewiston (Me.) Bleachery. He has been a director of the Bank of Redemp- tion, Boston, for about fifteen years, was long a trustee of the Penny Savings Bank, and was one of the original incorporators and is now a direc- tor of the Boston Electric Light Company. For thirty years or more he was connected as a di- rector with one of the oldest horse railroad com- panies in Boston. He has been trustee of many large estates during his long business career. In 1888 he was one of the trustees for the sale of the Boston Gas Company. In religious faith he is Unitarian, and has been affiliated with the

a Rev. Dr. Edward F. Hale's church in Boston, and a member of its standing committee for thirty

years. His politics are Independent. Mr. Rich- ards was married October 18, 1859, to Miss Louise M. Appleton, of Boston, daughter of Ben- jamin B. and Catherine Appleton. They have had four children, two of whom are now living : Helen (now Mrs. William C. Hunneman) and Alice Appleton Richards. He resides in Long- wood, Brookline.

RICHARDSON, WILLIAM SHEDD, M.D., of Marlborough, is a native of Maine, born in the town of Woolwich, July 11, 1860, son of the Rev. Martin Luther and Angeletta (Wilson) Richardson. He is of the ninth generation from Ezekiel Richard- son, of Charlestown, one of the first board of se- lectmen in 1634, serving four years, member of the General Court two years, and in 1640, with his two brothers and four other townsmen, appointed commissioner to found the new town of Woburn, where at the first election he was chosen a select- man and rechosen three years following. Nathan R., of the fourth generation, was also a selectman of Woburn for five successive years. Dr. Richard-

W. S. RICHARDSON.

son graduated in the college preparatory course at the Hitchcock Free High School in Brimfield, Mass., and studied for his profession at the Har-

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vard Medical School, graduating in 1884. He began practice in Marlborough in December fol- lowing his graduation, and has since been actively engaged there. He has been a member of the city Board of Health for five years, serving as chairman of the board the last two years of this period. Ile is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Association of Boards of Health, the Harvard Alumni Associa- tion. and the Union Club; and is connected with the Knights of Pythians and the order of Red Men. Dr. Richardson was married May 12, 1892, to Miss Mary Hubbard Morse, of Marlborough. They have one son : Stephen Morse Richardson.

ROTCH, ABBOTT LAWRENCE, of Boston and Milton, was born in Boston, January 6, 1861. His ancestors on both sides were English, and were early settlers of New England, the Rotches, an old Quaker family, having founded the town of New Bedford. His father was Benjamin Smith Rotch ; and his mother, nee Annie Bigelow Law- renee, was the daughter of the Hon. Abbott Law- renee, a prominent merchant of Boston, and at one time minister to England. A. Lawrence Rotch, after spending several years of his boyhood in Europe, prepared at Chauncy Hall School for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from whose department of mechanical engineering he graduated in 1884 with the degree of Batchelor of Science. By reason of property inherited from his father, he was not obliged to practise as an engineer, but was free to carry out a project of establishing a private meteorological observatory. In the autumn of 1884 the erection of this ob- servatory was begun upon Great Blue Hill, the highest point on the Atlantic coast south of New Hampshire, and hence well adapted for the study of atmospheric phenomena. Regular observa- tions were commenced February 1, 1885, and have been continued until the present time. Three observers are now employed, and many self-recording instruments used, so that the Blue llill Observatory has become one of the most complete and best known establishments of its kind in the world. The observations and investi- gations have been published annually in the "Annals of the Harvard College Observatory "; and the former give the most detailed records of hourly values, including cloud observations, which have been published in the United States. In

several respects this observatory has served as a model for the Government Weather Bureau. Some of the self-recording instruments which had proved successful at Blue Hill were supplied to the government stations, and the international form of publication was used for the Blue Hill observations several years before it was adopted by the United States Weather Bureau. Local weather forecasts at Blue Hill proved superior to the general forecasts of the Signal Service, which ultimately adopted the former in many cities in connection with the issue, in these cities, of " eyclo style " weather maps, originated in Boston

A. LAWRENCE ROTCH.

by Messrs. Cole and Rotch, in 1886. In 1885 and subsequent years Mr. Rotch visited most of the mountain meteorological stations of Europe and America. They were described in the Ameri- can Meteorological Journal, as editor of which Mr. Rotch became associated with Professor M. W. Harrington in 1886. For several years he con- tributed to the financial support of the Journal, and is still an associate editor. In 1887 he ob- served the total solar eclipse in Russia with Pro- fessors Koeppen and Upton, and in 1889 he again co-operated with the latter in a study of the meteorological phenomena attending the total solar eclipse in California. In 1893 he accom-

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panied the Harvard College Observatory expedi- tion to Chile to observe another similar eclipse. During the summer of 1889 he served on the in- ternational jury of awards for instruments of pre- cision at the Paris Exposition, and received from the French government for his services the deco- ration of chevalier of the Legion of Honor. He took part in the International Meteorological and Climatological Congresses held at Paris during the Exposition, and during the winter of 1889-1890, with M. L. Teisserenc de Bort, he made magneti- cal and meteorological observations in the north- ern portion of the Algerian desert. In 1891 he delivered a course of lectures on "Mountain Meteorology " before the Lowell Institute of Bos- ton, and the same year the degree of Master of Arts was conferred upon him by Harvard Univer- sity, where he had already been appointed assist- ant at the Observatory. In August, 1891, Mr. Rotch attended, by invitation, the International Meteorological Conference held in Munich, and was appointed the American member of a commit- tec to report on a cloud atlas. He met with this committee at Upsala, Sweden, in August, 1894, when this report was presented to and accepted by the Permanent Committee. Mr. Rotch is a member of the German and French metcoro- logical societies, a fellow of the London Royal Meteorological Society, a councillor of the New England Meteorological Society, a corresponding member of the British Association for the Ad- vancement of Science, and a fellow of the Ameri- can Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is a member of the corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and a trustee, in behalf of that institution, of the Museum of Fine Arts, and is also a trustec of the Boston Society of Nat- ural History. He belongs to several clubs in Boston, among them the Somerset and St. Bo- tolph, to the University Club of New York, and to the Cosmos Club of Washington, D.C. He was married in 1893 at Savannah, Ga., to Miss Margaret Randolph Anderson, a lineal descendant of President Thomas Jefferson, and has one daughter.

SAWYER, EDWARD, of Boston, civil engineer, is a native of New Hampshire, born in Warner, June 24, 1828, son of Jacob and Laura (Bartlett) Sawyer. He is of English ancestry, a descendant in the eighth generation of William Sawyer, who probably was born in England about the year

1613. and subsequently lived in or near what is now West Newbury, Mass. The name is often spelled "Sayer " in old records. On the mater- nal side he is a descendant of Richard Bartlett, who came from England to "Old Newbury " in 1634. His education was acquired in common and high schools. He lived on the New Hamp- shire farm and assisted in the farm work until he reached the age of fifteen years. During the last five years of his minority he spent more than half of his time out of school, acquiring practical working acquaintance with manufacturing and mechanical operations in the mills and shops at

EDWARD SAWYER.

Manchester, N.H. A little later he was head draughtsman for a year or more at the Amoskeag Machine Shop, then engaged in making locomo- tives, textile, and other machinery. He then began at the bottom of the ladder in railroad en- gineering on the construction of the Manchester & Lawrence Railroad, under Samuel Nott, civil engineer. For a few years after that he was assistant engineer on surveys and construction of several railroads in New England and the West. In 1854 he came to Boston, and entered the office of the late Uriah A. Boyden, the emi- nent engineer and scientist. He remained with Mr. Boyden most of the time for the next eight

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years, but gradually worked into business on his own account, mainly in hydraulie and mill en- gineering. He was sole expert for the Assabet Company in important and successful flowage liti- gation, and later was engaged in many other cases. In 1869 he entered into a eopartnership with J. Herbert Shedd, civil engineer, under which he managed their combined business in Boston, while Mr. Shedd was engaged on the water supply and sewerage works of Providence, R.l., and in similar work in other places. This partnership continued with entire harmony for about fifteen years. At its beginning, in 1869, very few places had any public water supply or anything worthy to be called a system of sewerage. But majorities of voters were beginning to turn in favor of obtain- ing public water supplies. The most important factor in securing such majorities was that the engineers should find sources of supply, of good quality, and large enough for many years in the future, and should design works which could be built and operated at small cost. In most cases several different schemes were proposed; and it was often difficult to satisfy a majority of the voters that any one was the best, due weight being given to considerations of quality and quan- tity, present and future, and cost. In this work Mr. Sawyer took a leading and useful part. For the municipalities around Boston on the west and south the difficulties were especially great. Cam- bridge had a supply from Fresh Pond which was not very satisfactory in any respect. Charlestown had just taken a supply from the upper Mystic Pond, which soon proved disappointing, and be- eame a source of almost constant anxiety both as to quantity and quality. Mr. Sawyer was an inter- ested observer from the outside of these move- ments, and foresaw much of their unsatisfactory outcome. He appreciated the difficulties of the situation, turned his thoughts to the solution of the problems involved, and was soon called upon to take a prominent part either as consulting or chief engineer for many places around Boston and elsewhere. There was a common notion that the water of ponds was better than that of streams. The State Board of Health, then recently estab- lished, took up this matter with more zeal than discretion, and advocated this notion for several years, with a plentiful lack both of good observa- tion and good reasoning. The truth is that toler- ably good supplies of water can be obtained with care and skill from some ponds and some streams,

and that other ponds and streams are of various de- grees of badness from objectionable to positively unfit. The board listed many ponds, presumably as possible sources of supply, in which the water was poor or bad, also many with yields insuffi- cient for the wants of any town of moderate size. The board had among its members medical men of high reputation ; but it ought not to have undertaken to advise upon the whole question of sources of water supply without the aid of good engineering knowledge and skill, such as later boards have had. These bygone errors of judg- ment are mentioned to show some of the diffi- culties against which the sanitary engineers of twenty-five years ago had to contend, and did contend successfully. Engineering investigation soon showed that for the southerly and westerly parts of the Metropolitan District pond supply was impracticable for various reasons of quality, quantity, and cost ; and the common sense of the people soon began to accept this eonelusion, though in some places this followed later after acrimonious discussion. After careful consider- ation Mr. Sawyer came to the opinion that suffi- cient supplies of ground water, equivalent to spring water of the best quality, hence mueh bet- ter than good pond water,- like the Cochituate, for instance,-could be obtained at moderate costs by means of basins or galleries to be made in the gravels and sands alongside of and underlying Charles River. Many objections to such sehemes were urged by different parties, all of which had been anticipated and given due weight, as the results proved. This way of obtaining water on a large scale had been adopted before in several places in this country and abroad ; but it is beset with many uncertainties, and not unfrequently the results have been far from satisfactory. The adoption and successful working of this method proved to be of incalculable value for the muni- cipalities along Charles River. Mr. Sawyer has continued to give much attention to manufactur- ing and the branches of engineering more directly connected therewith. He has designed, organ- ized, and built some of the largest, best, and most successful mills in the country, notably for the Chicopee Company, the Arlington Company, and the Boston Rubber Shoe Company. In 1872 he inaugurated something of a new departure in the building of the Chicopee Mill, No. 1, demonstrat- ing that a mill about one hundred feet wide could easily be well lighted from the sides,-better, in

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fact, than the old narrow mills usually were,-and could be operated with great convenience, effi- ciency, and economy. He has frequently been called upon to advise on questions of difficult or doubtful constructions, of strength of materials, stability of foundations, etc. For the last few years a large part of his time has been devoted to the different manufacturing businesses in which he is interested ; but he still does considerable work for some of his old friends and clients, and he retains the position of engineer to the Union Water Power Company of Lewiston, Me. Mr. Sawyer has been a voluminous writer of profes- sional reports, and has written a few papers for publication. He has made or partly completed many investigations in regard to matters of general engineering interest, some of which he hopes to complete and publish. He is glad to be able to believe that he has done his share in maintaining the honor and interests of the profession by pains- taking work, by insisting upon something like fair remuneration for services, while urging upon the public the great truth that there is nothing which is more profitable to the employer than good en- gineering, and finally by helping to maintain the high standard of integrity which existed among the honored and beloved chiefs of the profession when he came into it. Mr. Sawyer has never desired public office ; and the only position of this sort which he has held has been that of member of the City Council of Newton, where he now resides. He has always been a Republican in politics, but has occasionally bolted whenever he thought there was good reason for such action. lle is a member of the Tuesday Club of Newton, a literary organization, and has been its president for several years. He was married February, 1864, to Miss Frances E. Everett, of Charlestown, a descendant of Richard Everett, who came from England, and settled in Dedham, Mass., in 1636. They have one child : Frances Sawyer Pratt (born June 18, 1865), married to Herbert G. Pratt, of Newton.

SEDGWICK, HENRY DWIGHT, of Stockbridge, member of the bar, is a native of Stockbridge, born August 16, 1824, son of Henry Dwight and Jane (Minot) Sedgwick. He was seventh in direct descent from Major-General Robert Sedg- wick, who came to this country in 1636, and was appointed by Cromwell to the supreme command in the island of Jamaica. His paternal grand-

father was Theodore Sedgwick, a member of the Continental Congress and of the first Congress under the Federal Constitution, speaker of the National House of Representatives, and judge of the Supreme Court of Massachusetts. His ma- ternal grandfather was Judge George Richards Minot, the historian of the Shays Rebellion and of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Mr. Sedg- wick was prepared for college at a private school in Stockbridge under the care of the Rev. Dr. S. P. Parker ; was educated at Harvard, and graduated in 1843. He was admitted to the bar of New York State three years later, and practised law

H. D. SEDGWICK.

there alone and in partnership with the late James H. Storrs upwards of forty years. In 1868 he published with voluminous notes the fourth edition of " Sedgwick on Damages." This work was written by the late Mr. Theodore Sedgwick in 1847, and the third edition, which had appeared in 1858, had been out of print for some years. A fifth edition, substantially a republication of the fourth, followed within a year; and in 1874 ap- peared under his editorship a sixth edition, with copious original additions. In 1878 he published in an imperial octavo Sedgwick's Leading Cases on Damages. Mr. Sedgwick has delivered nu- merous occasional addresses, among which may be mentioned that on the dedication of the sol-

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diers' monument in Stockbridge in 1866; "The Relation and Duty of the Lawyer to the State," delivered before the Law School of the University of New York in 1872 : and " The Layman's De- mand on the Ministry," read before the Na- tional Conference of Unitarian Churches in Sep- tember, 1880. He has never entered into poli- tics, but has devoted himself to his profession and a domestic and literary life. Through retaining an office in New York City, he has within the past few years retired from active professional practice, and established his legal residence in the town of his birth in this Commonwealth. With the excep- tion of the secretaryship of the New York Law Institute, the only offices he has held have been in local and village organizations. He is at pres- ent president of the Laurel Hill Association (the village improvement society of Stockbridge), pres- ident of the Library Association of Stockbridge, and president of the Stockbridge Casino. He was one of the founders of the Union League Club of New York City, and is a member of the University and Century clubs of that city and of the Colonial Society of Massachusetts. He has lately resigned from the New York Historical Society and the Harvard Club of New York, of both of which he had been many years a member. In politics he was originally a Free Soil Demo- erat, afterwards an Independent Republican, and later became an Independent Democrat. Mr. Sedgwick was married October 15, 1857, to Miss Henrietta Ellery Sedgwick. Their children are : Henry Dwight, Jr., the Rev. Theodore, Jane Minot, Alexander, and Ellery Sedgwick.

SMALL, WHITMELL PUGH, M.D., of Great Barrington, is a native of North Carolina, born in Washington, Beaufort County, December 29, 1850, son of John H. and Sallie A. (Sanderson) Small. On the paternal side he is descended from early settlers in Chowan County, N.C., who were prominent as large planters in that section of the State, and on the maternal side is of early Scotch stock, from which have come many who have been prominent in the affairs of state politi- cally and otherwise. He was educated in his native town, and began the study of medicine in 1873 under the preceptorship of David S. Tayloe, M.D., a physician of considerable local renown. Subsequently he entered the medical department of the University of the City of New York, and

graduated there in March, 1877. The following August he came to Great Barrington, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession. In

W. P. SMALL.

November, 1883, he returned to his old home in North Carolina, and practised there for two years, until October, 1885. Then, coming back to Great Barrington, he has since remained here, en- gaged in general practice. From March, 1887, to March, 1893, he was chairman of the Great Bar- rington Board of Health ; and he has been medical examiner for the Fourth Berkshire District since 1891, appointed June 30 that year. He has taken an active part in affairs of the town, and is now secretary of the Great Barrington Board of Trade. He is a member of the Massachusetts Medical Society, of the Massachusetts Medico- legal Society, and of the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina. In politics Dr. Small has always been a Democrat, but independent rather than party bound. In religion he is an Episcopalian, and holds the position of treasurer of the St. James Episcopal Church, Great Barring- ton. He was married November 17, 1881, to Miss Elizabeth M. Ray, daughter of Guy C. and Anna M. Ray, her father a man of sterling integ- rity, a soldier in the Forty-ninth Massachusetts Regiment, who gave his life to the Union cause,

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and her mother the daughter of parents who came from England in 1820. They have four sons : Guy Carleton, John Sanderson, Ray Moore, and Robert. Dr. Small resides on Castle Street in a new and modern house, completed in 1894.

STODDER, CHARLES FREDERICK, of Boston. manufacturer, is a native of Boston, born Au- gust 30, 1859. son of Frederick Mortimer and Eliza Parker (Kimball) Stodder. On the paternal side he is of the Hingham Stodders, dating back to 1649 ; and on the maternal side he is from the Kimballs, of Bradford. His education was ac- quired in the public schools ; and he graduated from the old Eliot School, Boston, in 1872, and the High School, Somerville. He began his business career in 1876 as a clerk with Masury, Young. & Co., wholesale oil house, and remained with this house until 1884. Then the following year he became connected with the India Al- kali Works as manager, and has since been de- voted to this business. He continued as manager until 1887, and was then vice-president and man-

CHAS. F. STODDER.

ager until 1892, when he became president and general manager. The company deals in heavy chemicals ; but the larger part of its business

at the present time is the manufacture of " Savo- gran," an article used extensively among the textile mills, both woollen and cotton, by the va- rious city corporations in the country, the United States Departments, and in institutions and office buildings. It was adopted and used exclusively by the World's Fair Commission in 1893. The company has agencies in Chicago. Denver, and San Francisco. Mr. Stodder is a member of the Sons of the American Revolu- tion, of the Boston Athletic Association, and of the Central Club of Somerville. He was married November 26, 1889, to Miss Helen de Forrest Carpenter, only child of the Rev. C. C. Carpenter.

THAYER, CHARLES NATHANIEL, M.D .. of Falmouth, was born in Attleborough. November 26, 1828, son of Simeon and Polly (Fuller) Thayer. He is on both sides of English stock. His grandfather, Nathaniel Thayer, served in the Revolutionary War for six years, was wounded and died from his wounds ; and his father was in the War of 1812. His maternal grandfather, Isaac Fuller, was a descendant of Dr. Samuel Fuller, whose name is enrolled on the monument to the Pilgrims at Plymouth ; and his grand- mother, Huldah Fuller, was an Alden of the Pil- grim family. His childhood was passed in the town of Mansfield, where he received a public- school education. He began active life as a com- mercial agent, travelling through most of the States and the British Provinces. Afterward he was for six years in the lumber business, for a while established in Pembroke, then in Hanover, and later in Hanson. During this time he sup- plied the late Mr. Forristall, then superintendent of streets in Boston, with lumber, and in 1863 sold lumber to the government for battery car- riages. In the autumn of 1862 he joined the army, enlisting on September 20 in Company I, Fourth Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers. He was immediately appointed first sergeant and company clerk, and in these positions served to the end of his term. He was in the battles of Camp Bisland, Clinton Four Corners, Port Hudson, and Brashear City, and a number of skirmishes, in the department of the Gulf, under General Banks, and with his regiment saw much hard service. The regiment was discharged Au- gust 28, 1863 : and upon his return to the North

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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 91

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