Men of progress one thousand biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 93

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 93

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Lodge, Daughters of Rebecca; the Knights of Honor, No. 2029 ; the Miles Standish Assembly, No. 143; and the Mayflower Council, No. 1011, Royal Arcanum. He is also a member of the Seamen's Relief Society. He has been chairman of the parish committee of the Central Methodist Episcopal Church of Provincetown for ten years, and superintendent of the Provincetown Cemetery for fifteen years. Sheriff Whitcomb has been twice married. first in May, 1869, to Miss Susan E. Knowles, who died November 26, 1876, leav- ing two children : Flossie M. and Susie E. Whit- comb ; and second, in December, 1881, to Miss Levenia C. Mullen, by whom he has one son : Joseph Warren Whitcomb.

WHITING, WILLIAM BUTTERWORTH, OF BOS- ton, late vice-president of the Boston Manufact- urers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company, was born in Wrentham, March 1, 1817 ; died in Chelsea, January 30, 1894. He was a son of Jesse and Sarah (Fuller) Whiting. He was born of old Puritan stock, the two families coming to this

WM. B. WHITING.

country in early years of the colony. The place of his birth was the house of his grandfather, Elkanah Whiting. The land on which it stood

was cleared by his grandfather, and is still owned by the latter's descendants. Both grandfathers of Mr. Whiting were in the American army in the Revolutionary War. His early education was that of the common district school; but, having a desire for more than such schools offered, he acquired, by private study and reading, a very thorough knowledge of English literature, and, having an exceptional memory, was able to retain and use what he had read. He possessed a large and well-selected library, with the contents of which he was thoroughly familiar. He began active life as a boy in a cotton mill in the Black- stone Valley. Then he worked as a machinist, and afterward was an agent of cotton factories, covering a period of thirty years. Finally he became connected with the Boston Manufact- urers' Mutual Fire Insurance Company, first serving as secretary and afterward as vice-presi- dent of the company, which office he held up to the time of his death. As a result of his earlier business experience, he contributed largely to the success of the mutual system of factory insurance by his practical knowledge of manufacturing, and its application in the conduct of the insurance business. Mr. Whiting commanded the respect of the large body of textile and other manufact- urers of New England, by whom he was well known. In politics he was a thorough Republi- can, but never held public office. He was married October 15, 1839, to Miss Lavina 1). Walcott, of Cumberland, R.I. Their children were : N. Semantha (now Mrs. George H. Spar- hawk), Amy Ann (died in youth), William H. H., Frances W. (died February 3, 1895), and Freder- ick M. Whiting.

WILBUR, EDWARD PAYSON, of Boston, mer- chant, was born in Newburyport, December 23, 1831, son of Hervey and Ann (Toppan) Wilbur, the former quite a noted astronomer in his day. His mother belonged to the old Toppan family, which originally settled in Old Newbury, and was long identified with that town. He was educated in the Newburyport grammar and high schools, graduating from the latter in 1845. His business career was begun in the fancy-goods trade, with which he was connected for twelve years; and for the past thirty years he has been engaged in the dry-goods commission business in Boston. He has served the city in the Common Council, the

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School Committee, on the Water Board, and in both branches of the Legislature, and has been prominent and influential in other ways in mu-

E. P. WILBUR.

nicipal and State affairs. His service in the Common Council began in 1872, and continued through 1873-74. He was a member of the School Committee one year (1875), on the Co- chituate Water Board two years (1873-74), in the lower house of the Legislature, representative for Ward Eleven, in 1884 and 1885 ; and in the Senate, for the Fourth Suffolk District in 1886. and the Fifth in 1887. His committee service in the Legislature was : House. 1884, committee on street railways: House, 1885, committee on railroads : Senate. 1886, chairman of commit- tee on cities, and member of those on library and street railways ; Senate, 1887, the same. From 1889 to 1895 he was a member of the State Board of Civil Service Commissions. An earnest and active Republican, he has served in the Republican city committee, holding the treas- urership for three years ; and he was a delegate to the Republican National Convention in 1888. Mr. Wilbur has been a director of the Central National Bank for five years, and was in 1895 elected a director in the United States Trust Company. He is a member of the Boston Mer-

chants' Association, and has been for five years on the board of management. one of the directors, and for the last three years treasurer. He has also been for three years on the board of man- agement of the Art Club and a member of the Beacon Society for two years. Mr. Wilbur was married September 7. 1854, to Miss Anna Lin- coln, of Boston. They have one daughter : Eli- nor L. Wilbur.

WILLIS, GEORGE DALLAS, of Braintree, man- ufacturer, is a native of Braintree, born June 25. 1844, son of George Washington and Almira (Arnold) Willis. He was educated in the com- mon and high schools of Braintree, and at Co- mer's Commercial College, Boston. He began business life in 186t as a salesman in the employ of Blake & Alden, furniture dealers, Boston. Hc remained with this house for ten years, meanwhile engaging in the business of nail and tack manu- facturing, which he has since followed. This business was started under the firm name of J. T. Stevens & Co .; but soon after, in 1870, the pres-

GEO. D. WILLIS.

ent name of Stevens & Willis was adopted. Mr. Willis has been associated with his present part- ner since 1868. The house has met with notable

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success, having long been recognized as among the first in its line, and enjoyed a large local trade. Mr. Willis has been prominent in town matters for a number of years, and has held sev- eral of its important positions. He was town clerk in 1872 and 1873, declining a re-election for a third term ; town auditor for several years. and member of the School Committee in 1891-92. He has served repeatedly as moderator at town meetings and on important town committees. He was chairman of the building committee on alms- house in ISS4, and was also a member of the committees on the Monatiquot and Jonas Perkins school-houses. In iSSo he represented the towns of Braintree and Holbrook in the State Legisla- ture. He served in the Civil War, member of Company I, Forty-second Regiment, Massachusetts Volunteers, General Isaac S. Burrell commanding. After the war he was for some time connected with the State militia, and was quartermaster of the First Battalion Infantry, First Brigade, First Division. He has been a leader in the Grand Army of the Republic, serving as commander of General Sylvanus Thayer Post, No. 87, for three years. and on the staff of department commanders Adams and Churchill. He is also a charter mem- ber of Post No. 87. He is connected with the Masonic fraternity, a member of the Bay State Commandery, Knights Templar, Brockton, and of Rural Lodge, Quincy. He was the first president of the Braintree Commercial and Social Club of Braintree, and is vice-president, trustee, and audi- tor of the Braintree Savings Bank. Among other offices of trust and responsibility he has held the position of corporation clerk and director of the Central Manufacturing Company, Boston, and is to-day vice-president of the Tack Manufacturers' Association of the United States. Mr. Willis first married July 3, 1872, Miss Mary Eliza Barrett. eldest daughter of the Rev. Fiske Barrett. She died July 5, 1878, leaving a daughter, Annie Mira. who died two years after, six years old. His present wife was Miss Susan Ella, only daughter of the Hon Francis A. and Susan (Holbrook) Hobart. They have one son, George Dallas Wil- lis, Jr., thirteen years of age.

WILSON, EDGAR VINTON. of Athol, member of the bar, was born in Winchendon, July 1, 1847, son of Frederic A. and Cordelia R. (Mack) Wilson. He is a descendant in the seventh

generation of William Wilson who was in Concord in 16So, town clerk eight years, selectman seven- teen consecutive years, and representative ten years. His great-great-grandfather, William Wil- son, grandson of the first William Wilson, joined the army early in the Revolution, and died in camp at Winter Hill during the siege of Boston. His great-grandfather, Samuel, was also in the Revolu- tionary War during the year 1776, and died at Stoddard, N.H., in 1844, aged eighty-five. His grandfather, William Wilson, was a prominent citizen of Stoddard, being a selectman thirteen years, and died at eighty-seven. Mr. Wilson is also in the eighth generation from Thomas Gould, of Charlestown, there settled before 1640. Ile was pastor of the first Baptist church in the colony. On the maternal side Mr. Wilson is descended from a family of the so-called Scotch- Irish settlers of Londonderry, N.H. His early education was acquired in the district schools in Cheshire County, N. H., and at a select school for a few months in the autumn seasons for three or four years. He was graduated at Cornell Uni- versity in 1872. For a year after graduation he

E. V. WILSON.

taught school in New York State, and then entered the law office of Wheeler & Faulkner in Keene, N.H. He was admitted to the bar at Keene in

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April, 1875, and at Greenfield, Mass., in March, 1876. Ile began practice in Keene, where he re- mained until January, 1876, then was in Orange. Mass., for a few months, and thence removed to Athol, where he has been established ever since, with the exception of three months in Newport. N.Il., in the winter of 1878. From 1887 to 1893 Mr. Wilson was a member of the Athol School Committee, and a library trustee for the same years. While a member of the School Board he exerted himself to introduce modern methods into the schools, and three model buildings were erected in that time; and while on the library committee he reclassified the books, and was active in the selection of books that the institution might be helpful to the schools. He was appointed a member of the committee to consider a system of sewers for the town; was a member of the com- mittee which procured plans ; and is now chair- man of the sewer commissioners, having charge of the construction of a full system. He is a Free- mason, member of Star Lodge of which he was for three years master, of Union Royal Arch Chap- ter, two years high priest, and of AAthol Comman- dery, Knights Templar. He is also past chancellor of Corinthian Lodge No. 76, Knights of Pythias, past master workman of Artisan Lodge, Ancient Order of United Workmen, and a member of the order of the Eastern Star. In politics he is Inde- pendent ; and he has never been a candidate for any political office. Mr. Wilson was married in Cambridge, July 23, 1879, to Miss Emma M. Pollard, of Woodstock, Vt. They have no chil- dren.

YOUNG, WILLIAM HURI ANTONIO, M.D., of Springfield, was born in Lowell, September 15. 1836, son of Ilezekiah and Mahala (Dame) Young. Both parents were natives of New Hamp- shire, his father born in Gilmanton, and his mother in Meredith Bridge. Ilis grandparents on both sides were also of the Granite State, Joseph and Sarah Young having been born in Gilmanton, and James and Susan Dame in Meredith Bridge (Laconia). He was educated in the public schools of Lowell and in Gilmanton, N.H. He began the study of medicine in 1861 with Dr. James Monroe Templeton, an eminent physician and surgeon of Montpelier, Vt., and studied and practised in Montpelier and the adjoining towns for eight years. Then he went to New York, and entered the Eclectic Medical College. Graduating

there in February, 1872, he settled in Springfield the following May, and from that time to the present has been engaged in a large and success-

W. H. A. YOUNG.

ful practice there, his patients including some of the best known people of the city. He has been a member of the Massachusetts Eclectic Medical Society since January, 1881, and of the National Eclectic Medical Society since June, 1882. Dr. Young was married in Springfield, November 6, 1879, to Miss Jane M. Rice, daughter of Charles G. Rice, of that city.

ZIEGLER, ALFRED ARTHUR, of Boston, elec- trician and manufacturer, is a native of Switzer- land, born at Arbon (Lake Constance), Canton Thurgau, October 15, 1864, son of J. Jacob and Emilie (Habisreutinger) Ziegler. His grand- parents were steadfastly interested in agriculture, besides being large manufacturers of cotton and worsted goods, which were exported to Italy, Tur- key, and America, and employing about one thou- sand hands, men and women. His father was active for many years in the same business. The latter was also in public life, serving fifteen years in the Legislature in his native State, and holding

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

various offices in town and districts. In 1847 he was in the military service of Switzerland as heu- tenant. during a short war in behalf of an un-

ALFRED ARTHUR ZIEGLER.

divided confederation against the secessionistic cantons. An eye trouble prevented him from taking a higher rank than captain. Alfred .1. spent a short time in the public schools of St. Gall, Switzerland, and then coming to America with his parents after the Franco-Prussian war, in 1870, they having decided to join their rela- tives in Boston, continued his education in the Boston and Malden public schools. After finish- ing at school, he took a special course in electri- cal engineering with an expert, covering about a year and a quarter. In 1880 he began an ap- prenticeship with Charles Williams, Jr., manufact- urer of scientific apparatus, model and experi- mental work, in Boston. After a four years' training there, he worked as a journeyman for one year, and then spent some time in the South Boston Iron Works to get the benefit of handling large machinery, studying electrical engineering evenings and at other spare times, which course he continued for two years. In 1886 he entered the electric lighting business, starting, and mak- ing the first experiments, with the Schaefer Elec-

tric Manufacturing Company, on its incandescent lamps and other apparatus. A year later he re- turned to the old works of Charles Williams, who had been succeeded by Albert L. Russell, and remained there until the establishment was burned out early in 1889, and Mr. Russell retired from the manufacture of apparatus. Ile then started in business for himself in the same line, - the manufacture of fine electrical and mechanical instruments,- forming a partnership with his brother, J. Oscar Ziegler, under the firm name of Ziegler Brothers, at No. 73 Federal Street. The business was carried on successfully here for five years, the number of employees increasing from one employed at the beginning to twenty-two and at times thirty. In the spring of 1894 removal was made to new and much larger quarters, giving three times the floor space of the former place ; and the entire stock and good will of the firm of .A. P. Gage & Son, dealers chietly in physical and chemical apparatus, and for whom the Ziegler Brothers had previously manufactured the most of such apparatus, were bought out. In August following the Ziegler Electric Company was formed, and incorporated under the laws of Mas- sachusetts, with a capital of twenty-five thousand dollars ; and Mr. Ziegler was elected the president and general manager. This company, combining the entire trade of Ziegler Brothers and .A. P. Gage & Son, so extensively extended its facilities in the manufacture and sales department that it now has the finest workshops and selling depart- ment in this branch of trade in New England. It is stocked with apparatus fully to equip the highest grade of colleges, high schools, grammar or graded schools, besides other apparatus, in- cluding fire and burglar alarm, electric lighting. telephone and telegraph instruments, and also dynamos for power and hand use. The manu- facture of all apparatus called for in Professor A. P. Gage's series of text-books on Physics is one of its specialties, as well as the so-called Harvard apparatus. Its business extends all over North America, but is chiefly in the Middle and Western States of the Union. Several men are steadily employed in designing and producing new appa- ratus for the company, to keep up with the rapid development of this electrical age. Mr. Ziegler was married October 18, 1892, to Miss Magde- line Elizabeth Dorr, born and educated in Boston. They have one son : Alfred Arthur Ziegler.

PART IX.

ABBOTT, JOHN HAMMILL, M.D., of Fall River, is a native of Fall River, born August 11, 1848, son of James and Catharine ( Henry) Abbott. His father was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1813, and died in Fall River, February 17, 1875 ; and his mother was a native of Lancashire, England, born in 1810: she died in Fall River, July 15, 1893. Dr. Abbott was educated in the public schools of Rhode Island and at the Providence Conference Seminary, East Greenwich, and the Fruit Ilill Seminary, North Providence, R.I. His studies for his profession were at the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, from which he was graduated March 9, 1872. He began practice

JOHN H. ABBOTT.

immediately after his graduation in the town of Centreville, R.L., and continued there until Sep- tember, 1873, when he returned to Fall River,

where he has been established since. During the Civil War he served in the United States Signal Corps, and was honorably discharged therefrom as sergeant in July, 1865 ; and a few years later, in 1868-69, he was in the United States navy as apothecary on board the United States monitor "Saugus." Dr. Abbott is prominent in fraternal organizations, being a thirty-second degree Mason. a foremost Knight of Pythias, a member of the Odd Fellows, of the Order of Elks, and of numer- ous beneficiary orders. In the Knights of Pyth- ias, beginning as a charter member of Mt. Ver- non Lodge, No. 157, Fall River, he has passed through all the chairs, and was elected grand chancellor of Massachusetts February, 1891. He has been brigadier-general of the uniform rank of the order of this State since July 24, 1889, having been on July 24, 1893, re-elected to the command for four years. At the session of the Grand Lodge in 1895 he was elected supreme representative for four years from January, 1896. Dr. Abbott has also held prominent place in the Grand Army of the Republic. He was com- mander of Richard Borden Post, No. 46, for four successive years ; served as inspector on the staff of Department Commander Billings in 1880 ; and has been twice elected national delegate, first at Portland, Me., and the last time at Indianapolis, Ind. For three years he served as colonel and assistant quartermaster-general on the staff of Governor Oliver Ames. In politics he is a stanch Republican, always ready to give and take blows in political fights, but feeling no re- sentment after the contest toward those who were lined up against his side. He was chairman of the Fall River Republican city committee for three years, and represented the Second Bristol District on the Republican State Central Commit- tee for a similar period. He went to the National Republican Convention at Chicago as an alter- nate, and as delegate to the Minneapolis Conven- tion. In Fall River he has served in the Com-

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

mon Council as a representative for Ward One in 1877. Dr. Abbott was married April 27, 1878, to Miss Lizzie Reynolds, of St. John. Newfound- land. They have no children.

ADAMS, REV. WILLIAM WISNER, of Fall River, pastor of the First Congregational Church for up- ward of thirty years, is a native of Ohio, born in Painesville, August 15, 1831, son of the Rev. Will- iam Murphy Adams, a Presbyterian elergyman, and Sophia Cooley (Farnsworth) Adams. He is remotely connected with the presidential family. His early education was acquired in Illinois from September, 1837, to August, 1851. He attended private school in Rockton, Winnebago County, through 1841-44 (there were no public schools of any account there at that time), and, while liv- ing in Chicago, 1845-51, attended an academy for two terms. Most of his fitting for college was by private study in an office, after nine o'clock P.M., when his day's work was done. He entered Williams College, and graduated in 1855, having the " metaphysical oration " at Commencement.

WM. W. ADAMS.

Eighteen years after, in 1873, he received the degree of D.D). from his alma mater. After grad- uation from the college he took the regular course

of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City, from 1855 to 1858. He was licensed to preach by the Presbytery of Chicago in the sum- mer of 1858. He first preached in Burlington, la., for about six months in 1858-59, to a newly organized Presbyterian church, which died of financial debility soon after he left it. The only man of any means who was member of the church was the late Hon. John M. Corse, then a book- seller, general in the federal army during the Civil War (the hero of Allatoona) and still later post- master of Boston. Mr. Corse loaned Mr. Adams money enough comfortably to fit up a large room in a business block for his "study." Some months after he was obliged to sell the furnishings of the room at auction in order to pay his bills and get back to the home of his brother-in-law in Chicago (who had been his foster-father). The loan from Mr. Corse was paid some time after. From April I to December 1, 1859, Mr. Adams was preaching for little or nothing in the way of pay. Then an opening appeared, and he became a Congregational home missionary at Como, Whitesides County, Ill. In this occupation he spent a pleasant and profitable year, from Decem- ber. 1859, to December, 1860. On the 26th of January, 1860, he was ordained at Como by a Congregational council, composed of representa- tives of four different denominations. From the ist of January, 1861, to the ist of April, 1863, he was acting pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Beloit, Wis., and while there was also for a few months acting professor of German in Beloit College. On the Sth of November, 1863, he preached a second Sunday as a " candidate " in the First Congregational Church, Fall River; and he has been in the service of that church from that day to this. He was not installed, however, until September 14, 1864. From the beginning of July, 1881, to September, 1882, the church gave him leave of absence for a foreign tour, paying all his expenses and supplying his pulpit meanwhile. During his journeyings he visited England, Switzer- land, Germany, Italy, Egypt, Syria, Constantinople, Greece, and spent a little time in other countries. In 1875 he was elected professor of homiletics in the Hartford Theological Seminary, but a precari- ous condition of his health at that time forbade him to undertake work which would require con- stant application. He was afterward asked to consider the professorship of theology in the same institution, but was not elected because he was

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

too "advanced." Dr. Adams has written some magazine articles,- chiefly for the Andover Re- vieze,-and has had quite a number of sermons published. He has been closely a stayer at home, and by taste as well as necessity a student. The only club he has ever been a member of is the Congregational Club of Fall River, of which he was the first president. Dr. Adams was married October 18, 1864, to Miss Mary Augusta Cooper. of Beloit, Wis. They had no children. Mrs. Adams died, after a lingering and painful disease. September 2, 1891.

ADAMS, ZABDIEL BOYLSTON, M.D., of Fram- ingham, is a native of Boston, born October 25, 1829, son of Zabdiel Boylston and Sarah May ( Holland) Adams. He is a direct descendant of Henry Adams, settled in Wollaston 1620-30. Henry's youngest son Joseph had a son Joseph, Jr., who married for his second wife Hannah Bass. Of their children. John, the fourth child, married Susannah Boylston, and Ebenezer, the youngest, married Annie Boylston, both nieces of Dr. Zabdiel Boylston. John and Susannah were parents of John Adams, President of the United States. Colonel Ebenezer Adams was the great- great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Dr. Adams's maternal grandmother was Sarah May, daughter of Samuel May and Abigail Will- iams (descendants of John May, of Mayfield, Sus- sex, in Roxbury in 1640), parents of Colonel John and Colonel Joseph May and of Samuel May, of Boston. Dr. Adams attended the Boston public schools, receiving a Franklin medal at the Boylston School, and also at the Public Latin school : matriculated and spent three years at Harvard, 1846-48; graduated at Bowdoin in 1849. He studied medicine in the Tremont Medical School and at Harvard Medical School, and was further trained for his profession by experience in the hospital at Deer Island. After taking his degree of M. D). at the Harvard Medical School in 1853. he went abroad, and studied some time in Paris. Upon his return he became assistant physician in the Taunton Insane Hospital, and afterward set- tled in Boston on the death of his father in Janu- ary, 1855, and was attached to the Boston Dis- pensary. He removed to Roxbury after the Civil War, and settled in Framingham two years later. where he has since been prominently engaged in practice. During the war Dr. Adams served in

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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 93

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