USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 65
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Frederick D. Prince
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BIOGRAPHICAL REGISTER.
enjoyed more than the average share of success. In 1855 he established himself on a farm at Hartford, Vt., where for nine years he was engaged in breeding and rais- ing sheep. The intelligence and zeal which he there applied to this branch of agri- culture did much to invigorate the wool industry, which had suffered from the neg- ligence and ignorance which had previously characterized it. Nor did he confine himself to his acres in his efforts to elevate the farming interest. He was two years a representative from Hartford, and two years senator from the county of Windsor, and in both House and Senate he had opportunities, which he did not fail to improve, to promote the agricultural interests of the State. He was five years secretary of the Vermont State Agricultural Society, and represented the State at the international exhibition at Hamburg, Germany, in 1863. At that exhibition, as a result of his own efforts in sheep culture, he secured for Vermont sheep two first and two second prizes, which, it is said, changed the market for stock bred merino sheep from Germany to Vermont. During his residence in Hartford he was also a member of the extra ses- sion of the Senate, when the Legislature was called together to raise money and soldiers for the war. In 1864 he returned to Groton, and in that year was chosen secretary of the New England Agricultural Society, which he had aided largely to organize. In 1891 he succeeded George B. Loring as president of this society. In 1889 he was appointed by the society to visit Mexico, and aid in establishing more intimate trade relations with the United States, and in carrying out this purpose he improved the opportunities offered for a study of the condition and outlook of the Mexican republic. On his return to Massachusetts from Vermont in 1864, while re- siding in Groton, he associated himself in the practice of law in Boston with Judge David Roberts and Edmund Burke, under the firm name of Burke, Needham & Roberts. He was elected to the Massachusetts House of Representatives from the Thirty-first Middlesex District in 1867, and to the Senate from the Seventh Middlesex District in 1868-69, and was chosen by the Legislature a trustee of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, a position which he still holds. He was commissioned by Presi- dent Grant national bank examiner in 1870, and held the office fifteen years, having supervision of all the non-clearing house banks in Massachusetts, numbering at the close of his term, including some banks in New Hampshire, nearly two hundred. In this position, by his intelligence, sagacity and prudence, he did much to win for these institutions the confidence of the people. On his resignation of this office he resumed the practice of law in Boston, and enjoys the confidence of a large and increasing clientage. The literary productions of Colonel Needham have been chiefly confined to public addresses upon various subjects, some thirty or more of which have had a wide newspaper circulation and been issued in pamphlet form. His address upon the national banks, delivered before the National Banking Association at Saratoga, was regarded as the best text book which had ever been issued upon the history and working of the national bank system. Many others of his addresses have been pub- lished in book form and have commanded attention. He married, July 17, 1842, at Groton, Caroline Augusta, daughter of Benjamin and Caroline (Bancroft) Hall, of Boston, who died January 30, 1878. He again married, October 6, 1880, Ellen M., daughter of George D. and Mary J. (Kilburn) Brigham, of Groton. His oldest son, William C. H. Needham, born in 1846, after graduating at the Norwich University, studied medicine at the Harvard Medical School and at the Jefferson Me:lical College in Philadelphia, settled in Gallipolis, O., and while enjoying a large practice was ap-
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pointed the city physician. In 1881 he was chosen State senator, and died while in commission at Columbus, January 11, 1882. A daughter, Effic M. F., the second of the two children of the first wife, born in 1851, married Harris C. Hartwell, a lawyer of Fitchburg, and president of the State Senate, who died in 1890. The children of the second wife are Marion B., Elice E., and Daniel Needham.
LORENZO S. FAIRBANKS, son of Joel and Abigail (Tufts) Fairbanks, was born in Pepperell, Mass., March 16, 1825, and belongs to one of the oldest and most respected families in the State. He is a descendant in the eighth generation from Jonathan Fairbanks, who came from Yorkshire, England, about the year 1633, and in 1636 set- tled in Dedham, Mass. The house which Jonathan Fairbanks built in Dedham is still standing, and is one of the oldest houses in New England. John Fairbanks, the fifth in descent from Jonathan and great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was born in that honse. Joel Fairbanks, the father of Lorenzo, was born in Dedham in 1797, and married Abigail, daughter of Ebenezer Tufts, of Roxbury, N. H., in 1822. Soon after his marriage he moved to Pepperell. In May, 1825, he re- moved to New Boston, N. H., and made that place his permanent residence. Here Lorenzo had a happy home, and though his father was in the enjoyment of moderate prosperity, he nevertheless learned what it was to toil, to face difficulties and fight his own way in the world. Fortunately his lot was cast among a people always dis- tinguished for their high standard of morality, their religious zeal, and their devotion to the interests of education. His father was a man of sterling character, honest and industrious, liberal in his religious views, unostentatious but level-headed and conservative in action. His mother was a woman of intellectual mold, of great en- ergy and executive ability, and strongly puritanical m her ideas. His father, who carried on the business of a cabinet-maker combined with the manufacture of doors, blinds, window sashes, clock cases, etc., could well afford to surround himself and family with the comforts of life, but a higher education for his children than that which the common schools could furnish was not within his means. Only one among them, the subject of this sketch, aspired to the honors and advantages of a liberal education. He had at an early age, as a pupil in the district school, attracted atten- tion as a scholar, and was stimulated to push on to higher attainments. No less than six of his schoolmates were destined for college, and his ambition naturally led in the same direction. But he knew that if he undertook to obtain a collegiate education he would have to pay his own expenses. Not in despair, but in hope, he for a time abandoned his books, and, entering a store as clerk, spent three years acquiring means for beginning a course of study, more in the way of experience than of money, for he had only a small salary. The practical lessons he received were the basis of his future success, and have always been valuable to him in the business of life.
He finally began preparation for college at Hancock Academy, then went to Town- send, Vt., and afterward to Black River Academy, Ludlow, Vt., where he completed the course of study requisite for admission to the freshman college class. By earnest effort and indefatigable study at home without the aid of a teacher, he mastered the curriculum of the freshman year, and entered the sophomore class at Dartmouth in the autumn of 1849, passing his examination without conditions and graduating in 1852 with high rank. During his college course he enjoyed the highest honors of his class. He was chosen a member of the Alpha Delta Phi Society, and was elected as its president. Ile was also elected president of the Social Friends, a public literary
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society, and at graduation was admitted to the Phi Beta Kappa Society. At com- mencement he was selected to deliver the closing oration, corresponding to the usual valedictory address, although, according to the system then in vogue, there was, strictly speaking, no valedictory.
Mr. Fairbanks studied law in New York city, and was admitted to the bar there in the fall of 1853. He began practice in New York, and during the first two years he was retained in several important cases, among them the celebrated Chemical Bank forgery cases, and the so-called Martha Washington false pretence case, which arose out of the burning of the steamer Martha Washington on the Mississippi River. In the latter case certain persons had been indicted and tried and acquitted as conspira- tors to burn the steamer, and were indicted afterwards in New York for obtaining money by false pretences of several insurance companies on pretended shipments of merchandise on the steamer, it being alleged that no goods were in fact shipped and that the steamer was burned to obtain the insurance. Mr. Fairbanks was counsel for eleven of the twelve defendants, and succeeded in having the indictments quashed. In the forgery cases he was junior counsel, and the legal proceedings they involved were almost a complete epitome of criminal practice. After practicing in New York three or four years, Mr. Fairbanks decided to go west, but the financial condition of the country rendered the time inopportune, and he went to Philadelphia to take charge of a commercial school, which, contrary to representations made to him, proved to be in debt and in a languishing condition. With his accustomed zeal and energy he applied himself so successfully to his work that in six months the school was relieved from debt, and at the end of three years, during which he had been much of the time a partner in the enterprise, it was established on a prosperous and ' permanent foundation. At the expiration of the partnership he established a com- mercial school of his own, and for a period of five years had with one exception the largest school of the kind in the country. During this period he published an elab- orate treatise on book-keeping, which, after the lapse of a quarter of a century, is still on the market and is regarded as the highest authority. He also published a work on commercial arithmetic embodying new and important features, which had for a time a large sale. In 1874 Mr. Fairbanks came to Boston and resumed the prac- tice of law. In 1877 he published a work on the Marriage and Divorce Laws of Mas- sachusetts, which proved so acceptable to the profession that a second edition was is- sued in 1881.
His practice has been general, not confined to any specialty. He is regarded as a careful practitioner and a safe counsellor. He aims to promote settlements of dis- putes between parties rather than to encourage costly and useless litigation. In causes that he has tried he has been eminently successful. He has marked literary tastes, with a decided fondness for scientific subjects. He has devoted much time, aside from the practice of his profession, to the study of electrical science, and is the inventor of several telephones and of other electrical appliances, for the manufacture and sale of which he some years ago organized a company. But the decision of the United States Supreme Court that the Bell Patent covered the "art of telephony," caused the suspension of the operations of this company, to await the expiration of the fundamental patents. They are soon to be resumed. He married in New York, in 1856, Sarah Elizabeth Skelton, and lives in Boston.
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HISTORY OF THE BENCH AND BAR.
HARVEY HUNTER PRATT, son of Henry Jones and Maria J. (Hunter) Pratt, was born in Philadelphia, February 24, 1860. He was educated in the public schools of Abing- ton, Mass., and in 1879 was the editor and publisher of the Abington News. After studying law in the office of Keith & Simmons in Abington and at the Harvard Law School, he was admitted to the Plymouth county bar at Plymouth in June, 1883. While a student he was the candidate in 1881 of the Democratic party for register of deeds of Plymouth county. On his admission to the bar he became associated in business with John F. Simmons, under the firm name of Simmons & Pratt, with of- fices in Abington and Boston. In 1886 he was the Democratic candidate for the State Senate, but was defeated by the customary large Republican majority of his district. In 1887 he was the editor of the Brockton . Idvance and in 1888 and 1889 was a mem- ber of the House of Representatives, serving on the Judiciary Committee. In the im- portant debates of the House he took a prominent part, and his alertness in seizing on the salient points of questions under discussion, and his skill and readiness of speech in presenting them, always commanded attention and respect. In 1887 he was the assistant of Hosea Kingman, the district attorney for the Southeastern Dis- trict, and in 1889 was the unsuccessful candidate of the Democratic party for the of- fice of attorney, which had been vacated by the resignation of Mr. Kingman, who had been appointed a member of the Metropolitan Sewage Commission. In 1890 he was chosen district attorney and served until the present year, administering the duties of his office with the entire approval of the bench and bar and his general con- stituency. The course of Mr. Pratt thus far has been marked by an energy so per- sistent, by legal acquirements so sound, and by an ambition to advance himself in his profession so earnest and yet laudable, that it is safe to predict for him a success- ful and honorable career. His residence is in Abington.
CHARLES JOHNSON NOVES, son of Johnson and Sally (Brickett) Noyes, was born in Haverhill, Mass., August 7, 1841. His earliest American ancestor was Rev. James Noyes, who settled in Newbury, Mass., in 1635. His grandfather, Parker Noyes, was born in Haverhill, September 25, 1777, and married Mary Fifield, a native of Hop- kinton, N. H. Ilis father, Johnson Noyes, was born in Canaan, N. H., January 23, 1808, and moved to Haverhill, where he was married, October 10, 1833, and continued to do business as a trader and manufacturer until his death. Of his four children the subject of this sketch is the only one now living. Of him, the only son, these few lines are written. He attended the public schools of Haverhill, and graduated at the Haverhill Academy in 1860. In that year he entered Antioch College at Yellow Springs, O., where he remained until his junior year, when he entered Union College at Schenectady, and graduated in 1864. While in college he began the study of law in the office of Judge Johnson in Schenectady, and after leaving college entered the office of John E. Risley, jr., in Providence, R. I., and was admitted to the Massachu- setts bar in Cambridge in 1864. He began practice in both Boston and Haverhill, but soon devoted himself exclusively to his office in Haverhill, abandoning that in Boston. In 1865 he was chosen representative from Haverhill, and served during the session of 1866 as a member of the Judiciary Committee and the Committee on the License Law. He was then twenty-five years of age. He had, however, at an early age entered the field of politics. During the presidential campaign of 1864 he was president of the Lincoln Club of Haverhill, an l on the assassination of the presi- dent in the spring of the following year, he was selected to deliver the memorial ora-
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tion before the Haverhill city authorities. In November, 1866, he was chosen a mem- ber of the State Senate from the Third Essex District in a triangular contest, in which George S. Merrill, of Lawrence, and Moses F. Stevens, of Andover, were his competitors. In 1872 he removed to Boston, and has since that time made the Suf- folk bar the arena for his professional labors. He was not permitted, however, to desert the political field. In 1876 he was chosen a member of the House of Repre- sentatives from the Fourteenth Suffolk District, and rechosen in 1877-1818-1879-1880 and 1881. During the last three sessions he was the speaker of the House, and the writer, who had frequent opportunities of watching the performance of his duties, was impressed by the ease, dignity, and parliamentary skill exhibited by him in the chair. In 1886 and 1887 he was again chosen representative, and in the session of 1887 and 1888 he was again chosen speaker of the House. The writer believes that since the adoption of the constitution only three speakers have occupied the chair as long as Mr. Noyes. Edward H. Robbins was speaker from 1793 to 1802; Timothy Bigelow in 1805-1808-1809-1810, and from 1812 to 1820; and William B. Calhoun from 1828 to 1834. Mr. Noyes was some years since appointed special justice of the Municipal Court for the South Boston District, and still holds that office. He is an active mem- ber of the Masonic Fraternity, connected with the Adelphi Lodge and one of its past masters; the St. Matthew's Royal Arch Chapter; the St. Omer Commandery Knights Templar, and one of its past commanders; the Lafayette Lodge of Perfection; the Giles F. Yates Council, Princes of Jerusalem; the Mount Olivet Chapter Rose Croix ; and the Massachusetts Consistory. He is also a member of the Order of Odd Fel- lows, having passed the chairs of the subordinate lodge and the encampment, is past grand and past chief patriarch, and has served on the Grand Board of the Grand Encampment. He has been also a member of the National Lancers, and of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He married in 1864 in Providence, R. I., Emily, daughter of Col. Jacob C. Wells, a merchant in Cincinnati, O., and has his residence in South Boston.
THOMAS J. GARGAN, Son of Patrick and Rose Gargan, who came from Ireland to Boston in 1825, was born in Boston, October 27, 1844, and was educated at the Bos- ton public schools and under the instruction of Rev. Peter Krose. He studied law at the Boston University Law School, from which he graduated in 1873, and after a further study in the office of Henry W. Paine in Boston, he was admitted to the Suf- folk bar in May, 1875. Before entering on the study of law he was employed for a time as a clerk in the dry goods house of Wilkinson, Stetson & Company, but his business career was interrupted by the war. In 1863 he was commissioned second lieutenant in Company C, Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, and served until his discharge at the termination of his term of service. After his admission to the bar he began practice in Boston and has won a high position in the ranks of the Suffolk bar. In 1868-1870 and 1876 he was a member of the Massachusetts House of Repre- sentatives, and in 1872 a delegate-at-large to the National Democratic Convention in Baltimore. In 1873 and 1874 he was president of the Charitable Irish Society, and in 1875 a member of the Board of Overseers of the Poor of the city of Boston. In 1877 and 1878 he was chairman of the Board of License Commissioners, and in 1880 and 1881 he was a member of the Boston Board of Police. In 1885 he delivered the annual oration before the Boston city authorities on the Fourth of July, and in 1886
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the oration at the centennial celebration of the Charitable Irish Society of Halifax, Nova Scotia. Mr. Gargan is always prominent in every movement to elevate and refine the race from which he sprang and upon whose moral and intellectual educa- tion so much of the maintenance in their purity and strength of our Republican insti- tutions depends. Though bearing Irish blood in his veins, the free air of New England has impregnated it with a true American spirit, and no descendant of Pil- grim or Puritan can boast of a loftier or more devoted patriotism. He is a brilliant and forcible speaker and as a manager of cases in court, skillful, sagacious and full of resource. Among the important cases in which he has been engaged may be mentioned the suit against Archbishop Williams, in the Lawrence Church cases, so called, involving the question of title to the Roman Catholic Church property in Mas- sachusetts. He married in Boston in September, 1868, Catherine L., daughter of Lawrence and Catherine McGrath, and lives in Boston.
WILLIAM EDWARD LOVELL DILLAWAY, son of William Stoughton and Ann Maria (Brown) Dillaway, was born in Boston, February 17, 1852. He was educated at the Boston public schools and under the care of a private tutor. He graduated at the Harvard Law School in 1871 with the degree of LL. B., and after further study in the office of Ranney & Morse in Boston, he was admitted to the bar February 17, 1873. After his admission to the bar he was associated for a time with Ranney & Morse, and afterwards with Charles T. Gallagher, with whom he remained until 1877. Since that date he has been engaged chiefly in corporation practice. He was counsel in matters relating to the Pacific National Bank, in the reorganization and consolidation of Boston Gas Companies, and for the West End Railway in all their legislative matters. IIc is a director in several corporations, both financial and com- mercial, and to their interests he is now largely devoted. In 1888 he was selected to deliver the Fourth of July oration before the city authorities of Boston, but aside from this his literary work has been chiefly confined to contributions to the press. He is a man of culture, possessing tastes which his travels abroad have enabled him to gratify and which his fine collection of books and works of art are the means of further instructing and elevating. He married, June 16, 1874, Gertrude St. Clair Eaton, and lives in Boston.
RAYMOND R. GIL.MAN, son of Ambrose and Eunice (Wilcox) Gilman, was born in Shelburne Falls, Mass., July 28, 1859. He was educated at the public schools and at the Shelburne Falls Academy. He studied law and graduated at the Boston Uni- versity Law School, and after further study in the office of Samuel F. Field at Shel- burne Falls, and of Frederick David Ely, of Boston, now one of the justices of the Municipal Court of the city of Boston, he was admitted to the Norfolk county bar at Dedham, September 28, 1880, at the age of twenty-one years. He began practice at Shelburne Falls, but soon removed his office to Boston, where he has advanced rapidly in reputation and business. He is an active member of the Association of Odd Fel- lows and is a member of the Grand Lodge of Massachusetts. At Melrose, where he has his home, he is a member of the Athletic and Melrose clubs and interested and zealous in every movement to promote the social, moral, educational and religions welfare of the community in which he has cast his lot. He married, June 16, 1882, at Lancaster, N. H., Katie A. Tuttle.
Thor Prodon
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BIOGRAPHICAL REGISTER.
JOSEPH O. BURDETT, son of Josephi and Sally (Mansfield) Burdett, was born in South Reading, now Wakefield, Mass., October 30, 1848. He received his early educa- tion in the public schools of his native town, and graduated from Tufts College in 1871 the second in rank in his class. While in college he was absent from his class a part of the time earning as a teacher the means to defray the expenses of his educa- tion. Among the schools in which he taught were a public school in Hingham, a public and a private school in Harvard, and an evening public school in Charlestown. He studied law in Cambridge with John W. Hammond, now a justice on the bench of the Superior Court, and at the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the Middle- sex bar at Cambridge, April 19, 1873. While a student at law he held for two years the position of discharging clerk in the employ of Warren & Company, of the War- ren line of English steamers, and in that position learned many lessons in business meth- ods which have been of service to him in his profession. After practicing a year in the office of Mr. Hammond he moved to Hingham, Mass., which place he has since that time made his residence. He at once participated with interest and zeal in every movement looking to the welfare of his adopted town. The public schools especially attracted his attention, and from almost the earliest days of his citizenship there he has been a member of the School Board, and for the larger part of the time its chairman. During the earlier part of his legal career after his removal to Hingham, his business at the courts of Plymouth county occupied much of his time, but finally his Boston practice, beginning in 1874, had so largely increased as to leave little time for professional work outside of his Boston office. In 1884 and 1885 he represented in the Legislature the Representative District composed of the towns of Hingham and Hull, serving the first year as chairman of the Committee on Public Service and the second year retaining that position and being also a member of the Judiciary Committee. The civil service law now in operation was reported by him and suc- cessfully advocated against serious and determined opposition. In 1886 he was chosen a member of the Republican State Committee, and during the three years of his service as a private in the ranks of that committee displayed so much executive ability as to be selected in 1889 as chairman. His service as chairman continued three years and was only terminated by the exigencies of his professional business which made it imperative that he should devote himself exclusively to the interests of his clients and his own advancement in the paths of law. As a business man out- side of his profession, he has the management of large interests in his hands, and among other business connections he is a director of the Rockland Hotel Company and of the Weymouth Light and Power Company. In 1874 he married Ella, daugh- ter of John K. and Joan J. Corthell, of Hingham.
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