USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 50
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What he has done for Boston can hardly be summed up in a few words or partie_ ularized in any special manner, since one of the leading aims of his life has always been to advance her interests. He was early a director in the Boston and Albany Railroad, where his ripe judgment and eminent business qualifications were utilized to advance the interests of the road and of Boston. He was also largely instrumental in securing the regular visits of the European steamers to this port, and in numer- ons ways used his utmost influence to promote Boston's welfare. During the dark- est days of the war Mr. Blake never lost courage, but remained firm in his conviction and hope that the Union would be preserved intact, and he was in those trying times ever self-sacrificing, patriotic and generous in upholding the cause he believed in so thoroughly.
Mr. Blake was a man of the strictest integrity, was upright in all of his dealings with men of all classes, and gentlemen who have dealt with and associated with him more or less for a quarter of a century, or more, speak in the highest terms of his capacity and fidelity to principle, fairness and justness.
Boston has certainly lost in Mr. Blake one of her most positive, self-reliant and enterprising business men-one who achieved where many others failed, and one whose integrity, industry and perseverance may well be copied by the younger men of the city who are coming into the places he and others like him are vacating as the weeks, months, and years pass on.
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SAMUEL CROCKER COBB.
SAMUEL CROCKER COBB was a descendant in the fifth generation from Austin (or Augustine) Cobb, who first appears as a resident of Taun- ton, Mass., in 1640, and who received a deed of his farm in that town from John Cobb, his cousin, August 13, 16:9. General David Cobb, the great-grandson of Augustine, was born in Attleborough, Mass., September 14, 1:48, and died in Taunton, April 14, 1830. He was a man of varied accomplishments, and played a conspicuous part during and following the period of the Revolutionary War. After graduating from Harvard College in the class of 1266, he studied medicine under Dr. Nathaniel Perkins in Boston, and was practicing his profession in Taunton when called upon to serve with Robert Treat Paine, his brother-in-law, in the Provincial Congress, so called, which held its first meeting in Salem, October 5, 164. In 1625 he appears as a member of the Committee of Inspection and Correspondence for Taunton. Dur- ing a part of the year 1666 his name is borne upon the rolls of Col. Thomas Marshall's regiment as " Surgeon." In January, 1866, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in the Sixteenth Regiment, and later was assigned to duty on General Washington's staff. He was a gallant and meritorious officer; and at the close of the war his services were rewarded by a grant of land and the brevet rank of brigadier-general. As soon as he was relieved from military service, he was appointed (June 2, 1784) by Governor Hancock to be special justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Bristol county; and in the following year (Janu- ary 28, 1685) he was commissioned as one of the standing justices of that court. In December, 1:85, he was chosen by the Legislature to be major-general of the Fifth Division of the Massachusetts Militia. It was while holding these positions of judge and general that he won something more than a local reputation, by his firmness in checking the riotous demonstrations against the law courts of the Commonwealth in the autumn of 1286.
General Cobb's subsequent career in the public service has been described elsewhere, and does not call for extended notice here. He was speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for four years (1:89-1792); member of the Third Congress of the United States (December 2, 1193, to March 3, 1195); president of the State Senate four years (1801-1804); member of the Executive Council eight years (1805, 1808, 1812-1811); lieutenant-governor of the Commonwealth,
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1809; chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Hancock county, District of Maine, from June 14, 1803, till 1809. He removed from Taunton to Gouldsborough, Me., in 1795, having been appointed agent of the " Bingham Purchase." In 1799 he was appointed agent of the proprietors of Gouldsborough. His own grant of land for military service was in Sullivan, Me. In 1821 he returned to Tannton, where he spent the remainder of his life-a kind-hearted but somewhat chol- eric old gentleman, who did much to promote the educational and religious interests of his townsmen, and made it unpleasant for those who did not walk in the path which he appointed He received the honorary degree of A. M. from New Jersey College in 1483, and from Brown University in 1790; was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was vice-president in 1810.
General Cobb married in 1766 Eleanor Bradish, and had six sons and five daughters. The youngest son (born Jannary 14, 1190; died Feb- ruary 27, 1832) was named George Washington; but after the death of his brother David, who was killed by the Indians on the northwest coast, October 24, 1794, he took the name of David George Washing- ton. He was educated as a lawyer. In 1810 he was chosen to repre- sent the town in the General Conrt, and in the following year was appointed register of probate for Bristol county. He held that office until his death in 1832. He married Abby, daughter of Hon. Samuel Crocker, of Taunton, and had two sons and two daughters.
The subject of this sketch, Samuel Crocker Cobb, was the second son, and was born in Taunton, May 22, 1826. Among other private schools which he attended in his early youth was the one kept by Rev. E. M. P. Wells, in South Boston. His stay there was brief and un- satisfactory. He was then sent to the Bristol Academy, in Taunton, of which his grandfather, General Cobb, was the founder in 1792. He was fitted for college there, and expected to enter Harvard College in 1842; but much to his regret then, and indeed throughout his life, he was obliged to give up his studies and begin earning his own living. On September 19, 1842, being then only a little over sixteen years of age, he became a clerk in the service of Messrs. A. & C. Cunningham, foreign shipping merchants, at No. 15 Rowe's Wharf in Boston. On April 2%, 1847, he formed a business connection with a former clerk- mate, J. Henry Cunningham, under the firm name of Cunningham & Cobb, and took an office in a brick building, then new, opposite the
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head of Rowe's Wharf, 169 Broad street. Their place of business was subsequently removed to 16 Rowe's Wharf. On July 1, 1848, Charles W. Cunningham, an older brother of Henry, was admitted as partner, and the firm name was changed to Cunninghams & Cobb.
On November 21, 1848, he married (at Belfast, Me.) Aurelia L. Beattie, of East Thomaston, Me., third daughter of William and Jane 1). Beattie of that town.
The firm of Cunninghams & Cobb was dissolved in 1850, when the house of A. Cunningham & Sons was formed. Mr. Cobb then made arrangements to go to the East Indies and remain there as the agent of Weld & Baker; but on the eve of sailing he had some difficulty with his principals, and withdrew from their service.
In 1851 he formed a partnership with Mr. Josiah Wheelwright for the prosecution of a foreign shipping and commission business. The firm ocenpied the store No. 4 Central Wharf. This connection continued till Angust, 1858, when the firm was by mutual consent dissolved, Mr. Wheelwright retiring from active business.
From 1858 until 1878 Mr. Cobb carried on business alone and in his own name, first on Central Wharf, afterward at No. 3 Merchants' Row, and later in the New England Mutual Life Insurance Building on Milk street.
During the twenty years he was alone in business he was engaged principally in the Sicily trade, and with the Cape de Verde Islands and Northwest Coast of Africa (Senegal and Gambia); but to some extent prosecuted the Brazil trade (Pernambuco and Bahia), and also that of Russia and Malaga.
From 1860 to 1842 Mr. Cobb gave considerable time to the public service, often at the expense of his private interests. He was origi- nally a member of the Whig party, and voted for the candidates of that party as long as it existed in sufficient strength to make nominations. Ile never felt at home in any other party. After 1860 he generally acted with the Democratic organizations on State and national ques- tions; but on questions of local government he refused to be bound by any party caucus or convention. He was essentially a business man, and held and expressed very decided opinions on the absurdity of bring- ing national party politics to bear in the determination of questions relating to roadways, sewers, water-supply, and local police. In his public speeches and addresses he lost no opportunity of trying to im- press the voters with the fact that in the management of the affairs of
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municipal corporations the same rules should apply as in the manage- ment of large business corporations, and that the introduction of party tests which have no relation to local affairs has done much to corrupt the service and bring our system of local government into disrepute.
In 1860 Mr. Cobb was elected a member of the Roxbury Board of Alderman, and served for two years with credit to himself and his con- stituents. He was then called to Europe on business connected with his shipping interests, which had been seriously affected by the war. On the annexation of Roxbury to Boston, in 186%, he was elected to the Boston Board of Aldermen. At that time the members of the board were voted for on a general ticket, and it is a striking evidence of the estimation in which he was held by his neighbors, and of the position he then occupied as one of the leading merchants of Boston, that he was chosen by a nearly unanimous vote. The charter under which the city was then ruled provided that the executive powers of the government should be exercised by the Board of Aldermen ; but the Common Council had usurped a large share of the executive functions by having a stronger numerical representation upon joint committees which practically controlled many of the departments. Mr. Cobb was one of the first to see the weakness of the existing system and to urge a greater concentration of power and responsibility. lle found that the duties of the aldermanie office demanded the larger part of his time, and that the results of his labor were far from satisfactory. For these reasons he declined a re-election. But in the following year he accepted a position on the Board of Public Institutions, where his firm- ness of purpose and business ability were brought to bear with practi- cal results which the average citizen could well appreciate. A very determined effort was being made to commit the city to the building and maintenance of a great institution for the insane on a lot of land which the best expert opinion had condemned as unsuitable. Mr. Cobb took the ground that it was the duty of the State to provide such insti- tutions; and that, in any case, the site selected and the plans submitted were defective and ought not to be approved. During his service of about four years and a half on the board he introduced some reforms in the purchase of supplies and in the business management of the institutions which were of lasting value.
On November 11, 1873, at a meeting of the citizens of Boston, which included prominent members of the two leading political parties, Mr. Cobb was unanimously nominated for the office of mayor. The city
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committees of the Democratic and Republican parties also nominated him at a later day; and on the day of election he received 19, 191 votes, while his only opponent, a Prohibitionist, received 568. Although the local politicians had no liking for him, the popular demand for his re- election in the following year was so strong that the leaders of the two parties felt obliged to nominate him again, and he was chosen for a second term by a nearly unanimous vote. In 1825 the party leaders made a desperate effort to get possession of the office, and with that view succeeded in getting both the Democratic and Republican city committees to unite on another candidate. Mr. Cobb had stated that he should not be a candidate for a third term, but a paper asking him to serve another year received the signatures of some two thousand prominent citizens, and he did not feel at liberty to decline such a call. A spirited contest followed, resulting in the election of Mr. Cobb by a plurality of 2,544 votes. lle states in his journal that he did not con- tribute, nor was he solicited to contribute any money, directly or in- directly, towards the expenses of his election.
At the time Mr. Cobb was placed at the head of the government the population of the city had reached a point which made a change in the methods of administration almost as imperative as it was when the representative system was substituted for the popular assembly. The annexation of Charlestown, West Roxbury and Brighton had nearly doubled the municipal area, and had added about 44,000 inhabitants. The first city charter was drawn on lines as close to the town-meeting system as the representative plan would allow. The revision of 1854, necessitated to some extent by the amendments to the State Constitu- tion, tended to weaken what indeed had most need of strengthening- the executive power and responsibility of the chief executive. Hon. Henry L. Pierce, who had preceded Mr. Cobb in the office of mayor. had been so impressed with the inefficiency of the old system that he had recommended the appointment of a commission to revise the charter. The recommendation was adopted by the City Council, and the commission appointed in the latter part of 1813.
The two branches of the City Council were unable to agree either upon the charter recommended by the commission or upon any modi- fication of it ; but some of its provisions were subsequently incorporated into special laws relating to the city. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the plan of government submitted by the commission was not adopted as a whole. It was too elaborate; it provided for too many heads of
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departments, and it undertook to limit and define their duties so closely that there was no room left for discretion, and no inducement to take the initiative in any new work. The need of a strong and responsible exceutive was not so generally recognized then as it was at a later day. It was necessary that the inefficiency and wastefulness of the old sys- tem should be brought out more clearly before anything like an ade- quate remedy could be applied. Mr. Cobb and others, who heartily supported the plan as reported, did not regard it as a measure good for all time, but simply as a step-and at that time it was looked upon as a long step-in the direction of separating and defining the powers of government and securing a better system of accountability. Ten years later Mr. Cobb, as chairman of a commission appointed by the mayor, recommended a plan which went much further in the direction of strengthening the power of the chief executive and curtailing the powers of the legislative department; and public opinion had so far changed in the mean time that the leading propositions were adopted without serious opposition, and incorporated into the act under which the city is now governed.
A number of important acts affecting the future welfare of the city were adopted during Mr. Cobb's administration. In his first message to the City Council, January 5, 1874, he said :
1 am decidedly in favor of the establishment of several public squares in different sections of the city, to be connected together if practicable, and which shall be easily accessible to the people ; and I believe this to be a suitable time to decide on some definite plan, with a view to proceeding with the work at an early day The first outlay, though distributed over several years, will no doubt be large, but the experi- ence of other cities can be cited to show that, as a business transaction, aside from the sanitary benefits, it would be a financial success.
Upon this recommendation a petition was sent to the General Court, and in the following year an act was passed which authorized the es- tablishment of the present system of public parks.
It was also upon his recommendation that the important department of water supply was transferred from the unpaid and inefficient board (composed of members of the City Council and of citizens at large elected by the City Council) to a commission of three persons selected by the mayor and paid for their services.
During the second year of his administration, and largely perhaps through his influence, an act was passed to regulate and limit munic- ipal indebtedness. This enabled him to introduce what he tersely
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described as " the pay-as-you-go policy,"- that is, to raise sufficient money by taxation annually to pay all expenses except those incurred for the enlargement of the water works, for which a separate tax is levied. What he was able to do in that direction gave him more satis- faction as a business man than all the rest of his work in the mayor's office.
At the conclusion of his three years' service he was able to say that the tax levy had been reduced $2, 115,098; and that the rate of taxation had been reduced from $15.60 on a thousand dollars to $12.20, not- withstanding the fact that the valuation of real and personal property had been reduced in the mean time by the amount of $49, 8;6,950.
Soon after retiring from the mayor's office, Mr. Cobb went to Europe, where he spent some months in traveling. On his return he was chosen (September 1, 18:1) president of the Revere National Bank, to succeed the Hon. Samuel H. Walley, who had recently deceased. Much to the regret of the directors of the bank, he resigned the presidency on March 30, 1848, to accept the position of actuary in the Massachu- setts Hospital Life Insurance Company, formerly held by the Hon. George Tyler Bigelow. Of his services in this office-which is one of much dignity and responsibility, but by no means one of ease in these days of accumulated capital competing for investment-the Board of Control placed on their records, after his death, the following state- ment :
During the thirteen years that Mr. Cobb was connected with the company he con- (lucted its affairs with ability, prudence and skill; with conscientious fidelity to the duties of his responsible position, and entire devotion to the administration of the trust contided to him. His high manly character, his sagacity and publie spirit, his genial temper, generous disposition, and courteous bearing, united to win the love and esteem of all who were associated with him, while throughout the community he was recognized and honored as a loyal, far-seeing, influential, and useful citizen.
Mr. Cobb well illustrated the saying that it is the busy man who finds time for everything. His intimate and peculiar knowledge of commercial affairs and of the financial standing of his business contem- poraries led to a constant demand for his services in positions of public and private trust, and on boards of arbitration selected by the courts or by the parties in interest. He gave much time, and often to the injury of his health, in aid of the various charitable, religions and educational institutions to which he belonged. He had a keen sense of his respon- sibility in every position in which he happened to be placed. The
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Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, of which at the time of his death he was president, placed on record the statement that "his services to the society as an officer for more than twenty-five years, and as a member of its standing committee since 1861, is a history of con- stant and disinterested devotion. None took a higher pride in its membership than he; none watched more constantly over the main- tenance of its traditions and usages; none guarded it more jealously against any tendencies toward the destruction of ancient and useful landmarks."
Mr. Cobb was for some years an active and influential member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Technology. He was also one of the directors of the Old Colony Railroad Company, a trustee of the Bay State Trust Company, and of the Forest Hills Cemetery; chairman of the commission to select a site and build the Danvers Hospital for the Insane, and treasurer of the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians.
1Te was often called upon to speak in public as the representative of the city or of some organization of which he was a member, and al- though without either special training or natural aptitude for such service, he acquitted himself well. On occasions for which he was able to make some preparation beforehand, the matter and form of his ad- dresses were excellent. His address of welcome to the city's guests at the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill (June 16, 1845), his oration on the centennial anniversary of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati (July 4, 1883), and his speech at the banquet of the General Society of the Cincinnati in Baltimore (May, 1890) con- tain matter of historical value.
During the greater part of his business life Mr. Cobb lived on High- land street in Roxbury, having for his next-door neighbor Rev. George Putnam, D. D., of whose church he was long one of the most active and valued members. In 18;8 he removed to Boylston street in Boston, and subsequently became a member of the First Church, Berkeley street.
Until middle life he was a man of more than ordinarily strong and vigorous constitution. In 1840 he had a serious illness, growing out of his arduous services in the Board of Aldermen in addition to his large private business. He never fully recovered his former vigor, although outwardly he showed no signs of impaired health until the spring of 1890. He was then suffering intense pain from an internal disease, but
Albert A. Pope.
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continued to perform his usual amount of work until the peremptory orders of his physician obliged him to desist. The nature and extent of his illness were not fully known until near the end. After many weeks of suffering, which he bore with admirable courage, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust, " he passed away peacefully and apparently without pain on February 18, 1891. He was buried at Forest Ilills Cemetery.
Mr. Cobb's character was not one that calls for elaborate analysis. He was a thoroughly healthy-minded man, to whom life was sweet. He possessed a singularly frank and open nature, and was candid and direct in motive and purpose. He had a good knowledge of character and sound business instincts. Ilis mental and physical courage were equal to any emergency: and his promptness in action, and contempt for anything like trifling or a want of resolution, showed that he had inherited the prominent traits which history and tradition had assigned to his paternal grandfather.
At a very early age he began to keep a diary, in which he noted, at first in the briefest form, his own doings from day to day. Later he introduced some comments on those with whom he came in contact, and on the principal events of the times. He also kept in addition, during the latter years of his life, a journal, in which he gave biograph- ical notices of his contemporaries and some account of the affairs in which he took part or in which he felt a special interest. The value of the work is somewhat impaired by the form in which it was put, and by the difficulty of separating the statements made on the writer's per- sonal knowledge from those copied from the newspapers of the day. It has, however, considerable historical value, and is well worth preser- vation as a work of reference.
OSBORN HOWES.
MR. OSBORN Howis is one of the few living representatives of a class of men who during several generations gave to Boston the greater part of its prominence as a business center. From a period antedating the Revolution down to the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, Bos- ton was essentially a commercial city, and those of her merchants whose reputation extended beyond her borders, were in most instances en-
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gaged in the shipping business. This interest has of later years fallen to such meagre proportions that it is hard to realize that it was during the greater part of the business life of the subject of this sketch the most important factor in the mercantile affairs of this city.
Mr. Howes was born the 26th of September, 1806, in the town of Dennis, on Cape Cod, where the first American progenitor of the family had settled in 1639. The latter, Mr. Thomas Howes, was a cadet member of a family that owned an estate at Besthrope, Norfolk coun- ty, England, where it had established itself in 1157, being at that time a migrating branch of a Berkshire family, descended from John de Huse, a Norman knight, who received from William the Conqueror in 1066 the gift of a manor in the county of Berks.
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