USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume II > Part 52
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Joseph, born in 1848, who was formerly agent of the Manchester (N. H.) Mills, and of the Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Mass., who married Minnie Harris, a daughter of the well-known merchant of Boston, Horatio Harris, and now resides in Roxbury. The other two sons died in infancy.
DAVID SNOW.
DAVID SNOW, for many years prominently connected with the com- mercial and shipping interests of Boston, and later in his career an act- ive factor in financial affairs, was born in that part of Old Eastham now known as Orleans, Barnstable county, in November, 1799. He was a descendant in the sixth generation of Nicholas Snow, who came to Plymouth in the ship Ann in 1623, and had a share in the division of land at Plymouth. On the maternal side he was a descendant of Richard Higgins, of French Huguenot extraction, whose name appears among the list of freemen of Plymouth as early as 1633. Both of these American ancestors were among the seven original purchasers from the Indians of Nauset. In 1642 the settlers of Plymouth, on account of the barrenness of the soil, having become dissatisfied with their situation, a removal of the whole colony to Nauset (afterwards Eastham) was seriously contem- plated. Nauset was frequently visited up to 1643 by the Plymouth set- tlers for the purpose of procuring means of subsistence; but no effort was made until the year last named to begin a plantation at this place, which was then owned and occupied by the Indians. It was felt that it would be a more eligible situation than Plymouth, consequently the church appointed a committee of seven, composed of Thomas Prinee, John Doane, Josiah Cook, Richard Higgins, John Smalley, and Edward Bangs, to inspect this locality more fully. This committee not only purchased Nauset from the Indians, but became the first settlers of the place and were known as "the seven proprietors of Nanset." Both Nicholas Snow and Richard Higgins were men of prominence in the Plymouth Colony, they and their descendants also ocenpying various positions of trust and responsibility in the town of Nauset. Nicholas Snow was one of Governer Prince's associates, and served as deputy, town clerk and selectman of Nauset for many years. His son Mark, who married a daughter of Governor Prince, was town clerk for twelve
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years; Mark's son, Jabez, for ten years, while Joseph Snow, jr., Mica- jah Snow, Jabez Snow, jr., and James Snow also held this position.
David Snow, the father of our subject, married Lucia Higgins, the daughter of Richard Higgins, a descendant of Richard Higgins, who was one of the original settlers of Nauset. He was lost on a voyage from Boston to the West India Islands when his son, the subject of this sketch, was but three weeks old. The son grew to manhood in the home of his mother and sister Ruth, devoting his time to various interests until he arrived at the age of thirty-five, when with his small capital he came to Boston. Here for a time he engaged in the West India trade, but later embarked in the flour commission business. In 1843 he formed a copartnership with Isaac Rich, under the firm name of Snow & Rich, which continued for ten years, during which time a number of ships were built, which became the nucleus of quite a fleet. Through the success of this enterprise the reputation of the firm became favorably known, not only in this country, but also extensively abroad. In 1853 the firm of Snow & Rich was dissolved, Mr. Rich tak- ing the business and real estate, which included Constitution Wharf, for his share, and Mr. Snow taking the fleet of ships as his part. During the next decade Mr. Snow built, owned and controlled fourteen ships, ranging from one thousand to fourteen hundred tons burden. Among the number were the Storm King, Reporter, Nauset, Idaho, Asterion and others. In 1860 the entire fleet of ships was sold to Mr. Thomas Nickerson, at that time also largely interested in navigation. Mr. Niek- erson later was well known by his connection with the Mexican Cen- tral and the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe Railroads. This was in war times, and with the penetration which characterized most of his acts, Mr. Snow thought it wise to sell out his shipping interest. At about this time he obtained a charter for and organized the National Bank of the Republic. The success and reputation of this institution is well known. He was elected its president by his contemporaries, which office he held at the time of his death, a period of sixteen years.
It is a remarkable thing that during a business career of nearly fifty years, Mr. Snow met with singularly few reverses. Throughout his business career he never failed to meet fully and promptly all of his business obligations. Of his high moral and religious character much might be written in deserved praise. His integrity was never ques- tioned. He was honest, truthful, and a high-minded Christian gentle- men, contributing with liberal hand from his resources to the poor and
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needy, and to the religious institutions which he loved. His private life was pure and unspotted, and his memory is enshrined in the hearts of his descendants. He died in Boston, January 19, 1876.
DANIEL LOTHROP.
DANIEL LOTHROP Was a typical American publisher. What this means in the advancement of American literature but few among the millions of American readers ever pause to consider, esteeming the publisher as, at best, only the middleman, the medium through which the author is introduced to the reader. But the true American pub- lisher is much more than a medium; he is a cause, a creator, an in- spirer. As such he must be considered and studied; as such he is recognized and received by inquiring and classifying minds. To his energies and his exertions are due the development and bettering of American literature; he, quite as much as the writer, is the means of refuting Sidney Smith's famous sncer of a half-century ago, " In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" The steps in advance that American literature is taking with each new year are the results, as they are also the reasons, of the chapters of effort that mark the story of the publisher's busy and helpful life.
Daniel Lothrop, of Boston, was a typical American publisher. He was a typical American. He was a typical New Englander. He was born in the old New England town of Rochester, in the State of New. Hampshire, well up toward the foothills of the White Mountains. It is related that an observant traveler was one day passing through that rocky and semi-sterile section of New Hampshire's rolling country- that region so poorly planned for successful agriculture, so apparently a soil needing that eternal vigilance that is the price of paying erops as well as of liberty. The traveler, viewing the landscape in mingled surprise and skepticism, asked one of the farmers, who seemed to be harvesting only rocks, "What can you raise here, anyhow?" And back came the instant answer, "We raise men!" It was one of these real men of New Hampshire's rocky raising that was given to the world in Daniel Lothrop, the son of Daniel Lothrop, the elder, and Sophia Horne Lothrop, of the town of Rochester, and the county of Strafford, where he was born on the 11th of August, 1831.
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Daniel Lothrop came of sturdy English stock. In his veins ran the blood of Priseilla Alden, fairest and most famous of the Plymouth Pilgrims. Ilis distant ancestor, John Lothrop, of the Riding of York, in Old England, was the man who dared assert his manhood and with- stand the aristocratic arrogance of the famous Archbishop Land, in the days of the first Charles Stuart, and who suffered imprisonment rather than abate one jot of his sturdy and determined independence. His maternal ancestors, the Hornes, were vigorous pioneers in the carly New Hampshire days, one of whom, on the "distaff side, " Elizabeth Hull Heard, of Dover, was known as "the brave gentlewoman," be- canse she courageously held and successfully defended the old garrison house of Dover against the flood of Indian massacre of Dover that well-nigh depopulated that feeble New Hampshire settlement in the dreadful summer of 1689. Springing, then, from such " forbears " -- from brave women and stalwart men who could both dare and do Daniel Lothrop had behind him generations of that heroie blood that flowed into and filled the veins of pioneers and patriots and contributed to the upbuilding and development of a free and vigorous republic.
Daniel Lothrop was the youngest of three brothers, to whom were given, as was the custom then, the three " Bible names" of James, John and Daniel. Under the influence of a practical American father, who repeatedly served the State in its Legislature, and was one of the original three who founded the famous Free Soil Party, under the guidance of a wise American mother, he developed into a wide awake, thoughtful and ambitions American boy, whose dreams of a successful career were active almost in his baby days, for it is stated that when but five years ofl he scratched upon a piece of tin the prophetie words "D. Lothrop & Co." and tacked the sign upon the door of his play- house. The mathematical, which is so largely the basis of the business faculty, was also developed in Daniel Lothrop at an early age, giving him a grasp of the values and mysteries of the " baffling numbers " that was almost remarkable -so much so that at the age of seven he coukl demonstrate a problem in cube root to the " big boys and girls " of the upper class, alike to their astonishment and the delight of the teacher. With this quickness of reasoning, with a relative and accurate memory, and with the habit of study early fastened upon him, he was ready for college at the age of fourteen, but his physique was not con- sidered equal to the college demands of those days, when athletics was not a part of the college curriculum. He therefore went into the drug
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store which his brother James had opened in the town, and when that brother desired to avail himself of the opportunity of attending medical lectures in Philadelphia, the charge of the drug store was given to Daniel Lothrop, the bright boy of fourteen. As an extra indneement to assume this responsibility, the older brother, James, agreed to give to Daniel an equal division of the profits of the drug store and to place above the door the firm name " D. Lothrop & Co., " an early realization of Daniel's dream.
Daniel Lothrop, therefore, before he was fifteen years old, had founded the firm of D. Lothrop & Co. and given to the world a business name that has stood as the synonym for integrity and truth for nearly fifty years. Hle proved a success in the drug business, as his brother James foresaw he would. More than this, he looked around for new opportunities. These speedily came. He hired and stocked a drug store in the village of New Market, not far away, and inviting his second brother, John, to enter the firm as one of the "Co.," he stocked and started another drug store in the village of Meredith Bridge. These three brothers continued, until death broke the combination, in a unique partnership; each conducting separate business ventures in different business centers and yet sharing their profits irrespective of direction and the volume of individual business. It was a unity of interests and of brotherly fidelity that is not often recorded in the busi- ness annals of the world.
In 1850 Daniel Lothrop, watchful for opportunities, bought out the stock of Elijah Wadleigh, a bookseller of Dover, N. H. The details of the drug business, in those days as now, involved other things than drugs. Fancy goods and stationery were a part of every drug dealer's stock, and to deal in books is but a logical development. Before he was twenty, therefore, Daniel Lothrop was established in an important trade center as a successful druggist and bookseller, with " branches " in Berwiek, Portsmouth and Amesbury, and with the intention of branching out in publishing when the right opportunity offered. In the interests of his business, as well as of his health, he undertook a . Western trip, which ended in the then prevalent " Western fever." He saw and appreciated the opportunities for successful business ven- tures offered by the growing " New West " the West that then called Chicago an outpost and Minnesota territory the frontier. In 1856 Daniel Lothrop was in the new settlement of St. Peter in southern Minnesota. It gave promise of being a " booming western city, " and
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yielding to the fascination of the " fever," he resolved to locate there and open a store in St. Peter. Ile bought out a stock of drugs in St. Paul, and, though the rivers were ice-bound, moved his goods in sledges and opened his store on the first day of December according to an- nouncement. The drug store grew into a banking business. Branch drug and book stores, to which he called his uncle, Jeremiah Horne, were also opened in the new country, and Daniel Lothrop's busi- ness ventures were exhibiting his rare business ability when the panic of 1854 burst upon the country, and the failure of others reacted upon him. He met and paid every dollar of his liabilities, but it broke his health and well-nigh closed his career.
Returning health found him in the East again in his Dover book store. With health came energy, and out of both was evolved the realization of his life-long dream-to become an American book pub- lisher. Carefully maturing his plans, which were based upon a thor- ough knowledge and experience of the demands of the American book market, the tastes of the American people, and the possibilities of American literature, he entered upon his new career as an American publisher, and in 1868 removed his business to Boston.
The corner-stone of his plan of work was good literature for the young. He took as his motive these rules of procedure which years afterward he put into two pertinent and practical phrases: First, never to publish a purely sensational book, no matter what chances of money it has in it; second, always to publish books that will make for true, steadfast growth in right living. As the proper channels for the develop- ment of this class of literature, he selected the family and the Sunday- school libraries, heretofore given up largely to literature that was at once weak, disappointing and unattractive.
So he came to Boston, opened a large and handsome book-store at 38 and 40 Cornhill, opened his list of new books with " Andy Luttrell "- a book that is still having a steady sale-and followed it up with other good and attractive books. Thus, still pursuing his plan of combining liberality with wise selection, he announced a series of generous prizes of one thousand and five hundred dollars each -- a then almost unheard of thing-for books for the young, and by thus stimulating literary creation he had speedily in hand manuscripts of merit that led to pop- ular and meritorious publications.
From that day forward this line of effort was followed out. His name became accepted as a trade mark of excellence, and in all the years of
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his work as a publisher he could have the satisfaction of knowing that wherever went a book bearing the legend "D. Lothrop & Co." on its title page, those who were to choose reading matter for the young knew that they could accept it unhesitatingly and present it to their children without query or investigation.
The list of books thus started grew with each year of effort and selection, and though largely devoted to publications intended for young people, it contained also books of merit for older readers. These books, for young and old alike, touch almost every branch of literary endeavor, and it is estimated that Daniel Lothrop, during the years he was in the publishing business in Boston, introduced more American writers to public attention and has added to his list-now including more than two thousand titles -- more American writers than any other American publishing house.
Once on the road to successful book publishing, Mr. Lothrop's energy sought expression in another branch of the publishing field, and one that had also been a part of his long-cherished plans. This was the publication of periodicals for children. Out of this desire came, in 18:5. the initial numbers of a monthly magazine for young people in their "teens." now known to the whole English speaking world as Wide Awake. For nearly a generation this magazine has regularly appeared, going into thousands of homes with its monthly budget of good and bright and attractive and interesting things, and has called into its service the best literary and artistic workers in America. Fol- lowing the publication of Wide Awake, other and subsidiary publica- tions were conceived and started, intended for the helping and inter- esting of still younger readers. These were Babyland, Our Little Men and Women, and Pansy, and it is safe to say that the four Lothrop magazines reach a larger constituency, and have a larger following- spanning as they do the space that stretches from the cradle age to the college age-than any other reputable children's periodicals in the world.
The year that followed the launching of Wide Awake in 18;5 was the year for a removal of the establishment, for Mr. Lathrop, finding the Cornhill store too small for the demands of his increasing business, secured other quarters and the large building on the corner of Frank- lin and Hawley streets became the home of D. Lothrop & Co. Here the business interests of the concern found opportunity for growth and extension.
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In 188; Mr. Lothrop determined to perpetuate the name he had made in the business world and to develop his company into a corpora- tion. This was accordingly done, new blood was added to his own indomitable energy, and in March, 1887, the D. Lothrop Company was organized with Daniel Lothrop as president. In 1889 the company re- moved its business offices and salesrooms to 364 and 366 Washington street, and occupied this same year with its large manufacturing and wholesale departments at 118 and 120 Purchase street. Here the busi- ness has developed and grown along the lines laid down by its founder, and the house of D. Lathrop Company occupies a foremost and dis- tinguished position among the best book publishing establishments of America.
The home life of Daniel Lothrop was characteristic and delightful. In 1881 he married Miss Harriett Milford Stone of New Haven, known to hundreds of thousands of American readers under her pen name of Margaret Sidney. In 1883 he purchased an historic estate in Concord, Mass., known as the Wayside, the home of Hawthorne and the Alcotts. Here he dispensed a charming and unfailing hospitality and gave to an already famous spot new and delightful associations.
All too early in his life of achievement and influence, the end came. After a brief illness, and while occupying his winter quarters in Bos- ton, Daniel Lothrop died on the eighteenth of March, 1892, and thus at the age of sixty years, when it was supposed and hoped that he still had many years of usefulness and achievement before him, he laid down the life-work with which for forty-six years he had been so closely identified, and entered into rest.
Daniel Lothrop combined in himself the elements of probity, per- severance, purpose and devotion to a high ideal. It was these acting in and through him that held him steady to his plan of work and ac- tion, that brought him recognition, advancement and snecess, and that have given him a position and a name in the world of American letters and business activity, or, in every sense of the word, the typical American publisher.
HENRY L. PIERCE.
HON. HENRY LILLE PIERCE, manufacturer and man of public affairs, was born in Stoughton, Mass., August 23, 1825. He is a descendant,
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in the eighth generation, from John Pierce, who came from England in 1631, and was admitted a freeman in Watertown, Mass., in March, 1638.
Col. Jesse Pierce, the father of Henry, was born in Stoughton, No- vember 4, 1:88. He was a man of high character and of more than ordinary ability. Ile began to teach school while yet a minor, and pursued that vocation for twenty years, first in the public schools of Norfolk county, and later as the head of highly successful private schools in Milton and Stoughton. He took an active part in town affairs, served in the militia in all capacities from ensign to colonel, and represented his town during six terms in the State Legislature. Although originally a member of the Democratic party, he was among the first to make a stand against the aggressions of the slave power. and became identified with the party which supported Birney for the presidency in 1844. He married in 1824 Eliza S. Lillie, daughter of Captain John Lillie, who served with distinction in the war of the Revolution as an artillery officer and as aid to Major-General Knox. and who, some years after the war, was appointed chief officer at the West Point Military Academy.
Henry L., the subject of this sketch, received a good English educa- tion at the public school in his native town, at the academy in Milton, and also at the academy and State Normal School at Bridgewater. In 1850 he became connected with the chocolate manufactory of Walter Baker & Co., at Dorchester, to which place the family had moved the previous year. In 1854 he took charge of the entire business, and from that time to the present has been the sole manager. At an early age he took a lively interest in public affairs, and while a school-boy he contributed articles to some of the country papers. Until 1848 he sympathized with and supported the Democratic party. In that year he joined with enthusiasm in the organization of the Free Soil party, and in promulgating the principles set forth by Martin Van Buren in his acceptance of their nomination for the presidency. From that time until the purpose for which the party was organized had been trium- phantly established, he stood by it through good report and through evil report, aiding it by his voice, his pen, and his money. In 1860 he was elected to the Legislature, and was instrumental in getting a bill passed by both branches striking out the word " white " wherever it occurred in the laws authorizing the organization of the militia. But the act was defeated by the governor's veto, and it was not until four
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years had passed that success attended the efforts of those who wished to have the obnoxious discrimination on account of race removed from the statute book. On being re-elected for the following year, Mr. Pierce inaugurated the movement, in which he was sustained by a ma- jority of the House, for instructing our senators, and recommending our representatives in Congress, to favor such a change in the national laws as would authorize the enlistment of colored men in the United States army. In the session of 1862, to which he was re-elected, Mr. Pierce was appointed chairman of the Committee on Finance, and in that capacity reported and carried through the House two measures of great importance, namely: The act providing for the payment of the State bonds in gold (this was after the Legal Tender Act had been passed by Congress), and the act taxing savings banks and insurance companies. At the end of his third term, Mr. Pierce withdrew from the House, but was chosen again in 1866, and appears in the journals of the day as taking a leading part in the business of the session.
On the annexation of Dorchester to the city of Boston, in 1869, he was elected to represent that section of the city in the Board of Alder- men. After serving two years (1870-18:1) he declined a re-election. In the latter part of the following year he was elected mayor of Boston, being the choice of the citizens without regard to party. His address at the organization of the new government was calculated to inspire confidence in his abilities as an executive officer. To improve the efficiency of the government, radical changes were needed in some of the departments, and such changes he not only recommended, but pro- ceeded resohitely to carry out. Against very strong opposition he re- organized the Health and Fire Departments, and freed them from the partisan influences to which they had long been subject.
In October of that year he received the nomination of the Republi- cans for representative in Congress from the Third Massachusetts District, to fill the vacancy in the Forty-third Congress occasioned by the death of Honorable William Whiting. The success of his municipal administration is shown in the fact that the Democrats failed to nom- inate any candidate to oppose him, and his election was substantially unanimous. llaving been for many years on terms of personal friend- ship with Charles Sumner, and having a large acquaintance with the public men of the day, he was from the start in a position to exert a strong influence upon the councils of the government. Imbued with the same spirit which led Sumner, and Andrew, and Wilson, to favor
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