USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 57
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1 This was a place where men out of employment and who desired to obtain work were in the habit of congregating, and where employers used to come to seek help when they desired to in- crease their forces.
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Fogg's goods were the best that could be made, and he experienced no trouble in finding customers among the best dealers, such as Atherton, Stetson & Co., Joseph Whitten & Co., and other prominent houses.
On January 1, 1850, he formed a copartnership with Wilman Bur- bank, who was also a partner with Alexander Strong, and they estab- lished a boot and shoe store on Central street, Boston. In July of the following year, 1851, Mr. Burbank died, Mr. Fogg then associated with himself William S. Houghton. They removed their store to Pearl street, and under the firm name of Fogg & Houghton did a large and rapidly-increasing business. About 1861 Albert L. Coolidge was ad- mitted as a partner, and the firm became Fogg, Houghton & Coolidge. In the mean time, about 1859, they began to secure quite a trade in California; they manufactured a class of goods especially adapted to that trade, and their sales in this market continued to increase so rapidly that in 1866 they did a business of more than a million dollars, and were at that time quoted as the largest boot and shoe manufacturers in the United States. In 1878 Mr. Fogg withdrew from this firm, but still continued manufacturing at Weymouth. In the mean time, in 1864, his brother, Parker S. Fogg, returned from California with a cash capital of nearly a hundred thousand dollars, which he had amassed in the boot and shoe trade, and for which he sought investment. John S. placed an equal amount with him, and together they established themselves as bankers, at No. 20 Congress street, Boston, with Parker S. Fogg as active business manager. John S. continued to give per- sonal attention to his manufacturing interests at Weymouth until June 1, 1871, when his brother died, and he then assumed the management of the bank, and to this interest he devoted his chief attention up to the time of his death. Upon the dissolution of the firm of Fogg, Houghton & Co., 1878, Mr. Fogg formed a copartnership with N. B. Thayer, who had been foreman of the Weymouth Factory and who had shown good business qualities, and under the firm name of N. B. Thayer & Co., the manufacturing at Weymouth was continued until March, 1882, when the firm of Fogg, Shaw, Thayer & Co. was formed, with factories at South Weymouth, Westboro', and Marblehead, Mass., and Farmington, N. H.1 In their banking operations Messrs. Fogg Brothers & Co. made a specialty of dealing in western commercial
1 At the death of Mr. Shaw, January 10, 1888, Mr. Fogg formed a copartnership under the firm name of John S. Fogg & Co., his son, John A. Fogg, being a partner, which was continued until the time of his death.
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paper, and in this connection one remarkable fact may be mentioned- during the last five years they handled over one hundred million dol- lars of western paper and never lost a dollar. In 1865 the First Na- tional Bank of South Weymouth was incorporated, and Mr. Fogg was chosen president, which position he held until his death. In this same year Mr. Fogg was elected president of the Agricultural Industrial Society. After acting in this capacity eleven years he resigned. In 1849 he was elected president of the Putnam Horseshoe Nail Corpora- tion, in which concern he was a large shareholder, and held the position until his death. Mr. Fogg was a Republican in politics, but had never taken an active interest in political affairs and never was an aspirant for political honors. His business career had been a phenomenally successful one, and through all his various and multitudinous dealings and interests he always paid dollar for dollar, and never asked an ex- tension. He was a man of fine personal appearance, splendid physique, and, when in perfect health, weighed something over two hundred pounds. His personal manners were casy, address and manner of speaking kindly and sympathetic. He was noted among a very wide circle of business and other acquaintances for his perfect self-control under even the most exasperating circumstances. Seldom angry, he was never known to exhibit other than the most composed external bearing. The habitual "ruling of his own spirit" always gave him great influence over his many employees, and preserved between him and them an unusual degree of harmony. He was candid and frank in his natural disposition, and had an especial sympathy for struggling young men of merit who were evidently trying to help themselves. More than one such received from him substantial tokens of his sym- pathy. His early advantages in the way of education were scanty, but by diligence and persistence he largely surmounted these difficulties. Mr. Fogg was highly esteemed in the community where he so long resided and was best known. He was a man of decided religious convictions and character, though never obtrusive, always quietly firm whenever occasion arose for a declaration of his principles in this regard. He was, besides a giver to many good causes, a generous supporter of the Union Congregational Church, of which he was for so many years a valued and influential member, and to which, by his will, he left a legacy of $25,000. He also bequeathed $50,000 to found a library in wards Four and Six of South Weymouth. His donations to other
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charitable and religious objects were numerous, the full amount of his bequests by his will aggregating the large sum of $200,000.
Mr. Fogg enjoyed remarkably good health all his life till within a few weeks of his decease. He died May 15, 1892, being seventy-five years and one month old. But a short time previous he had been at- tending to his usual business duties, and for only three days had been confined to his bed. It was literally true of him that he died "in the harness." To the last he was active, interested in passing events, and pursued the even tenor of his way with the same urbanity and geniality of nature so characteristic of him. The death of no citizen of Wey- mouth was more universally mourned, the entire community uniting to do honor to his memory, his funeral being attended by hundreds of citizens, who listened to a highly impressive funeral discourse by Rev. W. H. Bolster, who for several years officiated in the Union Congre- gational Church, of which Mr. Fogg had been a member since 1850.
Mr. Fogg was married on October 28, 1838, at Hanover, Mass., to Lydia Loring Bailey, daughter of Gad and Thankful (Loring) Bailey, descendants of the Pilgrims, and whose ancestors were prominent in the settlement of the colony of Massachusetts. Mrs. Fogg died in May, 1887. They had five children, three of whom died in infancy. Their only daughter, Jane L. Fogg, who married Edward E. Poole, died in Boston in 1888, leaving no children. John A. Fogg, the only son of John S. and Lydia (Bailey) Fogg, was married, March 28, 18:1, to Ida Sprague, of Weymouth, daughter of Jesse and Nancy (Bates) Sprague. They have one son, named after his grandfather, John S. Fogg.
About two years after the death of his first wife, Mr. Fogg married Jane L. Bouton, of Concord, who still survives.
STEPHEN DOW.
FOR nearly forty years there were few men in New England better known in connection with the manufacture of leather than Stephen Dow. He was born in Weare, N. H., January 13, 1809. His grand- father, Jonathan Dow, settled in Weare about 1769. He was born No- vember 27, 1739, and married Keziah Roberts, who was born January 27, 1739. He served as selectman and representative of Weare, and died September 30, 1813. His wife died November 27, 1826. They
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had four children, one son and three daughters, Their only son, Ste- phen Dow, the father of our subject, was born in Weare, March 27, 1464. He married Lydia Grove and lived on the family homestead. He was one of the earliest tanners of Weare and carried on the tanning business and farm till about 1841, when he moved to Woburn, where he died the following year. His wife died in 1832. They had eleven chil- dren, six sons and five daughters, of whom our subject was the sixth child in order of birth. The latter's education was received in the dis- trict school of Weare. As soon as he reached the age to be of assist- ance to his father he entered the tannery and learned the trade of a tan- ner, and eventually succeeded his father in business. In 1835 he left his home, and for a short time thereafter engaged in the leather busi- ness with his brother Alfred in Portland, Me. In 1836 he settled in Woburn, Mass., and became associated as partner with his father-in- law, Gen. Abijah Thompson, in the business of tanning and currying, which General Thompson had established some years previously, and which at this early date had assumed considerable magnitude. With his practical experience in this line of industry, and possessed of excel- lent business judgment, Mr. Dow took hold of the work with character- istic energy and achieved deserved success. General Thompson had already become firmly established, and with Mr. Dow's assistance the business of the firm steadily increased in magnitude until it became one of the largest of its kind in the United States. In 1866 Mr. Dow pur- chased General Thompson's interest in the business and for a few years successfully conducted it alone It is proper to state that during the thirty years he was associated with General Thompson their relations were characterized by perfect harmony and mutual good will and es- teem, their business connection being especially noteworthy in this re- gard. After General Thompson's retirement from the business Mr. Dow carried on the business alone under the old firm name until 1821, when, on account of similarity of names with another leather concern, the firm style was changed to Stephen Dow & Co., and has so continued through the various changes in its composition until the present time. At the time of changing the firm name Alfred Abijah Dow, oldest son of Stephen Dow, and George C. Nichols were admitted to the firm as partners, the latter, however, retiring in 1875. During the last named year S. Henry Dow, another son of Stephen Dow, was admitted as partner. To his two sons Mr. Dow relinquished the business in 1876, and they continued to carry it on with success.
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It was during Mr. Dow's management of the business that a leather store was opened in Boston, in the early forties, which has ever since been maintained. Here he built in 1869 a brick business block at Nos. 2 to 12, inelusive, on High street, adjoining the site of the old Webster homestead. It was one of the best business structures in this part of the city at the time, and after its destruction in the great fire of 1812, was replaced by the present building, which is still owned by members of the family.
Upon retiring from business, Mr. Dow divided his time largely be- tween traveling and in the pursuit of horticulture, for which he had great love. He built upon his estate in Woburn several conservatories, upon which he lavished large sums, and where he loved to spend many hours of the day during the latter years of his life. He also gave a great deal of attention to the breeding of horses, contributing largely to maintaining and improving the well known Morgan strain. The direction and management of his large business interests during his active career gave him little opportunity to engage in outside enter- prises or in public affairs. He was, however, a member of the Board of Selectmen for Woburn in 1857, and also served as a director in the Woburn Five Cents Savings Bank, the Woburn Gas Light Company, and the Faneuil Hall National Bank of Boston. He joined the Me- chanic Charitable Association in 1845, and was a life member of this organization.
After a long life of conspienons rectitude, Mr. Dow died very sud- denly in Boston, January 4, 1887. His death was widely mourned, especially by his business associates and friends. His active business career had covered nearly half a century, and few were better known in his special line of industry or more sincerely respected for sterling integrity of character. He was a shrewd, successful business man, but the very soul of honor in all of his transactions. No one who ever knew him doubted for a moment the honesty or integrity of his motives. His word was unquestioned, and every action had the impress of sin- cerity. He lived and acted on a high plane, and his career commanded the respect and esteem of all, while, in addition, he possessed those admirable traits of mind and heart which in private life made him be- loved by his family and all brought within the circle of his near and intimate associates.
Mr. Dow was married May 24, 1836, to Miss Celinde Thompson, eldest daughter of Gen. Abijah Thompson. They had seven children,
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in order of birth as follows: Ellen Thompson, born May 28, 1838; Alfred Abijah, born April 6, 1841; H. Josephine, born March 28, 1843; James H., born February 4, 1845; Julia Thompson, born May 2, 1846; S. Henry, born September 12, 1848; Edward A., born September 29, 1857.
The business with which Mr. Dow was for so many years connected was carried on by his sons Alfred A. and S. Henry Dow from 1876 to 1879, when the latter died, and the former continued it alone until 1885, when Edward A. Dow, the youngest son of Stephen Dow, was admitted as partner. No change occurred until 1891, when, upon the death of Alfred A. Dow, the firm was reorganized, Edward A. Dow, William A. Dow, oldest son of Alfred A., and Frank F. Dodge form- ing a partnership, under the old firm name, and so continued to-day. The business has ever since its foundation remained in the control of the family, and has always been managed by a representative of the family, Edward A. Dow, head of the present firm, being the repre- sentative of the third, and one of his partners, William A. Dow, of the fourth generation, in continuous business at the same location. All of the partners are residents of Woburn, Edward A. Dow living in the same house occupied by General Thompson for many years of his life.
JOHN FIELD.
JOHN FIELD, for many years at the head of the widely known hide and leather business of Field & Converse, was born in Peterborough, N. H., November 22, 1810. His grandfather, John Field, was born in Braintree (now Quincy), April 16, 1752, and went to Peterborough, in company with Christopher Thayer, May 8, 1786. He was a tanner by trade, and settled just north of the farm of William Smith, where some vats had been made and some tanning had been done by Robert Smith, father of William Smith. These vats are now in a perfect state of preservation, having been made not far from 1760. He married Ruth Thayer, November 11, 1775, who was born July. 2, 1:52. He died January 8, 1826, while his wife died August 2, 1846, at the advanced age of ninety-four years. They had eight children, five sons and three daughters, the eldest of whom, also named John, was the father of our subject. He was born in Braintree, October 27, 1777, and was nine
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years of age when his father moved to Peterborough. At the latter place, when he arrived at the proper age, he followed the occupation of his father, and for many years extensively carried on the business of tanning at the same place his father began. He was twice married. His first wife, Beulah Reed was a native of Lempster, and was the mother of his thirteen children. She died July 30, 1835, aged fifty- seven years. ITis second wife was Tabitha Colburn, whom he married April 5, 1838. She died October 7, 1848, aged fifty-two years.
Of the thirteen children of John Field, four sons and nine daughters, the subject of this sketch was the sixth child in order of birth. He came to Boston in 1831 and entered the employ of his brother, Isaac Field, who for some years had been engaged in the hide and leather business in this city, and who, in 1833, founded the firm of Field & Converse. Upon the retirement of Isaac Field from this firm in 1838 our subject succeeded him. This firm became widely known not only in New England but in foreign lands. During all the panics and finan- cial disasters which occurred during its long existence its credit was never shaken. By his excellent business ability and industry Mr. Field became eminently successful, and acquired wealth sufficient to be able to retire practically from active pursuits in 1863. From that time until his death, July 31, 1876, his life was largely devoted to philanthropic and religious work. "In all of his business relations," says one writer, "he was an honorable and upright man, never yielding principle, in any instance, to expedieney. He was a good citizen, a sincere Christian and a true man, and his life abounded with active benevolence, kind works and good deeds." He was a director in the State National Bank of Boston ; also a director of the American Peace Society; a corporate member of the American Board of Foreign Missions, and for many years an officer in the Orthodox Congregational Church at Arlington. He was twice married. His first wife was Sarah E. Worcester, a grand- daughter of the distinguished divine Noah Worcester, D. D., whom he married May 2, 1836. She died June 20, 1839, having borne two chil- dren, Henry M. and John Worcester Field. The former graduated from Harvard College in 1859 ; received a medical degree at the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York city, and in 1821 was ap- pointed professor of materia medica and therapeutics in the Dartmouth Medical College at Hanover. The second son, in 1862, entered upon a business career in the same line in which his father had gained con- spicuous success. He was until lately the senior member of the leather
74
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firm of Field, Bullivant & Field, and is now the head of the firm of John W. Field & Co.
Mr. Field's second wife was Sarah A. Baldwin, of Brighton, Mass., whom he married October 13, 1840. Five children were born to them, their names in order of birth being as follows: Sarah Ann B., William Evarts, Arthur D., George A., and Lilla Frances Field.
All the sons of this marriage identified themselves with the leather trade. The eldest, William Evarts Field, was a member of the firm of Allen, Field & Lawrence.
The sudden death of this gentleman while on his way to Europe in March, 1892, was a great sorrow to his associates in the trade. Modest and unassuming in manner, but able and efficient in business, his genial disposition and strict integrity won the love and respect of all who knew him.
At the time of his death he was treasurer of the New England Shoe and Leather Association, for which he felt a deep interest. His sud- den death deprived the business with which he was connected of one of its brightest ornaments, and his friends of one whose memory will be cherished with the deepest affection.
GORDON MCKAY.
THE method of boot and shoe making, practically universal in the United States and rapidly extending in foreign countries, is distinctive- ly American and essentially the outgrowth of the last twenty-five or thirty years. The man who was first to broadly conceive it and to per- fect, introduce and exercise the inventions which made it inevitable was Gordon McKay, now of Newport, R. I.
Mr. Mckay was born in Pittsfield, Mass., in 1820. His father, Samuel M. Mckay, was a cotton manufacturer, an amateur farmer, and a politician of prominence in the western part of the State. His mother was a daughter of Samuel Dexter, of Boston, an eminent lawyer, who, about the beginning of the century, was United States senator, secretary of war, and secretary of the treasury.
Samuel M. Mckay was the son of Samuel, at one time captain in the English army, afterwards professor in Williams College. Samuel mar- ried the daughter of the Marquis de Lotbinière, a Canadian gentleman, who had, on the St. Lawrence, an estate still known by his name.
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Gordon Mckay, the only survivor of his father's family, being in youth in delicate health, studied engineering with a view to out-of- door occupation. At the age of sixteen he began field-work on the Boston and Albany Railroad, and was afterwards employed on the en- largement of the Erie Canal. In 1845 he built and successfully man- aged a machine shop in Pittsfield. In 1852 he became manager of the Lawrence Machine Shop at Lawrence, Mass., where he remained until 1857.
The next year he, with others, purchased of Lyman R. Blake the latter's patent for the crude mechanism and method which, perfected by years of laborions and costly experiment, and embodied in the fam- ons Mckay Sewing Machine, revolutionized the art of shoemaking, put better shoes upon the feet of the poor and millions of dollars into the pockets of the patent owners.
At the date of Blake's patent, the mechanisms that had appeared in the manufacture of shoes were mainly the simple contrivances that mark the infancy of an art, although the pegging machine had already reached an advanced stage of development. All shoes of the better grades were then made by hand-the large manufacturers cutting their stock and distributing it in small shops, or, during their off seasons, among farmers, fishermen and others, to be made into boots and shoes.
The process was slow, the product as variable as the skill of the workmen, and the general work unsatisfactory for want of expert su- pervision and control.
At this time Mckay, in easy circumstances, an accomplished ma- chinist, a man of exceptional executive ability and of great energy, saw the Blake machine, the situation and its possibilities, and promptly seized his opportunity.
Blake had invented: 1, A sewed shoe having the thread passed from the outside, through the outer sole, the upper and the inner sole, to the inside of the shoe; 2, a process of lasting a shoe and then withdrawing the last so as to admit of the operation of mechanism within the shoe ; and 3, a stationary horn having a thread-carrying and looping device, and shaped to enter all parts of the shoe, combined with a sewing mechanism.
The inventions were fundamentally new and ingenious, and they held the germ of a great possibility, but they were crude, imperfect, and until improved, commercially unimportant. McKay, associating with himself Robert Mathies, a young mechanic of remarkable ability, re-
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constructed the machine, supplied it with means to automatically adapt the stroke of the needle to the varying thickness of sole and to the mechanical movements involved in tightening the stitch-means for revolving the horn and for revolving the looping contrivance upon it, and means for progressively presenting or feeding the shoe by devices operating in the channel. The precise forms in which these various inventions and improvements found final expression in the perfected machine were mainly the contrivances of Mathies, who, with Mckay, was compelled to undergo the pains and labor which usually attend the birth of great inventions. The work-long, weary and exacting- exhausted Mckay's fortune and impaired his health, and it left Mathies so shattered that he ended his own life before reaping the fruits of his toil.
Mckay first demonstrated the value of his machine in the manufac- ture of army shoes, adapting it, after the war, to the general use which has proved it, to both continents, a beneficent factor in the material growth and comfort of the last quarter of a century.
When the man who, by hand, could make but one or two pairs of shoes in a day, at an expense of seventy-five cents per pair, found that, with the Mckay machine, he could make three hundred pairs, at a cost of three cents per pair, the factory was already conceived and had only to be reared and equipped. This fact, once discovered, an army of inventors undertook the work, which has gradually produced the model factory of to-day, with such admirable organization and arrangement of ingenious contrivances for shoe construction and embellishment as makes it one of the most interesting and important of the hives of human industry.
Mckay's contribution to this result did not end with the construction of his machine. He early found that, with constant use in the hands of inexperienced operators, the machine got out of repair, did imper- fect work, and required, at short intervals, the examination of skilled inspectors and the frequent renewal of worn and imperfect parts. He, therefore, devised a scheme for leasing his machine, at a small rental or royalty, prepared and kept constantly on hand a supply of accurately made duplicate parts, a catalogue of which, duly numbered and illus- trated with cuts, he furnished to each lessee to enable him instantly to order by number, from any part of the country, a needed piece, and then placed upon the road a corps of trained men to set up the ma- chines, to teach operators how to use them and to visit them often
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