USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 61
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He was married September 16, 1863, to Martha Daggett Luce, daughter of William Cook and Eleonora Daggett (West) Luce, of Vine- yard Haven. He has one son, Howes Norris, jr., born March 20, 1867.
Mr. Norris has been active all his life in two distinct spheres, public and business affairs. On the death of his mother he was taken home
Howes Norris
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by his uncle, Shaw Norris, who lived on the east shore of Vineyard Haven Harbor (now Cottage City). Here, though not yet ten years old, he quickly became ehore boy, farm hand, and boy of all work. Though well treated, this boyhood life was full of rigid features, and, however unrelished, it would be considered good and necessary disci- pline for youth.
Mr. Norris was educated in the public schools of Martha's Vineyard, with three years at a private boarding school in Middleboro', and a course at Comer's Commercial College in Boston.
In 1861 he sought a subordinate place in the army or navy, but fail- ing to obtain it he engaged with a manufacturer of small arms, a rela- tive, in Springfield. The business was new and urgent, and being the first clerk employed he had good opportunity for development and ad- vancement, and in a short time was the substantial head of a business employing a large force of help, and in volume running into millions each year. Like all business dependent on war, though completely successful, it ended with it. During this period Mr. Norris was fre- quently engaged in court cases as an expert in matters involving the production and cost of arms and parts of arms. At the age of twenty- six years he was offered and declined the positions of manager or treasurer of the great arms manufacturing house of the Remingtons at Ilion, N. Y., and a European connection with his employer. Mr. Norris, with a few leading men, organized in Springfield and for several years was treasurer of a thrifty manufacturing plant which still main- tains a healthy existence.
In November, 1868, he returned to Martha's Vineyard to look after business interests and severed all business connection with Springfield. Here he took sole charge of a shipping business established by his uncle, which he had been familiar with from boyhood and had owned for several years, that of dealer in ship's supplies. Through this busi- ness he became well known in commercial circles throughout the Atlantic ports and British Provinces. During the period between 1868 and 1881 he carried on alone this business at Vineyard Haven Harbor, and found time to perform the many duties hereafter mentioned.
Between March, 1869 and 1886, he was the marine news agent of the Associated Press for Martha's Vineyard and vicinity, which point, out- side of the great cities, is the most important marine post on the coast. He resigned this position in 1886 to engage in business elsewhere.
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In 1879 he became the owner, publisher and editor of the Cottage City Star, a local newspaper then a few months old, started to promote the cause of the divisionists in the struggle to create the town of Cot- tage City. The work was successful, and Mr. Norris owned and edited the paper until October, 1885, when he sold it. During the period while in business at the Vineyard he was a notary public and did nearly all the marine notarial work of that section. He was frequently a referee in the settlement of marine cases relative to salvage disputes, collisions, etc.
In 1887 Mr. Norris became interested in a new and wholly unde- veloped method of rolling seamless steel tubing, known as the Kellogg process. During all the time since he has devoted himself solely and assiduously to this single enterprise as president and executive head of the corporation.
Mr. Norris was always interested in public affairs and very early participated in political matters. In 1860, while attending school in Boston, he was a member of Lincoln Guard No. 1, a select corps of the organization known as " Wide Awakes." In Springfield, between 1862 and 1869, he was connected with active political affairs. He was sec- retary and active manager of the Lincoln Club in Springfield, formed in 1864, the only Republican club in that city during that campaign. During his residence there he was secretary at nearly all Republican meetings, caucuses and conventions. Before he was twenty-five years old he was invited and urged to accept a nomination to the Legislature which he declined. On his return to Martha's Vineyard he immediately became interested in political affairs. In August, 1869, there was a vacancy in the office of sheriff of Dukes county and Governor Claflin appointed Mr. Norris to the vacancy, and at the ensuing election he was unanimously elected to the office and served therein until 1873. He pioneered the effort to create the town of Cottage.City, and though for many years it failed it was finally successful under his leadership in 1880. He was commissioned as notary public and justice of the peace in 1869, and has continued as such ever since.
Though prominent in local affairs and in politics he neither sought or held public office until in 1883 he was nominated and elected a senator from the Cape Senatorial District, constituted by the three counties, Barnstable, Dukes and Nantucket. As a member of the Senate of 1884 he served as chairman of the committee on printing and a member of the committees on election laws and mercantile affairs.
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In 1885 he was re-elected. serving as chairman of the committee on mercantile affairs, and a member of the committee on railroads and printing. In 1886 he was again returned to the Senate, serving as chairman of the committee on railroads and a member of the committee on redistrieting the State, election laws, and other committees. He was in 1884 and 1885 the Republican "whip" of the Senate, and in 1886 for the Republicans he was chairman of the eaucus committee of that body. In the fall of 1886 he was a candidate for the Senate a fourth term in a convention which lasted all day, leading the vote during seventy-two ballots, though finally defeated by a few votes.
During most of the years from 1883 to 1892 (when he resigned therefrom) he was member of the Republican State Committee, and he has at different periods for much of the time been a member of nearly all the various Republican committees in his section of the State.
He was commissioned a trial justice for Dukes county by Governor Long. and resigned after holding the office six months. He was tendered the same office later by Governor Robinson and declined it.
He is exceedingly active and restless in politics and always has opinions, and occasionally engages in pioneering some prominent name, urging it upon the party for the party's sake.
Mr. Norris is a member of the Middlesex, Norfolk and State Repub- lican clubs (all political), and of the Boston Athletic Association.
Mr. Norris, though doing business in Boston, maintains his residence in Cottage City.
ARTHUR W. POPE.
ARTHUR WALLACE POPE was born in Brookline, Mass., March 9, 1850, and is a son of Charles and Elizabeth (Bogman) Pope. He is of the eighth generation removed from John Pope, who was one of the found- ers of Dorchester and was made a freeman in 1634. His great-grand- father, Col. Frederick Pope, served with distinguished credit during the Revolutionary War, and for the years 1787, '88, '90, '91, '92, '94 and '96 was a member of the House of Representatives from Stoughton. His grandfather, also named Frederick, was born in Stoughton, in 1772, but early in life settled in Dorchester and was prominently identified with the lumber business, ship building and mercantile pursuits. Charles
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Pope, the father of our subject, was born in Dorchester, August 12, 1814, and early in life engaged in the furniture and feather trade. He afterwards carried on the real estate business, but the latter years of his life he engaged in no regular pursuit, devoting his time to the management of his private affairs. He was a highly respected citizen and a man of exemplary character. His wife, Elizabeth Bogman, whom he married August 24, 1834, was a daughter of Captain James and Parley (Nelson) Bogman. She was a woman of strong mental qualities and exercised a wholesome influence upon her children, which is clearly indicated in their careers. She lived to celebrate with her husband their golden wedding in the autumn of 1884. She died Feb- ruary 10, 1885.
Our subject was educated in the public schools of Brookline. At the age of sixteen he entered the employ of his brother, Col. Albert A. Pope, who at that time was in the wholesale shoe finding business on Pearl street. Five years later, in 1871, he was made junior partner un- der the firm name of Albert A. Pope & Co. In 1876, Albert A. Pope retiring from the business, he became the head of the house, the firm name being changed to its present style, Arthur W. Pope & Co. From that time until January, 1893, when William M. Buffon and Edward S. Wheeler, who had had a working interest in the business for some time, were taken in as partners, Mr. Pope had practically conducted the busi- ness alone. Under his judicious management the business has steadily increased from year to year, and to-day the firm is one of the best known in the trade. Not only does this concern conduct a large business in boot and shoe manufacturers' goods and leather, but it enters largely into the manufacture of specialties for the trade, operating factories at Hingham, Salem and New Bedford, while it controls the output of several others. Mr. Pope is a man of great energy, and is connected with business enterprises of various kinds, being largely interest- ed in the manufacture of bicycles with his brother, Col. Albert A. Pope. He has been remarkably successful in all of his ventures, and has displayed a keenness of business judgment which has gained for him the confidence of all who know him. He is a man of quick busi- ness perception, and when he embarks in a project he pursues it with a perseverance and a determination that does not stop until success is gained. Full of resources, of conceded financial ability, and only in the prime of his powers, he has before him a future bright with promises of still greater achievements in the years to come.
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Mr. Pope has traveled extensively both in the New and the Old World, and partly for business and pleasure, he in 1884 made a tour of the globe. On this journey he ascended the famous Mainurina pass in the Himalaya Mountains, eighteen thousand six hundred feet above the level of the sea, also had the exciting pleasure of an elephant hunt in Ceylon, a trip up the Nile, another to the Holy Land, and ended with a visit to Norway and the North Cape.
Mr. Pope was married, October 25, 1892, to Miss Lilla M., daughter of Myron H. Whittedge, of Lynn, and resides on the famous Baker estate in Wellesley, which is considered the finest in New England. He is a member of the Algonquin, Athletic, Temple, Exchange, Trade, Commodore, and Boston Merchants' Clubs, and the Boston Merchant Association. He has also taken an active interest in the Masonic Order and is a member of the order of thirty-second degree.
FRANCIS W. BREED.
THE wonderful development in the shoe industry of New England during the last quarter of a century has furnished a field wherein has been displayed many instances of remarkable business success. To those of the right force and energy and not only able to keep abreast of the changing conditions wrought by mechanical ingenuity, but to fore- see and appreciate the future possibilities of this great interest, it has afforded many and great opportunities for advancement. Francis W. Breed's career is a striking illustration of these facts. His success has been honestly earned and built upon a most substantial basis. Born in the city of Lynn, in 1846, his life has been coextensive with the develop- ment of the inodern shoe factory system. The characteristics which have made him a successful business man were developed very early in life. With true independence of spirit he was ambitious to help him- self, and from the age of twelve he has made his own way. He was educated in the public schools of Lynn, and at the age of fifteen grad- uated from the Lynn High School. His business career commenced one year later as teller in the First National Bank of Lynn. Here he was obliged to work three months without pay, and then was allowed the munificent salary of $50 per year. But his natural business apti- tude was soon recognized, and his promotion followed until, at the end
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of two years he had gained a position as high as he could reasonably expect for many years to come. Such a condition illy suited his am- bitious and energetic nature, and he immediately began to look for a more promising avenue of employment. At the age of eighteen he en- tered the employ of William Porter & Co., shoe manufacturers, as book- keeper. He soon made himself so familiar with the business that he was sent out to sell the goods of the firm, in which direction he was at once successful and secured a good line of customers. Three years later, at the age of twenty-one, he entered into partnership with P. A. Chase in the manufacture of shoes, which was successfully continued for eight years. At the end of that time Mr. Breed bought out his partner and has continued his constantly increasing business alone from that time to the present. During the great fire of 1889 his immense Lynn factory was swept away, but almost before the walls of his estab- lishment had fallen he had secured a vacant factory at Marblehead and was soon turning out shoes with almost the same rapidity as before. He now has three factories, one at Lynn, another at Rochester, N. H., and one at Athol, Mass., their combined output being 8,000 pairs of shoes daily. Mr. Breed is also extensively interested in the leather business, being president of the Breed Leather Company. His success has been remarkable and in every sense deserved. He is a man of great energy, alert and enterprising, and possesses the executive abil- ity necessary to the management of extensive business enterprises. He has the keenness and quickness of perception which enable him to grasp the intricacies of large transactions and quickly reach a determination. It is these qualities, with his active. pushing temperament, which have placed him among the foremost manufacturers of the United States, at a period of life when most men have barely laid the foundation of their careers.
It is not strange that one who has achieved so much in his private business affairs should be sought for to participate in public affairs and to take a prominent and leading part in financial institutions and trade associations. He is president of the New England Shoe and Leather Association, a director in the Boston Chamber of Commerce, and mem- ber of its Board of Credits, a director in the Boston Merchants' Associ- ation, and in the Home Market Club. He is also director in the Eliot National Bank of Boston, and the First National Bank of Lynn, and the Lynn Institution for Savings.
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Mr. Breed has been an extensive traveler. Commencing in a busi- ness career which led him to all parts of our country where Lynn shoes are sold, he has supplemented his business trips by journeys for pleas- ure, visiting Florida, Colorado, California, Alaska, and is thoroughly familiar with the natural beauties and the principal cities of the United States. He has crossed the Atlantic three times, visiting all the coun- tries of Europe, pursning his travels even to the land of the " Midnight Sun." With a natural and cultivated taste for art, he has made during his travels a fine collection of art objects characteristic of the countries he has visited. During one of his vacations he visited the Exposition at Paris, and made a most careful study of the leading features of that great undertaking. His experience at Paris, and also at the Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia and the Brussels Exposition, well qualified him as Massachusetts commissioner at the World's Columbian Expo- sition at Chicago, to which position he was appointed by President Harrison. He served on the Executive, Electrical and Legislative Committees of the Commission, and appeared before the committee of Congress at Washington to secure funds for the Fair, which were granted. In obtaining a site for the shoe and leather building he rendered great service, visiting Chicago several times for the purpose, also in having the classification arranged to put all the shoe and leather exhibits in this building.
In politics Mr. Breed is a Republican, and has been a prominent factor in party councils for several years. To party success he has been a free contributor both of his influence and his means. As a member of the Finance Committee of the Massachusetts Republican Club he bore an important part in the campaign of 1892, his services being highly appreciated. He has never sought political advancement, but his abilities for high political stations are readily conceded, and he has been repeatedly urged to allow his name to be used in con- nection with the Republican nomination for lieutenant-governor. He has, however, been so busy in managing the details of his extensive business enterprises that he has had little time for the consideration of propositions looking toward personal political honors.
Mr. Breed was married in 1873 to an Illinois lady of fine education and rare intellectual abilities. Their two sons and three daughters complete a most charming family circle. Their elegant home on Ocean street, Lynn, with its fine old mansion, handsome lawn and splendid ocean view, is one of the most attractive places on the north shore.
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Mr. Breed possesses charming social qualities. He is a member of all the leading clubs, including the Algonquin, Massachusetts, Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, Oxford, Park, Athletic, Union League of Chicago, and a score of others. His hospitality is proverbial, and his guests have included many of the most distinguished names in the country. A man of tender feelings and generous impulses, Mr. Breed readily responds to every call upon him in behalf of worthy objects. He is a generous patron of the Lynn Y. M. C. A., and also of the Central Con- gregational Church, being a member of the parish committee and of the building committee, which is erecting a new house of worship.
The foregoing constitute but a few incidents in a remarkably busy career of one who is an excellent type of the successful American man of business, of one whose success has been conducive to the public good, and whose energies are directed in channels such as make the community in which he lives prosperous and happy.
A. F. SMITH.
AARON F. SMITH, one of the best known and most successful shoe manufacturers of Lynn, was born in West Danvers, now West Peabody, Mass., in 1835, and is a son of John and Elizabeth Smith, who had a family of six sons and four daughters. His early life was spent on a farm, and his educational advantages were such as fall to the lot of most farmers' sons. At the age of twenty he went to Danvers Centre. Here he bought a stitching machine, then but recently invented, and being of a natural mechanical turn of mind soon learned to operate it. In 185" he opened a stitching shop in Lynn, commencing with ten operators, and later on fifty were employed in doing the stitching for several large boot and shoe manufacturers. His success in this line of work led him in 1865 to embark in the manufacture of shoes, for that purpose form- ing a partnership with his brother, J. N. Smith, which continued for some eight years, since which Mr. Smith has conducted the business alone. Business was begun on Spring street, and such was the success attained that later on a factory was built on Oxford street. The latter quarters were eventually outgrown, and in August, 1892, the present factory on Essex street was completed. This is one of the best equipped factories in New England. It is a brick structure 210 by 60
AL Smith
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feet in dimensions, four stories in height, and fully supplied with the best and most approved machinery for the manufacture of shoes. Mr. Smith has been remarkably successful in business; a steady and sub- stantial progress has been made from year to year, and at the present time his annual productions reach a value of $800,000, and furnish em- ployment to about 400 hands. His goods, which consist exclusively of ladies', misses' and children's shoes, have gained an enviable reputation among the trade, and are in ready demand. In New England they are sold only to jobbers, but in the West they are sold direct to the retail- ers. During the last two years Mr. Smith has maintained in Boston a store for the storage of his goods and as a distributing center for local jobbers, a new departure for a manufacturer, which has proven to be a wise innovation.
Outside of his regular shoe manufacturing business Mr. Smith has been very successful as an inventor of shoe machinery. He possesses a high order of mechanical ingenuity, and in 1886 invented the Smith shaving machine, which is now in very general use in all the great shoe manufacturing centers. This machine is made in Boston by the Union Heel Trimming Co., its manufacture furnishing employment to sixty hands. Mr. Smith has improved, by valuable inventions, a number of other machines, notably a machine for moulding counters, and is also interested in the manufacture of several other machines which he assisted to invent. Work in this direction of activity has been a most congenial field to Mr. Smith, his natural liking for mechan- ical work and inventive genius finding wide scope in the modern de- mand for labor-saving machinery in the shoe industry.
Mr. Smith's business career has been one not only of exceptional success, but one in which he has reason to feel a pardonable pride. For nearly forty years he has been in active business life, and during that long period he has never failed to meet any obligations he assumed. He has passed through trying times, but his business affairs have been so well managed that he has suffered no reverse strong enough to shake for a moment his well established reputation for reliability. He is a man of excellent business judgment, a careful manager, and closely and persistently follows any enterprise in which he may be engaged. He has allowed no allurements of politics to divert his attention from his business, and the main secret of his success lies in the fact that he has unreservedly devoted himself to his work. He is financially inter- ested in many business enterprises, and is a director in the Central
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National Bank, but it is his shoe manufacturing interest and the making of shoe machinery that engross almost wholly his time and attention. He is a member of Washington Street Baptist Church in Lynn, and to charity and philanthropic work is a most liberal and cheerful contributor. To all efforts to advance the welfare of the city of his home, or to improve the condition of its people, he lends ready aid. His standing in the community is that of a man of the highest character, and he enjoys to the fullest degree the respect and confi- dence of all who know him.
Mr. Smith was married in 1864 to Miss Helen M. Hoyt, of New Hampshire. They have one daughter, Ella F., the wife of Frank T. Moore, the manager of Mr. Smith's factory.
V. K. JONES.
V. K. JONES was born in Brunswick, Me., October 15, 1846, his paternal ancestors being Quakers. During his boyhood his school advantages were limited to short periods during the summer and win- ter months. The intervening time between the terms of school was employed in learning the art of making shoes by hand, such as was in vogue prior to the introduction of the ingenious machinery now so universally employed, which has made the old system of shoemaking by hand practically a thing of the past. After mastering his trade the young shoemaker came to Lynn during the winter of 1863 and obtained work upon the bench, continuing in this employment until October, 1864, when he entered the Union Army.
He took part in the battle of Nashville when General Hood made the second attack on the Union forces on December 15 and 16, 1864. In this engagement he was disabled and carried to the hospital, where he passed through a lingering sickness of typhoid fever, from the effect of which he suffered for several years. At the close of the war Mr. Jones returned to Lynn and secured employment at his trade, being thus engaged until November, 1869, when he accepted a position in the Dedham House of Correction as instructor to the prisoners in the art of making shoes. At the end of a year he was promoted to the posi- tion of superintendent of the entire works, very acceptably holding this position until December, 18:2, when he resigned and again returned to
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