Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 21

Author: Nelson, John, 1866-1933
Publication date: 1934
Publisher: New York, American historical Society
Number of Pages: 700

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III > Part 21

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After acceptance for service in the World War, he was assigned to the 3d Field Artillery at Fort Slocum, New York, where he was warranted ser- geant-major. He was transferred to Camp Jack- son, where he was on duty for some time, and also served on other stations. He is president of the Worcester Lions Club, a member of the Shrewsbury Men's Club and the Westborough Country Club. His religious membership is in the Roman Catholic Church.

Mr. Cahill married, in 1923, Katherine E. John- son, of Illinois, and their children are: I. Henry. 2. Walter P., Jr., born May 28, 1924. 3. Thomas M., born November 16, 1928. Mr. Cahill and his family have their home in Shrewsbury, and his business address is No. 356 Franklin Street, the Worcester office of the Graton and Knight Com- pany.

CHRISTOPHER SCAIFE-A broad and fruitful experience in meeting men and studying conditions in different parts of the world helped lay the foundation of Christopher Scaife's work as an insurance representative, now filling the office

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of manager of the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company in Worcester.

Christopher Scaife, son of Frank B. and Sarah (Parkin) Scaife, was born in Worcester, Septem- ber 28, 1883. Both parents were natives of Shef- field, England; the father died in 1890, the mother passed away in 1915. After completing his public school education, the son, Christopher, identified himself with the Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, and with this organization he was actively connected for about twenty years. For the greater part of that period he served as physical direc- tor and director of physical education. He was charged with the execution of foreign commissions, which took him to many lands, among which were Siberia, Manchuria, and the Philippines. In con- nection with his work abroad, he introduced the game of volley ball, in which he is an expert. He is widely known as the author of international rules governing this game, and his name has, there- fore, gone throughout the world in those countries where his book has been received and his personal work has become known.

In 1913, when Mr. Scaife was physical director of the Hartford, Connecticut, Young Men's Chris- tian Association, he entered the insurance business for the Phoenix Mutual Life Insurance Company of that city. So engrossing did his work in the insurance line become, that he eventually severed his connection with the Young Men's Christian Association and since that time he has devoted all his attention to insurance. The first agency of the Phoenix Mutual in Worcester was opened in 1923, with Harold Reese as the manager. In 1930 he was succeeded by Mr. Scaife, who since has held this office, having jurisdiction of all the territory known as Worcester County.

He is an enthusiastic Republican and for three years was chairman of the Republican City Com- mittee of Worcester. During the World War pe- riod he had charge of an army and navy unit for the Young Men's Christian Association. He is affiliated with Rose of Sharon Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and also holds membership in the Economic Club and Rotary Club, while his religious fellowship is with the Congregational Church.

Mr. Scaife married, in 1906, Edith B. Fernald, a native of Massachusetts, and they have a daugh- ter, Mona, born April 7, 1909, a graduate of the Katharine Gibbs School and a student at Wheaton College. Mr. Scaife's business address is No 332 Main Street, which is the Phoenix Mutual Life Agency, and the family home is at No. 5 Coombs Road, Worcester.

WILLIAM H. GATES, SR., who was the organizer, treasurer and manager of the Baldwin Chain Manufacturing Company of Worcester, was a native of Worcester, born May 12, 1858, son of Larkin Newton and Mary (Crocker) Gates. After attending the public schools of his city, he pre- pared for college at Phillips-Andover, matriculated at Williams College, and became a lawyer. After being admitted to the bar of Worcester County he practiced his profession and gave every evidence of being on the road to remarkable achievements in legal circles. He turned, however, aside to enter manufacturing and rose to great heights as an industrial executive. In 1896 Mr. Gates founded

the Baldwin Chain and Manufacturing Company, since which time he had been treasurer and man- ager, and devoted his time exclusively to this cor- poration until his death. The company at first manufactured a detachable bicycle chain in a fac- tory on Vine Street, and in 1897 removed to Her- mon Street, in the Union Meter Building. Soon afterward he extended the business in various directions, adding one after another of various specialties. In 1900 the company began to make block drive chains for automobiles, and they were adopted by the Stanley Brothers and other manu- facturers. Afterward Mr. Gates developed the roller-bearing chain, the first of the kind made in this country and now in general use in automobiles, tractors-the first tractor marketed by the Inter- national Harvester used one of the company's productions-and auto-trucks and in many kinds of stationary machinery. Afterward he added the manufacture of sprockets for power transmutation and in this field the Baldwin Company stood su- preme ; and from time to time increased the variety of chains produced. The business increased stead- ily and the factory accommodations have been repeatedly enlarged. In 1906 the business was re- moved to No. 199 Chandler Street. After the World War began, the plant was taxed to its capacity and was operated night and day and additions were built as rapidly as possible. The regular force is now four hundred hands. A new five-story build- ing of large dimensions on Hygeia Street has been added to its capacity. This marvelous growth was made in the lifetime of Mr. Gates and it was directly due to his indefatigable labors, his undis- mayed courage, and his ability to choose and inspire capable executives, such as William F. Cole, A. W. Warren, H. Klaucke, and William H. Gates, Jr., who joined the company in 1918. As new requirements in chain drives were revealed in 1925 the present large plant was built. In 1931 there was a consolidation of the Baldwin Corpora- tion with the Duckworth Chain Company, of Springfield, Massachusetts, under the title of The Baldwin-Duckworth Chain Corporation, with George Empsall, president; W. F. Cole, vice-pres- ident; F. I. Weschler, treasurer and general man- ager; and William H. Gates, Jr., director and production manager. The Baldwin Chain and Man- ufacturing Company is now among the largest concerns manufacturing chains and sprockets. In 1926 Mr. Gates, Sr., died and the others carried on the great business.

Mr. Gates, in October, 1889, married Sophia Alicia Fay, and they were the parents of five chil- dren : I. Helen Fay, graduate of Worcester High School and Smith College, who is the wife of Seth Marchall Fetchet. 2. Mildred Crocker, who sup- plemented her high school education with violin study under a member of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, and is the wife of Donald B. Wheeler. 3. Alice Wilhelmina, graduate of the Worcester High School and the Art Museum of Worcester, who spent two years in Europe studying sculpture and painting in Edinburgh and Paris. 4. William H., Jr., whose biography accompanies this sketch. 5. Olive, graduate of Vassar College and the Uni- versity of Edinburgh, Scotland, and studied in the Medical Department of Yale University, who is now a pathologist with the Huntington Hospital and State Clinic for Cancer Analysis at Boston.

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Mr. Gates was a member of the National Metal Trade Association, and an important figure in its proceedings, serving as president of the Worcester branch for two years. Among his clubs were the Commonwealth and the Worcester Country Club. He commanded respect wherever he was, and was held in the highest esteem and affection by his associates in business.

WILLIAM H. GATES, JR., was born in Worcester, January 23, 1898. He attended the local public schools including Worcester High School, and was graduated from Phillips-Andover Academy in 1918. He also had a year's training in the Wor- cester Polytechnic Institute in further preparation for his industrial work. During the latter part of the period when he was gaining an education he was employed in the Baldwin plant summers, and was thus prepared to make his way rapidly. Neither personal influence nor any letting down of the standards which applied to all workmen of the company affected Mr. Gates' rise in the com- pany. He learned the making of chains, from the simplest to the most elaborate operation, and was promoted as deserved. He served throughout all the positions up to and including superintendent, and also served in different executive offices before being made production manager and purchasing agent. These are regarded as the most responsible positions in the plant. As such, and also as a director of the present merged concerns, the Bald- win-Duckworth Chain Corporation, Mr. Gates, Jr., has been most successful. Like his father he is a member of the National Metal Trades Associa- tion. He is a natural leader of men, and those associated with him not only give him their re- spect and admiration but have a genuine affection for him.

In October, 1922, William H. Gates, Jr., married Alice M. Keating, of Worcester, and they are the parents of three children: I. Barbara Anne, born April 8, 1924. 2. Marie Louise, born September 16, 1926. 3. William Herbert, born April 2, 1929.

PAUL E. SOULLIERE-Owner and execu- tive head of the insurance firm of Brown and Soulliere, Paul E. Soulliere has been active in this field during the past sixteen years and is one of the leading insurance men of Worcester.

He was born in this city on August 3, 1889, a son of John N. and Mary Emma (Langlois) Soul- liere, of Worcester. His father, who died in Feb- ruary, 1918, was an active figure in local real estate circles and served for a number of years as alder- man at large.

Paul E. Soulliere was educated in local public schools and, following graduation from high school, entered the employ of the "Telegram-Gazette," where he served as a linotype operator until 1916. In that year he went into the insurance business in Worcester under his own name and in 1925 bought out the Edwin E. Brown agency, which he has since continued under the name of Brown and Soulliere. Mr. Soulliere was also the organizer and founder of the Commercial Acceptance Cor- poration, of which he is president and treasurer. He has been very successful in business life and is widely known throughout the Worcester section.

Apart from his business interests, Mr. Soulliere is affiliated fraternally with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, the Foresters and the

Cércle Française. He is also a member of the Harmony Club, the Wachusett Country Club, the local Chamber of Commerce, the Société St. Jean Baptiste, the Underwriters Association, and Post No. 5, American Legion. After the entry of the United States into the World War, he enlisted in the Navy, serving with the grade of chief petty officer for the Third District. Mr. Soulliere is a Roman Catholic in religious faith, being a mem- ber of Notre Dame Church at Worcester. He is very prominent in French circles of the city and is personally acquainted with a large number of Worcester people.

In 1920, Paul E. Soulliere married Corona F. Belisle, and they are the parents of two children : I. Paul E., Jr., born on August 30, 1921. 2. Jeanne M., born on July 31, 1926.

G. ADOLPH JOHNSON - Worcester is noted for having a coterie of architects which has few superiors in New England, and in this group G. Adolph Johnson ranks among the best. He not only has the technical training required of his exacting profession, but is gifted with the natural abilities which are required for success. He is a native of Worcester, born September 9, 1889, son of John A. and Christina (Fors) Johnson, both of whom came from Sweden in 1884 and settled in Worcester. The father was for some years a superintendent in a steel mill. Both parents are now dead.

G. Adolph Johnson was educated in the grade schools of his birthplace and was graduated from English High School with the class of 1907. He then went to Washington, District of Columbia, to study architectural design in the Atelier Glen Brown, returning to Worcester to be associated with George H. Clemence for about a year. Mr. Johnson accepted a position as an instructor in drawing in the Worcester Trade School, mean- while carrying on his profession and professional studies. During the period when the United States was involved in the World War, he was in the governmental service department for the rehabilita- tion of disabled soldiers, being stationed at Camp Devens, Boston, Worcester and Chicago. In this work he continued during the years 1918, 1919 and 1920. While located at Chicago, he entered Armour Institute and took post-graduate work in architec- ture.

In 1922 Mr. Johnson returned to Worcester once more and since that time has practiced his profes- sion with this city as his headquarters and home. He was the architect of the Calvary Lutheran Church, Worcester; the office building for the Florence Oil Stove Company, at Gardner ; factory building for the Hedstrom Union Company, also of Gardner ; the parish house for the First Swedish Methodist Church, Worcester ; a dormitory for Carleton College, Northfield, Minnesota; the Bill- ings Square Library, Worcester; Junior High School of the same city; and many other struc- tures. In passing it may be mentioned that in the competition for a Massachusetts State War Memo- rial for erection at Boston, Mr. Johnson won the first prize. Among his professional associations are the Society of Architects of Worcester, of which he is vice-president, and the Worcester Engi- neering Society, in which he is a member of the executive board.

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Mr. Johnson has the variety and breadth of inter- ests which often go with the artistic and creative temperament. Fraternally, he is affiilated with the Free and Accepted Masons, being a member of all the bodies of Masonry up to and including the thirty-second degree, Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite, and Aleppo Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine ; and he is also a mem- ber of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows. He is a member of the Wachusett Country Club and the Kiwanis Club, and is the president of the Worcester Chapter of the American-Scandanivian Foundation. In politics he has been prominent, not because of any particular desire to play the game, but because he has been sought to do things publicly by those who had faith in his abilities. Mr. Johnson was a member of the city council in 1924- 1925-26. He was also a member of the Massachu- setts Legislature during 1927 and 1928. Among his business connections he is a director of the Skandia Bank and Trust Company ; and he is a trustee of the Fairlawn Hospital. His church is the Methodist Episcopal.

On October 28, 1914, G. Adolph Johnson married Signe C. Thorn, of Worcester.

BARNARD, SUMNER AND PUTNAM COMPANY-More than a century ago, or in 1830, when Worcester was a town of about five thousand souls, Lysander Clark and Charles Brooks started a mercantile business which is now fami- liarly known as Barnard-Sumner. This important store swung into its second century under the guidance of Edward Prentice Sumner, president ; William J. Jamieson, vice-president and general manager ; and Frank J. Knowlton, secretary and treasurer. The review, here attempted, is in brief an outline in the changes of ownership of the company, and thumb-nail biographies of the pres- ent management. Clark and Brooks were not burdened with any great ambitions and certainly did not vision a store such as now "exists, nor, for that matter, the city which now has developed. One of the chief competitors of the partners was one Henry Chamberlain, a clerk who had bought out his employer and had built up a good trade in lumber and West Indian goods. Mr. Chamberlain came to the two and suggested that they join forces ; in 1834 this was done, and Mr. Chamber- lain became the head of the former Clark and Brooks concern. A few years later two clerks were employed by Chamberlain, Lewis Barnard and George Sumner, and both proved so valuable that they were taken into the firm. In 1857 Mr. Cham- berlain retired and the establishment became Bar- nard, Sumner and Putnam, the last named also being a former clerk. In 1881 Frederick A. Hawes was admitted into partnership and in 1911 had be- come the president. In 1929 the present manage- ment was elected, every official of which had been, throughout all their business careers, connected with this oldest mercantile establishment of Wor- cester.

EDWARD PRENTICE SUMNER, presi- dent of Barnard, Sumner and Putnam, is a native of Worcester, born January 18, 1866, the son of George and Sarah E. (Richardson) Sumner, the first mentioned of whom was one of the early partners of the company. Edward Prentice Sum- ner was educated under private tutors and in the

Worcester public schools. While still a youth he became associated with his father in the Barnard- Sumner establishment and has so continued ever since.

Mr. Sumner, in 1890, married Bertha L. Perry, and they are the parents of two children: I. Kath- erine, now the wife of E. V. Hill and the mother of a daughter, Frances H. 2. Frances, who married John W. LaSalle and is the mother of four chil- dren : Katherine, Elizabeth, Sonia, and John W., Jr.

FRANK J. KNOWLTON, secretary and treasurer, of Barnard, Sumner and Putnam, was born at Holden, Worcester County, on February 7, 1869, son of Frederick and Caroline E. (Bur- nett) Knowlton. After his school days were over he entered the employ of Barnard, Sumner and Putnam and has been connected with the business all his mature life. He has run the whole gamut of the work in the establishment and is never com- pelled to ask any employee to do something that he does not know how to do himself. He has held his present offices since the reorganization of the company in 1929. Equal with his devotion to the business has been his devotion to his church, the Holden Congregational, in which he has held about every office possible.

In 1894, Mr. Knowlton married Agnes E. Babb, and they have a daughter, Helen I., wife of Charles W. Llewellyn.

WILLIAM J. JAMIESON, a native son of Worcester, is the vice-president of Barnard, Sum- ner and Putnam, and its vigorous general manager. He was born October 15, 1886, his father being Thomas H. Jamieson and his mother the former Mary Riddell, both natives of Glasgow, Scotland. After attending the public schools, he began his business career with Barnard, Sumner and Putnam and rose step by step through various posts, until he was chosen to take his present responsible posi- tion in 1929. He is a man of varied interests, civic, social and religious. Besides his prominence in the present establishment, he is a trustee of the Wor- cester Mechanics Savings Bank and is financially interested in other industries. He is a popular figure in the Worcester Chamber of Commerce and a member of the Kiwanis Club. He is the pres- ident and one of the organizers of the Holden District Hospital and is chairman of the financial board of the town of Holden and identified closely with its growth and prosperity. Golf is his chief out-of-door recreation which he plays as a mem- ber of the Whitinsville Golf Club. He is also a member of the Worcester Economic Club and an official in the Holden Congregational Church. Fra- ternally, Mr. Jamieson is affiliated with Morning Star Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, and is a member of the Chapter, Council and Com- mandery. During the World War period he served on many of the committees, and was one of the leaders in the Liberty Loan, Red Cross and other "drives" of that strenuous time.

William J. Jamieson married, in 1910, Helen B. Brierly, of Massachusetts, and they are the par- ents of two children : Dorothy W. and Phoebe Ann.

CHARLES GRENFILL WASHBURN-As an industrial and political leader, lawyer, author and traveler, former Congressman Charles Gren- fill Washburn, late of Worcester, brought to his

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native State of Massachusetts in particular and to the country generally the gifts of a trained mind, a patriotic spirit and a multiform service. Known to many as "the friend of Presidents," he also num- bered among his former colleagues and associates those who had been his fellow-incmbers in legis- lative bodies, and among his close friends members of numerous societies. He had read and traveled widely, and from his rich fund of information, gathered through practice, research and observa- tion, he contributed much of value to the literature of his time, and lectured constructively on various subjects. He was born in Worcester, January 28, 1857, a son of Charles Francis and Mary Eliza- beth (Whiton) Washburn. From the public schools of his native city he entered Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he graduated in 1875 with the degree of Bachelor of Science, and at Harvard College he received the degree of Bach- elor of Arts at graduation in 1880. He next studied law and was admitted to the bar in Suffolk County in 1886.

His industrial career began in 1880, when he established the business since known as the Wire Goods Company, No. 28 Union Street, Worcester. In 1882 he became treasurer and manager of the Worcester Barbed Wire Fence Company, which afterward was sold to the Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company. From 1884 to 1891 he was active in the management of the Washburn and Moen Manufacturing Company, and for part of the time was a director of the corporation. As one of the three trustees of the estate of Horatio N. Slater, of Webster, he was a factor in the management of the cotton and woolen mills of S. Slater and Sons, of Webster, from 1899 to 1913. During his term as trustee, the Slater Building, the second modern office building to be erected in Worcester, was built by the estate. His legal training and extensive business experience as a manufacturer admirably fitted him for the admin- istration of this great trust.

Mr. Washburn, in early middle life, entered poli- tics with the zest and leadership that characterized his earlier business and legal activities. He repre- sented his district in the General Court of Massa- chusetts in 1897 and 1898, serving his first term on the committee on mercantile affairs, and in his second as chairman of the committee on taxation. In the following year he was State Senator, serving two terms, 1899 and 1900. He took a prominent part in legislation. He was appointed in 1902 a member of the special committee to revise the corporation laws of the Commonwealth, of which subject he had made a special study. For many years he was one of the most influential leaders of the Republican party in Massachusetts. When Theodore Roosevelt was nominated for President, in 1904, he was a delegate to the Republican Na- tional Convention and the member from this State of the committee to notify the nominee. He was also a delegate from Massachusetts to the Rcpub- lican National Convention in 1916. Hc was elected for the unexpired term of Rockwood Hoar in the sccond session of the Fifty-ninth Congress in No- vember, 1906, and served with distinction on the committees on patents, insular affairs and interstate and forcign commerce. He was reëlected to the Sixtieth and Sixty-first Congresses, and retired with a record of notable achievement.

He was a classmate and intimate friend of Theodore Roosevelt in Harvard University, and a close personal friend of President Taft and Presi- dent Coolidge. Few men of his day had so great an opportunity to know the inside history of gov- ernment and to observe what made the political machinery run. He was exceedingly well informed concerning history and current events and of the men who made history. Gifted with a trenchant pen, he wrote enlighteningly on many subjects, contributing frequently to magazines and other periodicals on politics, government, history and biography In his earlier days he studied and un- derstood the history and development of Worcester and particularly its industries. The book he pub- lished in 1917, "Industrial Worcester," is today regarded as the best authority on the subject for the period it covers. Mr. Washburn also com- piled, in 1916, one of the best biographies of Theo- dore Roosevelt. Among his later works are: "Worcester Manufacturing and Mechanical Indus- tries," published in 1887; "Catholic Church Claims in the Philippine Islands," 1908; "Government Control of Corporations and Conventions," 1912; "Parting of the Ways, A Question to be Decided by the American People," 1919; "Biography of Henry Cabot Lodge," 1925; "The Life of John W. Weeks," "Address upon Our Relations with the Philippines," 1926; "History of a Statute, the Sherman Anti-trust Law of 1890," 1927.

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Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 21

Author: Nelson, John, 1866-1933 Publication date: 1934 Publisher: New York, American historical Society Number of Pages: 700

Author: Nelson, John, 1866-1933
Publication date: 1934
Publisher: New York, American historical Society
Number of Pages: 700