Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 23

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 23

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Edwin H. Marble married, in Worcester, Octo- ber 23, 1875, Emma C. Moulton, daughter of Alvin T. and Mary E. (Hammond) Moulton and mem- ber of a family of English origin and early Con- necticut residence. Mr. and Mrs. Marble are the parents of the following children: I. George Ed- win, born in Worcester, June 26, 1877, married Irene Logan, and they are the parents of three children. 2. Clement Mason, born October 10, 1879, died August 5, 1880. 3. Harold Edson, born July 5, 1881, married Mary Reilley, and they have one child. 4. Robert Alvin, born June 28, 1883, married Maude P. Williams, two of their four children surviving. 5. Henry Chase, born January 5, 1885, married Alice Ingram. He is a practicing phy- sician and served in the World War with the following record : Commissioned captain in Med- ical Corps in June, 1917; assigned to Base Hos- pital No. 6 (Massachusetts General Hospital Unit) ; sailed from New York, July 11, 1917, on the S. S. "Urania"; landed in Queenstown, Liver- pool, thence to Bordeaux, France; assigned to Base Hospital No. 6, American Expeditionary Forces as chief of orthopedic service, and for two months was assigned to the 23d Engineers as battalion surgeon at Dax, France; sailed from France Feb- ruary 14, 1919, and landed in New York March 2, 1919 ; promoted to rank of major, Medical Corps, in February, 1919; assigned to duty at United States General Hospital No. 3, Colonia, New Jer- sey ; and honorably discharged June 3, 1919. 6. Wiley Hammond, born in Worcester, January 4, 1888; his service record in the World War is as follows : Attended Ist Reserve Officers' Training Camp at Fort Niagara, New York, May 10 to July 16, 1917, and was discharged by authority of Spe- cial Order 64, Headquarters, Reserve Officers' Training Camp, Fort Niagara, July 16, 1917, rea- son, defective vision ; enlisted in Engineers Corps at Pittsburgh, December 10, 1917, a waiver being

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secured from Washington to permit his enlistment, the latter dated November 24, 1917; assigned to recruiting detachment of the 23d Engineers, Camp Meade, Maryland, sworn in December 14, 1917, acting first sergeant of detachment until transferred to Ist Battalion, then at Washington Barracks, De- cember 30, 1917, and being assigned to Company C; battalion marched to Laurel, Maryland, Jan- uary 20, 1918; sailed for France January 24, 1918, in United States Steamship "Huron" (formerly "Kaiser Friedrich der Grosse") from Hoboken, and landed at Brest February 7, 1918; proceeded from Brest to St. Nazaire, and after several days in camp there the battalion was assigned to the Ist Division (as road engineers), then in Toul sector. Division headquarters was at Menil-le-Tour, bat- talion headquarters at Boucq, and Company C at Camp Gerard Sas, near Raulecourt; attended Army Candidate School, Engineer Section, Fort St. Menge, near Langres, Haute-Marne, France, April I, to July 1, 1918; attended infantry section of the same school in the city of Langres, July I, to July 18; discharged from service July 8, 1918, to accept commission as second lieutenant, Corps of Engi- neers, National Army, General Headquarters, American Expeditionary Forces, Special Order 190, paragraph eleven; assigned to 6th Engineers, 3d Division, July 20, 1918; assigned to Company C, July 26th ; authorized to wear four stars on Liberty ribbon, Aisne-Marne offensive, July 18 to August 6, 1918; St. Mihiel offensive, September 12 to 16, 1918; Meuse-Argonne offensive, September 26 to November II, 1918; and First Army area, August 30 to November II, 1918; authorized to wear one wound chevron, Headquarters, 6th United States Engineers, Regimental Order 97, June 2, 1919; authorized to wear one citation, Headquarters, 3d Division, General Order 22, July 8, 1919; Army of Occupation, December 15, 1918, to July 7, 1919; Second Corps School, Engineer Section, Châtillon- sur-Seine January 2 to 31, 1919; relieved from duty with 6th Engineers, Headquarters, 3d Army, Spe- cial Order 179, June 28, 1919; discharged from service at Camp Devens, Massachusetts, Special Order 188, August 4, 1919. He served as judge advocate, regimental athletic officer and instructor in various engineering subjects (regimental non- commissioned schools), was recommissioned sec- ond lieutenant of engineers, Officers' Reserve Corps, in June, 1922, and promoted to captain of engineers in June, 1922, being assigned to the 324th Engi- neers, 99th Division (with headquarters at Pitts- burgh, Pennsylvania). 7. Clara Hattie, born March 7, 1889, married William L. McGrath, and has four children. They reside in Elmira, New York.

PHILIP H. DUPREY-The dean of the realtors of Worcester, of which city he has been a resident for more than four decades, Philip H. Duprey is president of the Duprey Realty Corpora- tion, the largest holding company in Massachusetts, and he is also senior member of the well-known firm of Duprey and Stoddard, insurance brokers, representing some of the leading companies of the United States.

Philip H. Duprey was born in West Boylston, September 29, 1877, son of Joseph H. Duprey, who died in 1919, and Addie (Dubois) Duprey, who died in 1923, both natives of West Boylston. Philip H. Duprey received his education in the public

schools of his birthplace and then, at the age of twenty, engaged in the real estate business under his own name as an operator and developer. Young, active, and enterprising, he early developed a keen sense of values, both present and future, and this, along with some of the qualities of the creative art- ist, carried him steadily forward in his chosen field of activity. As a broker he was quick to compre- hend the needs and to understand the tastes of his clients who sought to buy or to rent ; as a developer, he called into service his latent artistic ability, and through the years it has become a notable fact that there is always something of charm and beauty about each residential section, in the developing of which Mr. Duprey has had a controlling interest. He has assisted materially in the development of such fine sections as Hillcroft, Indian Lake Park, Huntington Terrace, and some of the most pleasant homes and large business buildings in Worcester and vicinity have been erected under his direction. As the years passed and Mr. Duprey's activities widened, he has given convincing evidence of the possession of unusual executive and administrative abilities and has been able in a marked degree to secure the active cooperation of those with whom he was associated. In point of years in service, he is now one of the oldest real estate dealers in Worcester, and the volume of business in that field which he controls is among the largest. As pres- ident of the Duprey Realty Corporation he is at the head of the largest holding company in Massa- chusetts, and as senior member of the firm of Duprey and Stoddard he has a controlling inter- est in one of the most successful insurance con- cerns in the city.

Along with his real estate and insurance activ- ities, Mr. Duprey has found time for other activ- ities equally successful. He is the originator, or- ganizer and also president of the Worcester Lunch Car Company, builders of Worcester diners, which employs a large number of men in its factory on Quinsigamond Avenue, Worcester, and which is not only a pioneer in its line, but has dominated its field. There is probably not a State in the Union in which one or more of its diners may not be found in operation. In financial circles, too, Mr. Duprey has been and is active and successful. He has been since it was located in Worcester, president of the Massachusetts Acceptance Cor- poration and he is also a trustee of the Worcester Mechanics' Savings Bank. He has always been interested in public affairs and has served in numer- ous public offices. For four years he served as a member of the city council. He was a member of the welfare board for six years and was also a member of the board of trustees of the Worcester Public Library, serving as president of the board. During the period when the United States was engaged in the World War, Mr. Duprey was prom- inent on the various boards and in the loan drives and humanitarian enterprises which characterized that time. Fraternally he is affiliated with the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks and the Alliance Française de Worcester. He is a popular figure in the Chamber of Commerce and the Com- monwealth Club; and he is also a member of the Worcester Commercial Travelers' Association, Worcester County Republican Club, Worcester Country Club, Worcester Safety Council, Wachu- setts Country Club, Harmony Club, Bass Rock Golf Club of Gloucester, Worcester Real Estate

WORCESTER COUNTY

Exchange, Massachusetts Real Estate Exchange and Boston Real Estate Exchange.

Philip H. Duprey married, in 1904, Clara M. Mulvey, of Worcester, and they are the parents of three children: I. Dorothea M., a graduate of Smith College. 2. Barbara J. 3. Mary E. Mr. Duprey's residence at No. 37 Kenwood Avenue was built by himself and is among the fine resi- dences of the city. He has also a very attractive summer residence at Bass Rock, Gloucester.

RICE, BARTON AND FALES, INCOR- PORATED-There were in the little town of Worcester about 1836, two men, both well versed in the art of paper making and both imbued with the idea that in this industry the greater profits were reserved for those who elected to make the paper machinery, rather than the paper itself. It must be remembered that the transition from hand made paper to the machine made product had occurred but a few years previous, and the paper machinery of that time, grotesquely crude as it seems to us, had already revolutionized the industry.

One of these men, Henry P. Howe, was born in Worcester, January 31, 1803, but his experience, so far as is known, was obtained in the Edgarton mill at Shirley where he was the superintendent at about twenty-five years of age. Indeed, this mill became noted because of the skill of its superintendent, who was not only a good paper maker but a clever mechanic ; he invented the fire dryer and developed many other processes in the art of paper making, and in the two or three years just previous to com- ing to Worcester he built a machine shop, leasing power rights at the sawmill of Whitcomb, Edgar- ton, Priest and Company, in that part of Shirley which was afterwards set off to Ayer, where he employed some thirty men in building fire dryers and other paper mill machinery.

The other man, Isaac Goddard, was born at South Royalton, Vermont, March 5, 1800, although he was one of the Millbury Goddards. He came to Worcester in 1812 and was apprenticed to Elijah Burbank at Quinsigamond to learn the paper mak- ing trade in this, one of the old Isaiah Thomas mills. After serving his time here he went to Millbury to work for General Burbank and by 1836 he was superintendent of the Burbank mills in that town.

Whether the friendship of the two men was one of long standing or whether they were drawn to- gether by a common knowledge of each other's ability and aims will probably never be known, but in 1837 they formed the partnership of Howe and Goddard and went into the business of making paper mill machinery at the old "Red Mill" on Green Street, near what is now Kelley Square, and which in those days was one of the numerous water power privileges on Mill Brook.

The early records of this partnership are not available, but the proof of its success is the fact that February 1, 1843, they moved to larger quar- ters on Union Street, near the Boston and Wor- cester Railroad. They had broadened out and were making textile machinery, and but a few years later when more complete records are to be had, we find this concern building complete equipments for paper mills, including water wheels, steam boilers and steam engines, and with one or two exceptions, every item of machinery used in cot- ton and woolen mills, and textile print works.

The next two decades witnessed many changes in the partnership and the firm name was likewise frequently changed. June 1, 1846, George M. Rice was admitted into the partnership and it became Howe, Goddard and Company, and a few months later, in 1847, on Mr. Howe's death, it was again changed to Goddard and Rice. Mr. Rice was born at West Brookfield in 1810 and came to Worcester in 1829; his early training was along mercantile lines and this was his first venture into the manu- facturing field.

November 3, 1845, the time book shows a new apprentice, George S. Barton, who was born at West Millbury, July 18, 1825, and who now had come to Worcester to work for his kinsman, Isaac Goddard. His ability may be gauged by the fact that on May 1, 1849, the firm name was again changed to Goddard, Rice and Company, the "Com- pany" being Mr. Barton and a Mr. Amos Stevens ; little is known of Stevens except that he was an experienced paper maker, and he soon sold out his share to Emmons A. Goddard, the son of Isaac.

We are now in an interesting period in the indus- trial history of the country-a transition period, as it were, due to many causes but especially to the development of the steam engine. Previous to 1840 industry depended almost entirely on water power, and it followed that all of the early mills, and so likewise the villages and towns, were located by the water courses. A paper mill especially needs great quantities of water, not alone for power, but for manufacturing purposes, and many of the early paper mills were located on streams that proved entirely inadequate as the industry grew and the ma- chinery increased in size. In the vicinity of Worces- ter there can be found the deserted sites of early paper mills that were built on meandering brooks that now barely serve as a watering place for a few cattle; on Mill Brook in Worcester, now serving as the main city sewer, there were at one time two paper mills.

We find record of a great deal of machinery shipped to the South during these years, but at the close of the war practically every mill had dis- appeared. In the Middle West paper mills were started up in one State after another, many to pass out of the picture in a few years, and others to endure and expand with the industry. Transpor- tation in the early days was a problem, as the rail- roads were few and far between and many desir- able mill sites were entirely inaccessible.

In New England the industry was also readjust- ing itself; many localities prominent in the paper industry of early days have no such mills today, and vice versa. In 1837 Worcester County had the following list of paper mills, according to the State statistics, although a careful search now fails to identify quite all of them: One in Athol; one in Auburn; two in Fitchburg; two in Hardwick; three in Harvard ; five in Leominster ; one in Mill- bury ; two in Worcester.

Lee, up in the Berkshires, came to be one of the greatest paper making centers in the world, but slipped back in later years. Not till 1853 was the first paper mill built in Holyoke, and for many years Goddard, Rice and Company, and their suc- cessors built every machine that went into this, the "Paper City" of the world, as mill after mill was erected in rapid succession.

This concern acquired the manufacturing rights to many of the earlier inventions in the paper and

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textile industry, among which may be mentioned the: Bennett cloth dryer; Harper Fourdrinier ; Hutton wire guide; Gavit cutter ; Phelps cylinder washer ; Vandewater water wheel; Kneeland lay- boy; and Barrows tentering machine. Aside from recognizing and utilizing the outstanding inven- tions of others, the company's own staff, during all these years, was constantly engaged in improv- ing and refining all its machinery, both paper and textile. In 1862, Rice, Barton and Company, re- designed and modernized its complete line and made new and heavier patterns. All the correspondence of that time unreservedly states that in these shops in Worcester, machinery was being built that was superior to anything that could be procured else- where in the country.

Just prior to 1850 there entered the employ of the company a man who has been termed as one of the "Immortals" of Worcester County-Dr. Russell L. Hawes. Coming to Worcester to practice medi- cine he soon abandoned it to give free rein to his mechanical genius. He invented and perfected in the Goddard and Rice shops the first real machine for making envelopes-the beginning of the en- velope industry in Worcester and the country. He also designed a printing press, a wrigler for the woolen industry, a machine for making paper bags, one for printing wall paper, and many others.

The next change of name of the concern was April 1, 1862, when there was a split and Rice, Barton and Company came into existence with Mr. Rice, Mr. Barton and their former superintendent, Joseph E. Fales. The minority interests were as- sumed by Mr. Goddard, who took in with him his two sons, Emmons A. and Silas W., also a Mr. John L. Seaverns; they opened up next door on Union Street, as Goddard, Seaverns and Company. Within a few months Mr. Goddard passed away and this concern, with different partners and finally with Mr. Seaverns alone, continued until about I870.

This change in the affairs of the concern came at a critical time-the beginning of the second year of the fratricidal struggle between the North and the South. It is well to pause a moment and consider the two men who were to guide the con- cern through. the trying days of the war and the even more dangerous Reconstruction period.

Mr. Barton served three years in the Common Council, five in the Board of Aldermen and was a member of the State Senate in 1877-78; he was president of the Boston, Barre and Gardner Rail- road, president of the Worcester Safe Deposit and Trust Company, and president of the Worcester County Mechanics' Association. Mr. Rice was president of the Common Council for three years and a member of the State Senate in 1869-70; he was also at one time president of the Worcester Safe Deposit and Trust Company, and president of the Manufacturers Mutual Insurance Company. They were both keen, honest business men of the old school, firmly insistent on receiving their rights, but equally willing to guard the rights of their customers and give value received in every piece of machinery they sent out. Most of the cor- respondence for many years is in Mr. Rice's hand- writing and his letters are reflective of the times ;--- brief to the point of brusqueness, assertive and, when necessary, bitterly invective, but withal an insistent and direct sales appeal.

The war period was passed and in 1867 the con- cern was incorporated under the laws of Massa-

chusetts as the Rice, Barton and Fales Machine and Iron Company, with George S. Barton, pres- ident; George M. Rice, treasurer, and Joseph E. Fales, manager, and this name remained unchanged until 1922, when it was shortened to Rice, Barton and Fales, Incorporated. The concern kept pace with changing conditions in the mechanical and chemical development of both the paper and textile industries, gradually enlarging its plant and facil- ities as the trade demanded larger and heavier machinery. Mr. Fales, who had been in charge of the manufacturing end all these years, retired from the business in 1879, and Mr. Rice in 1880, Mr. Barton acquiring their interests and becoming the sole owner.

In 1879 Mr. Barton's son, Charles Sumner Bar- ton, started in to learn the business, and at the time of the elder Mr. Barton's death in 1891 was able to take over the management. The property on Union Street, had come to be in the very center of a large and growing city, and in 1892 a new site was selected far out in the south end, with frontage on the main line of the Boston and Albany Railroad, and there a new and up-to-date plant was built and the business transferred into it in 1893. A portion of the old property was sold to the city of Worcester and on it was built the pres- ent fire department headquarters and Mercantile Street. On another portion of it, across Union Street by the bridge over which Foster Street passes, portions of the old shop are still to be seen.

Gradually, over a period of years, the paper and pulp machinery had come to be the chief product of the company ; the boiler business was sold to the Stewart Boiler Works back in the early '70's and by the time the new plant on Tainter Street was in operation, with the exception of the textile printing machine and its auxiliary equipment, but little textile machinery was made.

In 1903 George Sumner Barton, the third of the family and the second to bear that name, started in to learn the business, as had his father and grandfather before him, and in 1914, as the war clouds were hovering over Europe, he was called to the leadership of the company at the death of his father.

It was not given to Charles Sumner Barton to live the Biblical threescore and ten, but his was an active and unselfish life both at work and at play, and the press and personal tributes at his death were many and beautiful. From the paper mills all over the country who did business with him; from the exclusive clubs in the cities of the East who welcomed him socially; from men in every walk of life who knew and loved him, came words of sorrow at his early passing and a heartfelt prayer at having been permitted to share the friend- ship of such a man.

It was a bitter test of the ability of the younger generation to be called to the helm at the begin- ning of the great "World War." Lessons learned in previous struggles went for naught in this gigantic conflict, and contingencies never dreamed of before hurled all industry into a mad rush for production of war materials. Huge profits in- veigled many concerns into unwise expansion and spelled ruin at the tremendous let down in the inevitable Reconstruction period. Rice, Barton and Fales did not enlarge their plant; all their existing facilities were put at the disposal of the govern- ment and much war work was done here, and a

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survey at the war's close proved the wisdom of the conservatism of the new management.

It is the age of speed and production. For nearly a hundred years the cry has been for larger and faster machines. In the 1840's a complete machine for making paper would weigh twenty or twenty-five tons and cost perhaps $2,000; such a machine could turn out a sheet fifty inches wide and produce a ton and a half or two tons per day. In those days they looked ahead to a possible speed of 100 feet per minute. Present day news print machines have been sold for over $400,000; such a machine weighs thirteen hundred tons and requires sixty cars to transport it to the mill and several months to erect it. This company has recently placed two notable machines in a new news print mill in Maine; these are 234" wide machines, equipped with anti-friction bearings, balanced rolls, automatic paper passing devices and every modern refinement and have established a world's record for speed and production. Each one of these ma- chines can turn out one hundred and sixty tons of news print per day and have operated success- fully at 1,340 feet per minute.

The mechanical development of the art of paper making has but kept pace with the chemical end; the discovery of ground wood pulp and also the chemical pulps, and their gradual adoption in all lines of paper making has inaugurated a new era. And in the quite recent past chemistry has spectac- ularly bridged the gap in the two hitherto entirely distinct lines of manufacture of this concern, for today, on Rice, Barton and Fales' textile print- ing machines beautiful artificial silks are being printed which are made from spruce fibres origi- nally processed on a Rice, Barton and Fales paper machine.

This company was one of the first in this sec- tion to adopt the group insurance plan for its employees. It was the first, and possibly only one to invite its employees to suggest possible improve- ments to its production methods and plant upkeep ; in the past dozen years nearly a thousand sugges- tions have been received and acted upon, and hun- dreds of dollars have been awarded for suggestions of merit, and in some instances the employee has been aided in securing a patent.

The present plant of Rice, Barton and Fales, Incorporated, has both foundry and shop facilities for making the very largest paper machines in use, or liable to be called for. These shops, hardly known to many residents of our city, have for nearly a century enjoyed world wide reputation for their paper mill and textile machinery. The present management consists of George Sumner Barton, president and treasurer; J. Warren Ved- der, vice-president and general manager, and Les- ter M. Start, secretary.

Mr. Barton has already been mentioned; he is the third one of the family to head the concern. He is well known in Masonic circles and has served as Master of Quinsigamond Lodge, Worcester. He is interested in all Episcopal activities and has for years been a devoted member of All Saints Church, of Worcester. He was one of the founders of Lenox School and has served as clerk of the trus- tees of the school since it was started. He has served as chairman of the Parks and Recreation Commission of Worcester, and a member of many commissions, during the war and since.

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Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 23

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