Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 54

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

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Dr. Hunt has long been interested in the National Red Cross. A first-aid manual obtained in 1895 became book No. I of his surgical library. His direct participation in the work of the Red Cross began in 1917, when Worcester Chapter was ex- panding its organization to meet the war time burdens which it was to carry with much honor to Worcester and credit to itself. As first chair- man of the educational committee, Dr. Hunt en- rolled a group of physicians and nurse instructors and organized a school of first-aid and home nurs- ing, which became very popular and through which several hundred persons were instructed, examined and certified.

After the war Dr. Hunt again took up Red Cross work and organized the Disaster Relief Committee of Worcester Chapter in 1925. In 1926 he became chairman of the chapter and is still active in that position.

Dr. Hunt married at Worcester, June 4, 1907, Isabel Girling, who was born October 21, 1876, daughter of James Girling, who was born in Eng- land, August 3, 1845, and Eliza (Rayforth) Girling, also born in England, November 7, 1854. Three children were born of this marriage: I. Isabel, born March 7, 1908, now Mrs. James Albert Daw- son, of North Providence, Rhode Island. 2. Ethel Dorothy, born July 14, 19II. 3. Mildred Elizabeth, born January 12, 1913, now Mrs. Charles A. Hall, of Providence, Rhode Island. After an illness of several months Isabel (Girling) Hunt died May 28, 1928. Dr. Hunt married (second), September

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21, 1929, Charlotte Stiles Alling, who was born in Chicago, Illinois, but who at the time of her marriage to Dr. Hunt had been for some years a resident of Worcester. Mrs. Hunt is a descendant of Roger Alling, one of the original settlers of the New Haven Colony in 1638, and through her mother from William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth Colony. Captain John Mason of Pe- quot War fame married into this line. Mrs. Hunt's grandfather was Edward Austin Sheldon, educator, of Oswego, New York. She is a graduate of Northwestern University, Bachelor of Science, summa cum laude, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa and Sigma Xi societies. Dr. and Mrs. Hunt have one child, born March 26, 1931, Roger Alling, named for the founder of the Alling line in America. Dr. and Mrs. Hunt make their home at No. 20 Kenilworth Road, Worcester, and have their summer home at Saybrook, Connecticut.

Fraternally, Dr. Hunt is affiliated with Quinsiga- mond Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, and with Ridgley Lodge, Independent Order of Odd Fel- lows. He is a member of the Harvard Club of Worcester, Worcester Economic Club and Wor- cester Country Club. Politically, he supports the principles of the Republican party, and his religious affiliations are with the Universalist Church.

CHARLES ERNEST WINFIELD MAT- THEWS-His life's work associated with the textile industry, Charles E. W. Matthews occupies the important positions of superintendent and direc- tor of the Davis and Brown Woolen Company, of Uxbridge, one of the larger and more important of the corporations thus engaged in this section of the State. One of the representative men of the town, he is intensely interested in all public affairs.

Mr. Matthews' parents, Jabez and Ruth (Over- end) Matthews, came before their marriage from their native place, Trowbridge, England, and set- tled in Connecticut. His father was a mill man for a number of years and later engaged in the grocery business at Mapleville, Rhode Island.

Born in Putnam, Connecticut, September 25, 1873, Charles Ernest Winfield Matthews received his education in the local public schools and at Williston Seminary in Easthampton, this State. At the age of fourteen he took a job as bobbin boy at the Huntington Manufacturing Company. In 1895 he journeyed to Baltimore, Maryland, and entered the employ of the Ashland Manufacturing Company, remaining there about four and one-half years. He arrived in Danielson, Connecticut, in 1899, and was made superintendent of the dress- ing department of the Davis and Brown Woolen Company in this town. He remained in this con- nection in Danielson for five years.

Mr. Matthews was transferred in 1905 from Danielson to the Uxbridge mill of the Davis and Brown Woolen Company in the capacity of book- keeper. In 1912 he was made superintendent of the plant, and in 1916 was elected to the board of directors. He has entire charge of the company's Uxbridge mill, which manufactures thibets, cloak- ings and overcoatings. As vice-president of the Uxbridge Savings Bank, he is rated as one of the substantial men of the town. Among his frater- nal alliances are Solomon's Temple Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of which he is a Past Mas- ter; the Scottish Rite (thirty-second degree) ; and

Aleppo Temple, Ancient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Boston. He is a member and past president of the Uxbridge Rotary Club and a former president of the Blackstone Valley Mills Association. A member of the First Evan- gelical Congregational Church, of Uxbridge, he serves as chairman of its invested funds and as treasurer of the parish house.

Mr. Matthews married, September 27, 1913, Hat- tie Mabel Gunn, of Uxbridge.

DR. WILLIAM HENRY PERRY-For a score of years, Dr. William H. Perry has filled the office of superintendent of schools of Leominster and in the system has introduced many improve- ments as to curriculum, methods and plant.

Of English descent, William Henry Perry was born in North Hoosick, New York, December 6, 1867, the son of Simeon S. and Lydia A. (Sly) Perry. His father was a teacher in the public schools of New York, and his mother conducted a private school in Buskirk, New York, which in- cluded children of all grades from those just enter- ing school to those preparing for college. She was a highly educated woman. The son, William Henry, was reared in his native State and received his early instruction from his mother. From the Troy Conference Academy, Poultney, Vermont, he went to Syracuse University, where he was grad- uated Bachelor of Arts in the class of 1893. He later made his Master of Arts at the same univer- sity. In the fall of 1893 he went to Lowville, New York, to be vice-principal at the academy there, and was stationed in this position two years. In order to obtain a more comprehensive knowledge of elementary work, the better to qualify himself as a teacher and supervisor, he entered the State Normal School at Albany, New York. His rec- ord here was superior, and he was chosen as one of the orators and given the degree of Bachelor of Pedagogy at graduation exercises in 1896. Invited back to Lowville to be principal of the academy, he accepted and held the position for eleven years. He then entered New York University and did post-graduate work for one year, receiving at graduation the degree of Master of Pedagogy. The following year he tutored the children of a family, and carried forward his studies, his advanced work earning him the degree of Doctor of Pedagogy in 1909.

Dr. Perry's major career as an educator began in 1909, in which year he was installed as superin- tendent of schools at Westerly, Rhode Island. At the end of one year he resigned to accept the super- intendency of the Stonington ( Connecticut) public school system. He was there four years and in 1914 came to Leominster, where he has since filled the position of school superintendent. To the ad- ministration of his department he has given of his best, and has introduced many notable changes in the courses of study and in the conduct of the schools as well. He is giving especial attention to the training of backward and deficient pupils, and this work has proved most gratifying in many instances. During his régime there has been erected in Leominster one of the finest junior high school buildings in this part of the State. So widespread has his reputation as a progressive edu- cator become, that he is often called upon to ex- pound his ideas and methods for the benefit of

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school authorities in different sections of the coun- try. He is continually devising ways and means for the improvement or advance of the local school system. His affiliations with organized bodies of the profession are important and include the Na- tional Education Association, Department of Super - intendents of the national body, Massachusetts School Superintendents Association, New England Superintendents Association, Worcester County Teachers Association, Massachusetts Schoolmas- ters Club, and Worcester County Superintendents Club. He is active in civic affairs, a member and president of the Leominster Rotary Club, a mem- ber of the Leominster Club, and the Methodist Episcopal Church, where he is also chairman of the board of trustees.

Dr. Perry married (first), August 12, 1896, Hattie L. Rich, a teacher, of Morrisville, Ver- mont. She died in 1901. By this marriage there are three children: I. Mildred R., married Felix Montano, who is with the Hartford, Connecticut, Trust Company. 2. Robert W., who is head of the science department of the Malden (Massachusetts) High School. He married Edna M. Schoenrock. 3. Florence E. Perry. Dr. Perry married (second) Katharine L. Mereness, of Lowville, New York. By this marriage there are two children : 4. Charles M., a salesman in New York City. 5. Henry B., at home, a student in high school. Mrs. Perry is actively identified with women's affairs, cultural and social. She is chairman of the ways and means committee of the Leominster Fortnightly Club. A proficient linguist, speaking a number of languages, she is a member of the Cercle Fran- çaise and belongs to a number of social clubs. She also gives lectures on art under the auspices of the University Extension Division of the Massa- chusetts State Department of Education.

RALPH HENRY ALTON-As manager of the Worcester Suburban Electric Company and the Blackstone Electric Company, with headquarters at Uxbridge, Ralph H. Alton is doing much to ad- vance the service of these public utilities. His father, George Henry Alton, a native of Massa- chusetts, was a mechanical engineer for the Gen- eral Electric Company at Lynn. After forty-one years of continuous service he was retired, subse- quently passing considerable of his time at his home in St. Petersburg, Florida, where he died in 1930. His wife, before marriage, was Mary Alice Osgood, born in New Hampshire.

Ralph Henry Alton was born in Boston, January 31, 1883, and passed through the public schools of Lynn, in which city the family was living at the time. He took a post-graduate course in the Lynn High School, and entered the University of Maine, where he was graduated in 1905 with the Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering, re- ceiving his degree of Electrical Engineer in 1908. Joining the General Electric Company's staff at Schenectady, New York, he was assigned to the testing department, with which he was connected for about one and one-half years. He has the distinction of having had charge of the first group or fleet of electric locomotives, thirty-five in num- ber, to run out of New York City. In his pos- session remains the control lever of the first elec- tric locomotive of the passenger type to be installed on the New York Central Railroad.

He later became a construction engineer, travel- ing pretty much over the country while engaged principally in electrical railway installation. He next went to work for the Federal Government in the testing of gasoline-electric generating sets, be- ing stationed at the Lynn works of the General Electric Company for one year. From there he went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, to take charge of the central electric station and railway depart- ments. While in that city his health became im- paired and he was transferred to San Francisco, California, being attached to the general office in that city in the capacity of assistant sales man- ager. He was associated with that work for six years, during which time he introduced electrifica- tion into the oil fields of California.

He was given the complete oversight of the Gen- eral Electric Company's interests in the building of the exposition of 1915. Accepting the dual position of superintendent and engineer of the Mohrlite Company of San Francisco, he was with this concern when, as the only recipient in its class, it was awarded the only gold medal and citation for lighting fixtures shown at the exposi- tion in 1915. He was with this concern for one and one-half years, or until its removal to Urbana, Ohio. He entered the civil service of the United States Government in 1917, being assigned to the Engineer Corps of the United States Army, and was stationed at Erie, Pennsylvania, as resident engineer, holding the title of inspector in the regu- lar army. He was at Erie when he accepted a com- mission in the army during the World War period. He was ordered to Washington and assigned to duty as an instruction officer, serving until his discharge in 1919 with the rank of captain of engi- neers. Thence he went to New Haven, Connect- icut, where he was a commercial engineer in the industrial power department. It was in March, 1920, that he accepted the superintendency of the Worcester Suburban Electric Company and set- tled in Uxbridge at the company's general offices. His promotion to the post of manager followed in due time. His position also carries the general managership of the Blackstone Electric Company, as already mentioned.

He is a life-member of Mount Carmel Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of Lynn ; affiliates with the Scottish Rite Freemasons (thirty-second de- gree), Peoria, Illinois; Mohammed Temple, An- cient Arabic Order Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, of Peoria ; Charles A. Rice Post, No. 35, American Legion (charter member), of Uxbridge; Uxbridge Rotary Club (president) ; Uxbridge Grange, Pa- trons of Husbandry; Izaak Walton League; Uni- tarian Laymen's League; and Whitinsville Country Club. His recreations are photography, hunting and fishing.

Mr. Alton married, June 12, 1908, Marion A. Atwell, of Orono, Maine, and they have a son, George Gilbert Alton, born in Oakland, California, November 8, 1914.

LEMUEL G. HODGKINS-Through his long connection with the insurance business in Worcester, Lemuel G. Hodgkins, secretary of the Massachusetts Protective Association, Inc., secre- tary of the Massachusetts Life Assurance Com- pany, and secretary of the Paul Revere Life Insur- ance Company, all having offices at No. 18 Chestnut

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Street, is well known in insurance circles through- out New England and is one of the recognized authorities in his sphere of activity.

Frank E. Hodgkins, father of Mr. Hodgkins, was born in Charlestown, Massachusetts, son of Wil- liam H. Hodgkins, an early resident of Charles- town, who followed the blacksmith trade there during his entire active life. The son received his education in the public schools of Charlestown and soon after graduating from the local high school entered the employ of the National Lead Company, with whom he remained until he retired from ac- tive life. He died in Melrose, Massachusetts, at the age of sixty-six years. He married Eveline Gulliver, who was born in Milton, Massachusetts, but resided in Somerville at the time of her mar- riage, daughter of Lemuel Gulliver, president of the old Union Bank of Boston, who died at the age of seventy-eight years, and they became the parents of four children, of whom three are liv- ing : I. Ethel G., who married Edward S. Thomp- son, and resides in Brooklyn. 2. Dorothy E., who lives in New York City, where she is in the employ of the Life Insurance Adjustment Bureau which is a bureau for the investigation and adjustment of questions that arise from time to time in the industrial life insurance field, when the same person carries a number of weekly premium policies in different companies and it becomes necessary to dis- continue one or more of them. 3. Lemuel G., of further mention.

Lemuel G. Hodgkins, son of Frank E. and Eve- line (Gulliver) Hodgkins, was born in Somerville, Massachusetts, April 2, 1877. He received his early education in the public schools of Somerville and prepared for college in Worcester Academy, from which he was graduated in 1896. The following fall he matriculated in Dartmouth College, at Hanover, New Hampshire, as a member of the class of 1900, but after two years he left college to enter, in 1898, the insurance business as an employee in the insurance department of the State of Massachusetts. This connection he maintained for seventeen years, first as clerk, later as chief examiner, and finally as deputy insurance commis- sioner, filling these various positions with great benefit to the department and credit to himself, and gaining a very wide experience in and knowledge of the insurance business. These years were years of intensive training, and his promotions were just rewards of proven ability and skill. He left the Massachusetts insurance department in 1915, and for a year he served as secretary and general man- ager of the Massachusetts Rating and Inspection Bureau, which bureau was organized at that time by the companies that were transacting the business of workmen's compensation insurance in Massachu- setts. In 1916 he went to New York as secretary and general manager of the National Automobile Underwriters Conference, an organization com- posed of fire, marine and casualty companies, trans- acting the business of automobile insurance in the United States and he served in this capacity for the following two years. In 1918 he was made sec- retary of the Massachusetts Protective Associa - tion, Inc., which had been operating as an accident and health insurance company for about twenty- five years, and in 1924, when the Massachusetts Protective Life Assurance Company was organized to transact the business of life insurance as a sister company to the Massachusetts Protective

Association, Inc., de was also made secretary of that company. Both these companies operate in every State in the Union and have been very suc- cessful in their fields. In 1930 Mr. Hodgkins was chosen secretary of the Paul Revere Life Insurance Company. The demands of his various executive positions have not kept Mr. Hodgkins from tak- ing an active part in civic, fraternal and club affairs. Politically, he supports the principles of the Republican party. He is a member and direc- tor of the Worcester Chamber of Commerce and of the Worcester Young Men's Christian Associa- tion, and has always been actively interested in plans for the betterment of the community. Fra- ternally, he is identified with all the Masonic bodies, both York and Scottish Rite. He is a member of Isaiah Thomas Lodge, Free and Ac- cepted Masons, of Worcester; Hiram Council, Royal and Select Masters ; and Lawrence Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; and of Worcester County Commandery, Knights Templar, all of the York Rite. In the Scottish Rite, he is a member of Worcester Lodge of Perfection; Goddard Council, Princes of Jerusalem; Lawrence Chapter, Rose Croix; and the Connecticut Valley Consistory, in which he has attained the thirty-second degree. Among his clubs are the Worcester and the Wor- cester Country Club; and he is a member of Delta Kappa Epsilon college fraternity. He finds health- ful recreation on the golf links and is a welcome and highly esteemed member of all the organiza- tions with which he is affiliated.

Lemuel G. Hodgkins married, March 26, 1907, Alice Lawrence Whittemore, of Wollaston, Mas- sachusetts, daughter of Walter L. Whittemore, who for some years was connected with the United Shoe Machinery Company, but later was associated with his brother in the. Whittemore Shoe Polish Company. Mr. and Mrs. Hodgkins have two chil- dren: I. Ruth G., born October 14, 1908, a grad- uate of the Garland school of Boston; married, March 24, 1933, Edward R. Hodgkins, who is associated with the Massachusetts Protective Life Assurance Company. 2. Virginia N., born October 30, I9II, who is a junior in Skidmore College, at Saratoga Springs, New York. Mr. and Mrs. Hodgkins make their home in Worcester and main- tain a summer place at Kennebunk Beach, Maine.

MAJOR VICTOR EVERETT EDWARDS -An engineer of distinguished record and an inventor of national prominence, Major Victor Everett Edwards was instrumental in effecting revolutionary changes in the process of steel tech- nology. His invention of the now famous flying shears marks a brilliant chapter in the history of the steel industry and altered the course of its development. More than a hundred other patents were also entered in his name.

Major Edwards was born on September 4, 1862, at North Chelmsford, Massachusetts. During the greater part of his life, however, he was a resident of Worcester County, which is proud to claim him by adoption. He was a son of Dr. Nathan Brown and Sibbyl (Hutchins) Edwards, and his father was by profession a physician. Major Ed- wards received his preliminary education in the public schools of his birth place. After his gradua- tion from the North Chelmsford High School he became a student at Worcester Polytechnic Insti- tute and was there graduated at the head of his

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class in 1883, taking the degree in mechanical engi- neering. During the earlier part of his career he was associated with the Merrimack Manufacturing Company of Lowell as assistant chief engineer, with the Washburn and Moen Company of Wor- cester as assistant engineer, and with the Otis Steel Company of Cleveland in the same capacity. Subscquently, however, he became connected with the Morgan Construction Company at Worcester and for many years was chief engineer, vice-pres- ident and a director of this corporation. These offices he held until within a short time of his death, playing a part of major importance in the direction of company affairs.

Major Edwards' remarkable inventive talents were early apparent. In the course of his engi- neering duties he saw possibilities for many im- provements in steel processing and devoted much of his leisure to the development of his ideas. These resulted in a whole series of steel manufac- ture patents, both United States and foreign, num- bering more than a hundred. The most important of his inventions was the flying shears, which made his name known to every steel man and made pos- sible for the first time the continuous process of steel manufacture in rolling mills. Major Ed- wards was still in his 'twenties, when he con- ceived the idea upon which he based the design of the first flying shears. In 1892 the Morgan Construction Company built for the Jones and Laughlin Steel Corporation the first rolling mill successfully to operate with flying shears. A fuller account of this invention with its dramatic and interesting story is contained in the historical sec- tion of this work, but a brief description may be included here. Before his invention, as the red hot steel rods emerged from the rollers, it was necessary to stop the entire mass while the rods were cut. The Edwards shears were designed to travel along with the hot rods and cut them while in motion. This permitted the continuous rolling and made unnecessary the vast amount of manual labor and machine horse power previously required to start and stop each time the rod was cut.

While recognizing the technical importance of his invention to the steel industry, Major Edwards was more deeply interested in their humanitarian aspect. "The great satisfaction of my life," he said shortly before his death, "has been the hu- manitarian value of my inventions. They have eliminated the very severe manual labor formerly considered unavoidable in many steel plant pro- cesses."

In addition to his connection with the Morgan Construction Company, Major Edwards was a director of the Massachusetts Mutual Life Insur- ance Company until his resignation shortly before his death. From 1920 to 1926 he was a life mem- ber of the board of trustees of Worcester Poly- technic Institute, relinquishing that office because of failing health. He always kept in close touch with this institution which he had attended in his youth, serving as a member of the executive com- mittee of the Alumni Association for a number of years and as president of that association in 1918- 1919. In 1927, in recognition of his distinguished career and his many services to the school, Worces- ter Polytechnic Institute conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Engineering.

During the World War, Major Edwards received his commission as major in the United States

Ordnance Corps, serving at Washington, District of Columbia, and at the Aberdeen, Maryland, proving grounds until after the signing of the Armistice. Subsequently he was a major in the Officers' Reserve Corps, United States Army. For more than twenty years he made his home at West Boylston. He was always active in town affairs, serving on the board of park commissioners and as a library trustee for many years and participat- ing in civic and community projects. He was a member of the West Boylston Congregational Church, was affiliated fraternally with the Free and Accepted Masons and was a member of vari- ous clubs and associations before his long illness led him to resign from many of them. These in- cluded the Worcester Club and the Worcester Country Club of Worcester, the Rotary Club, the Duquesne Club of Pittsburgh, the American Iron and Steel Institute and the American Society of Mechanical Engineers.

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Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume III, Part 54

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