History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 195

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100

USA > Maine > Penobscot County > History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches > Part 195

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from home, to whose pleasures he was greatly attached, he found some compensation in the handsome returns these investments yielded him. The towns named Her- sey, in Michigan, Minnesota, and other Western States, take their designations from his large properties in and about them. His heirs still hold large tracts of these lands, which have in general become very valuable.

With all his busy employments, General Hersey found time to do the State some service. In the years 1852-3 he was a member of the Executive Council of the State ; in 1857 again a member of the House of Representatives in the Maine Legislature; in 1860 a delegate to the National Republican Convention in Chicago, which nominated Lincoln and Hamlin, and was one of the few New Englanders in the Convention who were original Lincoln men. He was again a delegate in a National Convention in 1864-that which met in Baltimore and nominated Lincoln and Johnson. In 1864-5 he again served his county in the lower branch of the State Legis- lature. He was also a member of the State Senate in 1867 and 1869. He was also at least once named by his friends in the canvasses for nomination as Governor.

During the war he gave one son to the Union cause, and himself rendered active aid in raising the Second Maine Regiment, the First Maine Heavy Artillery (in which his son was an officer), and many other com- mands. He was appointed Assistant Paymaster-General of the State at the outbreak of the war, and personally raised the money with which the Second Maine and other regiments were paid before taking the field. For these services he received no compensation beyond what would defray his expenses and losses in disbursing. In September, 1872, he was elected Representative in Con- gress from the Bangor District, and was rechosen in 1874. His health, however, was rapidly giving way, and after several months of suffering he passed tranquilly away at his home in Bangor, February 3, 1875. Eulo- gies upon his life and character were delivered in the House of Representatives, of which body he was then a member, by Messrs. Hale and Frye, of Maine, and Dun- nell, of Minnesota; and in the Senate by his fellow- townsman, Mr. Hamlin, and by Senator Morrill, of Maine. The remarks by these distinguished gentlemen were thoroughly sympathetic, and their eulogies most cordial and apparently sincere. Mr. Hamlin's were especially noticeable for their exalted estimate of his character and career.

General Hersey was a very earnest member of the Universalist church in Bangor, of which he was the main stay. He was abounding yet judicious in his charities, in one period of three years giving away nearly $8,000. He gave to Westbrook Seminary in a single donation $5,000, and Hersey Hall there is named from him.

He had no children by his first marriage. July II, 1839, he was again married, this time at Milford, to Miss Jane Ann Davis, of Sidney, Maine. She, too, died January 17, 1862. Of this marriage were born Roscoe Freeman Hersey, at Milford, July 18, 1841; Jane Eliza, born at Upper Stillwater August 4, 1843, died in Ban- gor, February 14, 1847; Dudley Hall, born at Bangor

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

December 24, 1846; Eugene May, born in the same place November 10, 1851; and Edward Lewis, born also at Bangor April 29, 1854. The General's third wife was Miss Emily McClellan Sanborn, of Bangor, whom he wedded March 17, 1871, and who yet survives him. They had no children.

HON. THOMAS N. EGERY.

Thomas Newhall Egery, probably the oldest iron- worker in the Penobscot Valley, and principal member of the Hinckley & Egery Iron Company, in Bangor, is a Massachusetts man by birth. His native place is Hard- wick, Worcester county, Massachusetts, where he first saw the light April 20, 1809. He was the fifth son in a somewhat numerous family, comprising seven sons and two daughters, children of Thomas and Clarissa (Wash- burn) Egery, who occupied a farm in Hardwick. The Egerys are of North of England blood, two brothers of the name emigrating to America some time before the Revolution, one of them settling on Cape Cod and the other coming to Wiscasset, Maine. They were ship- carpenters, and soon found abundant opportunity for the exercise of their handicraft in this country. His mother was one of the old American stock of Washburns, to which the celebrated Massachusetts men of the name belonged, they being second cousins of Mrs. Egery.

Young Thomas was educated altogether in the rude common schools of his day in Hardwick, which he aban- doned for the yet sterner but more instructive school of the great world when he was in his sixteenth year. His winter terms had not averaged more than two and one- half months each ; and he was obliged, by the necessity of aiding in the support of the family, to remain at home in the summer and take his place as a hand in the field. At the age of seventeen he began as apprentice in the town (now city) of Worcester, to a blacksmith, Mr. Wil- liam A. Wheeler, with whom he completed an apprentice- ship; and then, about the time he became of age, he en- tered as journeyman in the machine-shop of Messrs. Washburn & Goddard, the senior of whom was later the head of the great wire-works firm of Washburn & Mowen. Mr. Egery still believes that his plan of commencement is the best for him who would become an expert machin- ist-to begin in the blacksmith's shop. He remained in the Worcester shop about one year after the completion of his apprenticeship, and then emigrated to Maine, where he settled temporarily in Bucksport, laboring for about one year (1831) in the blacksmith's shop of Muzzy & Wing, the head of which firm was Franklin Muzzy, Esq., then of Bucksport, but since of Bangor. Mr. Daniel B. Hinckley, owner of the foundry in connection with the machine-shop, removed his establishment to Bangor in the spring of 1832, and was joined by Muzzy & Wing with their machine-shop and the hands therein, includ- ing the subject of this sketch. This was the first foundry and machine-shop to be operated ın Bangor.

Young Egery ceased here to do journey-work, and opened a blacksmith's shop for house-work and mill-

work next the foundry, especially to execute a contract he had taken for making the iron doors and shutters for the new (the present) Court-house. He still remembers most gratefally and pleasantly the kindness and courtesy he then, a youth of but twenty-three years, experienced from the County Commissioners with whom he nego- tiated-Messrs. Thomas N. Hill, John Godfrey (father of Judge John E. Godfrey), and Thornton McGaw, Esq., -which greatly helped him to self-confidence and to a good start in business. They advanced him $1,000 of the public funds wherewith to purchase material and ma- chinery, and otherwise gave him substantial encourage- ment. He joined with him in this work Mr. Hinckley, who was also from his native town and had been instru- mental in bringing him to Maine. The young firm was entitled Thomas N. Egery & Co. They performed their work on the contract to general satisfaction, making the windows and shutters which still, after the lapse of nearly half a century, do good service upon Penobscot's temple of justice. They continued to do such work for several years, with iron fences and verandas and bank vaults, most of which manufactures Mr. Egery put up with his own hand, and can point with some pride to a great deal of his work still in use about the city. In 1838 the foundry of Mr. Hinckley and the shop of Thomas N. Egery & Co. were united, Mr. Egery becoming an equal partner in the new firm, which bore the name and style of Hinckley and Egery. The boundary difficulty, or "Aroostook war," was pending the same year, and the new firm was soon busily employed, night and day, in casting cannon-shot and in forging the irons for the "Aroostook boom," several tons of which went into the obstruction placed by the State authorities in that river, to keep the logs cut by New Brunswick trespassers upon our lands from running across the line into acknowledged foreign territory. This spasm of war preparation was soon over, however; and the firm resumed the even tenor of its way, prosperously and reputably maintaining itself, and widening its operations and enlarging its works from time to time. In 1850 Mr. Egery joined the tide of emigration then setting to the golden shores of Califor- nia. He went thither by the Isthmus route, while a steam engine and other plant of a foundry and machine shop were dispatched in a sailing vessel "'round the Horn." Messrs. Hinckley & Egery with this started the second establishment of the kind founded on the Pacific coast, at San Francisco, of which Mr. Egery took personal charge for about sixteen months, in connection with the young men named just below. He then returned to Bangor; but the firm kept its interest on the Pacific about two years longer, when it was sold to Messrs. Daniel B. and Barney Hinckley, nephews of the Bangor foundryman, the eldest of whom is still in the business in San Francisco.

When the War of the Rebellion broke out, Mr. Egery was summoned to Augusta by Governor Washburn; and, as the result of conferences there and with others at Bos- ton, he agreed for his firm to undertake the rifling of the old-fashioned cannon in the State and on the coasts of Maine, which were brought here from several quarters

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for that purpose. New machinery had to be constructed for this work; but it was rapidly and well done, and in such manner as to elicit the praise of the State authori- ties, as may be seen by reference to the report of Gen- eral Hodsdon, then Adjutant-General of Maine. During the war, in 1864, Mr. Hinckley died, a partnership thus ending which had endured harmoniously and success- fully for thirty-two years. His name is still retained in the title of the Iron Company, in honor to his emory. After his death the firm of T. N. Egery & Co. was formed, consisting of Mr. Egery, his brother-in-law Mr. George W. Gorham, and Mr. F. F. French. In about six years, or in 1870, the joint-stock company, as now known, was formed, with Mr. Egery as President, Mr. F. F. French as Secretary and Treasurer, and Mr. Gorham as Superintendent. Of late years Mr. Egery has been gradually retiring from the more active pursuits of the business, and has left the Presidency to younger hands. He still, however, gives much personal attention to the business, and has general care also of the Piscataquis Iron Works, in which he has an interest. Notwithstand- ing his engrossing employments, he has done some pub- lic service. In 1875-76 he was a member of the Board of Aldermen in the city government, from the Sixth Ward, and in 1872 was elected a Representative in the State Legislature, on the Republican ticket, from the Bangor District. In each instance a re-election was offered him, but was declined on account of his busi- ness. He was brought up in the Congregational faith, and has been most of his life an attendant upon churches of that order, but is not formally a member. Although in his seventy-third year, he enjoys remarkably good health, of both body and mind. For nearly the long period of half a century he has been closely identified with important interests in Bangor; and few indeed are left who were his contemporaries here in business life in 1832.

Mr. Egery's first wife was Miss Sarah Edith Gorham, of Bangor, to whom he was united in 1833. They had six children, two of whom are still living-Clara W., now Mrs. Charles Gibson, of Bangor; and Sarah Edith, wife of Charles C. Prescott, also of Bangor. Mrs. Egery died in 1851, while her husband was on his return from California. His second wife was Mrs. Nancy O. Wright, of Boston, Massachusetts, who is still living. They were married in November, 1853, and have one child- Mary Annie, wife of Eugene M. Hersey, of Bangor, son of the late General Samuel F. Hersey.

JOHN PRESCOTT WEBBER.

This citizen of Bangor, one of the heaviest land owners and general business men in Eastern Maine, is a native of the State, born at New Portland, Somerset county, on the border of Franklin, June 23, 1832. He was the fourth son and youngest child of a family of eight, the offspring of Israel and Hannah (Prescott) Webber. The mother was sprung from the same family to which belonged the Prescotts of Bunker Hill and

other historic fame. His father was for many years a seafaring man, in the merchant marine; but finally aban- doned the sea on account of rheumatism and other in- firmities, and spent the later years of his prime and old age in Somerset and Penobscot counties, dying at North Bangor about 1868, going to his grave "like a shock of corn fully ripe." The mother preceded him in death by six years. They were a very worthy couple, eminent in their piety and integrity, and brought up their family with judicious care and fidelity. They had been comparatively wealthy upon his retirement from the sea, but through the machinations of sharpers and others with whom his simple and kindly nature came in contact, his property was lost, and his later years were rich only in faith and good works. The sons early became self-supporting, and some of them are reaping the rewards of their early dis- cipline in large fortunes. Isaac, the second son, resides in Denver city, is a grain and stock-dealer, and a man of large wealth. The Hon. Franklin R., the next in years, an ex-member of the State Senate, is also independently rich-is a prosperous merchant and extensive land owner in St. Albans, near Skowhegan, and a rising man in every particular. John P., the subject of this sketch, has also done remarkably well in life. He attended the country schools in childhood, and obtained the rudiments of a fair business education; but was a pupil very little after he was thirteen years old, except in the great instructive school of the world. At the age of nine he faced the problem whether he should be bound out by the Select- men of Kenduskeag, where the family then resided, or strike out for himself. With the independence of his nature he determined upon the latter, and walked from Kenduskeag to New Portland, where he lived and worked on his brother Isaac's farm for a year and a half, and then returned to Penobscot county. He now became virtual- ly the head and business manager of the family. Tak- ing the school-teacher of the district to board, he had no little difficulty in collecting the board-bill from the Town Treasurer of Kirkland (or Hudson), now the Hon. Charles Beale, to whom the bill was presented, on ac- count of his youthful appearance. By the time John was seventeen he had accumulated, by various labors and petty trading, the sum of $300, which he took to Boston to invest in goods for a country store. He maneuvered industriously among the cautious merchants at the Hub for nearly a week, before he could obtain credit for any purchase beyond his $300. At last Mr. Henry Callender, of the firm of Nash, Callender & Co., wholesale grocers and provision dealers, took an interest in the clear head and shrewd business character of the boy, as evinced by his inquiries and remarks, and not only gave him full credit himself for all purchases desired, but vouched for him elsewhere, until he had bought $6,000 worth of goods. The indebtedness on this was promptly paid at maturity, as all obligations Mr. Webber has since incurred have been met. With his new stock John started a store in Ripley, Somerset county, and prospered from the begin- ning. He took his brother Franklin into partnership shortly, and the two are still associated in a large land ownership and business. His brother drew out of the

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

partnership in two or three years, and went into business in St. Albans, while John set up a store at Exeter, in this county.

It is an interesting fact that the brothers, contrary to the general practice of such relations as partners, were thoroughly harmonious and congenial in their associa- tion, without a word of serious difference; and they were so nearly of a size and figure that either could wear the other's clothes as well as his own, and one was accus- tomed to put on the other's, if he was going from home, and the other had the better.

After Exeter, Mr. Webber engaged in store-keeping at East Corinth, having meanwhile visited the West, and started a broker's and land office in Red Wing, Minne- sota, which proved very profitable. In the winter this office was closed; but he would return in summer and re-open it. When the bottom of such business dropped out in the crisis of 1857, he made a final closure there, retaining, however, large property interests in the new State, and devoted himself to the business at East Cor- inth. In 1864 he sold out his stock and removed to Bangor, where he began operations in land and lumber- ing. He had saved $30,000 from the wreck of a fortune which he had rapidly accumulated in the West. With this he bought a township in Piscataquis county, on Ripogenus Lake-No. 3, Twelfth Range; sent into the woods the next winter a force of thirty men and twelve horses, and put into the lake as a result of the season's labor logs to the amount of 1,200,000 feet, which netted him $8,000 in his very first operation in the north woods. He has cut from six to ten million of feet almost every year since, upon his several properties in Somerset, Pis- cataquis, Penobscot, Aroostook, Hancock, and Washing- ton counties. From first to last he has probably owned, partly in association with his brother, at least 150 town- ships in these counties. Much of this has been sold, but he retains ownership of three to four hundred thousand acres, more than seventy-five thousand of which have been purchased within the last year. He has also operated somewhat in the manufacture of lumber; but he now has only mills in the town of Lincoln, most of the wild lands of which he owns, and also the mills on Dead Stream, in Alton, which he has recently acquired. With the latter he bought ten thousand acres in the west- ern part of Alton, running the whole length of the town, and about one thousand in Hudson, belonging to the same tract. He pays taxes in more than a hundred townships.

Mr. Webber has been a member of the Hammond- street Congregational church about five years, having been an attendant there nearly all the time since he came to Bangor. He was an old-line Whig in politics, but has been a steady and strong Republican from the beginning of Republicanism. He has not cared, however, to be known as a worker "in the machine," or in the least to engage in office-seeking.

He has resided on Ohio street, at No. 17, nearly the whole time of his residence here; but he has recently purchased the Larrabee estate, on Broadway, to which he will remove by and by. He is still in the prime of

his manhood, with his business energy and intelligence unimpaired, and has the prospect of many years of suc- cessful and honorable accumulation.

Mr. Webber was first married in March, 1851, to a very charming young lady, Miss Annie Sophia, daughter of the late Hon. Bradbury Robinson, of East Corinth, formerly State Senator from that district. Of this mar- riage were born three children-Charles Prescott, born December 23, 1853, now the head of the flourishing firm of C. P. & F. R. Webber, mill owners and dealers in short lumber and lumbermen's supplies at No. 74 Exchange street, Bangor; Frank Roscoe, born March 17, 1856, junior partner in the above-named house; and Frederick, born in May, 1858, and died at the age of six years. Mrs. Webber died in Bangor, August 9, 1869, much lamented by her host of friends. October 12, 1871, her husband was remarried, this time to Miss Caro Holmes, daughter of Eben Blunt, Esq., head of the former house of Blunt, Hinman & Company, of Bangor, then among the heaviest lumber-dealers in the city. He has three children also by this marriage-Jane, born December 5, 1874 ; John Prescott, Jr., named from his father, born January 13, 1879 ; and Channing, whose natal day is January 9, 1881.

COLONEL FRANK D. PULLEN.

Frank Dexter Pullen, named from his father and pater- nal grandfather, is a native of that part of old Waterville known as West Waterville, in this State, born April 5, 1843, second son of Franklin C. and Drusilla (Hussey) Pullen. The Pullens are old settlers of Kennebec county, having dwelt there for several generations; his mother's people have also been long resident in the Kennebec Valley. When Frank was eight years old he lost his own mother, and he, with the other children, was faithfully and tenderly brought up by the wife (whose maiden name was Martha Cunningham) whom the elder Pullen married in 1856. His formal education was received in the public schools of Waterville, he meanwhile assisting upon his father's farm as he grew old enough; but at the early age of sixteen he left the schools forever, and en- tered the Dunn Edge Tool Companies' Scythe and Axe Factories at West Waterville, now the largest establish- ment of the kind in the world, to learn the trade. At first, as a boy, he was a general helper and messenger; but it was the intention of the Superintendent of the works, Mr. John U. Hubbard, now head of the firm of Hubbard, Blake & Co., of the same place, also a very heavy house, to teach young Pullen, who was a great favorite with him, the whole round of the business. During his second year in the establishment, however, the war of the Rebellion broke out; and the boy's patriotic instincts led him, although he had just turned his eighteenth year and was but barely old enough to be received, to enlist in the military service. He became a member of Com- pany G, Third Maine Regiment (General O. O. How- ard's original command) which company was recruited altogether from the colleges of Waterville, except ten or

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HISTORY OF PENOBSCOT COUNTY, MAINE.

twelve young men who were received by special favor. He was borne on the rolls of this company during his entire period of enlistment, three years; but was soon put upon detached service of various kinds in the com- missary and quartermaster's departments, and with the Adjutant-General of the brigade. During his last year he served in the postal department of his brigade, whose letters and other mail matter for the several companies and regiments he handled with great fidelity. Notwith- standing his service in departments which would have allowed him to remain in the rear without disgrace, he was always in the fight when his regiment was engaged. He participated in all the battles of the command, be- ginning with the first Bull Run, continuing through the heaviest campaigns of the Army of the Potomac, and ending with the affair at North Anna, in the last days of May and first of June, 1864. He got through all safely, but suffered a great deal from sickness, as he had entered the service a slight and not over-healthy youth, ill-adapt- ed to the hardships and privations of war. He neverthe- less stuck to the work bravely, although once given up for dead of diphtheria, and a prayer being said over his remains by one of the army chaplains ; and never once took a furlough to go home on account of sickness or for any other reason, nor did he lose any time in hos- pital except during the terrible illness just mentioned, which brought him near to Death's door.

His period of service over with the Third Maine, Mr. Pullen went back to the Army of the Potomac, and re- mained with it, and in business in Baltimore for about a year, or until the close of the war. He then returned to Waterville, intending to go back and engage in per- manent business in the Monumental City; but his plans were changed by a casual visit to Bangor in September, 1865. As a consequence of this he made an engage- ment as clerk with a brother of his stepmother, Mr. James Cunningham, who is still in business in this city. After a few months in this and other employments, Colonel Pullen was encouraged by a seafaring friend of his to open a clothing store for sailors and other custom- ers. In April, 1867, he accordingly started a new estab- lishment of this kind on Exchange street, at the precise stand where he now is. In this business he has steadily remained since that year, enlarging his stock year by year until his store has grown to its present large propor- tions, occupying two Nos., 17 and 19, of Exchange street, from basement to attic of the three-story building. He began almost entirely without capital, and with a stock that required only a little corner, about eighteen feet square, of his present spacious quarters, for its ex- hibition. By industry, integrity, and strict attention to business he has built up a trade that is certainly second to none of the kind in Bangor,-if indeed, it does not lead the clothing business in the city-all this in the space of less than fifteen years.

In the winter of 1874-75 Colonel Pullen and Captain S. H. Barbour, of Brewer, with two or three others, built the little steamer May Field, as an experiment in the trade with Bar Harbor, which was just getting into notice as a watering place. This modest venture, running to Sedg-

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History of Penobscot County, Maine; with illustrations and biographical sketches, Part 195

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio) Publication date: 1882 Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co. Number of Pages: 1100

Author: Williams, Chase & Co., Cleveland (Ohio)
Publication date: 1882
Publisher: Cleveland, Williams, Chase & Co.
Number of Pages: 1100