USA > Maine > Maine; a history, Volume IV > Part 10
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67
GEORGE ALDEN GILCHRIST, retired, re- siding in Thomaston, Maine, was born at St. George, Knox county, Maine, May 27, 1851, son of Captain Alden Gilchrist and wife Nancy (Fnl- ler) Gilchrist, of that place. Captain Gilchrist's grandfather, Samuel Gilchrist, came from Scot- land to Maine, and founded this branch of the Gilchrist family in New England. After leaving school, at a youthful age, George A. Gilchrist be- came clerk in a general store in his home town, re- maining for a year, when his employer established him in this same busniess for himself. This he
continued for about two years, when he became trav- eling salesman for a wholesale flour and grocery house in Portland, moving his family to Rock- land, Maine, where he made his home. He mar- ried (first) in 1873, Alice S. Robinson, of Warren, Maine, who died in 1886, leaving two children, the elder a daugliter, Sarah Helen, married Cap- tain John I. Snow, of Rockland, and a son, Elon Barker, married Helen Mf. Dunton, of Belfast, now residing in Grand Rapids, Michigan, resident manager of the Travelers' Insurance Company. He has five Snow grandchildren. In 1887 he married (second) Annie L. Frost, of Belfast, danghter of Moses W. and Margaret A. Frost, of that place. In the spring of 1889 he leased a yard in Belfast and begun shipbuilding, building two vessels there that year. Finding this busi- ness very congenial, he bought and fitted np a yard in Rockland, and in 1890 started in there, continning in this business until 1896. About this time, by the way of trade, he acquired the Port Clyde Marine Railway at St. George, where he did business repairing vessels and running a general store for abont two years. After snc- cessfully disposing of this property he returned to Belfast, in 1899, where he bought the Merchants' Marine Railway plant. Here he revived the ship repairing industry which had been idle for a number of years and started shipbuilding in the same yard. In addition to number of
schooners, he built two sea-going suction dredges for the Government. With the decline of ship- ping he dismantled the plant and sold the prop- erty. In 1916, with revival of commerce, he came to Thomaston, another old shipbuilding town, where a yard was in readiness for him, and built the first vessel erected there for seventeen years. Following this, his final work has been the build- ing of a Ferris type, three thousand five hundred ton steamship for the United States Shipping Board, Emergency Fleet Corporation, which was launched December 17, 1918.
WILLIS BLAKE HALL-The name of Hall is one of the most common in New England, it being found in all parts of that region, but while most common it is also among the most distinguished and ancient, having been founded in this country during the early Colonial period. The family is represented today in the city of Portland, Maine, by Willis Blake Hall, an eminent attorney of that city, and a leader of the Cumberland county bar. Mr. Hall is a son of Joseph Blake Hall and Lucinda Evans (Todd) Hall, and comes of good old Maine stock on both sides of the house.
4.
HISTORY OF MAINE
Joseph Blake Hall was born in Hartford, Oxford county, Maine, September 3, 1825. He was the oldest son of Winslow and Ruth (Howland) Hall, she being the daughter of Dr. Michael and Abigail ( Blake)' Howland, of Bowdoin, the latter a direct descendant of Admiral Robert Blake, of England. Lucinda Evans (Todd) Blake, the mother of his children, was the daughter of Alfred and Mary A. (Towne) Todd, the latter then being of Augusta, Maine. In the spring of 1843 Joseph B. Hall ac- companied his father, Winslow Hall, to the new county of Aroostook, where, in Letter H, now Cari- bou, a new home was begun by the felling of trees for the log house. In 1848 he commenced his edi- torial career by starting and editing The Ensign, a temperance paper, in the city of Bangor. He had married, in 1847, Frances K. Newhall, of San- gerville, and her ill health compelled him to aban- don his journalistic enterprise and take his sick wife to her old home where she died in 1849. Mr. Hall then returned to Aroostook county and en- gaged in the druggist business in Presque Isle. In 1850 he married Lucinda Evans Todd, of Hodgdon. To them six children were born, four of whom are now living, Alfred Winslow, proprietor of the Star Printing Company, Old Town; May Frances Stet- son, Portland, Maine; Joseph Edward, a lawyer in Caribou, Maine, and Willis Blake, of whom further.
In 1857 Mr. Hall, in partnership with W. S. Gilman, started the first paper ever published in Aroostook county, the Aroostook Pioneer. This paper became a success under Mr. Hall's able and energetic management and contributed more to the settlement and development of the great northern county than any other one cause. In 1858 Mr. Hall induced the Maine Press Association to hold their annual meeting in Presque Isle. Nearly all the editors in the State availed themselves of this opportunity to visit this great county even then at- tracting the attention of all New England. The descriptions given by these journalists of their re-
turn home undoubtedly was a potent influence in inducing the tremendous immigration in the few years that followed before the war. Soon after this Mr. Hall sold his interest in the Pioneer and started the Aroostook Herald in Presque Isle, the first Republican paper in the county, in 1860. In 1857 he had been elected secretary of the Maine Senate and was twice re-elected. In 1861 he was elected Secretary of State and held the office three years. In 1862 the publication of the Aroos- took Herald was discontinued, and in that year Mr. Hall, with John T. Gilman, founded the Port- land Daily Press, Mr. Hall being the editor. This necessitated the moving of himself and family
to Portland, and with deep regret, but with un- diminished faith in the future of the county, the beauty and resource of which he had done so much to make known, he became for a time a citizen of the city by the sea, the metropolis of the State. Selling out his interest in the Press, he bought a half interest in the Portland Courier (after- wards the Advertiser) and for some time it was published by Hall & Felch. Later with his oldest son, he published the Monitor in Portland. In the early seventies he for a time edited the Omaha Tribune and then removed to Sturgeon Bay, Wisconsin, and became editor of the Expositor. He removed to Chicago and for a time was on the staff of one of Chicago's daily papers. While a resident here he wrote histories of Fayette and Delaware counties, Iowa, and of Jo Daviess county, in Illinois. From Chicago Mr. Hall went to Fargo, North Dakota, where for six years he edited the Fargo Republican.
His intensely busy life, his ceaseless energy and consequent mental strain, finally brought the natural result of such constant brain activity and work for a time had to be laid aside. Recovering his health in some measure, he took his first vaca- tion and with his wife returned to visit the scenes of his early activity in Aroostook county, Maine. At the urgent solicitation of his many friends who had not forgotten his earnest labors in making known the vast possibilities of Northern Maine, Mr. Hall was induced to take up his home again in Presque Isle and to again start the Aroostook Herald in 1883. In the earlier Herold Mr. Hall had been a friend of every interest that would benefit Aroostook county. In the later Herald he denounced much of the legislation of the State in regard to the disposal of the public lands and the short-sightedness of the State in voting them away and otherwise squandering them. His edi- torials on this subject began to draw attention and excite comment, but Mr. Hall knew his ground, no one man, probably, being better posted in re- gard to legislation in the State of Maine. He was ever an advocate for the building of a direct line of railroad from Bangor to Aroostook county. In the columns of the revived Herald he urged more strongly than ever before the construction of a road to connect the county with the outside world. The Northern Maine scheme collapsed, but the earnest words glowing on the pages of the Aroostook Herald had prepared the minds of the people of Northern Aroostook to receive kindly the plan which later resulted in giving a railroad to that section that he loved better than any other on the face of the earth. Would that his eyes had
Wieein Blake Hall
Esto kov
BIOGRAPHICAL
at least glimpsed the railway trains and electric cars coming into his beloved town of Presque Isle ! Then he would have said, "Let now thy servant depart in peace, since mine eyes have seen thy salvation."
Mr. Hall was translated into a higher life, July 5, 1889, aged sixty-three years and nine months. He was buried in Evergreen Cemetery, at Caribou, with full Masonic rites, the funeral services be- ing more largely attended than any that ever be- fore occurred in the county, the people thereby giving evidence of their love and esteem for the man, his character and ability. He was possessed of an enthusiastic temperament. Whatever he did was done with all his might. He was an easy as well as a vigorous writer, never at a loss for words with which to clothe his thoughts and the main- spring of his action was ever the highest good of the people among whom his lot was cast.
Born October 11, 1868, at Portland, Maine, Willis Blake Hall formed no early associations with that city which was later in life to become the scene of his professional activities and his home. While still an infant, he accompanied his parents to Chicago and from that city removed to Fargo, Dakota. In neither of these places, however, did he remain a great while, but returned to Maine with his parents, who had moved to Presque Isle in Aroostook county. It was in the western country that he received part of his education and there that he spent his childhood, being sixteen years of age on his return to the east. He then entered the new St. John's Episcopal School at Presque Isle and had but prepared for college when his elder brother purchased the Caribou paper. This made it necessary for him to step into his brother's shoes in the office and do all the inside work of the office, the father making him a partner. After the father's death, Mr. Hall first sojourned two years in Minnesota in the newspaper business for his brother, taking a course in the old Curtiss Business College while he was resting. Returning this time from the mid-west he entered the office of his brother in Caribou, and then took a year in the Emerson College of Oratory in Boston prior to his taking up the study of law. He entered the office of Hon. Louis C. Stearns at Caribou, where he pursued his studies to such good purpose that he was admitted to the bar of Maine in 1806. For a time he practiced in Aroostook county, having his office in the town of Caribou, and here he made for himself an enviable reputation. He felt, however, that larger opportunities awaited him in his profes- sion in some larger center and accordingly, in the year 1913, he returned to the city of his birth and ME .-- 2-4
has continued to practice in Portland ever since. He now enjoys a large and well deserved practice and is regarded among his colleagues as one of the leaders of the bar. Mr. Hall, Sr., was a very prominent man both in publishing and political cir- cles in Maine, and his son, Willis B., also takes a very active part in politics. He is a staunch Re- publican in his political faith, and while residing in Aroostook county held the position of town clerk of the town of Caribou for fifteen consecu- tive years. In 1907 and to 1909 he represented that region in the Maine Legislature, and also served on the school board for six years Mr. Hall is active in the social and club life of the community in which he has elected to dwell, and is a member of the Knights of Pythias and held the highest office in that order in the State of Maine, being grand chancellor in 1907. He is also a mem- ber of the Congress Square Associates, and of the Portland Open Forum, which he himself founded. In his religious belief he is a Universalist and at - tends the First Church of that denomination in Portland. He is a member also of the society of the Sons of the American Revolution: of the Mayflower Society and of the Society of the De- scendants of John Howland, and is greatly inter- ested in genealogical matters and local history.
Willis Blake Hall was united in marriage, June 14, 1900, at Ocean Grove, New Jersey, with Anna Howard Tucker, a daughter of the Rev. Jamies T. Tucker, a well known Methodist minister of that place, and of Rosanna (Iszard) Tucker, his wife. Both Mr. and Mrs. Tucker were natives of New Jersey and both are now deceased. To Mr. and Mrs. Hall one child has been born, Margaret Blake, May 21, 1901. Miss Hall is now preparing for Radcliffe College.
Among the many notable names contributed by the State of Maine to the records of American bench and bar, and they have been many and notable indeed, but few stand so high, either in the estimation of their fellows for wisdom and learning, or in that of the people generally as a dispenser of justice in fact as in name, as does that of Mr. Hall. As a jurist there is none who has a more deserved reputation for integrity and im- partiality, none who has more disinterestedly and indefatigably labored for the well-being of his fellows and the maintenance of the high traditions of the bar of his country.
LORING ERNEST HOLMES, one of the largest manufacturers of Robbinston, Maine, and a conspicuous figure in the general life of this place, is a native of Canada and a son of Thomas
50
HISTORY OF MAINE
L. and Annie Holmes. Mr. Holmes, Sr., was the owner of a large cannery at Eastport, Maine, where he put up American sardines for the local market. He retired from business in 1899.
Loring Ernest Holmes was born in Charlotte county, New Brunswick, Canada, December 13, 1869, but came with his parents to Eastport, Maine, as a small child. It was in the latter place that he received his education, attending for this purpose the local public schools and studying for three years at the Eastport High School. He left that institution within one year of graduation and entered Comers Commercial College at Boston, Massachusetts, where he took a business course. Upon completing his studies, he entered his father's establishment and was superintendent of the canning factory at East- port for a period of nine years. In the year 1900, one year after his father's retirement, he came to Robbinston, where he erected his present can- nery for sardines. Since that time he has de- veloped a large and flourishing business and is still engaged therein. His establishment is one of the largest of its kind in this region and he finds a market for his goods throughout a large part of the eastern United States. Mr. Holmes has been exceedingly active in public affairs at Robbinston and was chairman of the board of selectmen, a post which he held for two years. He is also a conspicuous figure in fraternal cir- cles here and is a member of Crescent Lodge, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons; Eastport Lodge, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks; a charter member of the Lodge of Improved Or- der of Red Men, organized at Eastport, Maine, but was later transferred to Robbinston Lodge. He is also a member of the Maine Grange. In his religious belief Mr. Holmes is of Protestant faith, and he and his family attend the Episcopal church.
Loring Ernest Holmes was united in marriage, February 18, 1901, at Robbinston, with Mary L. Brainard, a daughter of John M. and Elizabeth Brainard, old and highly-respected residents of this place. They are the parents of the follow- ing children: Francis A., born December 5, 1905; John T., born May 18, 1907; Mary E., born De- cember 30, 1908; and Geneva L., born August II, 1912.
CHARLES COOK-The ancient records of our New England colonies show us that there were many immigrants during the early period of coloni- zation who hore the name of Cook, and many lines of this family are to be found in all parts
of the country. It is inevitable therefore that some confusion should arise in the tracing of most of these to their source, and such is the case with the family of the distinguished gentleman whose name heads this brief appreciation and who for so many years has been identied in the most prominent manner with the life and affairs of the city of Portland.
The first of the line to which he can definitely trace his lineage was Samuel Cook, who with wife Elizabeth and several children were living in Newbury. Massachusetts, from the year 1720 on- wards. He had moved there from Salem and there is evidence to believe that he had been in this country at least from 1699. His younge-t son was born in Newbury in 1720, and it was there that he died in 1733. From this worthy progenitor, who appears to have been a man of the profounde-t religious feelings, the line runs through Samuel (2), Charles, George Henry to Edward Cook.
George Henry Cook was born in Greensboro. Vermont, March 7, 1811, but later moved to Poit- land, Maine. where he spent the latter years of his life, and eventually died August 12, 1891. The surroundings of his childhood were crude in the extreme, his life being typical of the lad brought up on the frontier. While little more than a lad, he became a clerk in the village store at Greens- boro, and then for a time engaged in a business of his own in Craftsbury. In the latter place he became extremely prominent and represented the town in the Vermont Legislature, and held the rank of adjutant in the State Militia. His religious life was very typical of that time, being distinctly Puritanical in the quality of its ideas and practice. Very prominent in all church matters, he held the position of deacon in Craftsbury, and vas superin- tendent of the Sunday school there. It was in the year 1849 that he removed to Portland, Maine, where he engaged in the hardware buisness, in association with the firm of Emery & Waterhouse, the H. Warren Lancey Company, and Haines, Smith & Cook, of which he was the junior partner. He continued his church work in Portland, where he became a prominent member of the High Street Congregational Church during the pastorate of the well known Dr. Chickering and here once more held the post of Sunday school superintendent. In addition to this he was also superintendent of the Sunday school of the State Reform School. His death occurred in Portland, August 12, 1894. in his eighty-fourth year. In 1835 he married Selina Atwood Aiken, a native of Dracut, Massachusetts, born January 25, 1811, a daughter of the Rev. Solomon Aiken, a well known clergyman in that
51
BIOGRAPHICAL
city in those early times. To Mr. and Mrs. Cook six children were born, as follows: Harriett Whip- ple, who became the wife of Charles J. Frye, of New York City, where they now reside; George Henry, Jr., who died in early youth; Selina Aiken, who became the wife of Captain Rufus P. Staniels, of Concord, New Hampshire; Edward Burl.cc'x. born April 30, 18.42, at Craftsbury, Vermont, and now engaged successfully in business at Portland ; Charles, with whose career this sketch is particu- larly concerned ; and Joshua O., now a resident of Chicago, where he is resident manager for the Farr & Bailey Manufacturing Company of Camden, New Jersey.
Charles Cook, fifth child and third son of George Henry and Selina A. (Aiken) Cook, was born June 24, 1845, at Craftsbury, Vermont. Before he had :. ched Mi fourth year his parents removed to Portland, Maine. The trip was taken with all the family and household goods behind the little Shet- land pony, which had been up to that time the family pet and had probably never known such hard labor before. Of the detail of the journey, Mr. Cook retains a vivid recollection, especially the ride to the famous "Crawford Notch" in the White Mountains, but though he thus came to Portland when scarcely more than an infant, he spent a good deal of his childhood in his native place, as he returned there in his eighth year and made his home with relatives at Greensboro and Hardwick. It was here also that he obtained his education, attending the local district school and later the Hardwick Academy. His life was much the same as that of the average farmer boy in that region and of that date. His spare hours, when he was not engaged with his lessons, were spent in the hard but wholesome tasks incident to farm life and in the healthy rural pastimes afforded by wood, stream and hill. Upon completing his studies in these local institutions, he secured a temporary position as clerk in the clothing store of Adam Kellogg, of Montpelier, Vermont, where he remained about a year, and then rejoined his family in Portland. His second coming to this city occurred in 1864 and he succeeded almost at once in securing a position in the drug store of W. F. Phillips there, and thus was introduced to the line of business with which he has since been so closely identified. Early in the year 1865 Mr. Cook, who until then had been too young for serv- ice, enlisted in Company D, Twentieth Regiment Maine Volunteer Infantry, which was then sta- tioned before Petersburg, and was at once detailed as acting hospital steward. In this capacity he took part in the battles of Five Forks and Appamattox
Court House, and at the latter engagement wit- nessed the surrender of General Lee and the virtual ending of the war. His regiment, the Twentieth Maine, was one of the three detailed by General Grant to receive the arms surrendered by the Con- federate Army, and it was also one of those to take part in the "grand review" of the Union Army which took place at Washington. Returning to the North, Mr. Cook once more resumed civil life, and was given his old place in the drug store of W. F. Phillips, of Portland, where he served so satis- factorily that in January, 1868, he was admitted in the firm as junior partner, the business thereafter being conducted under the name of W. F. Phillips & Company. This association continued until the year 1884, when Mr. Phillips withdrew therefrom, being partly impelled to do so by the poor health he was at that time suffering from. Shortly after- wards the firm of Cook, Everett & Pennell was organized, which has continued in business to the present day and met with a very high degree of success in the conduct of its large wholesale drug business. For many years now it has enjoyed the distinction of being the largest wholesale drug con- cern in New England, outside of the city of Boston. As the head of so important a firm, Mr. Cook naturally occupies a very important position in the business world of Portland and is connected with inany of the largest financial and industrial con- cerns in that region. He is president of the Wood- man, Cook Company and is a director in the Casco National Bank and the Mercantile Trust Company of Portland. He is also a well known figure in social and club circles of the city and is a member of a number of business organizations and other clubs. among which should be mentioned the Port- land and Country clubs, the Propeller Club, which was formed in 1845, and is the oldest social club in America. In politics Mr. Cook is a Republican, and he is affiliated with the High Street Congre- gational Church of Portland.
Mr. Cook has been twice married, the first time in September, 1874, to Martha Page Bayley, by whom he had five children, as follows: Alfred Page, a graduate of Bowdoin College, where he received the degree of Bachelor of Arts, and of the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy, where he took the degree of Ph.G .; Selina Aiken, who be- came the wife of the Rev. Robert W. Dunbar, Congregational minister at Millsbury, Massa- chusetts, but a native of Portland, to whom she has borne seven children: Charles Bayley, now of New York City, where he is a well known artist, a graduate of Bowdoin College with the class of 1905; Florence, who became the wife of
52
HISTORY OF MAINE
Dr. Frank Y. Gilbert, of Portland, to whom she has borne on child, Francis; Irving Staniels, who died in 1884. The first Mrs. Cook died in 1884, and Mr. Cook married (second) Harriett Peters Bailey, a native of Portland, born in 1849, a daughter of Joseph Stockbridge and Isabel (Dix) Bailey, of that city, where her father was a pioneer book seller and publisher. Of this union two children have been born, Isabelle Bailey, a graduate of Smith College with the class of 1913 and makes her home with her parents at present in Portland; Ruth Stockbridge, a grad- uate of Dana Hall School.
The energy of Mr. Cook's character has al- ready been commented upon and it is re- markable. His business acumen is also of the highest type and there are many other sides to his nature which, while not so conspicuous, are quite as worthy of praise. He is a man of very broad sympathies, to whom the misfortune of others is a strong appeal, and though his charities are unostentatious they are none the less large. His many activities, based as they are upon the best and most disinterested motives, are a valu- able factor in the life of Portland, particularly the business development of the place. His sterling good qualities are very generally rccog- nized; his honor, candor, and the democratic at- titude he holds toward all men won for him a most enviable reputation, and the admiration and affection of a host of friends. His success is deserved, and the uniform happiness of his fam- ily relations and his life generally is the merited result of his own strong and fine personality.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.