USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 24
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time he was a waiter to a Catholic priest. After his return he married Mary Gay, in Stoughton, Mas- sachusetts, and when the neutral French, or Aca- dians, were exiled from Nova Scotia and their lands were offered gratuitously to settlers, he went to Annapolis in that province, where he was living at the opening of the Revolution. It is related of him that when summoned with the other inhabitants to take the oath of allegiance, he held up his hand, and being a staunch Whig, when the words were uttered, "You solemnly swear to be true to King George," etc., he substituted the words " George Washington " for " King George," and thus really
L. M. MORSE.
swore allegiance to the rebels. Conscious that it was time for him to flee, in company with another Whig he left the place the same night, and pro- ceeded by land to Castine, Maine, where he enlisted and was joined after the war by his family. For his services in the Revolutionary War more than nine hundred acres of Ohio land were granted him. He ended his days in Meduncook. Carpenter was the eleventh child of Elisha Bradford and his second wife Bathsheba Le Brocke, whom he married in 1718. His parents moved to Medun- cook, now Friendship, where both were killed in 1756 by the Indians, who carried some of the chil- dren to Canada, whence they did not return until
after the capture of Quebec by Wolfe. "Deb Samp- son," who, disguised as a man, under the assumed name of Robert Shurtleff, served three years in the Revolutionary army, and afterwards married Ben- jamin Garrett of Sharon, Massachusetts, and drew a pension, was a cousin of Mrs. Morse. Carpenter's father, Elisha, was the eldest child of Joseph Brad- ford, born 1630, who married Jael, daughter of Rev. Peter Hobart, the first minister of Hingham. Elisha's father, Joseph, was the son of William Bradford, who came in the Mayflower, and was the first Governor of Plymouth Colony, and whose first wi, Dorothy May, drowned in Cape Cod Harbor in 1620, was the first female whose death is recorded in New England. Leslie M. Morse was educated in the common and high schools of Union. His father was a successful farmer, and in winters taught school. His mother was also a school- teacher before marriage, and to both of his parents he owed a great deal for his early education. When he was five or six years of age a dentist came to the house to make a set of teeth for his mother. The boy watched the operator with close interest, and when the visitor had gone he said to his mother, " I am going to be a dentist when I get to be a man." Little was thought of the re- mark at the time. At about the age of twenty the opportunity came, and he entered the office of Dr. W. R. Evans in Thomaston, and began the study of dentistry. His childish resolution was remembered and seemed almost a prophecy - a desire to be- come what nature had adapted him to be. After some three years' study he was admitted to practice, and started in business in his native town. A few years later he went to Central City, Colorado, where he practiced for several years. About ten years ago he returned East and settled in Boston, establishing the now well-known Harvard Dental Parlors at 154 Boylston street. Dr. Morse has become noted in Boston and vicinity for the excellence of his work, and his dental establishment is considered one of the finest in New England. He is a Republican in politics, and is unmarried.
MAXWELL, BARAK, retired merchant, Wells, was born in Wells, April 5, 1816, son of Aaron and Lydia (Warren) Maxwell. The progenitor of the Maxwell family in America came from Scotland to Windham, Massachusetts, about 1690, and in 1720 a son, Gershom Maxwell, located in Wells, Maine, where a number of his descendants have resided to
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the present time. Barak Maxwell's father, Aaron Maxwell, was an inn-keeper, as was his grandfather Barak Maxwell, at Ogunquit, a station in Wells on the main stageroad between Boston and Portland. The subject of this sketch was educated in the common schools and at Berwick Academy in South Berwick, Maine. At the age of sixteen he entered a store at Wells Corner as clerk, and at nineteen he started business for himself by opening a store at Ogunquit village, where he continued in active busi-
always been a public-spirited citizen. In a long mercantile career he established a wide reputation, not only for business sagacity but for integrity and fair dealing. In religion he is a staunch Congrega- tionalist, and is a regular and liberal contributor to the charitable organizations of that body. He was married September 20, 1842, to Betsey Ames, adopted daughter of Reverend Jonas Colburn, who was then preaching at Wells. They have three children living : Warren B. Maxwell, a practicing physician of Grafton, Massachusetts; Lydia A. Maxwell, of Wells; and Arthur A. Maxwell, a lawyer of Boston, and Attorney for the Claim Department of the New York, New Haven & Hart- ford Railroad.
MAXWELL, ARTHUR AARON, of Boston, Claims Attorney for the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, was born in Wells, York county, Maine, January 24, 1858, son of Barak Maxwell, the subject of the foregoing sketch, and Betsey ( Ames) Maxwell. He acquired his early education in the district
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BARAK MAXWELL.
ness life, with the exception of about two years, down to 1880, a period of forty-five years. Besides carrying on a large general store, he was engaged in · shipbuilding prior to the War of the Rebellion, and at one time owned a number of vessels engaged in the coastwise and West India trades. Mr. Maxwell was repeatedly elected to the Board of Selectmen of the town of Wells, and has served as Town Treasurer, Superintendent of Schools, and as a member of both branches of the State Legislature, having been Sen- ator in 1882. He was also Postmaster for twenty years. In politics he was originally a Whig, and has been a Republican since the formation of that party. Although residing in a Democratic town, his political principles have not prevented his being many times chosen to fill various town offices. Mr. Maxwell was a successful busines, man, and has
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ARTHUR A. MAXWELL.
school, at Kent's Hill Seminary in Readfield, Maine, and Berwick Academy in South Berwick, Maine. Meanwhile he gave somne little attention to his father's business of a country store, and later, during his college course, had two terms' experience in
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teaching school. He graduated from Dartmouth College in the class of 1883, and from the Boston University Law School in 1886, was admitted to the Suffolk County Bar in Boston in that year, and began the practice of law in the office of J. H. Ben- ton, Jr., of Boston, General Counsel and Attorney of the Old Colony Railroad Company. In 1890 he entered the employ of the Old Colony Railroad Company as Attorney in Charge of Claims, and upon the leasing of that road to the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad in 1893, was appointed to the same position with the latter company, which office he at present holds. Mr. Maxwell is a member of the Pine Tree State and Dartmouth clubs of Boston, the Eliot Club of Jamaica Plain, the Society of Sons of the American Revolution and the Boston Municipal League. In politics he has been always a Republican, and for several years a member of the Ward Committee ; but has not been in public life, except in 1895, when he served as a member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives. Mr. Maxwell was mar- ried April 25, 1889, to Nancy M. Etheridge, of Herkimer, New York.
WEBB, WILBER JOSEPH, Real Estate Operator, Boston, was born in Albion, Kennebec county, Maine, November 29, 1843, son of Joseph and Sarah (Fuller) Webb. He is descended in the eighth generation from Christopher Webb, who came from England prior to 1645, and in May of that year was made a freeman of Massachusetts Colony ; and whose son Henry Webb, by will pro- bated in Suffolk county in 1660, gave to Harvard College the land on which stands the building for many years occupied by the publishing house of Little, Brown & Company, on Washington street,
from Robert Day, who was born in Ipswich, England, in 1604, came to Boston in 1634, settled in Cambridge, and was made a freeman in 1635. The mother of the subject of this sketch, Sarah Fuller, born in Albion (then Lygonia), July 25, 1309, and died December 20, 1883, was the daughter of Jonathan Fuller, and was of the eighth generation from Dr. Samuel Fuller, who with his brother Edward came to Plymouth in the Mayflower in 1620, and was the first surgeon and physician in the colony. Her mother was Hannah Bradstreet, seventh in descent from Simon Bradstreet, Gov- ernor of Massachusetts Colony under the first
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WILBER J. WEBB.
charter in 1679. Governor Bradstreet was the son Boston. His father, Joseph Webb, born in Albion of a Nonconformist minister, who came to America (then Fairfax), November 13, 1803, and died March 3, 1874, was the son of Benjamin, who was the son of Samuel Webb of Boston. The latter was the father of Thomas Smith Webb (named for his mother's uncle, who was the first settled minister of Falmouth, now Portland), founder and first Presi- dent of the Handel & Haydn Society of Boston, in 1815, and prominent as a Mason, being Grand Master of the General Grand Encampment of the United States. Joseph Webb's mother, Eunice Day, daughter of Nathaniel Day and Hepzibah Appleton of Boston, was of the sixth generation in 1629, landed at Mount Desert, and afterwards settled at Cambridge. The Governor's wife was Anne Bradstreet, whose works in prose and verse have long survived her - the first edition having been published in London in 1678, the second in Boston in 1758, and later editions down to 1869 ; she was the daughter of Governor Thomas Dudley, and died in 1672. Wilber J. Webb received his early education in the district schools of his native town, and in two terms at Waterville AAcademy, now Coburn Classical Institute. He taught school in 1862-3 at Unity, Maine. In 1864, at the age of
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twenty-one, he went to Portland, where he was con- nected with the firm of George F. Foster & Com- pany, in the flour and grain trade, until 1870, when he moved to Bangor and engaged in mercantile pursuits, in which he continued until 1883. He then went South, taking up his residence in Palatka, Florida, where he opened a real-estate and insur- ance office. He established there the largest and finest insurance agency in the state, and also con- ducted a large and lucrative real-estate business. In IS88 Mr. Webb was elected Mayor of Palatka, and was re-elected in ISS9, his term of office covering the trying period of the yellow-tever epidemic which afflicted Florida in the former year. Not wishing to make his permanent home in the South, and desirous of better facilities for edu- cating his children, Mr. Webb returned North in 1891 and settled in Boston, establishing himself it the real estate business, and on May 27, 1896, he moved into offices in the new Tremont Building, being the pioneer occupant of that palatial business edifice. Mr. Webb is a Republican in politics, and during his residence in Bangor, in 1878, repre- sented his ward in the City Council. He was married September 20, 1877, to Mary Blanchard Crosby, daughter of John H. and Amanda ( Blan- chard) Crosby, an old and respected Bangor family ; they have two children : Anna Louise, born February 25, 1879, and Marion Beulah Webb, born August 25, 18So, both now in attendance at the Girls' Latin School in Boston. Mr. Webb is a brother of George Milton Webb of Florida, and of Edmund Fuller Webb of Waterville, Maine.
PERKINS, WALTER PAYSON, Lawyer, Cornish, County Attorney of York County 1891-5, was born in Kennebunk, Maine, August 6, 1858, son of Stephen and Mary Jane (Witherell) Perkins. He received his early education in the common and high schools of his native town, and graduated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1880. Following graduation he was for a time connected with the Boston Branch Tea and Grocery House in Wal- tham, Massachusetts. Subsequently he studied law in the office of Burbank & Derby at Saco, Maine, and later at the St. Louis Law School, St. Louis, Missouri, was admitted to the York County Bar in January 1884, and since February 11 following has practiced his profession at Cornish. Mr. Perkins ha- held a commission as Justice of the Peace for fourteen years, and in 1891-5 served as County
Attorney of York County. He is a member and Past Master of Greenleaf Masonic Lodge of Corn- ish, Past Chancellor of Sagamore Lodge Knights of Pythias of Cornish, and was a member of the Eta Chapter of the Theta Delta Chi College Society at
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WALTER P. PERKINS.
Bowdoin. In politics he has always been a Repub- lican He was married April 22, 1896, to Effie B. Littlefield, daughter of John Lewis and Ann Augusta (Frye) Littlefield, of Eliot, Maine.
NOBLE, FRANK LOWE, Mayor of Lewiston, was born in Fairfield, Somerset county, Maine, July 22, IS54, son of Eleazer R. and Harriet S. (Lamb) Noble. He is of Scotch-Irish descent, and it is related of his ancestors that "they paid their just dues and kept their line fences up." He acquired his early education in the common schools of Maine, graduated from Bates College at Lewiston in June 1374, studied law, and was admitted to the Bar of Cumberland county in 1878. Upon his return from California in 1881 he established him- self in his profession at Lewiston, where he has since remained in active, continuous practice. Mr. Noble was a member of the Common Council of Lewiston for two years, 1884-5, being President of that body in the latter year, and is now serving his third term as Mayor, having been elected to the
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chief magistracy of the city in 1894. He repre- sented Lewiston in the Maine House of Represen- tatives three terms in 1887, 1891 and 1893, and was again elected to the Legislature in 1896. He has always been a Republican in politics, and was a
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FRANK L. NOBLE.
member for two years and Chairman one year of the Republican City Committee, also has served two years as a member of the Republican County Committee. Mayor Noble is a member of Manu- facturers' and Mechanics' Odd Fellow's Lodge of Lewiston, and is also a Freemason and a Knight of Pythias. He was married December 25, 1882, to Clara P. Spofford, of Webster, Maine ; they have no children.
NICKERSON, FRANK HERBERT, Mayor of Brewer, was born in Brewer, March 26, 1857, son of David V. and Sabra (Hutchings) Nickerson. He is a grandison of Solomon and Sally (Veazie) Nickerson of Orrington, Maine, and on the mater- nal side, of Josiah and Phebe (Perkins) Hutchings of Penobscot, Maine. His great-great-grandfather William Hutchings, who died in 1866, at the age of one hundred and one years, was at the time of his death one of the four survivors of the Revolution. The late Colonel Jasper Hutchings of Brewer, the noted criminal lawyer, was his mother's brother.
He was educated in the public and high schools of Brewer, and received his training for active life as a clerk in a grocery store for seven years, commencing at the age of sixteen. On May 1, 1880, he became associated in the grocery and provision business with A. H. King, under the firm name of King & Nickerson. Two years later, in April 1882, W. B. Barstow becanie a partner and the name was changed to A. H. King & Company. In September 1889, Messrs. Nickerson and Barstow purchased Mr. King's interest, and the firm became Nickerson & Barstow, which has since continued. In 1882 the firm built the corner store at Main and Wilson streets which they now occupy, and in 1892 they built the store adjoining, which is rented to other parties. Mr. Nickerson has held a commis- sion as Justice of the Peace since 1889, and from 1886 to 1889 served as Town Clerk of Brewer. When the town became a city in the latter year, he was elected City Clerk, and held that office until 1892, and in 1895 he was elected Mayor. Mr. Nickerson is also Treasurer of the Brewer Free Public Library, and Secretary of the Brewer Board
FRANK H. NICKERSON.
of Trade. In politics he is and has always been a Republican, and was for three years a member of the Republican City Committee. He is prominent in Odd Fellowship, being a member and since 1887 Secretary of Wildey Lodge of Brewer, also a
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
member of Katahdin Encampment of Bangor, Esther Lodge Daughters of Rebekah, and the Grand Lodge of Maine, in which he served as D. D. Grand Master in 1892. Mr. Nickerson has been a member of the Methodist Church of Brewer since 15;9, and has held an official connection nearly all of this time. He was for eleven years Superinten- dent of the Sunday School, and is at present Chair- man of the Board of Trustees and President of the local Epworth League, also President of the State of Maine Epwerth League, First Vice-President of the East Maine Conference League, and member of the Conference Board of Church Extension. He was married August 8, 1882, to Eda A. Barstow, daughter of Albion A. and Abbie P. Barstow ; they have one child : Arno W. Nickerson.
NORTON, JAMES STEVENS, M. D., Lewiston, was born in Strong, Franklin county, Maine, October 7, 1865, son of Jeremiah R. and Amanda F. (Stevens) Norton. He is descended from Nicholas Norton,
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JAS. S. NORTON.
who came from England to Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, in 1650. Nicholas Norton had one son, Joseph. Joseph Norton had three sons, one of whom, Ebenezer, removed to Farmington, Maine, in 1791, purchasing the farin now owned by Jere-
miah, Sylvanus and Richard Norton. Ebenezer Norton was the father of the subject of this sketch. James S. Norton received his general education in the common schools, and at the State Normal School in Farmington, where he graduated in regular course in 1884 and finished an advanced course in 1887. Following this period he taught in the high schools of Leeds, Vanceboro and Norridgewock, Maine, in the meantime reading medicine for two years with Dr. M. L. Young of Vanceboro, and was graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Vermont, at Burlington, in July 1894. After graduation he took a hospital course, and established himself in practice at Lewiston in November 1894. Dr. Norton gives especial atten- tion to diseases of the eye, ear, nose and throat, in which specialties of his profession he has been very successful. He is a member of Golden Rule Lodge of Odd Fellows, of Lewiston, and in politics is a Republican. He was married May 15, 1895, to Mrs. Marion (Fletcher) Arey, daughter of A. B. Fletcher of China, Maine. Mrs. Norton was the widow of the late Rev. B. S. Arey, a prominent Methodist clergyman of the East Maine Conference. By her former marriage she had two boys: Ralph E., aged ten, and Harold B. Arey, aged seven years.
THOMPSON, USHUR BURNHAM, Sheriff of York County, was born in Newfield, Maine, February 26, 1839, son of Daniel and Mary Ann (Moulton) Thompson. His grandparents were, on the paternal side, Benjamin and Sally (Hawkins) Thompson : and on the maternal side, David and Sally (Burn- ham) Moulton. He received his early education in the common schools of his native town, and at the age of twenty-one left the home farm and went to Boston, where he was a clerk in a grocery store for two years. In 1863, during the Civil War, he went to Morris Island, South Carolina, as sutler's clerk for a Pennsylvania regiment, the 104th, where he re- mained for a few months. . On account of sickness he was obliged to return to Maine, where he has since made his home, caring for his aged parents. In 1879 he was appointed clerk at the Kittery Navy Yard, where he served until the incoming of a Democratic administration, being removed by Presi- dent Cleveland at the beginning of the latter's first tenn. Mr. Thompson resides in Maplewood, New- field, where he served as Chairman of the Board of Selectmen from 1886 to 1891, and has held various town offices. In 1872 he was elected Representa-
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tive to the Legislature for the district of Newfield, Acton and Shapleigh, and in 1876 was elected Sen- ator from York county, to which position he was re- elected in 1877. In September 1896 he was elected to his present position of Sheriff of York
USHER B. THOMPSON.
county, by one of the largest majorities ever given for that office. Politically, Mr. Thompson is a Republican. He has been a member since 1871 and for several terms Master of Dayspring Masonic Lodge of Newfield, and is a member of Maplewood Grange Patrons of Husbandry and of the Reed Club in Portland. He was married December 27, 1865, to Sarah L. Davis of Parsonsfield, Maine ; they have no children.
KELLEY, JAMES EDWARD, Lawyer, Boston, was born in Unity, Waldo county, Maine, February 2, 1858, son of Benjamin F. and Louisa P. (Adams) Kelley. His paternal grandmother was a Vickery, whose mother was a Stone. On the maternal side his grandmother was a Drew, and he is a nephew of Sprague and James Adams of Bangor, Maine. He acquired his early education in the common district and high schools of Unity and AAlbion, and graduated from the Eastern State Normal School at Castine, Maine, in May 18So, being president and valedic-
torian of his class. Soon after graduation he was sent by the State Superintendent of Common Schools, to Boston, to fill a vacancy in the schools connected with the public institutions of that city, and continued in that connecuon for a period of five years, becoming head master of the schools, and later was promoted to the position of Assistant Superintendent of the institution with which he was connected, and acting. in that capacity for the last three years of his service for the city. He remained in the teaching profes- sion until :885. Boston was at that time passing into the hands of new masters; and the lack of a college training being a bar to promotion as a teacher, he took up the study of law, graduating from the Law Department of Boston University in June 1887. He was admitted to the Boston Bar in January 1888, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession in Cambridge, removing to Boston to assume charge of the legal business of a corpora- tion in December, where he has since been actively engaged in the practice of the legal profession. Mr. Kelley began life as a farmer's boy, and with
JAMES E. KELLEY.
some experience of the life and work of a woods- man, and has made his way to success without any other help than such as comes from a vigorous con- stitution and a strong will. His father was in humble circumstances, and could give him no
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material aid, but his father and mother both having been teachers in early life he received from them assistance and inspiration. When he began prac- tice at the Bar he opened an office alone, with- out the usual period of assisted work in the office of some older attorney. He resides in Somerville, where he is President of two literary societies, and Vice-President of the Sons of Maine Club of that city. But the time usually devoted to clubs by professional men, he spends mainly among the books of his own private library. He is an enthusi- astic collector of engravings. He goes back every year to the old farm where his father still lives, for a renewal of youth and health. Mr. Kelley is a Republican in politics, but has never taken an active part in public life, beyond doing a citizen's duty at the polls. He was married in December 1886 to Fannie E. Banks, of Belfast, Maine ; they have one child : Walter E. Kelley.
PEARSON, JOSIAH WILSON, M. D., Camden, was born in Morrill, Waldo county, Maine, April 7,
J. W. PEARSON.
1856, son of Thomas and Melvina (Doten) Pearson. His great-grandparents on the paternal side came from England about 1780, and settled at Antioch (now Unity), Maine ; his great-grandfather followed the sea until age compelled him to retire, and died
at Antioch. His grandfather Woodbridge Pearson settled in Montville, Maine, and moved to Morrill in 1826. His early education was acquired in the district school in Montville, Maine, and at Freedom (Maine) Academy, and his youthful training for active life consisted of working on the farm and teaching school. Finally deciding to adopt the profession of medicine, he graduated from the Medical Department of the University of Vermont in June 1883, and in the following August com- menced the practice of medicine and surgery in his native town. He practiced in Morrill until July 1, 1891, when he moved to Camden, where he has since continued. Dr. Pearson is a member of Timothy Chase Masonic Lodge of Belfast, Maine, Keystone Chapter Royal Arch Masons of Cam- den, and King Hiram's Council Royal and Select Masters of Rockland, Maine ; also of Waldo Odd Fellows Lodge of Belfast, and Camden Lodge Knights of Pythias. In politics he is a Democrat. He was married November 26, 1884, to Carrie I. Crockett, of Belmont, Maine. They have had two children : Nelson Keith, born in Morrill, September 1, 1888; and Charles Norman Pearson, born in Camden, August 7, 1894, died January 27, 1895.
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