USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 32
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Macomber. His father was a native of Pelham, Massachusetts, his ancestors having originally come from Scotland. His mother was born and always lived in Maine, her people being among the old families that originally settled in Warren, Knox county. He received his early education in the public schools and the Augusta High School, and immediately after graduation went to work in a store. Later he was for six years a clerk in the Augusta postoffice, during the term of H. H. Hamlen's service as Postmaster. It was under Mr. Hamlen's administration that he acquired the knowledge of the details of general business, as well as a large experience in local and state politics, which proved so useful to him in after life. At the age of twenty-two he went into the fire-insurance business, and by energy and persistence soon built up one of the largest local agencies in New England, which is still continued under the firm name of Macomber, Farr & Company, of which Mr. Macomber is the senior member. In 1885 he commenced work for the Granite State Insurance Company, taking charge of their business in Maine, and since that date, although the company was a new one, he has built up in ten years the second largest business of any fire-insurance company in the state. For a few years Mr. Macomber traveled for the same company, adjusting losses and super- vising their business all over New England. Several years later he assumed charge of the Maine business of the Insurance Company of North America, under the New England management of C. C. Kimball & Company of Hartford, Connecticut. This relation to these two leading underwriting concerns is still maintained. Early after the introduction of elec- tricity for the propulsion of street-cars and for lighting purposes, Mr. Macomber interested himself in this development. As Treasurer of the Augusta, Hallowell & Gardiner Railroad Company, he raised the necessary money and with his associates built that road in 1890, and under his management it has prospered ever since. Many other street-railroads and lighting companies have been promoted and started by him throughout New England, and having devoted a great deal of time to the study of this branch of business, Mr. Macomber is regarded as an expert in the development and operation of such properties. Mr. Macomber served as Alderman of Augusta in ISS5, and in 1887 was elected Mayor, to which office he was re-elected in 1888 and again in 1889. He is interested and an officer in various organizations and institutions, is a Director of the
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Granite National Bank and a Trustee of the Kenne- bec Savings Bank of Augusta, President of the Rock- land, Thomaston & Camden Street Railway, and President of the Knox Gas and Electric Company of Rockland. In politics he has always been a Re-
GEO. E. MACOMBER.
publican, and a strong believer in all the policies of that party. He was married January 24, 1877, to Sarah J. Johnson, of Albion, Pennsylvania ; they have two children : Alice H. and Annie J. Macom- ber.
PATTEN, SUMNER AUGUSTUS, M. D., Skowhegan, was born in Skowhegan (formerly Milburn), De- cember 6, 1820, son of Joseph and Joanna (Harlow) Patten. His great-grandfather Samuel Patten was born in Ireland and came to this country when fourteen years old ; he married Mary Bell in De- cember 1746, and died in Bedford. New Hamp- shire, April 23, 1792. His grandfather Samuel Pat- ten was born in 1752, married Deborah Moore, and reared a family of ten children. His father, Joseph Patten, was one of the earliest settlers and merchants of Skowhegan, was for many years Chair- man of the Board of Selectmen, represented the town for one term in the Legislature, and enjoyed the confidence and esteem of his townsmen until his death, which occurred January 10, 1858. In
addition to the advantages of that New England institution, the common town school, Sumner A. Patten enjoyed the privileges of Bloomfield Acad- emy at Skowhegan in acquiring his early education --- the academy being then under the excellent su- pervision of Stephen Coburn, a graduate of Colby University. Subsequently he was a student in the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill. Off and on for several years, when a young man, he was a clerk in his father's store ; and when not thus en- gaged, was employed as teacher of town schools in his own county and in the eastern part of Maine. Upon reaching the age of twenty-three years, and - after mature reflection, he decided to engage in the study of medicine, and attended his first course of lectures at Bowdoin College. His second course was at Harvard Medical School, where he graduated in March 18.48, receiving a diploma to which were attached the names of Gustavus Channing, Jacob Bigelow, George Haywood, J. W. Webster, John Ware, J. B. S. Jackson and Oliver W. Holmes - all of whom, it is believed, are now dead. Immedi- ately after graduation he entered upon the practice of his profession, and in 1850 located in Monson, Piscataquis county, Maine, where he remained, ex- cepting a few years' absence, during the war, until May 1879, when he moved to Skowhegan, where he has practiced ever since. In the sparsely- settled region of Western Piscataquis, he found a hard and extensive field of labor. As he was the nearest physician to this great lumbering region of Maine, he was frequently called to Moosehead Lake and its environs, and to the West Branch of the Penobscot and its tributaries, sometimes following this river to Chesuncook Lake, to minister to the necessities of woodsmen who had become the un- fortunate victims of accident or disease. Frequent- ly too he was called professionally to that famous resort, Mount Kineo, to see some of the city dwellers who, for health, recreation or sport, were sojourning there for a few weeks of the summer or sporting season. During the Civil War, Dr. Patten received from Governor Washburn a commission as Assistant Surgeon of the First Maine Cavalry, and served in that capacity from June 1862 to February 1863, when he was honorably discharged. He was with the regiment at the Battle of Cedar Mountain, August 9, 1862, also in the Second Bull Run fight, and other minor engagements. For several months he had charge of the sick and wounded of this regi- ment at Frederick City, Maryland. After his dis- charge and return home he was appointed Surgeon
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of the Board of Enrolment of the Fourth Congres- sional District of Maine, with headquarters at Ban- gor, and performed the duties of this office until the close of the war. Dr. Patten is a member of the Somerset County Medical Society, and the Maine Medical Association. He has always been an active and zealous Republican in politics, and for two terms, 1868 9, he was State Senator from Piscataquis county. He has been much interested in the Masonic fraternity, has served as Master of Somerset Lodge and Commander of De Molay Commandery Knights Templar, both located at Skowhegan. and many years ago was Master of Doric Lodge, at Monson. He is also a member of
S. A PATTEN.
Russell Post Grand Army of the Republic, of Skow- hegan, and has been its principal officer. For a physician in active practice, Dr. Patten has em- braced and enjoyed an unusual number of oppor- tunities for speaking in public - addressing literary societies, Masonic bodies, etc. ; and since the close of the war, and Memorial Day has been instituted and observed, he has frequently spoken on those occasions, in several counties of the state. For sev- cral years he was one of the Trustees of the Normal & hools of Maine. Dr. Patten was married October 31, 1849, to Miss Nancy M. Barrows, of Blanchard, Maine : they had two children : Milton .1. l'atten, Irowned July 4, 1882, and Lizzie B., now Mrs. W.
H. Pullen of Washington, District of Columbia. Dr. Patten's first wife died October 8, 1858, and he subsequently married Miss Emeline C. Taylor, of Monson, Maine, who died March 18, 1877; they had one child : Roland T. Patten, born in Bangor October 29, 1864, now a prominent druggist of Skowhegan.
PAUL, ETHER SHEPLEY, of E. S. Paul & Com- pany, drygoods merchants, Lewiston, was born in Buxton, York county, Maine, February 8, 1838, son of William and Catherine (Boothby) Paul. His paternal ancestors came from England, and were among the earliest settlers in the western part of York county, Maine. His paternal grandmother was Dorothy Wells, of the town of Wells, Maine. The Boothby family also came from England, and settled in Wells, York county, about 1720; the family is of Danish origin, and traces its genealogy back to A. D. Soo. The subject of this sketch was educated in the common schools and at Gorham (Maine) Academy, and at the age of fifteen com- menced active life as a clerk in Hiram Bowe's dry- goods store in Saco, Maine, but left after a year, in March 1854, and entered an apothecary store in Biddeford. After a year at this occupation, not liking the business, he went back to his former place with Mr. Bowe. In the spring of 1857 he was compelled by ill health to leave the store and return to the home farm in Buxton. For three years following he spent the autumns and winters in teaching the district school, acquiring something of a reputation as a successful teacher in "hard " schools - schools where the test of merit in a teacher was his ability to keep himself from being thrown out of the door or window. During the summers of 1857-8 he was engaged in the lightning- rod business in the vicinity of Boston, running two teams and employing three men. In April 1859 he again went back to the drygoods business, and once more with his former employer in Saco - having fully made up his mind to follow that business and " stick " to it, a resolution which he has kept to this time. Becoming impressed with reports of the rapid growth of Lewiston, Maine, in November 1860 he went to that city and entered the employ of Ambrose & Clark, at that time the leading dry- goods merchants of the place, and remained with them until February 1867, when he engaged in the dry and fancy goods business for himself, in part- nership with Abel Goddard, under the firm name of
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Goddard & Paul. In December 1872 he bought his partner's interest and continued the business under the style of E. S. Paul & Company, in 1874 build- ing the block which the firm now occupies. In 1885, A. W. Fowles and Mr. Paul's son William were admitted as partners, and in 1889 Mr. Fowles retired and the senior partner's youngest son, Sam- uel, was taken into the firm ; and in February 1892 Mr. Paul gave up the buying and the general man- agement of the store to his sons, retaining only the financial management - having bought the goods and had the entire management of the business for a continuous period of twenty-five years. Through-
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ETHER S. PAUL.
out its long career the credit and standing of E. S. Paul & Company have always been of the best, and no suit at law has ever been brought against the house. Mr. Paul has been a Trustee of the An- droscoggin County Savings Bank of Lewiston since 1885, and Vice-President of that institution since 1887. His home is in Auburn, in which city he has served in various public capacities, having been Alderman in 1876, member of the School Com- mittee in 1880-1, and one of the Board of Water Commissioners since 1893. He is a Mason and a member of Lewiston Commandery Knights Tem- plar, also a member of the Calumet Club of Lewis- ton, and served as President of that organization in
1891-2-3. In politics Mr. Paul is a Republican ; in religion a Congregationalist. He was married March 24, 1859, to Miss Hattie H. Haskell, of Buxton, Maine. They have had five children : William Ambrose, Walter Everard and Samuel Merrill Paul, now living; Jennie Catherine and Grace Isabella Paul died in early childhood. Of Mr. Paul's three sons, William A. and Samuel M. are his partners in business ; Walter E. is a prac- ticing physician in Boston, a graduate of Harvard College and Medical School.
PLAISTED, HARRIS MERRILL, of Bangor, Gover- nor of Maine for two terms, 1881-2, was born in Jefferson, New Hampshire, November 2, 1828, son of Deacon William and Nancy ( Merrill) Plaisted. His father was a farmer of Jefferson, where he was born in April 1792, and died in 1854. His mother was born in Conway, New Hampshire, in 1795, daughter of Thomas Merrill, one of the first settlers of the town, whose first American ancestor was Daniel Merrill of Newburyport, Massachusetts. The father and mother were among the founders and pillars of the Baptist Church in Jefferson. They possessed little of this world's goods beyond the resources of a small farm, but left to their children a rich inheritance in their exemplary lives of industry unremitting and of piety most pure and sincere. They had nine children : William, an extensive tanner in Eastern Maine - at Stetson, Lincoln and Princeton - and a member of the State Senate from Penobscot county, who died in June 1894 at the age of seventy-nine ; Charles, a farmer in Lancaster, New Hampshire, who repre- sented his town in the State Legislature, and died in 1885 ; Hannah, wife of Cyrus P. Church of Bradford, Maine, who died in 1858; Thomas M., who died in Gardiner, Maine, at the age of twenty- two; Catherine, wife of Rev. Charles Bailey of New York, who died in 1851 ; Elijah Freeman of Phillips, Maine, graduate of the Jefferson Medical College, Philadelphia, Surgeon of the Twenty-eighth Maine in the War of the Rebellion, who died in 1872; Harris Merrill, the subject of this sketch ; Mary Ann, wife of James Spaulding of Lancaster, New Hampshire, who died in 1854, and John H., a farmer in Jefferson, on the old homestead, where he died in 1863. The father of Deacon William was Judge Samuel Plaisted, born in Berwick, Maine, 1766. He went to Jefferson in 1787, the agent of
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Colonel Joseph Whipple of Portsmouth, proprietor of the town; he was the first Postmaster of the town, Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and member of the Legislature from I ancaster and Jef- ferson ; he died in 1841. His youngest son, Hon. Benjamin H., prominent in public affairs, built the Waumbek House, the first summer hotel on Jefferson Hill, at the instigation of Starr King, his familiar friend, in whose honor he changed the name of Mount Pliny to " Starr King." Judge Plaisted was the fifth in descent from Captain Roger Plaisted, the first of the name in this country, who with two of his sons was slain by the Indians in King Philip's War, October 17, 1675, while in command of the two upper garrisons in Berwick, then the outpost of civilization. He had represented Kittery four years in the General Court of Massachusetts, and, says Historian Williamson, " was highly respected for his uncommon valor, worth and piety." Captain Roger was at Berwick, then part of Kittery, about 1650. At the time of his death, at the age of forty- eight years, he was one of the seven " Associates" or Magistrates who constituted the tribunal with legislative and judicial powers for the government of the Province. The children of Captain Roger who left descendants were: Captain James, of York ; Colonel John, of Portsmouth, who married Mary, daughter of Hon. John Pickering, Attorney- General of New Hampshire, and was for more than thirty years in public life -- Associate Justice and Chief Justice of New Hampshire 1699-1720, mem- ber of the Royal Council and many times Speaker of the New Hampshire Assembly ; Colonel and Judge Ichabod, of Berwick, and Mehitable, who married Thomas Goodwin. Many descendants of the sturdy old Indian fighter Captain Roger have been prominent in public life, as well as in every profession. They include Governor Ichabod Good- win of New Hampshire; Governor and Senator John Fairfield, Chief Justice John A. Peters, the Morrills and the Bradburys, of Maine ; also Dor- othy Quincy, wife of Governor John Hancock, whom Oliver Wendell Holmes styled one of his " manifold grandmothers, the beautiful Dorothy (." Governor Plaisted is descended from Colonel John and Mary (Pickering) Plaisted of Portsmouth, through their son Captain Elisha, who married Hannah, daughter of Colonel and Judge John Wheelwright, of Wells, Maine, the grandson of Rev. John Wheelwright, "friend of Cromwell." The working of Captain Elisha and Hannah at her father's house, October 19, 1712, was an event in
the history of Maine, as it was the occasion of the last Indian foray during Queen Anne's War, in which Captain Hatch, one of the guests, was killed, and Captain Plaisted himself was captured. The bridegroom proved a rich prize to the Redskins, his father, Colonel John, having paid three hundred pounds for his ransom. Captain Elisha resided at Berwick, half owner with his father of the lumber and mill business at "Great Works," and prominent in public affairs. He reared a large family. His youngest son, Captain William, born in 1729, mar- ried Jane Hight in 1752. He succeeded his father in the business at Great Works, and was killed
HARRIS M. PLAISTED.
in the mills in 1768. Their sons were : John, George and William of Portsmouth, Ichabod of Gardiner, Maine, and Judge Samuel of Jefferson, grandfather of the subject of this sketch. Harris M. Plaisted is seventh in descent from Captain Roger, and comes of good legal as well as fighting ancestry. Until the age of seventeen he was at home on the farm, attending the district school when there was one. He had to fight for his edu- cation - fight to get away from the farm when his father could ill spare him, and fight his way when away. The winter and spring of 1846 he managed to get eighteen weeks' schooling at Lancaster vil- lage, paying his way. The next two years found
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hin at Lancaster Academy the first half of the spring and last half of the fall term, teaching school winters and working on the farm summers. In the fall of 1848, having the privilege of the full term, twelve weeks, he was ambitious of putting it in at St. Johnsbury Academy, Vermont, and to this end applied to the rich man of the county, David Burnside, for a loan. " How much do you want?" asked Mr. B., after a silence that was felt. " Five dollars," was the answer. Footing it to St. Johns- bury, thirty miles, over the hills of Lunenburg and Concord, it never occurred to him that there was any hardship in it. He put in the fall term at St. Johnsbury to good advantage, winning the first prize, Valedictorian, having paid his way. He taught school that winter at Passumpsic village, and returning to his home in the spring with fifty-two dollars in his pocket, paid his little note to Mr. Burnside, principal and interest, five dollars and twenty-two cents. Attending New Hampton Acad- emy the following spring term, and working on the farm in the summer, he entered Waterville College (now Colby University) in September (1849), grad- uating in 1853. He paid his way through college by teaching in Waterville, being Principal of the Waterville Liberal Institute three terms during his college course, and also Superintendent of Schools, elected by the town, for three years. In the fall of 1853 he entered the Law School of the University of Albany, New York, graduating in 1855 with the highest honors, winning the first prize, a gold medal. He was admitted to the Bar at Albany, on his diploma, in 1855, but returning to Maine, entered the law office of A. W. Paine in Bangor, where he remained one year. In August 1856 he was admit- ted to the Maine Bar, and at once entered upon the practice of his profession at Bangor, where he continued in full practice until 1861, when he en- listed for the war. In 1858-59-60 he was a inem- ber of the staff of Governor Lot M. Morrill. He voted for Lincoln in 1860, taking an active part in the campaign, and on that day, November 6, resolved that if war ensued he would sustain his vote in the field. He felt the solemnity of the hour, regarding his vote as the most solemn act of his life. The four months between the election of Lincoln and his inauguration were the darkest in the history of the Republic. During the darkest hours of this period, when Horace Greeley and his New York Tribune, and many others all over the land, were advocating " peace at any price," even at the price of the Union, Mr. Plaisted affirmed and
argued both the duty and necessity of fighting for the Union, even to total exhaustion, whether suc- cessful or not. The argument he advanced, under the head of "We Must Fight," was that : -
"They secede recklessly because of their mean opinion of us, believing we are a sordid people, willing to give up the Union our fathers shed their blood to establish, to save not our blood only, but the Almighty Dollar. If we let theni go in peace, we justify their mean opinion of us, earn their contempt, as well as the contempt of the whole world. And how can we . expect to live in peace thereafter? There will be no living by them any more than with them. They will respect us after they have fought with us, and will like us. Then, if we can- not live together in peace, we may live side by side as alien friends. . . . Fight we shall - not there the danger lies; the real danger is that they will secure some great advantage at the outset, before the North is aroused, like the seizure of the National Capital. That would be a staggering blow, if not fatal to us. There is the danger : Washington is defenceless! "
From his article on the "Defence of the Capital," which appeared in the Bangor Daily Whig and Courier of January 21, 1861, we make the following extracts : -
" That it is the settled purpose of the rebels to seize the city of Washington and make it the seat of their Slave Confederacy, there can be no doubt, and yet the people of the North, as well as the General Government, seem not alive to the danger. . . . The disastrous consequences of such an event as the loss of the Capital cannot possibly be over-estimated. The people of Washington, and the very troops General Scott is now organizing for its defence, would defend the new order of things, and the Border Slave States would be enlisted heartily in its support. Our Army and Navy, if not wholly controlled, would be divided, and Lincoln would have to flee to some Northern city, where he might maintain ever so stoutly that his was the true Capital and he the rightful head of the Nation, but of what avail? The South would hold the seat of govern- ment, archives and treaties, and, with the foreign ministers resident there, would be recognized as the government de facto of the United States. . . . The only safety of the Capital is in its military defence. There is no doubt of it. What then is to be done? Is the safety of that city - in which is involved the safety, the very existence, of our government - to be trusted in the hands of two companies of artillery and four thousand militia of the District? Should Maryland secede from the Union, that city militia is demoralized at once, and the Capital lost unless defended by Northern troops. The most desperate efforts are now heing made by the rebels to force Maryland into their schemes. Their success is prevented only by her indomitable Governor. And when they find that he cannot be moved to call a convention, will they not then seize the Capital and thus drag the state into secession? . . . How much longer will the friends of the Union remain inactive, relying upon their conscious strength? In sixty days, yes, in ten, we may wake up to find our National Capital in the possession of rebels and our government 'without a local habitation or a name.' What then should be done? Manifestly there should be no boys' play - no standing upou ceremony. Martial law
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should be declared and the District of Columbia converted into a camp. The Catilines in the senate and their bands of conspirators who infest the city should be driven out and the city surrounded with a wall of bristling bayonets and frowning batteries. Troops of undoubted loyalty to the Union should be posted in sufficient force to bid defiance to a hundred thou- sand rebels. The country reposes entire confidence in General Scott. Let the Administration say to him that he is charged with the duty of seeing to it that the Capital suffers no detri- ment, and when that old hero assures the country that he has for its security sufficient force, loyal under all circumstances to the Union, the people will rest satisfied, confident, too, that so long as the flag of the Union floats over the Capitol, Mary- land cannot secede nor can the Constitution be overthrown."
Having enlisted, Mr. Plaisted raised a company in thirty days which was assigned to the Eleventh Maine Regiment as Company K. On October 21, 1861, he was tendered the Lieutenant-Colonelcy of the regiment, and on November 12 left the state with his regiment for Washington, where he spent the winter in study and drill, having special charge of the Officers' School of Instruction in tactics. As part of the First Brigade, Casey's Division, Keyes' Corps, the Eleventh left Washington on March 28 and entered the Peninsular Campaign. Promoted to Colonel of the Eleventh on May 12, 1862, he com- manded his regiment through the campaign, taking part in the siege of Yorktown, the battles of Williamsburg, Fair Oaks or Seven Pines, and the Seven Days' Battle before Richmond. At the close of the campaign, General Naglee, his brigade com- mander, promoted to a division, urged Colonel Plaisted's promotion that he might command the former's old brigade. One letter sent to Washington in his behalf was as follows : -
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