USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 35
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Saco, Maine, for many years, and had nine sons, four of whom served in the Revolutionary War. The youngest son, Elias, who succeeded to the homestead in Saco, was born in 1768, married Mary Maxwell of Scarboro in 1787, and died in 1820, having reared a large family of children, of whom George and Peletiah, born in Sico in 1802, were twins ; they were men of attractive personal appearance, dignified and of firm principles, and so close was the resemblance between them that few of their acquaintances could distinguish one from the other. George, father of the subject of this sketch, carried on a large farm in Buxton, and married
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GEO. B. CARLL.
Eunice Watts, daughter of Captain David and Mary (Cressey) Watts. Captain Watts, who came from Gorham and settled in Buxton, was a Revolutionary soldier and a man of good ability. George Carll and his wife Eunice reared a family of seven chil- dren- Mary E., William F., Ann, George B., Sarah J., Hannah C. and Hattie E. - all of whom grew to maturity and were happily married. George B. Carll received his early education mainly at Stand- ish (Maine) Academy and Westbrook (Maine) Seminary, fitting for college at the last-named insti- tution. For ten years he taught school in Buxton, Kennebunkport and other towns of York county. In 1860 he located in Kennebunkport, establishing
himself in the hardware and household-goods trade, in which he has since been successfully engaged. Mr. Carll has served the town of his adoption in every important office within the gift of the people. For eighteen years he was Chairman of the Board of Selectmen, and in 1871-2-3 he was a Member of the Maine House of Representatives, serving ori various important committees, including the Com- mittee on Banking, in which capacity he helped frame the law exempting savings banks from muni- cipal taxation - a law which has stood ever since. In 1895 he was chosen Superintendent of Schools and Town Treasurer of Kennebunkport, which offices he now holds. He is also a Director in the Kennebunk & Kennebunkport Railroad. In poli- tics Mr. Carll is a pronounced Democrat. He has an extensive acquaintance throughout his county and state, and is prominently identified with the Masonic order, being a member of Arundel Lodge, of Kennebunkport, a charter member of Murray Chapter of Kennebunk, and a Knight Templar of Bradford Commandery of Biddeford. He was mar- ried December 15, 1859, to Ida A. Larrabee, daughter of Jesse and Augusta (Lord) Larrabee of Kennebunkport. Mr. and Mrs. Carll are regular attendants at the Congregational Church, of which he has long been a Trustee.
CARY, THEODORE, Editor and Proprietor of the Aroostook Times, Houlton, was born in Houlton, April 9, 1835, son of Shepard and Susannah Whitaker Cary. He is a descendant of John Cary of Somersetshire, near Bristol, England, who emi- grated to America and became one of the original proprietors of Duxbury and Bridgewater, Massachu- setts. Some of his descendants still occupy the original tract. William Holman Cary, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, born in Bridgewater, Massachusetts, was one of the first settlers of Houlton. His son Shepard Cary, father of Theo- dore, was a man of remarkable originality and force of character, and during his life was constantly engaged in large enterprises which gave employment to hundreds of men. He carried on extensive lumbering on the waters of the upper St. John River, conducted large farming operations and a large business in a general store, built grist and lumber mills, a foundry and machine shop, and did as much as any one man to develop Aroostook county. He was also active and prominent as a politician,
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
served sixteen terms in the House and Senate of the Maine Legislature, was a member of the Twenty-eighth Congress in 1843, and was the candi- date of the Liberty party for Governor of Maine in 1854. He was born in New Salem, Massachusetts, in 1805, came to Houlton in 1822, and died in 1866. Theodore Cary received his early education in the common schools and at Houlton Academy. His spare time was spent in early boyhood chiefly at mechanical devices, for which he had a great liking. Later he devoted much time to bee-keeping and raising honey for market, and clerking in his father's store. In the winter of 1853 he taught a town
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THEO. CARY.
school. In April 1860, without any previous train- ing for the business, he began the career of editor and publisher, and founded the Aroostook Times, the first newspaper ever printed at Houlton, and the second in the county at that time. This paper, independent in politics, the gospel of its mission being hard work and faithful service in behalf of the material interests of Aroostook county, has never failed to appear on its regular weekly day of publi- cation in the thirty-six years of its existence. Mr. ('ary also established the first job-printing office in Houlton, and the first printing press ever in the town was brought there by him in 1858. He has been a member of the Maine Press Association
since August 11, 1864, there being but eight others now living who were members at that time. He was a Justice of the Peace and Quorum from 1861 to 1875, and was Town Clerk of Houlton from 1861 to 1869. He has been an active member of the Houlton Board of Trade for many years, was one of the incorporators and at one time a Director of the Houlton Savings Bank, has been a Trustee of Houlton' Academy,"now Ricker Classical Institute, from 1865 to the present time, and has served as Secretary of the Board since 1876. He has also served as Clerk of the Unitarian Parish of Houlton for the past twenty-five years. In his personal poli- tics Mr. Caty was a Republican up to President Grant's second term, and since then has been an Independent. He was married December 24, 1874, to Phebe Young Plummer, of Belfast, Maine.
CREAMER, WILLIAM PEARSON, of Creamer & Wing, Proprietors of the Boston Hotel and Steam- boat Laundry, Boston, was born in Waldoboro, Maine, January 12, 1862, son of Lewis and Clara A. (Winchenbach) Creamer. His education was ac- quired in the common schools and at the Eastern Maine Normal School, Castine, from which he grad- uated in June 1383. His father was a sea-captain, and for the five years beginning at the age of seven- teen he followed the sea. Subsequently he taught five terms of country school, and in February 1884 went to Boston, working for the Empire Laundry Machinery Company and the Cambridge Laundry until he began business for himself. In August 1888, with Arthur L. Wing, he bought out the in- solvent business of the Boston Hotel and Steam- boat Laundry, at 99-101 West Canton street, a con- cern which had been doing a small business in what is known among laundrymen as " flat work." In this. business, which under the firm name of Creamer & Wing has been greatly extended and developed, he has since continued. Messrs. Creamer & Wing have added a "starch-work " de- partment, known as the Canton Street Laundry, also a coat and apron supply department, which under the name of the City Coat and Apron Supply Com- pany furnishes clean coats and aprons to barbers, waiters and bartenders. The business in ISSS was smail, employing but eighteen or twenty people and using only a part of the buikling in which it was located. To-day it employs from seventy-five to eighty hands, and although occupying the whole
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
building, comprising four floors and basement eighty-five by twenty-five feet, is much cramped for room. The gain in the "flat work " may be esti- mated from the fact that in 1888 the output was thirty thousand pieces per week, whereas the firm
WM. P. CREAMER.
are now doing thirty-five thousand pieces as an average day's work. They are now running thir- teen teams, in place of the two with which they be- gan business. Mr. Creamer is a member of St. John's Masonic Lodge, St. Andrews Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, Boston Council Royal and Select Masters, and Boston Commandery Knights Templar. He is also an Odd Fellow, and a Lieu- tenant in the Boston Veteran Fusileers' Association. In politics he is a Republican. He was married January 12, 1891, to Celia F. McFarland, born in Lamoine, Maine ; they have a daughter, Dorothea Creainer, born October 29, 1893. Mr. Creamer resides in Dorchester.
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WING, ARTHUR LINSCOTT, of Creamer & Wing, Proprietors of the Boston Hotel and Steamboat Laundry, Boston, was born in Fairfield, Maine, Sep- tember 26, 1860, son of John H. and Clorinda (Linscott) Wing. He is descended on the mater- nal side from the Winslows, who came from Eng-
land among the early settlers of the country. He worked on a farm until he was seventeen, and at the age of thirteen swung a hand-scythe from early morning until sundown for a dollar and a quarter a day. Meanwhile attending the common schools, he also acquired much knowledge of mathematics and grammar at home between terms, and mastered book-keeping and penmanship at commercial col- lege in Augusta, Maine, in 1878. In 1877 he began teaching country schools, and followed that occupa- tion for five years. Following this period he was engaged for two years in the lumber business in Michigan, and for the next two years in the grocery and provision business in Boston. He then entered the laundry business with the Boston Hotel and Steamboat Laundry, at 99 and 101 West Canton Street, where he remained as an employe until August 1888. The concern then had become insolvent, and Mr. Wing, who from his observations and experience as an employe thought he saw the
ARTHUR L. WING.
weak points in the management, assumed the busi- ness in co-partnership with William P. Creamer, under the firm name of Creamer & Wing. This association has continued to the present time, and has been very successful, the business having been built up to large proportions. \ " starch work " department has been added, under the name of the
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
Canton Street Laundry, and the City Coat and Apron Supply Company is another successful feature of the present business. The firm now occupy the whole of the four-story building that was only partly utilized by the old concern, and the number of people employed has increased from eighteen or twenty to nearly eighty. In the "flat work " depart- ment, instead of the former output of thirty thou- sand pieces per week, an average day's work is now thirty-five thousand pieces ; and in place of the two' teams which formerly sufficed, thirteen are now required for purposes of collection and delivery. Mr. Wing was married October 12, 1892, to Abbie E. Holt, born in Nashua, New Hampshire ; they have two children : Ralph H., born July 17, 1893, and A. Lawrence Wing, born August 13, 1896.
COOMBS, ISAAC, Postmaster of Camden, was born in Islesboro, Penobscot Bay, Maine, April 28, 1327, son of Isaac and Elizabeth (Boardman) Coombs. He is of French descent, his paternal ancestor being one of two brothers who landed in America from France in the early part of the sev- enteenth century. One settled in Duxbury, the other at New Meadows, Massachusetts ; the latter, from whom the subject of this sketch is descended, subsequently coming to Maine with his family. Isaac Coombs, after receiving his early education in the common schools, was trained to the life of a seaman. Becoming Master of a vessel at the age of twenty-one, he followed the sea in that capacity for nearly thirty years, occasionally during that time building a vessel for his own use. He was in com- mand of several large and notable vessels, among them the transport ship Onward, during the Civil War, from 1861 to 1863, carrying troops and muni- tions of war for the government. In this ship he transported the Twenty-first Maine Regiment from New York to New Orleans in February 1863. In 1875, at the age of forty-eight years, Captain Coombs retired from the sea, and devoted himself to shipbuilding, in which he was engaged at Cam- den until 1893. He built in all twelve vessels, owning a large part of each, including the brig Wapper, bark Anna Walsh, brig Fred Bliss, barken- tine Edward Cushing, bark John M. Clerk ; schooners Fostina, Austin D. Knight, Florence Le- land, Viola Reppard, Sarah D. J. Rawson and Wil- liam H. Sumner; and barkentine Mannie Swan. Captain Coombs has served in various town offices
in Camden, including that of Treasurer in 1890-1 and Selectman in 1893. In 1871-2 he represented the town for one term in the State Legislature. In 1894 he was appointed Postmaster of Camden by President Cleveland, which position he at present holds. In politics he has been always a Democrat. He is a member of Amity Lodge and Keystone Chapter Royal Arch Masons of Camden, Claremont Commandery Knights Templar of Rockland, and Mount Battie Odd Fellow's Lodge of Camden. He was married January 8, 1854, to Almira Drinkwater, of Lincolnville, Maine, who died at sea, June 14, 1863, leaving no children. In 1864, July 3, he was
ISAAC COOMBS.
again married, to Arethusa Drinkwater, a sister of his first wife ; they have had three children : Lou E. K., Almira D. and Ferdinand I. Coombs.
DRISKO, GEORGE WASHINGTON, Editor of the Machias Union, was born in Jonesboro, Washington county, Maine, October 10, 1824, son of Chandler Robbins and Ruth Ruggles (Whitney) Drisko. He is a lineal descendant, ninth in male line, from Captain Myles Standish. His paternal grandfather was Jonathan Drisco, and his great-grandfather was Samuel Drisko, who came in 1771 from Falmouth, Maine, where he married Mercy Chandler, and settled in Jonesboro, Washington county. In 1778
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
Samuel moved his family to Columbia in the same county, and established himself on the farm lately occupied by George B. Drisko -George being the son of Samuel, Jr., youngest son of Samuel who settled at Jonesboro. The late Peleg W. Chandler of the Suffolk Bar ( Boston) and the late Senator Zachariah Chandler of Detroit, Michigan, also the present Senator William E. Chandler of New Hampshire, are said to have come from the same stock. Jonathan Drisko, above mentioned, married Sarah Mckenzie of Columbia, Maine. Sarah, grandmother of the subject of this sketch, was a daughter of John McKenzie, a native of Scotland, who came to Falmouth and Columbia, Maine, when
GEORGE W. DRISKO.
a young man ; her mother was Elizabeth Dyer of Falmouth, of whom the late Joseph Dyer, the well- known Maine shipbuilder along in the fifties, was a descendant or kindred. George W. Drisko was reared in farm life, and was subjected to the depri- vations attendant upon settlers and families from 1824 to 1846 in the forests and outlying districts of Maine. He was educated largely by personal effort, reading biography and history, especially that of this country in all detail from 1730 to latest date, with home instruction by resident teachers, visitors and associates. He commenced newspaper and literary work as a correspondent of the Eastern Argus of Portland in 1846, and as a contributor to the
United States Patent-office Reports in 1847; and from 1854 has been Editor of the Machias Union to the present time. He has also been on the report- er's staff of the New York Herald and Boston Globe since 1875, and for twenty-one years a member of the New England Associated Press ; and is the author of the " Life of Hannah Weston " (1857), a history of the " Newspapers of Washington County" (1867), and of the history of Washington county published by the Messrs. Crocker in 1879 under the title of " History of New England by States and Counties." Mr. Drisko has served as Supervisor of Schools, Assessor, and in various other municipal offices of Machias, and in 1854 repre- sented Washington county in the Maine Senate. He was elected a Trustee of the Machias Savings Bank in 1869, and has been President of that insti- tution since 1893; was appointed Collector of Customs for the District of Machias in 1895, and at present holds that position; is President of the Machias Board of Trade, and for twenty-three con- secutive years has been a Trustee of Washington Academy at East Machias. He has been a member of Harwood Masonic Lodge since 1859, is one of the earliest members of the Porter Memorial Library of Machias, has been President of several educa- tional and literary clubs, and was a director in the celebrations of the Centennial of Machias in 1863 and the Centennial of the Battle of Machias in June 1875. He has also been a member of the Maine Press Association since 1866, and has served two terms as President of that organization. Mr. Drisko is one of the men who, while appreciating the value of money, are content with a fair competency, never " making haste to be rich." For forty-two years he has been in trade in books and stationery, and half- proprietor of the Machias Union. He has a well- ordered and comfortable home on Broadway, Machias, with ample grounds for vegetable and floral culture, in which latter he has excelled by natu- ral taste and practical experience from boyhood. He has never used intoxicants nor tobacco, and has had no fancy for horse-racing, boating, or " sporting " of any kind. He enjoys his home and society, is fond of entertaining friends and visitors, and is given to quite extensive travel in the United States and the Dominion of Canada. In politics Mr. Drisko has always been a Democrat, but never extremely partisan, having respect for the opinions of others. He was married September 19, 1852, to Esther C. Nash, daughter of J. Lee Nash of Columbia, Maine ; they have no children living.
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
HARRIS, AUSTIN, of East Machias, Treasurer of Washington County, was born in East Machias, July 10, 1841, son of Peter Talbot and Deborah (Longfellow) Harris. His American ancestry is traced back on the paternal side to Thomas Harris,
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AUSTIN HARRIS.
1630, and Peter Talbot, 1650; and on the maternal side to William Longfellow, 1650. He received his carly education in the common schools and at Washington Academy in East Machias, and gradu- ated as A. B. at Amherst College in 1863. From 1864 to 1871 he was in a country store, and from 1871 to : 876 was in the employment of l'Assomp- tion Lumber Company at Charlemagne, Province of Quebec, Canada. Since 188o to the present time he has been a member of the firms of J. O. Pope & Company and Pope, Harris & Company, of East Machias - the former firm carrying on the business of a general country store, and the latter being manufacturers of long and short lumber and extensive owners of wild lands. Mr. Harris is a Trustee of the Machias Savings Bank, a Director of the Washington County Railroad Company, a Trustee of Washington Academy and since 1880 Treasurer of the Board, and a member of the Board of Overseers of Bowdoin College. He served on the Board of Selectmen of East Machias froid 1887 1. 15,5. In 1895 he was appointed by Governor Cleaves, Treasurer of Washington County, to which
office he was elected in 1896. He was also a mem- ber of the Maine House of Representatives in 1869-70, 1891-2 and 1893-4, and Senator from Washington county in 1879-80 and 1881-3. He is a member of Warren Lodge and charter member of Warren Royal Arch Chapter of Masons, both of East Machias. Mr. Harris is a Republican in poli- tics, and was a Delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1884. He was married December 15, 1868, to Emily Frances Pope, daughter of Sam- uel W. Pope, late of East Machias ; they have had six children : Florence, Edna Pope, Mabel, Samuel Pope, Philip Taibot and Emily Harris.
HATHEWAY, HENRY JAMES, Houlton, Collector of Customs for the District of Aroostook, was born in Eastport, Maine, February 7, 1834, son of War- fen and Hannah ( Peavey) Hatheway. After
HENRY J. HATHEWAY.
attending the public schools of his native town he entered Starkey Seminary at Starkey, New York ; and upon leaving that institution in 1851 engaged in the study of medicine. In 1852 he went to Cal- ifornia, where he remained for ten years, engaged in mining and trading. In 1863 he volunteered his services in the War for the Union, enlisting in
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
Company I, First California Cavalry, and served with his regiment in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. During this period he was wounded, re- sulting in the loss of the use of his right arm, and for conspicuous service on this occasion was com- missioned an officer in Company L of his regiment. Mustered out July 4, 1865, he visited California for the second time, and in the fall of that year returned to his old home in Eastport. In April 1866 he was appointed Inspector of Customs at Houlton, by President Johnson, under Washington Long of Fort Fairfield as Collector of Customs for the Passamaquoddy District, in which Aroostook county was then classed. In 1869 he was ap- pointed Deputy Collector of Customs at Van Buren, Aroostook county, by President Grant. In 1873 Mr. Hatheway commenced business as a druggist in Houlton, where he has since conducted one of the handsomest and best-equipped drug stores in Aroostook county. In March 1892 he received the appointment of Collector of Customs for the Aroos- took District, from President Cleveland, which office he still holds. Mr. Hatheway is exception- ally qualified for the duties of his position as a gor- ernment official, by abundant experience, and by his courtesy, fairness and executive ability. He is an active member of the Houlton Board of Trade. and is greatly interested in the growth and develop- ment of the beautiful town of which he has been for nearly thirty-one years an honored resident. He is a member of the Odd Fellows fraternity, and in politics is a Democrat. He was married May 16, 1867, to Mary E. Noyes, of Eastport, Maine ; they have no children living.
HERSEY, IRA GREENLIEF, Lawyer, Houlton, was born in Hodgdon, Aroostook county, Maine, March 31, 1858, son of Samuel B. and Elizabeth (White) Hersey. His American ancestor was William Her- sey, who settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1635, and from whom nearly all the Herseys in the United States have descended. He was educated in the common schools and at Houlton Academy (now Ricker Classical Institute), read law with Hon. I.yman S. Strickland of Houlton, and was ad- mitted to the Aroostook County Bar at the Septem- ber term of the Supreme Judicial Court in 1880. Since admission to the Bar he has been actively en- gaged in the duties of his profession in Houlton, where his energy and ability, and especially his suc- cessful advocacy in jury trials, have won for him a
large and lucrative practice, and a reputation ex- tending beyond the limits of Aroostook county. In politics Mr Hersey has always been identified with Prohibition, having cast his first vote for that party. He was the Prohibition candidate for Governor of Maine in the campaign of 1894, and during the canvass spoke on the platform in nearly all the cities and large towns of the state, for three weeks address- ing audiences every night. The Lewiston Journal said of him : " Mr. "Hersey is the Prohibition party backbone in Aroostook, and now that Volney Cush- ing is out of the state, he is the leader of the Cold Water brigade. He has all of Mr. Cushing's fire and grace and eloquence, and all a lawyer's logic."
IRA G. HERSEY.
Mr. Hersey's spacious and handsome offices in the Millar Block in Houlton are among the finest in the state. He is prominently identified with various fraternal orders and societies, is a Mason and a Knight Templar, has received all the degrees in the Odd Fellows and Knights of Pythias, and is now serving as Captain of the Patriarchs Militant of Canton Houlton in the former order, and Deputy Grand Chancellor in the latter. He is a prominent layman in the Methodist Church, an active worker in the Young Men's Christian Association, and ex- State President of the Epworth League. He was married January 6, 1885, to Annie Dillen, of Houl- ton ; they have no children.
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JONAH, JOHN MARINER, M. D., Eastport, was born in the parish of Hillsborough, Albert county, New Brunswick, April 4, 1832, son of Peter and . Eliza (Peck) Jonah. His father was the son of Henry, son of John Jonah, the first of the name who settled in that part of the country. His mother descended from the old Dutch stock which constituted a very large percentage of the national- ities that first settled that section of New Bruns- wick. It is worthy of note that his great grand- mother, Mary, or Molly, the wife of Peter Lutz, lived to the remarkable age of one hundred and nineteen years ; she had five sons and six daughters, and their descendants are legion. In that rural country the Dutch families were always in comfort- able circumstances, they being farmers, lumbermen and mechanics. The subject of this sketch was the eldest of twelve children - three sons and nine daughters. He acquired his general education in the common schools, the Normal School at St. John and the Baptist Seminary in the city of Frederic- ton, New Brunswick. Graduating from the Normal > hool in 1855 with a first-class certificate for teach- ing, he was for some years a successful teacher in the Provincial schools, in every grade from the primary to the superior school which he taught in his native parish. A very valuable part of his oucation was received in the Sabbath School, being successively pupil, teacher and Superintend- ent of nine different schools during his active service in this mind-directing and Christianizing institution. He graduated at Harvard Medical hool in 1860, among the honor graduates, since which time he has been actively and continuously engaged in the practice of medicine and surgery, for seven years in the county of Westmoreland, New Brunswick, and for nearly thirty years in East- port, Maine. In his profession Dr. Jonah has been noted as being self-reliant and ever ready to meet emergency cases, yet cautious and conservative. When practicing in New Brunswick he served as Assistant Surgeon of the Militia, Coroner, Chair- man of the local School Board for four years, and Chairman of the Board of Registration of the Par- Ish of Salisbury - the period of his incumbency of these several Provincial offices dating from 1861 to 1866. In Eastport he was City Physician four years, a member of the School Board one year, and In 1893 was Chairman of the Board of Registration. He also served as Medical Examiner for the United States Pension Department during President Cleve- land's first administration. He has always been
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