USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 38
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dred thousand papers like Frank Leslie's every day. Only a practical printer can fully appreciate the dazzling magnificence of this accomplishment. Since then the growth of the business has con- tinued, and in less than a year a second press of the same kind was added, and immense as is the present capacity of the printing plant, it is none too large to meet the demands upon it which come from the vast and continually increasing distribution of the company's publications. Started with the idea of filling a real want of the people, they have been carried on in that single line until they have gained a circulation amounting to over a million and a half a month, going into the homes through- out every part and section of this country and Canada. Mr. Vickery has found time to engage in various banking, railroad, summer-resort and other outside business enterprises, as well as to cultivate his mind and to enjoy the rational rewards which come to the successful man. He is highly respected and esteemed by all his fellow-townsmen, who appreciate the fact that notwithstanding his wealth, position and successes, he is always to them simply the neighbor and genial friend, living simply and unostentatiousy, with a hand ready to help his fellow-man or less fortunate neighbor, and ever ready to lend his assistance to push on any merito- rious work or enterprise of a public nature with both brains and capital.
HILL, JOHN FREMONT, M. D., President of the Augusta National Bank, Augusta, born in Eliot, York county, Maine, October 29, 1855, was the son of William and Miriam (Leighton) Hill. His an- cestors on both sides have been distinguished public men in their day, and the public spirit and interest in the affairs of the state which characterize the subject of this sketch seem to be hereditary. Dr. Hill's father, William Hill of Eliot, was in the sixth generation of direct descent from John Hill of Dover. This John Hill was born in England in 1624, and came to this country about the middle of the century. He seems to have been a somewhat rebellious subject, for he was sued for trespass by Sir John Mason, the original grantee of the Province of New Hampshire, and afterwards was summoned before the Court at Great Island for using treason- able language in saying that "he did judge that neither the King nor Mr. Mason had anything to do here." His son Joseph was born in 1658, and lived in Dover until after 1696, in which year he bought
land in Kittery, and moved there soon after the purchase. Samuel Hill, great-great-grandson of John Hill of Dover, married Betsy Rawson in 1799, and their on William was the father of the subject of this sketch. Miss Betsy Rawson, who thus be- came Dr. Hill's grandmother, was a direct descend- ant of Edward Rawson, Secretary of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay from 1650 to 1686. Edward Rawson was born in England in 1615, and was descended from a sister of Edmund Grindal, "the most worthily renowned Archbishop of Canterbury" in the time of Queen Elizabeth. Dr. Hill's mother was Miriam Leighton, eldest daughter of Andrew
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JOHN F. HILL.
Leighton of Eliot, who frequently represented his district in the State Legislature, and was State Sena- tor for a number of years. The Leighton family began in this country with Captain William Leigh- ton, who settled in Kittery in 1650, near the river side at a point afterwards named Leighton's Fort. His son, John Leighton, was a Representative to the General Court in 1704 and 1714, and was also Sheriff of York County. Town meetings were held in his house, and when Sir William Pepperell came to preside at the first term of the Court of General Sessions the same place was used for a court room. His son William was a Selectman of Kittery with Sir William Pepperell on the first board at the incor-
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poration of the town, and, curiously enough, mar- ried in 1720, Sarah Hill, daughter of Major John Hill of Berwick. Deacon William Leighton, great- grandfather of Miriam, was a strong Puritan in his religious views, and in 1774 recommended " the withdrawal of all commerce and dealings with those who have assented to the enslaving of a free people." He also assisted in the raising of one hundred and twelve men who went to join the army in Cambridge in 1775, and he held the office of Sheriff of the County and was a Justice of the Peace. Sarah Catherine Odiorne, wife of Andrew Leighton, and grandmother of Dr. Hill, was directly descended from Sir John Mason, the original grantee of the Province of New Hampshire. Her grand- father, Daniel Odiorne, married into the Vickery family, an example which was followed about a cen- tury later by her grandson, the subject of this sketch. John F. Hill was educated at South Berwick (Maine) Academy and the Putnam School in Newburyport, Massachusetts, studied medicine, and graduated at the Maine Medical School, Brunswick, completing his studies in his profession at the Long Island Col- lege Hospital, Brooklyn, New York. After leaving college Dr. Hill practiced medicine for about a year in Boothbay Harbor. but very soon decided to devote his attention to a business career. In 1879 he came to Augusta, and went into business with P. (). Vickery, and soon after became his partner, under the firm name of Vickery & Hill. This firm is one of the largest publishing houses now in the business, and their publications are read from one end of the land to the other. Under the able man- agement of these two gentlemen the business has prospered greatly, and they have now one of the best equipped publishing offices in the country. In 1889 Dr. Hill was elected Representative from Augusta to the Maine Legislature, and served on the committees of Banks and Banking, and of Rail- roads, Telegraphs and Expresses. In 1891 he was again elected Representative, and served as Chair- man of the House Committee on Railroads. In August 1892 he was nominated by acclamation as Senator from Kennebec County, and sat in the Legislatures of 1893 and 1895 in that capacity, being Chairman of the important Railroads Com- mittee in both years. Dr. Hill has been intimately connected with the building of several street rail- roads, and has always been interested in the prog- ress of Maine, particularly in this direction. He is essentially a man of public affairs, and is a Director of the Augusta National Bank, a Trustee of the
Kennebec Savings Bank, Vice-President and Direc- tor of the Maine Trust Company of Gardiner, a Director of the Augusta, Hallowell & Gardiner Electric Railroad Company, of the Rockland, Cam- den & Thomaston Street Railway Company and the Norway & Paris Street Railway. In February 1896 he was elected President of the Augusta National Bank, a position which his demonstrated financial abilities eminently qualify him to fill. Needless to say, Dr. Hill has always been a Republican in poli- tics. In religious views he is a Universalist. He is a Mason, a Knight Templar and one of the largest shareholders in the Masonic Temple at Augusta, built in 1895. He is also a member of the Abnaki Club, a social club formed in Augusta in 1895, and whose membership includes the best men of the city. Dr. Hill was married May 19, 1880, to Lizzie G. Vickery, daughter of his partner, P. O. Vickery ; their only child, Percy, was born March 16, 1881. Mrs. Hill died April 10, 1893. Dr. Hill lives in a substantial and pleasant house on State street, the most beautiful of the many beautiful streets of the Capital City of Maine.
VOSE, PETER EBENEZER, Merchant and Lumber Manufacturer, Dennysville, was born in Robbin- ston, Washington county, Maine, November 20, 1820, son of Peter Thacher and Lydia Cushing (Buck) Vose. He is descended from (1) Robert Vose, born 1599, who came from Great Britain to New England about 1635, and settled in Dorchester (now Milton), Massachusetts. The line of descent is : (2) Thomas, (3) Henry, (4) Robert, (5) Thomas, (6) Thomas and (7) Peter Thacher Vose, father of the subject of this sketch. His ancestral lines also include the families of Thacher, Sumner, Prince, Oxenbridge, Tucker, Josslyn, Partridge, Hinckley, Williams, Keith, Adams, Hayden, Hay- ward, Howard and Buck, and through Oxenbridge are connected with Edward III., King of England. His mother was a daughter of Roger Buck, an early inhabitant of Cambridge, Massachusetts. His edu- cation was limited to that received in the common schools of Robbinston - mainly in the old red brick schoolhouse now transformed into the resi- dence of Hon. Harrison Hume. He was the first- born of eight children. His mother was an excellent woman, who brought up her children very carefully, and he cannot recollect when he commenced at tending church and Sunday school, so early was it in
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his life. His father was a shipbuilder, but the boy was never employed in the shipyard, although he worked more or less on the farm. He spent a few months of the winter of 1833-4 in Lancaster and Boston, Massachusetts, and at the age of twenty he commenced teaching district school - teaching for four winters at Red Beach, Robbinston and Dennys- ville. "After a few months' experience as book- keeper and cashier in a drygoods store in Boston, he came to Dennysville in December 1844, and has resided there ever since. From March IS45 he was a clerk in the store of Deacon John Kilby for nearly eleven years. Then buying out his en-
PETER E. VOSE.
ployer's stock he started for himself, and has done business at the old stand for a continuous period of more than forty-one years. For many years he was also engaged in lumbering and lumber manufactur- ing, and was quite extensively interested in shipping - furnishing builders with ship timber, and taking interests in the vessels. Mr. Vose has filled various public offices, serving as Selectman of Dennysville for twenty-nine years, Assessor thirty-one years and Overseer of the Poor twenty-four years, most of the time as Chairman of the Boards, and was Town Treasurer for twenty-four years. He was also Treas- urer of the Washington County Agricultural Society for twenty-three years, until 1890, and Treasurer of
the Washington County Bible Society twenty-seven years, and always present at its annual meetings. He has been a Justice of the Peace for about fifty years, now holding his eighth commission. He has had the settlement of many estates, as Administrator and Executor, and has assisted in obtaining many pensions. In politics, born and bred a Whig, he early imbibed anti-slavery ideas, and connected himself with the Free-Soil party in 1848. When the Republican party came into exis- tence, and became to all intents and purposes Free Soilers, he was " in it," and there has remained. He has never held nor sought a political office, however, and was evidently not cut out for a poli- tician, being constitutionally unfitted for "wire- pulling," and consequently was never sought after by " rings." Mr. Vose has been connected with the Congregational Church of Dennysville as Deacon for twenty-nine years, Clerk for thirty years, Treas- urer twenty years, Trustee of its funds for thirty years, Superintendent of its Sunday School thirty years, and a teacher in the school fifty-eight years, and for over thirty years was Agent for the meeting- house, chapel and parsonage. He has been active as a temperance man, and has been a member and officer in many temperance societies. He never drank a glass of intoxicating liquor, and never used tobacco in any form, and the same can be said of his son, his father and his grandfather on the paternal side. So strong has always been his feel- ing against tobacco, that in all his business life he never has sold an ounce of it, nor a pipe or cigar. Yet he disclaims being " cranky " on this subject. At one period of his life, as a magistrate, he had numerous trials of alleged sellers of the ardent at his courts ; and as he had no sympathy for the ac- cused nor fear of them, he almost invariably found the guilty ones guilty, and dealt with them accord- ingly. As a churchman Mr. Vose has been present at more than fifty annual and semi-annual county conferences of the Congregational Church, and was for some years the Moderator at those meetings. He has attended three sessions of the National Congregational Council as a Delegate, at New Haven, Connecticut ; Concord, New Hampshire ; and Worcester, Massachusetts. He has also been Delegate to several State Congregational Confer- ences, to meetings of the American Board of Foreign Missions, the American Missionary Association and the American Tract Society. He is a life member of the American Missionary Association and of the Boston Young Men's Christian Association. For
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many years he has conducted religious services on Sundays during the a sence of the minister. M :. Vose modestly says of himself that he has en- deavored to lead an honest and honorable life, per- forming the duties of his several humble positions according to the best of his ability. Others say of him that he has led a useful as well as an honorable life, and a busy one. He was married May 24, 1847, to Lydia Kilby, daughter of Deacon John and Lydia Cushing (Wilder) Kilby of Dennysville. They have four children : Mary Matilda, married Edmund B. Sheahan of Dennysville ; John Thacher, married Lizzie E. Mack of Eastport, Maine ; Ida Sumner, married Clinton A. Woodbury of Sweden, Maine ; and Lydia Caroline, married William B. Johnson of Woodfords, Maine. After a happy married life of almost fifty years his excellent wife suddenly deceased October 3, 1896, aged seventy- four years.
WILLIAMS, CHARLES EMERY, M. D., Houlton, was born in Waterville, Maine, January 30, 1857, son of Hanson Clifford and Caroline Rogers (Wood) Williams. On the paternal side he is of Irish de- scent, but there are no authentic records of his ancestry prior to the time of his great-grandfather, Dr. Obadiah Williams, who was a surgeon in the Revolutionary army, and participated in the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was the first physician in Waterville, where he built the first frame house in that now flourishing city, and practiced with great reputation for surgical skill in the region now included in Kennebec and Somerset counties. His mother's people were of English descent, his mater- nal great-great-grandfather being a British soldier in the early part of the eighteenth century, who availed himself of the proposals of the Plymouth Company and located in Norridgewock, Maine. His descendants have always been prominently identified with the affairs of Norridgewock and Somerset county. The subject of this sketch went through the Waterville public schools, prepared for college at Waterville Classical Institute (now Coburn Classical Institute), and graduated from Colby Uni- versity in 1874. He was a member of the Phi Beta Kappa Society in that institution, and in 1877 he received from the university the degree of Master of Arts. From 1875 to 1880 he taught as Associate Principal of Houlton Academy. Then taking up the study of medicine, he graduated from the Col- lege of Physicians and Surgeons (the Medical
Department of Columbia College) at New York in 1883, where he also had the advantages of post- graduate and hospital work. Since 1883 he has practiced medicine in Houlton. Dr. Williams has served as United States Examining Surgeon at Houlton since the establishment of the Board in 1885, is Consulting Physician to the Bangor Gen- eral Hospital, and has filled various town offices. He is a member of the Maine and the Penobscot County medical associations. In politics he has always been a Republican, but has never had any political aspirations. He was married October 13, 1887, to Patience E. Hussey, of Houlton ; they
CHARLES E. WILLIAMS.
have had two children : Mildred H., born Decem- ber 22, 1890, died December 18, 1893, and Robert H. Williams, born December 5, 1894.
GILMAN, GEORGE HERBERT, Editor and Pro- prietor of the Aroostook Pioneer, Houlton, was born in Augusta, Maine, March 7, 1854, son of William S. and Harriet M. Gilman. In 1858 his father moved his family to Presque Isle, Aroostook county, where he was then publishing the Aroostook Pioneer, the first newspaper printed in the county, having established it the previous fall. In Presque Isle the present editor of the oldest journal of
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Aroostook passed his boyhood and acquired his early education. Later he attended Houlton Acad- emy for several terms, but the greater part of his education and training for active life was received `in the printing office, where most of his life from the age of fifteen has been spent. His first work at the printer's case was in the office of the Pioneer, under his father. Subsequently he was for three years in the large publishing house of the late E. C. Allen, at Augusta ; and it was in these estab- lishments = the country newspaper and printing office, and the big printing and publishing house - that he acquired the practical knowledge of every
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GEO. H. GILMAN.
department of newspaper and job-printing work which has been so valuable to him in his life work. In 1884 he entered into partnership with his father, and upon the death of the latter in the following year, 1885, he became editor and sole proprietor of the Pioneer, which was removed to Houlton in 1868, and which has since continued under his editorship and management to the present time. The Pioneer, under the management of both father and son, has always been active and earnest in promoting the best interests of the Garden County, and the influence it has exerted in making known the resources and possibilities of Aroostook, and inducing immigration and attracting capital to the New Northeast, can
scarcely be over-estimated. Mr. Gilman has the laudable ambition to make of the Pioneer one of the leading papers of the state, and its steadily in- creasing prosperity and influence are evidence of the progress being made in that direction. He pur- . chased not long since all the rights of others in the Pioneer Building, and is now sole owner of that prop- erty. He was actively interested in the formation of the Houlton Board of Trade, visiting Calais to study the organization and workings of the Board of Trade of that city, and has been prominent in all public movements to enhance the business interests and general welfare of his community. In 1896 he was elected a Representative to the State Legislature of 1897-8, by the largest majority ever given for Representative by the voters of Houlton. Mr. Gil- man is a member of Rockabema Lodge and Aroos- took Encampment of Odd Fellows, also of Canton Houlton, Patriarchs Militant. In politics he is a Republican. He was married in March 1876 to Lottie Dunton, daughter of Elijah G. and Mattie M. Dunton, of Augusta, Maine; they have a daughter, A. Mae Gilman, now eighteen years of age. Mr. Gilman's mother died February 4, 1895.
LOW, ASA, Lawyer, Springvale, was born in Shapleigh, York county, Maine, September 24, 1817, son of Jeremiah and Abigail (Ham) Low. His grandfather, Jedediah Low, fought at the Battle of Bunker Hill. He was educated in the common schools and at the academies of Alfred, Limerick and Parsonsfield, all in York county. He studied law for three years in the office of John T. Paine in Springvale, attended Harvard Law School for one term, and was admitted to the York County Bar at Alfred in the fall of 1845. Since then he has been actively and continuously engaged in practice at Springvale - a period of over fifty years. He taught town school in the fall and winter from 1836 to 1843 inclusive, with good success. In the fall of 1845 and winter of 1846 he taught a large school in Alfred Gore, and in 1847 he taught successfully a school in Shapleigh, taking the place of a teacher that the big boys had " driven out." In the sum- niers of 1839-40-1 he worked in the brick yard in Beverly, Massachusetts, making bricks. Mr. Low has held various public offices in Springvale, having served as Chairman of the Board of Selectmen from 1861 to 1867 and again in 1877, as Town Clerk five years, and as a member of the Supervising
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School Committee and Supervisor of Schools for about twenty year In politics he has been a Democrat from his youth up. He was married January 9, 1849, to Mary A. Getchell, of Spring- vale ; they have had nine children, of whom five
ASA LOW.
are living : Asa, Jr., Amos W., Frank, Charles and Arthur Low. Mr. Low is also blessed with six grandchildren.
MOORE, BEVERLY KENNAN, President of the Mercantile Law Company, Boston, was born in Biddeford, Maine, November 25, 1847, son of Jeremiah and Juliet (Kendall) Moore. He is a descendant on his father's side of Captain Samuel Moore, who settled in Kittery, Maine, in 1690, and also a direct descendant of William Blackstone, the first settler of Boston. On the maternal side he is descended from Francis Kendall, who settled in Ipswich, Massachusetts, in 1640, and from Captain George Rogers, one of the early settlers of George- town, Maine. He received his early education in the public schools, and after reading law in Boston for about two years, 1869-70, he accepted a responsi- ble position with a leading mercantile agency in New York, to establish and promote a law and collection department. . For the next five years he
travelled in the interest of this agency through the West and South, and in 1876 established a branch in Boston, of which he was Manager for about two years. He then went to Louisville, Kentucky, as Superintendent of Bradstreet's Agency in that city, and continued in that capacity for two years. Returning to Boston again in 1881, he established an independent law and collection business, which speedily expanded to large proportions and devel- oped into the present Mercantile Law Company, incorporated in 1889, with associate offices in all the large cities of the country, of which he is at the head as President. The company has sole charge of the law and collection department of the Boston Merchants' Association, a department established by Mr. Moore in 1883, when he first became Secretary of that organization, an office which he still holds. Mr. Moore is also a member of the law firm of Kendall, Moore & Burbank; President of the Associated Law and Collection Offices,
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BEVERLY K. MOORE.
elected to that position in June 1891 ; Treasurer of the Home Market Club, and officially connected with various other organizations. He is and has long been an earnest worker in behalf of securing the enactment of an equitable national bankruptcy law, and is actively interested in all matters of public, concern. Mr. Moore was married January
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5, 1876, to Annie T. Hooper, daughter of Colonel E. H. C. Hooper of Biddeford ; they have five children.
PIERCE, JOHN GREELY, M. D., Yarmouth, was born in Foxcroft, Piscataquis county, Maine, Octo- ber 28, 1843, son of Samuel Y. and Rebecca D. (Smith) Pierce. His paternal grandparents were Captain William T. Pierce of North Yarmouth, Maine, and Dorcas York, daughter of Deacon Sam- uel York, also of North Yarmouth. On the maternal side he is a grandson of William Smith of Buxton, Maine ; his Grandmother Smith being a
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JOHN G. PIERCE.
daughter of "Post" Tucker, famous as Postman during the Revolution. He received his early edu- cation in the town schools and fitted for college at the North Yarmouth (Maine) Academy. Adopting the study of medicine he entered Bowdoin Medical School in February and the Medical School of Har- vard in November, 1865, and received his degree of M. D. at Bowdoin in June 1867. During his pre- liminary and professional studies he taught both common and higher grades of school, in order to defray the expenses of his education ; relying wholly upon his own exertions in this direction, although having, as he claims, "the best parents in the world " to encourage him. He commenced prac-
tice in the fall of 1867 at Canton, Oxford county, Maine, whence he removed to Freeport in April 1876, thence to Deering in 1884, and came to Yar- mouth in 1891, where he has since resided and practiced. Dr. Pierce is an active member of the Maine and the Cumberland County medical associa- tions, is an ex-member of the Oxford County Medi- cal Association, member of the Maine Academy of Science and Medicine, and while residing in Can- ton was appointed United States Examining Sur- geon for Pensions. In Canton he was also Super- visor of Schools, and served in a similar capacity during his residence in Deering. He was married December 24, 1867, at Portland, to Elizabeth B. Loring, born in North Yarmouth, Maine, Septem- ber 10, 1844, daughter of Otis and Olive K. Loring, of North Yarmouth. They have a son : Clarence Warren Pierce, born in Canton, January 16, 1871, a graduate of Colby University in the class of 1894, and now Principal of the Norridgewock (Maine) High School.
SIBLEY, A. CUTTER, President of the Belfast Board of . Trade, was born in Belfast, September 16, 1847, son of Reuben and Hannah Cushing (Cutter) Sibley. His father was born in Freedom, Waldo county, Maine, in 1807, son of William Sibley, who came from New Hampshire as a pioneer, married Charlotte Buxton, of Yarmouth, Maine, and was one of the largest and most successful farmers of the section in his day. Reuben Sibley settled in Bel- fast in 1828, as a merchant, and subsequently became a large importer of West India merchan- dise - molasses and sugar - and also was largely interested in vessel property, generally as managing owner ; he died May 6, 1878, aged seventy years. The mother of the subject of this sketch was born in Yarmouth, Maine, November 2, 1808; her par- ents died when she was quite young, and she was brought up in the family of her uncle in Portland, the Hon. Eliphalet Greely, for many years Presi- dent of the Casco Bank, and also Mayor of Port- land. A. Cutter Sibley received his early education in the public schools of Belfast. Subsequently he attended A. H. Abbott's private school at " Little Blue," Farmington, Maine, and the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill, from which latter institu- tion he was graduated in June 1868. In the spring of 1869 he joined with the Hon. William B. Swan of Belfast in forming a co-partnership under the firm name of William B. Swan & Company, and organ-
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