USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 50
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started in the sweet-corn packing business, running from one to three factories; one of which, together with both lumber mills, store and farm, they have continued to operate to the present ime. The brothers have uninterruptedly owned all of their property in common and undivided for over forty years, and this business and personal partnership still continues, Peter attending to the store and corn factory, and paying off all the help, and Almon de- voting himself to the management of the mills. The firm has always paid a hundred cents on a dollar, although having been obliged to take as little as five cents on the dollar, on bills to the amount of
P. B. YOUNG.
thirty thousand dollars. While resident in Sebago, Mr. Young served as Constable in 1857 and as Post- master from 1861 to 1867, was Town Treasurer in 1864, Selectman in 1865, and Collector, Constable and Town Clerk in 1866. In Hiram he was Town Treasurer for the ten years ISSo-90 and again in 1896, and in 1892 was Chairman of the Board of Selectmen. He also represented Hiram in the State Legislature in 1876, and was Senator from Oxford county in IS87-8. In politics Mr. Young has always been a Republican, since casting his first vote for Fremont and Dayton. He was married March 15, 1874, to Mary Emma Hubbard, daughter of Hon. J. P'. Hubbard of Hiram. They have no children.
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FASSETT, FRANCIS HENRY, Architect, Port- land, was born in Bath, Maine, June 25, 1823, son of John and Betsey (Turner) Fassett. His early education was acquired in the common schools of his native city. He left school, however, at the age of fourteen, and for the next four years was a clerk in the store of a general trader in Bath. He then was apprenticed to the carpenter's trade, and sub- sequently studied architecture in the offices of architects in Boston and New York. In 1850 he began the practice of his profession in Bath ; his operations gradually extending up the Kennebec «iver to Augusta, where, after the great fire of 1863.
F. H. FASSETT.
he practically rebuilt the city. In 1864 he removed to Portland, where he has continued in the active business of his profession to the present time. During his career Mr. Fassett has designed many of the public and business buildings and dwellings erected in Maine and neighboring states. Among the more noteworthy monuments to his taste and skill throughout the state are the Maine General Hospital, the new Congress Square Hotel, the Bax- ter Building (the largest business block in Maine), the Portland Public Library, the Payson Memorial Church, also the Jackson, MIcLellan, Butler and High school buildings, all in Portland ; several of the buildings of the Maine Insane Asylum, Augusta ;
the Hancock County Court House, Ellsworth ; and St. Mary's School in Biddeford. He also rebuilt the City Building of Portland after the great fire of 1866, and is engaged in building the new Church of the Sacred Heart in that city. Mr. Passett is a Trustee of the Portland Public Library, and is a member of the Fraternity and Cumberland clubs, having served as President of the last named. Politically, he has always been a Republican, but he has never sought political preferment. He has been twice martied. Of the four children of his first marriage, Edward F. Fassett, who is associated with his father in business, alone survives. Mr. Fassett's second wife is living, and they have three children : Frederick G., Mima and Harriet H. Fassett.
GERRY, ROBERT, Mayor of Ellsworth in 1896, was born in Melrose, Massachusetts, January 29, 18.2, son of Robert and Hannah (Lynde) Gerry. His grandfather Reuben Gerry, who was killed, or died of wounds received in battle, in the Revolution, was a cousin of Elbridge Gerry, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, Minister to France, Governor of Massachusetts and the Province of Maine, and Vice-President under James Madison. His maternal grandfather, Benjamin Lynde, who fought in the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill, was born and died in Melrose, Massachusetts. The subject of this sketch attended the Melrose schools during boyhood, but the best of his early education was received under instruction from his father, who taught forty-six terms of school in Melrose and Malden, and was a highly educated man. When yet in his teens he came with the family to Ellsworth Falls, on the Union River, Maine, where his father bought largely of land, cleared up a farm, built a mill and manufactured lumber for the Boston market. Robert junior's training for active life consisted of plenty of hard work on the farm and in the woods and mill, with scant remuneration in a financial way. In early life he entered on his own account into the lumber business, in which he has been engaged ever since, at times carrying on an industry of large proportions. Besides the lumber he manufactured for the general market, he got out many vessel-frames in the palmy days of shipbuilding in Maine. In one season he loaded ninety-seven vessels with ship-knees and railway-sleepers. As the lumber business gradually declined he manufactured less, and turned his at-
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tention to other forest products, in late years logging and shipping stave-timber and getting out stove-wood for the local market. For many years he also kept a large general store at Ellsworth Fails. He is the largest farmer in Ellsworth, cutting in 1895 one hundred and sixty tons of hay, and is the owner of seven thousand acres of land in Han- cock county. More than thirty years ago he bought several large estates on the outskirts of the village of Ellsworth, comprising a tract of three hundred acres known as " Jones's Pasture," and the Peters and Hopkins estates, paying therefor between eleven and twelve Thousand dollars. This he laid out in building lots, intersected by streets built at his own expense.
ROBERT GERRY.
People thought he was wasting his money. But the event demonstrated his wisdom and forethought, for this section is now the pleasantest and most thrifty part of the city, and the enterprise was the means of increasing the valuation of Ellsworth many thousands of dollars. In 1868 Mr. Gerry was elected Street Commissioner of Ellsworth. At that time the dirt roads, where the heavy teaming was done, were almost impassable in the wet seasons. He gave these roads a thorough and systematic treat- ment with broken stone, and made a foundation that, although they have become city streets, has kept them in good condition with but slight repairs to the present time. Besides having served as
Street Commissioner of the town, Mr. Gerry was for three years Chairman of the Board of Assessors for the city of Ellsworth. He was also one of the Committee of Seven that built Hancock Hall, at a cost of sixty thousand dollars. In politics Mr. Gerry has acted first with the Democrats, t'en with the Greenbackers, and since with the Populists. He claims to have been always a Jeffersonian Dem- ocrat, summing up his political belief in adherence to the Monroe doctrine, and the principles of Madison, Jackson, Polk, Webster and Clay. His political opinions however are the fruits of his own study and thinking. The currency question he has iong believed to be the most vital national issue, and his monetary views and convictions have led him into the ranks of the Populist party. He has always been averse to entering public life, but in 1896 his political friends prevailed upon him to be- come their candidate for Mayor. In the ensuing municipal campaign the Republicans and Demo- crats united upon an opposition candidate, who at the election in March received the same number of votes as Mr. Gerry, making a tie. . A second election was held a month later, at which Mr. Gerry was elected by six majority, in the largest vote ever polled in Ellsworth. Although at the age of sev- enty-five years, Mr. Gerry is as active, hale and hearty as the average man of fifty. He has never used alcohol or tobacco in any form. He was married in 1851, to Amanda Maddocks, of Ells- worth; their children are : Abbie, Charles, Helen, Robert. Lillian and George L. Gerry.
HOLT, SAMUEL LELAND, head of the machinery firm of S. L. Holt & Company, Boston, was born in Bethel, Oxford county, Maine, September 5, 1837, son of Samuel and Elvira (Estes) Holt. He is of the sixth generation from Stephen Holt, through Isaac, Peter, and Timothy, his grandfather, who was an early settler of Maine, when the state was a district of Massachusetts, and reared a family of ten children. His mother's ancestors are traced back through John, James and Enoch to Joseph Estes. He is the fourth in a family of eight children, con- sisting of his brothers Theron J., Edmund E., James P. and Asa Stevens, and sisters Julia M., Mary E. and Abby. His mother died when he was fifteen years old, and his father married a second wife, by whom he has three half-sisters : Elvira, Ida and Villa Holt. He worked at farming on the home place until the age of sixteen, meanwhile attending the
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district school . East Bethel. In the spring of 1853 he went to Massachusetts, and spent the succeeding summer on a farm in Watertown. The following winter he found more congenial work in a machine shop at Lowell, and a year later secured a better situation in a similar shop at Nashua, New Hamp- shire, where he remained for two years. He then went to Feltonsville, now Hudson, Massachusetts, where he continued to work at the machinery busi- ness until the winter of 1860-1. Upon the opening of the Civil War in the spring of 1861, he enlisted in response to the President's first call for nine- mo: 's' men, and served with General Foster's
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S. L. HOLT.
army at Newberne, North Carolina, until the spring of 1862, when he returned home, his term of enlist- ment having expired. In the following July he received an appointment as Assistant Engineer in the Navy, and being first assigned to superintending duty at Newburg, New York, was in service at that post for nine months, and then was ordered to Key West, Florida, and assigned to service at sea on roving cruisers. In this service he continued until after the close of the war, returning home in the autumn of 1865. After obtaining his discharge he was employed by the Salem Machine Company for eighteen months, in the capacity of Consulting Engineer. In September 1867 he engaged in a
similar capacity, and also as travelling salesman, with Pratt & Company of Boston, steam engine and boiler manufacturers, where he remained until November 1870, when he founded in Boston the machinery business of which he has ever since been the senior member, and is at the present time sole owner. During the twenty-six years he has ha i six different partners, all of whom have tired of the business after one or two years; but mechanical pursuits being more to his taste than any other, he has continued to devote himself to this line of business, and has made the steam engine a life- study. Mr. Holt attended the World's Fair at Philadelphia in 1876, the Paris Exposition in 1878 and the Columbian Exposition at Chicago in 1893, devoting nearly all of his time to the mechanical departments, and in 1878 he spent six months of travel in inspecting and studying the leading iron- works of France, England and Scotland. He is a member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic . Association, and is prominently identified with the Masonic order, being in fellowship with St. John's Lodge, St. Paul's Royal Arch Chapter, Boston Council Royal and Select Masters, Lafayette Lodge of Perfection, Giles F. Yates Council Princes of Jerusalem and Mount Olivet Chapter Rose Croix. In politics Mr. Holt is a Republican. He was married July 23, 1857, to Miss Mary A. Farnsworth, of Brookline, New Hampshire ; they have a daugh- ter : Abby Elnora, now Mrs. Arthur L. Wing of Boston.
KIMBALL, JOHN HAZEN, Bath, was born in Concord, New Hampshire, July 14, 1823, son of Samuel Ayer and Eliza ( Hazen) Kimball. He is of the seventh generation in descent from (1) Richard Kimball, who with his wife Ursula Scott came from Suffolk county, England, in 1634, to Watertown, Massachusetts. The line is through (2) Benjamin Kimball and Mary Hazeltine, (3) Richard Kimball and Mehitable Day, (4) Benjamin Kimball and Priscilla Hazen, (5) John Kimball and Anna Ayer, and (6) Samuel Ayer Kimball and Eliza Hazen. After receiving his general education in the Concord (New Hampshire), Fryeburg (Maine) and Phillips Andover (Massachusetts) academies, he studied law in the office of Judge Samuel Wells of Portland, and was admitted to the Cumberland County Bar in November 1846. He taught school for two years in Charles county, Maryland, and for a time was clerk in the office of the
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Adjutant-General of New Hampshire. In 1847-8 he practiced law at Kezar Falls in Parsonsfield, and in Topsham, Maine. Removing to Bath in 1849, he practiced his profession there for a few years, and then engaged in the fire and marine insurance busi-
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J. H. KIMBALL.
ness, also in navigation and railroads. He was for some years a Director of the Central Vermont Rail- road, also a Director and President of the Andro- scoggin Railroad. For a period of twenty-five years, 1852 to 1877, he was Treasurer of the Bath Savings Institution. Later he became largely interested in cattle ranching and lands in Montana, Nebraska and Wyoming. Mr. Kimball has served in both branches of the Bath city government, at various times, was Representative to the Maine Legislature in 1878-9, and State Senator 1883-5. An active Republican in politics, he served as Presidential Elector in 1SS2, and as Delegate to the National Convention at Chicago in 1888. Mr. Kimball was married November 5, 1851, to Annie Humphreys, daughter of John C. and Angeline (Whitmore) Humphreys of Brunswick, Maine, who died Decem- ber 11, 1890. They had five children : Edward Hazen, born August 14, 1854, married Anna Dike ; Samuel Ayer, born August 28, 1857, married Belle C. Trowbridge ; Frederick Humphreys, born Feb- ruary 23, 1861, married Mary E. Shaw ; John
Mckinstry, born November 14, 1863, married Sally B. Small ; and Harry Whitmore Kimball, born Dec- ember 13, 1865. Mr. Kimball was married second, May 27, 1896, to Elizabeth Dike, daughter of Rev. Dr. Samuel F. and Miriam (Worcester) Dike, of Bath.
KNAPP, JAMES MAXWELL, Manufacture of Ma- chine and Tool Forgings, Boston, was born in Biddeford, Maine, son of Ward S. and Miranda B. (Libby) Knapp. He is descended from Aaron Knapp, one of four brothers who emigrated from England to this country in 1630, and settled in Taunton, Massachusetts. He attended the common schools until eleven years of age, when he secured employment in a cotton factory. At fourteen he became a clerk in a grocery store, but soon left that occupation to enter upon a mechanical training in the smiths' shops of the Saco Waterpower
JAMES M. KNAPP.
Company in Biddeford. At the age of seventeen he became employed in the United States Navy Y'ard at Kittery, Maine, as an apprentice in the smiths' shop, in the steam-engineering department. In 1876 he was made foreman of the smiths' shop, and in 1832 was appointed foreman of the boiler shop in addition to his former duties. In this
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capacity he continued at the Navy Yard until 7885, when he went to Providence, Rhode Island. In January 1886 he went to Medfield, Massachusetts, and formed the partnership of Knapp & Clark, for the manufacture of paper-mill bars and knives. Dissolving this connection shortly after, in Decem- ber of the same year he moved to Boston, and started business in machine and tool forgings. In 1892, he bought out the firm of Burnett & Brown, of East Cambridge and Boston, in the same line of business together with the manufacture of pipe tongs, and as their successor has since carried on a large business in machine and tool forging, under 's name of James M. Knapp, with office and shop in Boston, and factory in East Cambridge. Mr. Knapp is identified with the Masonic order, being a member of St. Andrews Lodge, Washington Chapter Royal Arch Masons, Davenport Council Royal and Select Masters, and DeWitt Commandery Knights Templar, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. In poli- tics he is a Republican. He was married February 21, 1871, to Lizzie L. Weeks, daughter of Charles P. and Elizabeth (Cole) Weeks, of Portsmouth, New Hampshire ; they have had two children : Charles W. and Mary Belle Knapp, both now deceased.
MCSWEENEY, REVEREND EDWARD, Pastor of St. John's Catholic Church in Bangor, was born in Ire- land. His parents, Morgan and Mary McSweeney, were both descende i from respectable Celtic fami- lies. The father in early manhood became a citi- zen of the United States, but returned to his native land and there married Mary Coffey. The second child born of this marriage was Edward, destined to become a useful and highly esteemed priest of the Catholic Church. Returning to America the family settled in Manchester, New Hampshire. There Edward spent his boyhood, getting his first instruction in and passing successively through all the grades of the public schools. On the death of the father, while the children were yet young, their whole care fell to the lot of the mother, a woman of sound understanding and strong character. She appreciated the benefits of a good education and gave the opportunity to her son to acquire one, and the subject of this sketch attributes to his mother's inspiration and encouragement much of the taste for books and study that has possessed him in youth and manhood. From his mother, too, he . probably inherits the quality of temperament and
mental activity that have contributed to whatever success he has achieved in his career. His col- legiate studies were pursued at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts, where he graduated .in 1865, being a member of the first class graduated from that institution under the charter granted by the state during the administration of Governor Andrew. After an interval of two years he decided for the ministry and its work, and made the theo- logical course at Troy (New York) Ecclesiastical Seminary. He was ordained immediately on com- pleting his course at Troy in 1870, and was assigned to the Portland Cathedral under the late Bishop Bacon. He remained two years in Portland
EDWARD McSWEENEY.
and was then for two years Pastor of the Catholic Church at Rockland, Maine, before being assigned to St. John's Church in Bangor, where he has since labored. During his pastorate at St. John's, Father McSweeney has inaugurated and successfully car- ried out many important plans of improvement, requiring much labor and ability to supervise the work and to raise the large amount of money neces- sary for the same. Among the more important of the improvements referred to are the great changes at the Catholic Cemetery ; the erection of a mag- nificent parochial residence : the acquisition of St. Xavier's Academy ; the new home of the Sisters of Mercy, and the frescoing and decoration of the
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interio: of St. John's, which is now one of great artistic beauty ; twenty stained glass windows unsur- passed by any in the country are a feature of the decoration. Father McSweeney also organized the . parish at South Brewer, which is under his control, and built a very pretty church there at a cost of ten thousand dollars. Much other work of minor importance in the way of improvements has also been done. In ISS5 Father McSweeney visited Europe on a vacation of several months, and on his return was accorded an enthusiastic reception by his parishioners and presented with a large purse. In June 1895 occurred his silver jubilee, and this, * . twenty-fifth anniversary of his ordination, was made the occasion of a grand celebration in his honor, and the presentation of substantial testi- monials by the parish as evidence of the high regard and esteem in which he is held. But by far the most important work of Father McSweeney's pastorate has been his untiring labor for the spiritual welfare of his flock, and his intensely earnest efforts to maintain a high standard of reli- gious life among them. He is a forcible and elo- quent preacher, and fearless in assailing what is wrong and upholding what is right. He is a man of independent spirit and practical ideas, and has acquired something more than a local reputation. In the winter of 1895 he accepted an invitation to speak before the students of the Bangor Theologi- cal Seminary ( Protestant), and delivered an inter- esting discourse on the subject of "Catholic Mis- sions." During .. is long term of service as Pastor at St. John's. Father McSweeney has developed traits of character which have endeared him to every one of his five thousand parishioners and made friends for him of many prominent people outside of his church. His people fully appreciate his many fine qualities - his exceptional abilities in church and temporal affairs, his highly exemplary Christian life, his kindness and tenderness of heart, his ever ready charity and his progressive spirit - and they are always ready to give him a loyal sup- port. Among his fellow clergy in the diocese he has a high reputation and is at present a member of Bishop Healey's Cc .ncil. He is also a member of the Board of Trustees of the Bangor General Hospital, having served in that capacity for two years and has been elected again for a term of three years. He is Chaplain of the Penobscot Division of the Ancient Order of Hibernians, and also of the Pine Cone Connal. Knights of Columbus, of Bangor.
MITCHELL, EDWARD PAGE, journalist and author, was born in Bath, Maine, March 24, 1852, son of Edward H. and Frances A. (Page) Mitchell. He is the scion of two old and notable New Eng- land families. The Mitchells descend from Experi- ence Mitchell, who was at Leyden with the Pilgrims and came over in the third ship, the Ann, settling at Plymouth in 1623. The grandson of Experience, Jacob, removed in 1728 to North ! ar- mouth, in what is now the state of Maine. F om this branch of the Mitchells, the subject of our sketch is descended. The Pages descend from John Page, who came to the Massachusetts Colony
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E. P. MITCHELL.
from Dedham, England, with Governor Winthrop in 1630. Joshua Page, grandfather of E. P. Mit- chell, removed from New Hampshire to Maine in 1805, establishing himself in Bath, and there marry- ing Keziah, the daughter of Captain Joseph Stock- bridge, a Revolutionary soldier. Edward Page Mitchell lived in Bath until eight years old. But the major part of his boyhood and school days was passed in New York city, where he fitted for college at the Mount Washington Collegiate Institute, grad- uating therefrom in 1866. Part of a year after was spent on a cotton plantation in North Carolina, and in 1867 he entered Bowdoin College as a member of the class of 1871, being graduated in it with con-
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spicuous honors. Though faithful to his text- books, it was noticed by class-mates that he spent more time in the great college library than over the volumes concerning which tutors and professors catechise their pupils. It is said by them, with par- donable exaggeration, that he read every book in the library. This much is certain : he was an omni- vorous reader from the time he mastered the Eng- lish alphabet. With the instinct of a man of letters he retained the best of a multifarious and often desultory reading ; letting the useless and the com- monplace slip by. To this habit he doubtless owes more than wide knowledge. Conjoined to innate gi it developed the strength and lucidity of state- ment and the felicities of style which have given him so conspicuous a place among the periodi- cal writers of the closing decades of this century. For a moment after graduation he contemplated the study of medicine ; but fortunately for journal- ism, turned to the newspapers, beginning a most happy life-work by an engagement as reporter on the Boston Advertiser in 1871, and also doing special writing for various Boston and other East- ern journals. In 1873 he was recalled to Maine, becoming Assistant Editor of the Lewiston Journal under Governor Dingley. At that time he began to write for the magazines ; his first story, "The Tachypomp," being published in Scribner's in 1874, and at once attracting the attention of the reading world. This tale, with another of later date, was subsequently included in the Scribners' collection of " Stories by A.merican Authors ; " and the story, " The Ablest Man in the World," in Mr. Stedman's " Library of American Literature." Some of the tales have been translated and reprinted in Ger- many. But excursions into fiction have with Mr. Mitchell been diversions, and but incidental to steady newspaper work. In 1875 he was invited from Lewiston to New York by Charles A. Dana and became a member of the staff of The Sun. There he has been ever since as editorial writer and gen- eral assistant of Mr. Dana; and there he enjoys a well-earned reputation as one of the most thorough and accomplished newspaper writers in the United States. It is sufficient `o say that he shines in a journal where every article from leader to local is polished to the nails. It is possible that a good physician was lost when Mr. Mitchell's attention was diverted from medicine ; it is probable that the magazines would be better reading were he a more frequent contributor ; but it is certain that those who " take in The Sun " have no reason to regret
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