USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 52
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ber of cases pending upon the docket. Among the legal victories referred to were the following : Before the late Judge Ware, in the case of the schooner Lucy Ann, he established the right of the fishermen to three-eighths of the bounty allowed the vessel by Government, in the Admiralty Court at Portland, Maine; also, in the Circuit Court of the United States, broke down two of the J. Winslow Jones patents on canned green-corn packing, and by appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States, two other patents of the same claim and ownership ; and also a patent on canned baked beans in the United States Circuit Court, Massachusetts District, at Boston ; besides a case in the Supreme Court, of the United States against the State of Florida, tax title, January 6, 1895, and sundry claims before the Court of Commissioners of Alabama Claims in Washington. He also has sundry cases in the French Spoliations now pending in the United States Court of Claims at Washington. As a scholar and historian Mr. Sewall has long been widely known, and he is recognized as an authority upon all matters relating to the early settlement and growth of his section and of the state. Besides numerous articles contributed to various newspapers and periodicals, and papers read before historical and other societies, he has compiled and published a valuable work consisting of authentic records of noteworthy events in local history, viz. : " Ancient Dominions of Maine," " Popham's Town of Fort St. George," " Ancient Voyages to Western Conti- nent by Putnam," "Pemaquid, its Genesis, Name, and Relations to the Settlement of New England," and the "Old Alna Meeting-house ;" and has in course of preparation and nearly completed a voluminous manuscript containing a comprehensive history of old Cornwall, now Lincoln county, which he intends soon to publish. He is Vice-President of the Maine Historical Society, Chairman of the Examining Committee of Lincoln Bar, and is an active and prominent member of the Lincoln County Historical Society. In politics Mr. Sewall is a Republican, but was never an aspirant for public office. He has always been deeply interested in educational matters. Ide is a member of Lincoln
Masonic Lodge of Wiscasset and publisher of its history, and of the Congregational Church of Edge- comb. He was first married in 1843, to Anna Elizabeth Whitehurst, a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and a resident of St. Augustine, Florida, where she possessed a large estate in Pine Apple Lands on St. Lucia River, Florida. Their children
were five : Refus Roland, who died in Key West, Florida ; Anna Cook, who resides at Sewall's Point, at the mouth of St. Incia River, Pine Apple Lands, Florida ; Henry Edwin, a prominent citizen of Sewall's Point, Postmaster and Ex-Representative to the Florida Legislature ; Mrs. Elizabeth P. Smith, now a widow, residing in New York city ; and Mrs. Emma W. O'Brien, of Boise City, Idaho. In 1861 he was a second time married, to Emma M. Barnes, of Brooklyn, New York, who died December 15, 1889. By this marriage there were two children : Mary Ellen, who died in 1894; and Charles Sum- mers Sewall, now a student in the Senior class at Bowdoin College.
SMITH, ROSCOE GREENOUGH, Farmer, Cornish, was born in Cornish, April 4, 1836, son of Green- leaf and Nancy (Churchill) Smith. His first Amer- ican ancestor was Solomon Smith (1), of Stratham, New Hampshire, from whom were descended Elisha (2), of Epping, New Hampshire ; Joseph (3), of South Newmarket, New Hampshire ; Theophilus (4), also of South Newmarket ; and Greenleaf (5), of Cornish, Maine, born August 24, 1799, father of the subject of this sketch. His grandfather, Cap- tain Theophilus Smith, was born in South New- market, February 26, 1765, married Sally Pike of Epping, March 13, 1788, and moved to Francis- borough, Massachusetts, now Cornish, Maine, in the spring of that year, coming by spotted trees, via Dover, Alfred and Limerick. He was commissioned Ensign by Governor John Hancock of Massachu- setts, February 1, 1790, and subsequently was com- missioned Captain by Samuel Adams, Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Massachusetts, in the Fifth Regiment, First Brigade, Sixth Division, Massachu- setts Militia. He was a farmer and mason - not a speculative mason, like the grandson, who only saw work done at 33 Golden Square, London, but an operative one like Sir Christopher Wren, Grand Master Builder of Saint Paul's Church in London ; being the first in the town. In his house was the first plastered room in the settlement, and all the chimneys in the old settlers' honses were built by him. He was the first Chorister of the Baptist Church, in 1792. He purchased at Portland the first brass clock that came to Cornish, imported from Birmingham, England, and now "on tick" in the library at Smith's Inn, Cornish. The mother of our subject, Nancy Churchill, was a descendant of Thomas Churchill, born in Plymouth, Massachu-
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-"3tts, April 30, 1730, who served as a private in the Revolutionary War, in 1781, from Hampton, Massa- chusetts. His son Ichabod, born 1768 in New- market, New Hampshire, married Betsey Doe, by whom he had five children : John, Thomas, Eliza- beth, Mary and Nancy. The latter was born in Parsonsfield, Maine, October S, 1803. Captain and Ex-Mayor James C. Churchill of Portland, Maine, the noted and zealous Free Mason, was her cousin. Roscoe G. Smith received his early education in the common schools of Cornish, Denmark and East Fryeburg, and at Fryeburg Academy under the Principalship of his brother, Henry Hyde Smith, in
ROSCOE G. SMITH.
the class of IS58. Henry Hyde Smith was a grad- uate of Bowdoin College in the notable class of 1854, with J. R. Osgood, J. G. Stetson, J. E. Smith, J. A. Douglass, H. Dunlap, William D. Washburn, D. C. Linscott, C. F. Todd, W. D. Tucker, Frank A. Wilson, and others of more or less mark. Of these, Mr. Wilson is a noted lawyer and railroad man and President of the Maine Central Railroad, with home in Bangor, Maine; Mr. Osgood is the late Boston publisher, and Mr. Washburn is United States Senator and the greatest flour manufacturer in the world. Subsequently, Roscoe G. Smith took a course of business training at Comer's Commercial College in Boston, for the year ending July 1859.
With this excepcion his training for active life was received on the " old homestead " high-road farm of his father. Greenleaf, and grandfather, Captain The- ophilus, Smith. Mr. Smith has followed successfully the farming avocation through life. He was Town Clerk of Cornish in 1866-8 and 1873-4. In 1874 he visited London and Paris, via Quebec and. Liver- pool, also with his wife and daughter the city of New York and Centennial Exhibition at Philadelphia in 1876. From 1885 he has held a commission as Justice of the Peace and Quorum, being appointed first by Covernor Frederic Robie, February 27, 1885, for seven years, and reappointed by Governor Edwin C. Burleigh, May 12, 1892, for a similar term. He was reporter for the Bradstreets, of Boston, for twenty-five years, also for the Biddeford Journal, and for the Associated Press, under Stephen Berry of Portland, Agent for Maine. He has served for many years as Clerk of the Congregational Church of Cornish, of which Rev. Albert Cole was the first Pastor, and for seventeen years successively was Superintendent of its Sabbath: School, which he is at present serving as Librarian. He has a private library of over twenty five hundred books and pamphlets, some rare and hard to duplicate, and is always contented " at home " among his books and " under his own vine and fruit trees." He is a mem- ber and was for fourteen years Secretary of Green- leaf Lodge of Masons ; is a charter member and was Secretary for seventeen years of Aurora Chapter Royal Arch Masons, organized 1866; a Director from Maine of the New England Society of Cali- fornia Pioneers, meeting at headquarters, United States Hotel, Boston, the last Wednesday in each month ; member and for four years Secretary of the Ossipee Valley Union Agricultural Association ; charter member, first Secretary, also Lecturer and Master of Cornish Grange Patrons of Husbandry ; and member of the Cornish Farmers' Club, organ- ized in 1872, of which he has been Secretary for twenty-five years. Earlier in life he was a member of the Cadets of Temperance, and also a member of the First Cornish Cornet Band, seventeen pieces, J. M. Pease leader. In politics Mr. Smith is a Re- publican. He first voted in California, having had the "gold fever" in the early fifties and leaving home at the age of seventeen, arriving on the banks of the Yuba River in May 1854, and using the pick and shovel at Nevada City, Downieville and Grizzly Canon, Sierra county, about four years. He was married July 6, 1861, at the Preble House, Port- land, Maine, by the Rev. Alexander Burgess, Rector
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of St. Luke's Church in that city, to Sarah Pingree Robinson ; they have a daughter : Minnie Theresa Smith, born April 17, 186S. Mrs. Smith was born in Limington, York county, Maine, July 9, 1844, and removed with her parents to Denmark, Oxford county, where she received her early education in- the common and high schools (the present Governor of Michigan, Hazen S. Pingree, boarding at her father's and attending same school), finishing her school days at North Bridgton (Maine) Academy in the class of 1859. She was a teacher in the public schools in Denmark, Hiram and Cornish, has been a zealous worker in the church and in the Woman's Ch. tian Temperance Union, in which she has been President of the local and county unions, and one of the Vice . Presidents of the state body, under the Pres- idency of Mrs. I .. M. N. Stevens. Miss Minnie T. Smith is a graduate of Fryeburg (Maine) Academy, in the class of 1888, also of The Boston Commercial College, and is now (1897) stenographer at the hear- ings in the law office of her uncle, Henry Hyde Smith, Master in Chancery, Pemberton Square, Boston.
BENNETT, JOSEPH, Lawyer, Boston, was born in Bridgton, Cumberland county, Maine, May 26, 1840, son of William and Charlotte (Bennett) Bennett. He acquired his early education in the district school of Sweden, Maine, and at Bridgton Academy. In :858 he removed with his parents to Massachuset 3, and after completing his col- lege-preparatory course in the Boston Public Latin School, entered Bowdoin College in the class of 1864. In his Junior year at Bowdoin he was obliged to withdraw, but subsequently he received from that institution the degree of A. B. out of course. Soon after leaving college he entered upon the study of law in the office of Asa Cottrell in Boston, and in 1866 he was admitted to the Suffolk Bar. Two years later he was admitted to the Bar of the United States Circuit Court, and in ISS2 to practice before the United States Supreme Court. Mr. Bennett was a Trial Justice in Brighton, Mid- dlesex county, at the time that town was annexed to Boston in 1874, and for some years after annexa- tion was Special Justice of the Municipal Court of the Brighton District. He has served in both branches of the Massachusetts Legislature - as a member of the House of Representatives in 1879, and of the Senate in 1881-2 and again in IS91. In the latter body he was a leader, being Chairman of the committees on Taxation and Election Laws
in the first two terms, and twice Chairman of the Committee on Redistricting the State into Con- gressional districts - in 1882 and 1891- the only instance of the Kind in the history of the General Court of Massachusetts. In the Senate of 1391 he was also Chairman of the committees on Railroads, Rules and Offlers, and Constitutional Amendments. Other committees on which he served while Senator were those on Judiciary, and Probate and Chan- cery. Mx. Bennett was for a long time a prominent resident and actively identified with the interests of
JOSEPH BENNETT.
the Brighton District of Boston. For several years before annexation he was a member of the Brighton School Committee, and also one of the Trustees of the Holton Library, now absorbed in the Brighton Branch of the Public Library of Boston. After annexation he served for some time on the Boston School Committee. In politics he is a Republican, and has been among the active leaders of the party in his section of the state. In the campaign of 1893 his name was prominently mentioned for the Repub- lican nomination for Attorney-General. He was married April 26, 1866, to Elizabeth R. Lafavour, daughter of John and Mary (Harding) Lafavour of Boston; they have three children : Joseph I., an attorney, in the office with his father ; Frederick S .. a practicing physician, and Mary E. Bennett.
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FVELETH, JUMUS EDWIN, of the wholesale dry- goods house of Russ, Eveleth & Ingalls, Boston, was born in Durham, Androscoggin county, Maine, July 2, 1841, son of James H. and Mary (Merrill) Eveleth. His American ancestor was Sylvester Eveleth - or Eveleigh, as it appears in his own handwriting in the first book of records in Glouces- ter, Massachusetts - who was the only early emi- grant of this name from Old England to New Eng- land. The date of his arrival is not known, but he is said to have been a baker in Boston in 1642, and probably removed to Gloucester in 1644, as the booke of the First Church in Boston record that
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JULIUS E. EVELETH.
Susan, wife of Sylvester " Evylith," was in March of that year granted a letter of recommendation to the church at Gloucester. He was a Selectman in Gloucester in 1648 and 1651, was made a freeman in 1652, and was a Representative to the General Court in 1673. His wife Susan, or Susanna, died in 1669, and in 1672 he married Bridget, widow of Elias Parkman of Boston. He may have removed to Boston soon after this, as his name appears on the Boston tax lists of 1674, and again in 1681, and the Old South Church records show the admission to membership of "Sylvester Evely " on May 29, 1674. He died January 4, 1689, and the inventory of his estate appears on the probate records in
Boston. Joseph (2), son of Sylvester and Susan- nah, born in 1641, resided in Chelsea parish, Ips- wich (now Essex, ) and married Mary, daughter of Edward Bragg of Ipswich, by whom he had at least nine children. He was one of the jurors in the witchcraft trials at Salem in 1692. He died Decem- ber 1, 1745, at the great age of nearly one hundred and five years. Isaac (3), third son of Joseph and Mary Eveleth, was born in Chebacco, October 11, 1676. His wife Sarah died in 1721, and in 1722 he married Abigail Parsons. He resided in Che- bacco (Gloucester), and died March 23, 1755. By his wife Sarah he had ten children, of whom Isaac (4) was the only son. Isaac Eveleth in 1729 married. Elizabeth Parsons, and died in 1759. The town records of Gloucester record the births of six sons, and he had in addition four daughters and another son, Isaac. Nathaniel (5), third son of Isaac and Elizabeth Eveleth, born in Gloucester, August 23, 1736, was one of the early settlers of New Gloucester, Maine, where he resided until his death in 1824. He was Town Clerk for over forty years, and for the greater part of that time a Select- man. He married first, in 1760, Sarah Mason of North Yarmouth, Maine, who bore him seven children ; second, in 1776, Mary Glass, by whom he had nine children ; and third, Widow Sarah Arnold, who survived him. James (6), fourth child of Na- thaniel Eveleth by his second wife, Mary Glass, was born in 1783 in New Gloucester, where he lived, and died in 1857 ; he married in 1804 (?) Hannah Austin, by whom he had nine children. James Hervey (7), sixth child of James and Hannah Eveleth, and father of the subject of this sketch, was born in New Gloucester in 1816, and at the age of sixteen removed to Durham, where he spent the re- mainder of his life. He was Postmaster from 1862 to 1885, was a Representative to the State Legis- lature in 1866, filled various town offices, and died April 14, 1889. He was married in 1839 to Mary S., daughter of Orlando and Sarah (Wagg) Merrill of Durham, by whom he had two sons. By subse- quent marriages he had six children : James A., Millard F. (deceased), Marcus W., Harlan F., Mary S. (deceased) and Martha I .. His two sons by his first wife are : Julius Edwin, born July 2, 1841, and Frederic Howard, born March 21, 1843. Julius E. Eveleth received his early education in the public schools of his native town and at Lewiston Falls Academy in Auburn, Maine. His first work and practical training for active life was in teaching town schools in New Gloucester and Brunswick,
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Maine - Early in the Civil War, at the age of twenty-one, he enlisted for nine months in the Twenty-fifth Maine Regiment, and was in active service until mustered out in Portland at the ex- piration of his term. The following winter he again taught school in Brunswick, then went to Boston , in the Burmese language, and remained there, in and entered the wholesale department of the dry- this work, for three years. During this time he published several books in the Burmese, among them the first illustrated Christian book which had ever been given to this people, entitled " Heroes of the Old Testament," In 1895 he received from the American Baptist Missionary Union the appoint- ment of President of the Burmese Theological Sem- goods house of R. H. Stearns & Company. He re- mained in the employ of that firm for ten years, resigning in January 1873 and starting in business for himself, as a member of the firm of Russ, Cobb & Company, importers of trimmings and smallwares. In December 1890, Mr. Cobb retired, and the firm !! name w .. s changed to Russ, Eveleth & Ingalls, its present style. Mr. Eveleth's position with the house is that of buyer, in which capacity he has visited Europe about twice a year for the last ten years. Mr. Eveleth resides in Lincoln, seventeen miles out of Boston, where he is a member of the School Board, and Trustee of the Bemis Lecture Fund, a legacy left to the town by an old resident, for the purpose of maintaining an annual course of public lectures and entertainments. He is a mem- ber of the Pine Tree State Club of Boston, and the Boston Art Club. In politics he is a Republican. He was married August 22, 1868, to Mary Adeline Reed, daughter of Harvey Reed of Livermore, Maine. They have had five children : Mabel (de- ceased), Charles Frederick, Mary Pauline, Edwin - Harlan and Julius Malcolm Eveleth. Charles Fred- erick Eveleth, the eldest son, graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in June 1895 as an electrical engineer, and is now in the employ of the American Telegraph and Telephone Com- pany at Chicago.
EVELETH, REVEREND FREDERICK HOWARD, President of the Burmese Theological Seminary at Insein, Burmah, was born in Durham, Androscoggin county, Maine, March 21, 1843, son of James H. and Mary (Merrill) Eveleth. He is the younger brother of Julius Edwin Eveleth. the subject of the preceding sketch, in which are given the facts relat- ing to his ancestry and family history. Acquiring his early education in the common schools and at Hebron (Maine) Academy, he graduated from Colby University in the class of 1870, and pursuing the study of theology, graduated from the Newton (Massachusetts) Theological Seminary in June 1873. In the September following graduation he sailed for
Burmah, as a general missionary, under the auspices of the American Baptist Missionary Union. He was engaged in :missionary work uninterruptedly in Toungoo, Burmah, until 1885, when he went to Rangoon to superintend the reprinting of the Bible
FREDERICK H. EVELETH.
inary at Insein, which position he now holds. Rev. Mr. Eveleth has visited his native country three times since entering the foreign missionary field, and is at present at his post of duty in Burmah. In 1896 he was elected a member of the Phi Beta Kappa society by his alma mater, Colby University. He was married June 14, 1873, to Mattie Howard Eveleth, daughter of Rev. Jerrod F. Eveleth of Eden, Maine. They have two sons: Frederick Shailer, a student in the Boston University School of Medicine, and Charles Edward Eveleth, in attendance at the Worcester (Massachusetts ) Poly- technic Institute.
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ORNE, CHARLES LAWRENCE, President of the Freeport Board of Trade, was born in Gray, Cuni- berland county, Maine, June 4, 1846, son of Wil- liam G. and Sarah (Lawrence) Orne. His father was the son of David Orne of Gray, of which town his great-grandfather David Orne was one of the first settlers, coming there from Boston about 1775, and was the first Town Clerk, which office he held until his death. His mother was the daughter of Ephraim Lawrence of Gray, who came from Groton, Massachusetts, about the year 1800. His early life was spent upon the farm and in attending the dis- trict schools until the age of sixteen, when he en-
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C. L. ORNE.
administration of President Harrison he served for a time as Internal Revenue Storekeeper at Boston. In March 1891 he returned to Maine to accept a position as General Manager of the granite business of E. B. Mallett, Jr., at Freeport, in which he con- tinued for upwards of three years, and since then has conducted the business on his own account. Mr. Orne is now serving his second year as Presi- dent of the Freeport Board of Trade. He is a Past Grand in Odd Fellowship, and is Past Senior Vice- Commander of Grand Army Post No. 88 in the Department of Massachusetts. In politics Mr. Omne has always been a Republican, and usually an active member of town or ward committees, but he has never sought nor held any important public office. He was married October 6, 1869, to Miss Kate M. Hutchins, of Boothbay, Maine ; three children are living : William L., Alice Louise and Grace Belle Orne.
PITCHER, FRANKLIN WAYLAND, President of the Revere Rubber Company, Boston, was born in Dover, Piscataquis county, Maine, December 25, 1833, son of Horatio Gates and Anna (Leonard) Pitcher. His ancestry is traced in a direct line to Governor Carver of Plymouth Colony. He received his education in the public schools of Bangor, Maine, and the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill, at that time under the charge of Dr. H. P. Torsey. After leaving school he was a clerk for a time in the lumber business, at Bangor and Winter- port, Maine, and in 1859 he went to Boston and engaged in the commission business, on Lewis Wharf. Subsequently he removed to Commercial street, where the business was increased by large interests in shipping. In 1868, through connec- tions in Maine and New Brunswick, Mr. Pitcher became interested in the lumber business, and in 1876 he went to Wisconsin to prosecute it more extensively, operating largely in Dunn and Barron counties, with mills for manufacture at Cedar Falls on the Red Cedar River. He returned to Boston in 1883, and on the organization of the Revere Rubber Company became its Treasurer. From 1886 to 1890 he had his residence in Easthampton, Massachusetts, looking after his interests in the Williston Mills. In 1889 he was elected President of the Revere Rubber Company, and in 189t was made Treasurer of the Easthampton Rubber Thread Company, both of which offices he now holds.
listed, in September 1862, in the Twenty-fifth Maine Regiment of Volunteers. After serving out his nine-months term of enlistment, he re-enlisted in 1864 ja the navy, and was in active service on the blockade and in other operations about Charles- ton, South Carolina, until the close of the war. Re- turning home at the age of nineteen, he completed his education by attendance for two terms at West- brook (Maine) Seminary, and then taught winter terms of country schools and followed various other occupations until 1870, when he went to Massachu- setts. There he learned the trade of granite-cut- ting, which he followed in the capacity of journey- man and foreman for twenty years. Under the Mr. Pitcher has been always a Republican in
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politics, and is a Unitarian in religion. He has been twice married. His first wife was Sarah March, daughter of Leonard March of Bangor, Maine ; she died in 1864. The Children's Home in Bangor, one of the finest buildings and most beneficent institutions in Eastern Maine, was built as a memo- rial to her. His present wife was Mary F. Stevens, of Pittston, Maine. They have three children : William Leonard, Walter Franklin and Mary Pitcher. The elder son, William L. Pitcher, born in Boston, November 9, 1871, was named for his uncle, Major William L. Pitcher, who was killed at the Battle of Fredericksburg in the War of the Rebellion. He
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FRANKLIN W. PITCHER.
was educated mainly in the public schools and at Williston Seminary, Easthampton, Massachusetts. Just before reaching his majority he entered the employ of the Easthampton Rubber Thread Com- pany, of which his father is Treasurer, and has re- mained with them to the present time, now holding a responsible position. He is Vice-President of the Pascomuc Club of Easthampton, and has travelled somewhat extensively in Europe, having been abroad twice. He stands over six feet two inches, and is something of an athlete, as is attested by the many trophies he has won. He is a Repub- lican in politics, and is unmarried. Walter F. Pitcher, the younger son, was also born in Boston,
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