Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine, Part 56

Author: Herndon, Richard; McIntyre, Philip Willis, 1847- ed; Blanding, William F., joint ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston, New England magazine
Number of Pages: 1268

USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 56

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CHOATE, WINFIELD SCOTT, Mayor of Augusta, was born in Whitefield, Lincoln county, Maine, April 15, 1850, son of Ebenezer (second) and Jane

J. (Chisam) Choate. His great-grandfather came from Massachusetts and settled in what is now Whitefield, and the subject of this sketch is there- fore of the fourth generation of his family in Maine. Born and reared on a farm, he acquired his early education in the common schools of his native town and at the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill. At the age of sixteen he commenced teaching school, and taught four terms in all, in this way partially defraying the expenses of his edu- cation. Coming to Augusta in 1870 he began the study of law in the office of Artemas Libby. The following year he entered Harvard Law School, graduating therefrom in June 1872 with the degree of LL. B., having been admitted to the Bar in . Kennebec county in March preceding. In July following he commenced the practice of law in Augusta, in partnership with Mr. Libby, who was afterwards Judge of the Supreme Judicial Court, and from the fall of 1873 to January 1889 he continued in practice alone. Since that time he has officiated as Clerk of Courts of Kennebec county, being re-elected for a third term in 1896. He served for nine years as City Solicitor of Augusta, and for a similar length of time as a member of the Superin- tending School Committee. Since 1883 he has held the office of United States Commissioner for his district. In 1896 he was elected Mayor of Augusta, and re-elected in 1897. Mr. Choate enlisted in the volunteer militia of the state in May ISS2, as a private in the Capital Guards of Augusta ; subsequently he was promoted to Sergeant and Captain, and in 1889 was elected Lieutenant- Colonel of the First Regiment. In 1893 he was appointed Inspector-General on the staff of Gover- nor Cleaves, with the rank of Brigadier-General. He is also a member, and has served as Sergeant, of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. General Choate has for many years been actively identified with Masonry. He is Past Master of Bethlehem Lodge of Augusta, and Past Senior Grand Warden of the Grand Lodge of Maine, and is a member of Trinity Commandery Knights Templar, Kennebec Valley Lodge of Per- fection, Augusta Council Princes of Jerusalem, and Emeth Chapter of Rose Croix, holding offices in each body, and a thirty-second degree Mason. He is also a member of the Abnaki (Masonic) Club of Augusta and one of its Executive Committee. In the building of the new Masonic Temple in Augusta he bore a conspicuous part, was a member of the Building Committee, and is a Director of the

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

corporation and one of the Board of Trustees. He is a member of the Commodore Club of Boston. Ir. politics Mayor Choate has always.been a Repub- lican, and has been prominent as a public speaker in campaigns. He has been for more than sixteen years a member of the Vestry of St. Mark's Episco- pal Church, has been one of the Wardens of the Parish since 1883, and the construction of the present church edifice was entirely under his supervision. He was married November 27, 1877, to Charlotte R. Wyman, daughter of Josiah P. and Mary E.

W. S. CHOATE.

Wyman of Augusta ; they have a daughter, Mar- garet Choate, born January 7, 1882.

CUSHMAN, ARA, President and head of the Ara Cushman Company, shoe manufacturers, Auburn, was born in Minot, Androscoggin county, Maine, April 30, 1839, son of Ara and Esther (Merrill) Cushman. He is a descendant in the eighth gen- eration of Robert Cushman, who came to America in the ship Fortune in 1621, but soon returned to England as agent of the Plymouth Colony, leaving his son Thomas in the care of his " intimate friend " Governor William Bradford. Thomas Cushman, who was born in England in 1608, and died at Ply- mouth in 1692, married Mary Allerton, a passenger on the Mayflower, about 1635. He was always the

confidential friend of Governor Bradford, and became ruling elder of the church on the death of William Brewster in 1649. His wife survived him, and was the last of the Mayflower passengers, her death occurring in 1699 at the age of ninety years. A large granite monument to the memory of the first Cushmans was erected at Plymouth by their descendants in 1858. The subject of this sketch passed his early life on the home farm in Minot, making the best use of the slender opportunities afforded by the district school for acquiring an edu- cation. Subsequent attendance at the Lewiston Falls and Gorham (Maine) academies developed in him a taste and fondness for those studies which have occupied so much of his later life, the mastery of which vindicates the theory that a liberal educa- tion is not always dependent upon a college career, and in his case proves that the work of the student and the attainments of the scholar help, rather than embarrass, the busiest of business men. At the age of nineteen he taught district school for several terms, and shortly afterwards entered upon the work which has been his life occupation to the present time, that of shoe manufacturing. Mr. Cushman was one of the pioneers in Maine in the manufacture of the finer grades of boots and shoes. His primitive little shop at West Minot, if now standing, would form a striking contrast to the extensive factories occupied by the Ara Cushman Company of to-day. It was a square-roofed, one- story building, less than twenty feet square, locally known as the "tea-can." For some months he worked alone, cutting his leather and making the shoes, which he sold to the retail dealers in Cum- berland and Kennebec counties from the wagon which he drove through the country. His work met with such favor that his trade steadily increased until, in 1855, a larger building was required, and it became necessary to devote his entire time to the surerintendence of the business, which then em- ployed about twenty-five persons. In 1859 he found it necessary to again increase his plant, and erected a large two-story factory which he occupied until 1863, when the business so modestly begun had outgrown the hamlet in which it had been nur- tured, and was transplanted to Auburn, where better facilities for manufacturing and shipping could be found. Here, as Ara Cushman & Com- pany, and later as the incorporated Ara Cushman Company, the business has attained the proud position of one of the largest manufacturing establish- ments of its kind in New England. Notwithstand-

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ing the magnitude of his manufacturing business, and exacting as are its claims upon the princi- pal manlager, Mr. Cushman's connections with other enterprises and affairs are many and large. He is President of the J. M. Arnold Shoe Company of Bangor, a Director of the A. H. Berry Shoe Com- pany of Portland, and has been President of the National Shoe and Leather Bank of Auburn from its organization in 1875. He is also President of the Old Ladies' Honie of Auburn, and a Trustee in various other institutions. In religious faith a Uni- versalist, he has always been prominent in the work and affairs of that denomination, and the erection of the beautiful Elm Street Church in Auburn was largely due to his active promotion and beneficence. His relations with other institutions of the church in New England are also very intimate and influential, and he was for four years President of the Univer- salist State Convention. He has always been heartily in sympathy with all measures for the pro- motion of the temperance cause, and was President of the Law and Order League during the days of its active usefulness. In politics he is a Republican in principles, but not a strict partisan in practice, reserving the right to exercise his personal judg- ment as to the merits and fitness of party candi- dates, and of governing his vote accordingly. Mr. Cushman has represented his city in the State Leg- islature (1873-4), and has served as Delegate to many important conventions. He has given much study and earnest thought to the questions that involve the relations between employers and em- ployed, and has written several papers upon this subject which have been published in pamphlet form and have attracted wide attention and favor- able comment from students of the so-called labor problem. He is a great lover of books and litera- ture, and has accumulated one of the largest and best-selected private libraries in the state. His appreciation of the best in literature is manifest in the apt quotations that spring spontaneously from him at the slightest suggestion, and the wholesome influence of the great poets on his estimate of life and its work. Mr. Cushman has demonstrated that absorbing business cares do not necessarily prevent or even retard the full development of the qualities and powers which characterize the man of refined sensibilities and broad and rich intelligence. Great as are his business cares and responsibilities, extended and diversified as are his interests in the commercial world, he is never too busy to help by his presence, his purse and his personal labors, the

Sunday school, the literary club, the library associa- tion, the public school, the social gathering, the public charities, the temperance meeting, and any and all agencies that tend toward correcting the evil and advancing the good of society. At sixty- eight years of age, he is active in business, holding broad and well balanced views of life and its varied and often conflicting duties, possessing the fine instinct of the scholar and the rare qualities of the student, and so filling his place in the world that " his work is a blessing and his life an inspiration." He was married June 21, 1853, to Julia W. Morse, daughter of Captain Thomas and Sally W. (Sawyer)

ARA CUSHMAN.

Morse, of Gray, Maine. They have two children : Charles L., Vice-President and General Superinten- dent, and Ara Cushman, Jr., Assistant Superinten- dent, of the manufacturing department of the Ara Cushman Company.

CUSHING, WAINWRIGHT, of Foxcroft, Inventor of Cushing's Perfection Dyes, was born in Sebec, Piscataquis county, Maine, August 12, 1841, son of Joseph W. and Anna (Morrill) Cushing. He is descended in direct line from the Cushings who settled in Hingham, Massachusetts, early in the seventeenth century. His early education was ac- quired in the public schools of his native town and at

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

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Foxcroft (Maine) Academy. When nineteen years old, in April 1861, he enlisted in the War for the 'union, as a private in Company A, Sixth Maine Regiment of Volunteers ; and upon the expiration of his term of service, re-enlisted in the First Maine Veterans and served until the close of the war. He was promoted to Second Lieutenant, and was twice seriously wounded, but recovered from his second wound in time to participate in Sheridan's cam- paign in the Shenandoah Valley. After the war he returned to Sebec and entered a woolen mill as dyer, after a time transferring his services to a larger field, engaging in a similar capacity with the Brown

WAINWRIGHT CUSHING.

Manufacturing Company of Dover, Maine, with whom he remained from 1869 to 1880. While here he conceived the idea of creating and developing a business absolutely new to the world, by perfecting a set of household dyes that would replace the family dyepot, in which there had been no material improvement for hundreds of years. He experi- mented for ten years in his little shop near the mill where he was employed during business hours, and in 1880 he started in for himself. He had now to educate the world to the value of his goods and his methods. As his ready means were small, his first progress was slow ; but he was materially aided by his small salary as Register of Probate ior Piscata- quis County, to which office he was elected. Per-

severing in the introduction of his goods, which under the name of Cushing's Perfection Dyes soon became locally known and largely used, in 1886 he began to advertise in a small way by means of cir- cuiars and samples sent out, and in six years he placed upon nis books the names of over twenty- five hundred regular customers, many of them dealers, agents and Indian traders, located not only in every section of the United States, but in other countries, civilized and uncivilized, from Alaska to India. Mr. Cashing's little shop or laboratory has grown into a large factory with commodious offices, and his mail and express business has attained ex- tensive proportions and is constantly increasing. The business is carried on under the firm name of W. Cushing & Company, the partner being his son, C. H. Cushing. Mr. Cushing has a beautiful home on the banks of the Piscataquis River in Foxcroft, of which town he is a valued and public-spirited citizen. He served on the Executive Council of Governor H. B. Cleaves, during the years 1895-6. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, in which he has served as Worshipful Master of Mosaic Lodge and High Priest of Piscataquis Royal Arch Chapter ; is Past Chancellor of Onawa Lodge Knights of Pythias, Past Master Workman of Protection Lodge Ancient Order United Workmen, and Past Warden of Pisca- taquis Lodge New England Order of Protection. In the Grand Army of the Republic, he has been Commander of C. S. Douty Post of Foxcroft, and in 1893 was Department Commander of the Depart- ment of Maine. He is also a member of the Mili- tary Order of the Loyal Legion of the United States. In politics, Mr. Cushing is a Republican. He was married October 20, 1866, to Flora A. McIntire, of Sebec, Maine ; they have two children : Caleb H., born in Sebec in 1869, and Annie F. Cushing, born in Foxcroft in 1874.

CONANT, DOCTOR SAMUEL FIELD, Skowhegan, was born in Topsham, Sagadahoc county, Maine, October 5, 1827, son of Oliver and Abbie (Field) Conant. His father was a native of Lisbon Falls, and his mother of Durham, Androscoggin county, Maine. At the age of eight years he was sup- posedly drowned, by falling through the logs and ice at the head of Cathance River. Between fifteen and twenty minutes were consumed in searching for the body, which when found was restored to life by inexperienced men, who worked against all scientific expectations. His early education was secured en-

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

tirely by breaking snow paths on foot through the pine woods one and one-half miles to the " old red schoolhouse," for about three months in the year. Working in the sawmills, and subsequently " steam- boating " on the Boston boats, were the occupations of his early life. By diligent effort he subjected himself to a process of self-education, obtained by study after the hard day's work, from which a strike for a more liberal and practical education was made in Lewiston, Maine, by throwing down the hammer at the age of twenty-three years and devot- ing himself more thoroughly to brain-work, in the effort to turn up something for active professional life. His first self-assigned lesson was in photog-

S. F. CONANT.

raphy, which gave him an opportunity for chemical and mechanical experiments that resulted in the invention of a photo-printing frame in 1858, a ladies' hair-crimper in 1859, and the oil-photograph in 1860, upon all of which letters-patent were secured. "Not being an office-seeker," as he naively explains, his whole time and the full swing of his faculties were given to the play of his inventive genius, which in 188t brought forth the present " Anidrosis Bath " method of fuming and bathing the perspiring body, for its disinfection and vitalization, through which the name of Dr. Conant has become familiarly known over the length and breadth of the United States. The " Father of Anidrosis" is a resident

of Skowhegan, but has been and still is an extensive traveller, the demands of the large business which he has built up necessitating frequent visits to nearly every large city and important section of the country. Anidrosis has now upwards of sixty-five thousand grateful patrons among the American people, and over five thousand of the cabinets and outfits are in daily use. In Skowhegan the modest laboratory which was the birthplace of Anidrosis, on the steep bank of the Kennebec River, has been replaced by a large and commodious Sanitarium of modern con- struction and appointments, for the accommodation of patients who feel that they must take the com- pound vapor bath treatment under the personal supervision of its inventor. In 1896, the Skow- hegan establishment being found too small for its increasing business, Dr. Conant purchased the hotel in Norridgewock known as the Quinnebasset House, five miles distant and connected by electric rail- road, and has had it fitted up as a branch Sanitarium. The Doctor is genial and eminently social in nature, and is an exceedingly popular and valuable citizen ; but having been so much occupied in per- fecting his great invention and attending to the ex- tensive business which it has developed, he has found society and club membership out of the question, except in Odd Fellowship, in which he has mani- fested a deep interest. In politics he is a Democrat to the marrow, and holds that free trade in business, like free circulation in the human system, is the secret of vital power. He was married November 3, 1858, to Ann Jane Gilman, of Vienna, Maine ; they have two children : Fred L. and Abbie Ella Conant.

DREW, IRA TOWLE, of Alfred, for a generation one of the most eminent and successful jury law- yers Maine has produced, son of Winborn A. and Martha (Ayer) Drew, was born August 20, 1815, at Newfield, in the county of York, Maine. His an- cestors were of Scotch descent and settled in south- ern New Hampshire. His grandfather Elijah Drew settled with his family at the place known as Drew's Corner in Newfield, having removed there from Durham, New Hampshire, in 1789. The tract of land purchased by him was what is known as the Cape Ann Right. The subject of this sketch was reared on his father's farm. In the intervals of farm work he learned the tanning business, and at- tended the district school, in which he subsequently became a successful teacher. In early life he evinced a strong taste for military affairs, and as

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soon as eligible became a member of the militia, in which he rose at once and rapidly until in 1836 he was chosen Colonel of the First Regiment of the First Brigade of the State of Maine Militia, a po- sition which he held until 1842, when he resigned. He was a regular attendant with his regiment upon all the " great musters " of those years, and his tall, athletic figure was always conspicuous at the head of his command. His legal education was obtained at the Harvard Law School, under Judge Story and Professor Simon Greenleaf, and in the law office of Hon. Nathan Clifford, who was later an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. He was admitted to the Bar of the District Court,

IRA T. DREW.

Western District, at Alfred, in October 1841, Ezekiel Whitman being the Justice presiding, and imme- diately settled at Waterboro Centre, York county, where he remained until his removal to Alfred in 1854. During these years Mr. Drew was building up a safe and substantial practice in his profession, and at the same time taking an active interest in public affairs. He became the attorney of the town and conducted with success many difficult matters that arose for adjustment at about this period and at a later date, among which was the settlement of the boundary line between that town and Hollis, a controversy which lasted many years and was only settled by an appeal to the Legislature. He served

in various positions of trust in the town, and espe- cially upon the School Committee, during the larger part of his residence there. In 1846 he was elected a Representative ic the Maine Legislature, and in 1847 to the Senate, and during the latter year served as Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. In 1848 he was elected County Attorney for the County of York, which office be filled for seven years with con- spicuous ability. In 1858 he was the Democratic candidate for Congress from the First Congressional District, but was defeated by Daniel E. Somes, by a narrow margin. He was defeated for re-nomination in 1860 by Hon. Thomas M. Hayes. From that time Mr. Drew devoted himself exclusively to his profession, and for the next twenty-five years held the leading position at the Bar of York county. In 1871 he opened an office in Boston, to which place his fame had in some measure preceded him, and he ar once found himself in the midst of a lucrative practice. He has always retained his residence in Alfred, and until he was eighty years of age attended every term of the court in York county and every terin of the Law Court in the Western District. He has now substantially retired from business. Mr. Drew was first married, December 29, 1842, to Ann M. Ayer, daughter of Moses and Jane Ayer of New- field, who bore him three children : Moses Ayer, Ira Eugene and Caroline Drew. He married second, December 29, 1861, Lydia Ann Straw, daughter of Amos and Margaret (Dennett) Straw, of Newfield, by whom he had two children : Margaret and Fred Drew, both now living.

DUDLEY, AUGUSTUS PALMER, Surgeon, New York, was born in Phipsburg, Sagadahoc county, Maine, July 4, 1853, son of Palmer and Frances Jane (Wyman) Dudley. He is a direct descen- dant of the Irish branch of the Dudley family, all of whom originally belonged to the Society of Friends. His great-grandfather, Michael Dudley, was a son of George and a grandson of Large Dudley, whose ancestor George, the first of the family, went from England to the north of Ireland and settled in the town of Tipperary, county Tipperary, at a place called Mount Dudley. From there the Dudleys of Ireland migrated and spread out. Michael Dudley came to America in 1775, landing at Castine, and settled in Georgetown, Maine, which was then a part of Massachusetts. Through the maternal line Dr. Dudley is descended from the Percys of the North of England and South of Scotland, whose

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

lineage dates back to the tenth century, and from the Wymar.s of Wales. William Oliver, his paternal great-grandfather, and William Wyman, his maternal great-grandfather, both served in the War of the Revolution. ^His paternal grandfather, Patrick Dud- ley, and maternal grandfather, Francis Wyman, were soldiers and pensioners of the War of 1812, being respectively Orderly Sergeant and Ensign of Com- pany F, South Militia, at Fort Hunnewell's Point. His father, Palmer Dudley, a native of Phipsburg, was for many years prominent in the affairs of his native town. The subject of this sketch received his preparatory education at the public schools, and

A. PALMER DUDLEY.

at the Portland Academy. He entered the Medi- cal Department of Bowdoin College, and was gradu- ated from Dartmouth Medical School in 1877. He commenced practice in Portland, where he was connected for a time with the Maine General Hospital ; but removed in 1881 to New York, where he entered the Woman's Hospital as House-Sur- geon, and continued in that capacity for eighteen months. He then went to San Francisco, where he had charge of the California Woman's Hospital for one year. In 1884 he returned to the East and resumed practice in New York. He was appointed Instructor in Diseases of Women at the Post-Gradu- ate Medical School in 1887, and Visiting Gynæcol-

ogist to the Randall's Island Hospital, and North- eastern Dispensary. He is also Surgeon to Harlem Hospital. During the past three years he has three times successfully performed the Cæsarean opera- tion, saving both mother and child. In May 1893 he was made Professor of Diseases of Women in the Post-Graduate Medical School to fill the vacancy caused by the death of Professor Charles Carroll Lee. He has written numerous papers on his specialty, among which are : "Vaginal Hystereo- tomy in America," "Varicocele in the Female," " Surgical Treatment of Subinvolution,"" A New Method of Surgical Treatment for Restoration of Lacerated Perinaum," " A New Method of Surgical Treatment for Certain Forms of Retro-displacement of the Uterus with Adhesions," etc. Dr. Dudley has also written extensively for medical journals, some of which articles have been translated into French and other foreign periodicals. He is a member of the New York Academy of Medicine, New York Obstetrical Society, American Gynæco- logical Society, American ,Congress of Physicians and Surgeons, one of the founders of the Interna- tional Gynæcological Society and Ex-President of the Alumni Society of the New York Woman's Hospital. He also belongs to the New York Athletic and Lotus clubs. Dr. Dudley was always a Democrat in politics. He was married in July of 1834 to Susie Stephens, daughter of Jesse Mason of Victoria, British Columbia, who died in 1888 with- out issue. In September of 1891 he married Cas- sandra Coon, daughter of W. J. Adams of San Francisco. They have three daughters : Frances Coon, Janey and Grace Gilman Dudley.

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Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine, Part 56

Author: Herndon, Richard; McIntyre, Philip Willis, 1847- ed; Blanding, William F., joint ed Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Boston, New England magazine Number of Pages: 1268

Author: Herndon, Richard; McIntyre, Philip Willis, 1847- ed; Blanding, William F., joint ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston, New England magazine
Number of Pages: 1268