USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 57
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DYER, HORATIO P., of H. P. Dyer & Company, shipping merchants, New York, was born in Steuben, Washington county, Maine, October 7, 1842, son of Eben S. and Almira G. (Shaw) Dyer. His great- grandparents on the paternal side came from Eng- land in the latter part of the eighteenth century, and settled on Cape Elizabeth, near Portland, Maine ; later the family moved to Portland. He received his education in the public and high schools of Bangor, Maine, under excellent teachers. He left school when nineteen years old, and at the age of twenty began active life by going to sea, on long foreign voyages. At twenty-five he was placed in command of a large barque, and made his first voy- age around Cape Horn. He always sailed from the port of New York. At the age of twenty-eight he
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was married in Baltimore, Maryland, to a daughter of A. B. Morton, Esq., of that city, a gentleman largely engaged in the South American trade ; and in 1871, a year after marriage, he settled in Balti- more and went into the shipping business with the
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HORATIO P. DYER.
West Indies and Central America. He continued in Baltimore until the year 1881, when he removed his business to New York, and became a resident of Brooklyn. He continues the same business in Front Street, New York, at the present time, under the firm name of H. P. Dyer & Company, which has always been the style of the house, having asso- ciated with him two partners, who attend to the more active part of the business. Mr. Dyer has always been a staunch Republican in politics, but has never held any political office and would not accept any. He is a member of two of the promi- nent club organizations of Brooklyn, the Hamilton, and the Riding and Driving clubs. He is a Pres- byterian in religion, a member of the First Presby- terian Church of Brooklyn and a member of the Session. He was married April 12, 1870, to Jennie M. Morton ; they have one child, a daughter of twenty years : Marie Morton Dver.
ELDER, RANDALL. J., Truckman and Teamster, Boston and New York, was born in Gorham, Maine,
in :833, son of Simon and Elizabeth Elder. He is of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His paternal great-grand- father, Samuel Elder, came to this country from North Ireland in 1729 and settled on Falmouth Neck, near Presumpscot Falls, a short distance from the pres- ent city of Portland. His grandfather, Samuel Elder, who in 1763 was bound to Isaac Ilsley of Portland to serve an apprenticeship of five years in carpentry, purchased in 1773, from the heirs of Charles Frost, Esq., a lot of land in Gorham, also near Portland, and built thereon a house which was burned in 1808. The house was subsequently re- built, and he lived and died there. In 1819 he conveyed this farm to his son Simon, who also lived there until his death in 1862. In 1854, Simon con- veyed the estate to his son, Randall J., the subject of this sketch, who lived there with his mother and sister Mary until December 1869, when he moved to Boston. Upon his removal from Maine, Mr. Eide: entered the trucking business, by purchasing, in partnership with William G. Hubbard, the stock
R. J. ELDER.
and trade of A. W. Cowan of Boston. In 1870 he purchased Mr. Hubbard's interest and continued alone. In 1873, soon after the great Boston fire, he enlarged his business by taking the trucking of the large drygoods commission house of J. S. & E. Wright (now Bliss, Fabyan & Company), and ten
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years later, in 1883, formed a branch line in New York by taking the trucking of Bliss, Fabyan & Company s New York house. Since then he has carried on the business in both cities to the present time, continuing his residence in Boston. Mr. Elder was married in March 1861 to Miss Frances E. Roberts, of Westbrook, Maine, by whom he has had five children, two sons and three daughters, of whom four are living : Marian, Ruth, George and Edward Elder. He still owns and manages the old homestead farm in Maine, which is kept under a good state of cultivation and is used by the family as a summer home.
FAIRBANKS, HENRY NATHANIEL, of Bangor, General Agent of the Connecticut Mutual Insur- ance Company for Maine and the Lower Provinces, was born in Wayne, Kennebec county, Maine, Oc- tober 24, 1838, son of George W. and Lucy (Love- joy) Fairbanks. He is of English and Scotch ancestry, and is descended from (1) Jonathan Fair- banks, who came from England and built a house at Dedham, Massachusetts, in 1636; the line being through (2) John, (3) Joseph, (4) Joseph, (5) Joseph, (6) Nathaniel and (7) George W. Fair- banks. His grandfather, Col. Nathaniel Fairbanks, was a Revolutionary soldier and a member of Ar- nold's expedition up the Kennebec River to Quebec. Henry N. Fairbanks spent his early life on the home farm, and after receiving a common-school and aca- demic education in his native town and at Towle Academy in Winthrop, Maine, taught school for a time and worked for a year in the scythe factory at Oakland, Maine. In April 1861, he enlisted in Company G of the Third Maine Volunteers, and served with the regiment about fourteen months. After returning from the army and recovering his health, which had become impaired, he engaged with John P. Squire & Company, Faneuil Hall Market, Boston. While there he was a volunteer in the Forty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment, and aided in suppressing the draft riot in Boston, July 15, 1863. In November 1863 he re-enlisted in the Thirtieth Regiment Maine Veteran Volunteers, in which he was appointed First Sergeant of Company E, and was promoted to Second Lieutenant in April 1864. He served in Banks' Red River expedition in Louisiana, and in Sheridan's campaign in the Shen- andoah Valley, Virginia ; was wounded at the Battle of Monett's Bluff on the Red River, Louisiana ; and was mustered out of the United States service with
the regiment, August 20, 1865. In 1866 and a part of 1867 Mr. Fairbanks was engaged with the Adams Express Company in New York city, as agent and messenger ; and in August 1867 he began work as solicitor for the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, in the city of St. John, New Brunswick, where he remained for about three years. In 1870 he was appointed the company's State Agent for New Jersey, and located at Newark, where he con- tinued until appointed, in January 1872, General Agent of the company for Maine and the Lower British Provinces, with headquarters at Bangor, in which position he continues at the present time. Mr. Fairbanks was for several years a member of
HENRY N. FAIRBANKS.
the Common Council of Bangor, and served as President of that body for the years 1881-2. In 18So he was elected a Director in the European and North American Railway, representing the city's interest under the loan bill. In 1892 he was Chair- man of the Republican City Committee of Bangor, and in September of that year was elected Repre- sentative to the State Legislature for two years, where he was a member of the Insurance Com- mittee and Chairman of the Pension Committee on the part of the House. In 1894 he was re-elected to the Legislature, and during his second term served as Chairman of the Insurance Committee and member of the Committee on Pensions. Mr.
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Fairbanks is a Knight Templar and a Thirty-second degree Mason, also a member of the Grand Army of the Republic and the Military Order of the Loyal Legfon. He is an ardent believer in life insurance, and carries a large line on his own life, fifty thou- sand dollars of which is in the Connecticut Mutual. He was married October 24, 1867, to Abby A. Woodworth (Allen), of Farmington, Maine ; they have two children living : Hiland L. and Nora L. Fairbanks.
FULLER, ANDREW JACKSON, M. D., President of the Bath Board of Trade for more than eighteen years, was born in Paris, Oxford county, Maine,
صمة مشر محبة
A. J. FULLER.
September 15, 1822, son of Caleb and Hannah (Perkins) Fuller ; died in Bath; January 10, 1897. He was the youngest of a large family of children. His early education was received in the town schools of Paris and at the Hebron (Maine) Academy. Early becoming imbued with a desire to enter the medical profession, he pursued his studies at the Maine Medical School in Brunswick, the University of New York, and the Jeffersor. Medical College in Philadelphia. Graduating from the Maine Med- ical School (Bowdoin College) in 1841, he practiced in Searsmont, Maine, until 1847, when he moved to Bath, where he continued in active practice to the time of his death, attaining a high rank and wide
repute in his profession, and enjoying the respect and confidence of the people. Dr. Fuller had an extensive practice, not only in the general depart- ments of medicine and minor surgery, but also in the higher grades of both. Among his successful major operations have been amputations at the hip joint, and re-section of the humerus. He was a niember of the American Medical Association, and Vice-President and in 1871 President of the Maine Medical Association. Among his notable published papers are an essay on Cholera Infantum, and a prognosis on Fractures, the former paper read before the American Medical Association in 1856 and the latter before the Maine Medical Association, both of which attracted widespread professional notice. Prior to the Civil War he served for seven years as Surgeon in the Second Maine Infantry, and during the Rebellion he held the office of Post Surgeon at Bath. He was for a long time Consulting Physician and Surgeon of the Maine General Hos- pital at Portland, and also served one term as Trustee of the Maine Insane Hospital at Augusta. His private practice extended beyond the limits of the city of his residence, and he was frequently called in consultation in difficult cases, especially in surgery, and often far remote from his home. Dr. Fuller's talents and energies were not, however, devoted wholly to his profession. That he was an able business man is evidenced by the fact that he was for eighteen years President of the Bath Board of Trade, and for five years was President of the Lincoln County Fire Insurance Company. He was a Mason and a Knight Templar, and was an enter- prising and public-spirited citizen, ever manifesting a lively interest in the city that was his home, and in all matters pertaining to the welfare of its people. Dr. Fuller was married in July 1843, to Harriet Marston, daughter of George Marston of Bath. They had three children, of whom only a daughter, Mrs. Samuel C. Barker of Bath, is living; she has a son : Byron F. Barker.
GILMAN, AUGUSTUS WILLIAM, of Foxcroft, State Inspector of Prisons and Jails, was born in Foxcroft, January 27, 1844, son of the late Ebenezer and Roxanna (Palmer) Gilman. His father, although a farmer, was well educated and had a great fond- ness for reading ; he was descended from a long line of Congregational clergymen and professional men. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Dr. Joseph Gilman of Wells, Maine, whose
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father was the Rev. Tristram Gilman, Pastor for forty years of the Congregational Church in North Yarmouth, Maine. The father of the last-named was the Rev Nicholas Gilman, a graduate of Har- vard College, who was settled at Durham, New Hampshire, from 1742 until his death in 1748. When George Whitefield visited this country he was cordially received by the Rev. Nicholas, who labored with him in his evangelistic work and was his faithful friend and supporter. The early life of Augustus W. Gilman was spent on the farm in summer and in attendance at the district schools in winter. It was in these schools, supplemented by home training, that he was prepared for Foxcroft "Academy, in which time-honored institution he completed hi school education and fitted himself for a teacher. For the next ten years or more he taught school six months in the year, superintend- ing his father's farm in the other six. This cora- bining of the two occupations was not unusual in Maine twenty-five years since. Mr. Gilman, how- ever, made a success of both; his services as a teacher were in great demand, and he became one of the most progressive farmers in Eastern Maine. In 1880 he was married, and in the same year pur- chased the farm - one of the finest in the county, located about two miles from the village - formerly owned by the late Captain Salmon Holmes, on which he has since resided Mr. Gilman has been variously honored by his townsmen, who have con- ferred upon him many important offices of trust and responsibility. He served for several years as one of the Selectmen of the town, and was always largely interested in school work, serving his town for more than twenty years on the School Board, and being early elected a Trustee of Foxcroft Academy, which position he still holds. In 1882 he was elected to the office of County Commis- sioner, which he held for six years. With all his varied occupations, Mr. Gilman has always retained his interest in agricultural pursuits. In 1890 he was elected by his county to represent the state on the Board of Agriculture, and in 1893 was elected President of the Board. In 1880 he was appointed by Governor Davis a member of the State Valua- tion Commission, and in 1890 was reappointed by Governor Burleigh to this responsible position of adjusting the values of Maine. In 1892 he received from Governor Burleigh the appointment of In- spector of P'risons and Jails, to which office he was rrappointed by Governor Cleaves in 1896. Mr. Gilman has always been a staunch Republican in
politics, but never a blind partisan ; for while he has the courage of his convictions, and is a firm supporter of Republican principles, he does not hesitate to citicise measures of that party when in his judgment they are opposed to the best interests of the country. Although he still carries on the farm, Mr. Gilman has for several years been en- gaged in mercantile business in Foxcroft village. He was married in May 1880 to Mary Elizabeth Loring, daughter of the late Charles Loring of Guilford, Maine. They have four children : Louise R., born March :, ISSt, Arthur L., born June 5,
A. W. GILMAN.
1883 ; Julia Elizabeth, born November 26, 1887, and Mary A. Gilman, born June 16, 1890.
GILMAN, JOHN WESLEY, Musical Director, Oak- land, was born in Belgrade, Kennebec county, Maine, February 20, 1844, son of Jacob and Deborah (Ham) Gilman. On the paternal side he is of English and German ancestry. His great- grandfather Samuel S. Gilman, who came to Maine from Gilmanton, New Hampshire, in the 1790's, when his grandfather, Stephen, was about a year old, and settled in Mount Vernon, Kennebec county, was a direct descendant of Edward Gilman, who came to America in 1630, and settled in Hingham, Massachusetts. The Gilmans were on the right side
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in the Revolution, and rendered good service in the war of that period. The mother of the subject of our sketch was of Scotch-Irish descent. J. Wesley Gilman received his early education in the common schools and at the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent' Hill, Readfield, to which place his parents moved in 1848, when he was four years old. At the age of seventeen, in 1861, he came to Oakland (then West Waterville) and for a year worked for the Dunn Edge Tool Company at scythe-making. In July 1862 he enlisted in Company A of the Twentieth Regiment Maine Volunteers (of which General Adelbert Ames was the first Colonel), and remained in the service until the regiment was
J. WESLEY GILMAN.
mustered out in June 1865. In the Battle of Pe- gram's Farm, Virginia, September 30, 1864, he was severely wounded in the thigh, which incapacitated him for further active service. He participated in every battle and skirmish in which the regiment was engaged save two, up to the time of receiving his wound, including Rappahannock Station and Mine Run in 1863, and all the Wilderness cam- paign, from May 5 to September 30 in 1864. After partial recovery from his wound, he returned to West Waterville (Oakland) and resumed scythe- making for the Dunn Edge Tool Company. In March 1869 he engaged in the hardware business with George H. Bryant, under the firm name of
Bryant & Gilman. Selling out this interest in September 1870, he entered into a partnership in the produce business and a general store, under the style of Mitchell & Gilman. In 1877 he started the first music store in the town, and remained in that business, also teaching bands and singing until 1892. He still retains an interest in those lines, continuing in active service as bandmaster, and is well-known as a musical director in nearly all sections of the state. He has been the leader and Director of Gilman's Band in Oakland for the eighteen contin- uous years of its organization, was conductor for many years of the old West Waterville Musical Association, and subsequently of the Oakland Chorus Club, and has been Choirmaster of the First Universalist Church in Oakland for thirty years, serving in that capacity at the present time. Mr. Gilman is also in demand throughout the state as a Memorial Day speaker. He was Town Treas- urer and Collector of Oakland in 1881-2-3, and Chairman of the Board of Selectmen 1884-6, 1888-90 and 1894-6. He has been actively iden- tified with the Masonic fraternity since joining Messalonskee Lodge in March 1866, of which he was Master in 1875-6 and 1880-1, and is now serving his fifteenth year as Secretary of that body ; became a member of Drummond Chapter Royal Arch Masons (of which he was High Priest in 1892-3) in August 1872, Mount Lebanon Council Royal and Select Masters in 1888, St. Omer Com- mandery Knights Templar in May 1891, and Lewis- ton Consistory in 1893 ; and in 1887-8 was District Deputy Grand Master of the Twelfth Masonic Dis- trict, serving under Most Worshipful Grand Masters Fessenden I. Day and Frank E. Sleeper. He has also been a member of Amon Lodge of Odd Fellows and Cascade Grange Patrons of Husbandry since 1888, and of Acme Lodge of Rebekahs since March 1896. In the Grand Army of the Republic he was the First Commander of Sergeant Wyman Post, and was unanimously re-elected for a second term ; was Assistant Inspector of the Department of Maine for several years, Chief Mustering officer of the Department in 1890, one of the Council of Admin- istration for the two years 1892-3, and in February 1894 was elected Commander of the Department of Maine, with six other candidates in the field. He was also one of the original incorporators of the Maine Relief Corps Home, located at Camp Ben- son, Newport. and has filled every subordinate office in his post, which he is now serving for the eighth year as Adjutant. In politics Mr. Gilman is
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an active and aggressive Republican, but has never made an enemy on account of his political pro- clivities of affiliations. His first vote was cast for General Joshua L. Chamberlain, his old regimental commander, for Governor in 1866. He was first married November 30. 1870, to Sarah B. Kimball, daughter of Samuel and Mary Ann (Hitchings) Kimball, who died November 23, 1890. On Decem- ber 20, 1893, he married Alice E. Sturtevant. daughter of Francis M. and Asenath ( Wheeler) Sturtevant of Oakland ; he has no children.
GORDON, CHARLES FREDERICK, President of the Searsport Board of Trade, was born in Belfast (now Searsport), . "ine, May 7, 1843, son of Charles and Eliza White (Jones) Gordon. Charles Gordon was born at Exeter, New Hampshire, December 2, 1794, of Scotch descent. In 1798 he moved with his father, Joseph, and his grandfather, James, to Bel- fast, Maine. Charles.was an active and robust boy, and at an early age acted his part in building up the home. The roads at that time were mere bridle paths, and so the communication of the settlers with the outside world was chiefly by water. He soon became an efficient boatman, and thought it not much of a task to row a boat to Castine, ten miles across Penobscot Bay, for supplies. Soon after the War of 1812 was declared, Castir was occupied by the British ; and the insolence of the British soldiers being a little too much for him to endure without retaliation, he enlisted in Captain Robert Kelsey's company, in Colonel Ulmer's regiment, raised in Belfast, in September 1814. After peace was de- clared he turned his attention to the fisheries on the Grand Banks in summers, and taught school winters. In those days it needed a man of muscle as well as brain to be a successful teacher - and he always succeeded. In early manhood he built a fishing vessel on the shores of their farm. The appliances were rude indeed : the nearest blacksmith shop was about four miles distant, and errands back and forth were done mostly on foot. Those were the good old " pod-auger " days, and one of these im- plements used in the construction of the vessel is still in possession of the son, Charles F. In after years he built a vessel called the Two Sons, in which, as sole owner and Captain, he made many successful trips to the Grand Banks. Afterwards he put his brother John in charge of her, and in the memorable gale of October 3, 1841, the vessel was lost and all hands perished - three out of his own
family : a brother, son Charles, and adopted son George Lane. In 1835-6 he represented Belfast in the Maine Legislature. In 1845 that part of Belfast in which he resided was set off to the new town of Searsport, in which he soon became one of the leading spirits, serving for several years as Chair- man of the Board of Selectmen. In 1854 he was elected Cashier of the Searsport Bank, and contin- ued in that office until his death, January 12, 1873. In 1867 he represented Searsport in the State Legislature. He was known in his intercourse with all men as a gentleman of great courtesy and one of the "Old School." He was married January 6,
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CHARLES F. GORDON.
1828, to Sarah Tyler, by whom he had four chil- dren : Charles, Andrew, John and Annie. Sarah Tyler Gordon died October 7, 1839; Charles was lost at sea, October 3, 1841 ; Andrew died in Havana, Cuba, December 28, 1855 ; John, Captain in the Thirteenth Regiment New York Heavy Artil- lery, was killed at the head of his command, October 7, 1864, at Swift Creek, near Newberne, North Carolina ; Annie Gordon married Edward B. Shel- don, Postmaster of Searsport from 1869 to 1885. In 1841 Charles Gordon was a second time married, to Eliza White Jones, born in Castine, Maine, October 27, 1808, by whom he had one son, who is the subject of this sketch. Joseph Gordon, father of
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Charles, was born in Exeter, New Hampshire, August 25, 1759, and married Dorothy Smith, also born in Exeter, December 30, 1767 ; their children were : Charles, Eliza, John, Mary and Nancy. James Gordon, father of Joseph, was a descendant of Alex- ander Gordon, who emigrated to this country from Scotland and settled in Exeter, New Hampshire, in 1660. James married Elizabeth, daughter of Carter Gilman, by whom he had one son : William, born March 13, 1723. James's wife died the same year, and he subsequently married Elizabeth, daughter of Samuel Dalloff ; their children were Joseph, Esther and Lydia. James Gordon and both of his boys were soldiers in the Revolutionary War. The father had been a soldier in the French War twenty years before ; he and his half-brother Amos Dalloff were in C tain John Light's company at the Siege of Louisburg in the summer of 1758, and he was a member of Captain Gilman's company, Hart's regi- ment, in the expedition against Crown Point, in the fall of the same year. Charles F. Gordon received his early education in public and private schools, and at commercial college in Bangor, Maine. He commenced active business in 1860 as Assistant Cashier of the Searsport Bank. In 1874 he was chosen Treasurer of the Searsport Savings Bank, and in 1884 was elected Cashier of the Searsport Na- tional Bank, both of which positions he holds at the present time. Mr. Gordon is also President of the Board of Trade of Searsport, and has served on the Board of Selectmen of his town, 1872-3. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. Gordon is a bachelor, and lives on the farm taken up by his great-grandfather and grandfather nearly a hundred years ago.
HACKETT, ORLANDO JACOB, of Boston, Gen- eral Secretary of the Lyceum League of America, was born on a farm near Auburn, Maine, November 28, 1869, son of Jacob. and Elsie (Maxwell) Hackett. He moved into the city of Auburn when a boy, where he was educated in the public schools and resided until he went to Boston, early in 1895. Mr. Hackett's professional career was begun as a teacher, and for some time he was Professor of Music in the Auburn schools. Subsequently he became a public singer and reader, and in this connection was brought in various ways into pro- fessional and social relations with public men. In June 1895 he became General Secretary of the Lyceum League of America - an organization hav- ing a constituency of over forty thousand young
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