USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 59
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PACKARD, CHARLES WILLIAM, M. D., practicing Physician in New York city, was born in Brunswick, Maine, March 7, 1833, the eldest son of Charles and Rebecca Prentiss (Kent) Packard. His father, the late Rev. Charles Packard of Biddeford, Maine, was a son of Rev. Hezekiah Packard, D. D., of Wis- casset, Maine, whose wife was Mary Spring. His mother is the youngest daughter of the late Colonel William Austin Kent of Concord, New Hampshire, whose wife was Charlotte Mellen. He received his preliminary education at Lancaster (Massachusetts) Academy, and at the age of nineteen, in 1852, be- gan the study of medicine, attending his first course
CHAS. W. PACKARD.
of medical lectures at Bowdoin College in 1853. At that time he also became a private pupil of the late Professor E. R. Peaslee, M. D., and continued under his instruction until graduation from the New York Medical College, where he attended two courses of lectures and was graduated in March 1855. Following graduation he became an assist- ant to Professor Peaslee, and was the latter's Dem- onstrator of Anatomy at Dartmouth Medical College during the medical term of 1855. In January 1856 he entered upon duty as Assistant Physician to the Blackwell's Island Hospital, New York, and after serving one year was appointed First Assistant Physi cian to the Blackwell's Island Lunatic Asylum. After
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a year's service in this position he resigned and be- came Deputy Resident Physician of the Charity, Almshouse, Workhouse and Smallpox hospitals on Blackwell's Island, acting in this capacity for two years, and making in all four years of service on Blackwen's Island, the first year being without sal- ary. Then came a call for volunteer surgeons in the Civil War, and P -. Packard was detailed to the large army hospital at Bedloe's Island, New York Harbor. After more than a year's service here he was invited to become Resident Physician to St. Luke's Hospital in New York city, upon agreeable and advantageous terms, and for the next two years. from October 1863 to October 1865, he officiated in that capacity. In May 1866 he was appointed Attending Physician to St. Luke's Hospital, filling this office til 18;8, when he was appointed one of the Consulting Physicians to the institution. At the present time he is President of the Medical Board of St. Luke's Hospital. He is also Physician to the New England Society of New York. Since October 1865 Dr. Packard has been in active general prac- tice as a physician in New York city, and from 1866 to 1868 he was a Medical Inspector for the New York Board of Health: He is a member of the New York Medical and Surgical Society, the New York Academy of Medicine, New York County Medical Society and New York Pathological Society ; also of the Century and the Church clubs, and the Bowdoin Alumni Association. Dr. Packard re- ceived the honorary degrees of Master of Arts from Bowdoin College in 1883, and Doctor of Medicine from Dartmouth College in 1895. He was married December 11, 1872, to Miss Elizabeth McLanathan, of New York city.
PLUMMER, MYRICK, head of the wholesale paper house of M. Plummer & Company, New York city, was born in Pittston, Kennebec county, Maine, in 1835, son of Jason and Nancy (Swett) Plummer. He acquired his education in the coni- mon schools and in attendance for three winters at Litchfield (Maine) Academy. His parents died when he was four years old, and their four children were adopted by different families. The subject of this sketch was taken into the family of Elijah Pope of West Gardiner, Maine, where he worked on the farm until he was seventeen, when he bought his time of the farmer for fifty dollars, and after earning money at odd jobs, picking strawberries, working extra hours for other farmers, etc., he started for
Boston, having but three dollars in his pocket on arrival. After a short time he obtained a start with Jonas Chickering, the father of the American piano, and spent three years in the hardest drudgery of the piano-making business. Then having become tired and dissatisfied with his prospects, he took the surplus earnings of those years and started for Cali- fornia, where he arrived just before the breaking out of the Civil War. Here he prospered for a while,
. in the feverish activity of the mining days, but after five years he returned to the East, and with barely two thousand dollars, and no knowledge of the city or acquaintance with the business community, he had the temerity to lease a small store in William
MYRICK PLUMMER
street, and to enter into competition with the " giants of those days" in the paper trade. He had however a large capital in energy, perseverance and integrity ; and with never-relaxing push and undiminished ardor he has gone on from the little, thin, brown ledger of those small days to the long line of steadily increasing thickness which now adorns the shelves in the office of the busy book- keepers. To buy that little first ledger, which the owner sometimes shows in moments of confidence, would tax somewhat the finances of the country ; the more so, as from that to its latest successor there is an unbroken record of plain, honest deal- ings and straightforward business life, with no
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hypothecations, extensions, kitings or any of the gymnastics so common in these later days. Thirty- one years of constant attendance to these principles has brought the firm of M. Plummer & Company to the front rank, and from buying half a case of paper at a time to the six-story building of to-day, stocked with every size and kind. In 1882, Mr. Plummer gave three of t. 2 older employes an in- terest in the business, in order to travel abroad, and enjoyed a season of well earned rest and recrea- tion, visiting most of the European countries. Since then he has been less actively engaged than for- merly, but is still at the helm, guiding with his judgment and experience the firm's most important affairs. Five years ago he purchased the handsome store numbered 45 Beekman Street, where the same business methe- as of old continue, and where his house now ranks among the first, if not as the very first, in the wholesale and jobbing paper trade of the city and the country. There is one fact in con- nection with Mr. Plummer's business life of which he is very proud, and which is quite remarkable : which is, that he has never made a promise to pay a bill which was not kept, and payment made, on the day. Mr. Plummer is a member of the Chamber of Commerce and Director in the Pacific Fire Insur- ance Company, also a member of the Lotus Club and life member of the New England Society. In politics he is a Republican. He was married in 1868 to Mary E. Townsend of New York city. They have no children.
SPOFFORD, JOHN CALVIN, Architect, Boston, was born in Webster, Androscoggin county, Maine, November 25, 1854, son of Phineas M. and Mary E. (Wentworth) Spofford. His American ancestry dates from John and Elizabeth (Scott) Spofford, who came from Yorkshire, England, in 1638, and settled in that part of Rowley, Massachusetts, now the town of Georgetown. On the maternal side he is lineally descended from John Wentworth, Lieu- tenant-Governor of the Province of New Hamp- shire, 1717-30, and his great-great-great-grand- father, Captain John Wentworth, fought on the Plains of Abraham at the Battle of Quebec, and was one of the men who carried Wolfe to the rock beside which he died. His father, Phineas M. Spofford, was a ship-carpenter, and a farmer in Webster. John C. Spofford's early boyhood was spent on the farm of his grandfather, Foster D. Wentworth. during the winter months of which period he attended the
district school. Later he enjoyed the advantages of several terms at the Monmouth ( Maine) Acad- emy and the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill, meanwhile teaching for a time his old district school, and thus defraying the expenses of his edu- cation. Subsequently, 1876-7, he was for a year or more Principal of Smith's Business College in Lewis- ton, Maine. When a pupil in the district school he developed an especial talent for drawing, and he early evinced a liking for architecture, which was stimulated by work at the carpenters' and masons' trades outside of school hours. Finally determining to adopt architecture as a profession, he went to
JOHN C. SPOFFORD.
Boston in 1879 and entered the office of Architect H. J. Preston, where he worked and studied for about a year. In February 1881 he entered the employ of Sturgis & Brigham, a leading architec- tural firm of Boston, as draughtsman, and continued in this relation until 1886, during this period hav- ing charge of the construction of a number of note- worthy public and private structures of the firm's design, among them the building of the Massachu- setts Life Insurance Company in Boston and the residence of H. H. Rogers of the Standard Oil Company in New York. In 1887 Mr. Spofford engaged in professional work on his own account, in March of that year forming a co-partnership with
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Willard M. Bacon, under the firm name of Spofford & Bacon. After a year this partnership was dis- solved, and he entered into an association with Charles Brigham, formerly of Sturgis & Brighamn, under the name of Brigham & Spofford. He soon obtained for the new firm, among other important contracts, the enlargement and alteration of the Maine State House at Augusta, and the construction of the New City Hall at Lewiston, Maine. They also designed and began the building of the Massa- chusetts State House extension ; and other notabie work included the Asylum for Inebriates and Dip- somaniacs at Foxboro ; the Presbyterian Church in the Roxbury District, Boston; the Roxbury and Stoughton passenger-stations on the Old. Colony division of the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad . Town Hall and Public Library, Fair- haven, Massachusetts ; Memorial Hall, Belfast, Maine ; residence of J. Manchester Haynes, Augusta, Maine (since burned), pronounced the finest private residence in the Kennebec Valley ; and many pretentious residences in the Roxbury and West Roxbury districts of Boston. In Febru ary 1892 the firm was dissolved ; and after a trip abroad, Mr. Spofford opened offices in the John Hancock Building, Boston, and resumed work upon several important commissions. Among his later designs are the new City Hall of Bangor, Maine ; the Hapgood Building, Methodist Church, and a number of fine residences, including the elegant house of Charles E. Jennings, in Everett, Massachusetts, and many others in Boston and suburban cities and towns. Mr. Spofford belongs to the orders of Masonry and Odd Fellowship, has been Grand Protector of Massachusetts in the Knights and Ladies of Honor, and is a member of various other fraternal associations. In 1888 he was elected President of the Spofford Family Asso- ciation, on the occasion of the gathering of seven hundred members of the family. from all parts of the country, to celebrate the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the arrival in this country from England of John and Elizabeth (Scott) Spofford, the founders of the family in America. Mr. Spof- ford was married July 6, 1881, to Miss Ella M. Fuller, of Turner, Maine; they have one child : Mabel Fuller Spofford.
SMALL, JOSIAH BAKER, Merchant and Inventor, Boston, was born in Windham, Cumberland county, Maine, March 9, 1845, son of Gilbert and Abigail
(Baker) Small. His father was a native of Gray, and son of Jeremiah and Jane (Frank) Small ; and his mother was a daughter of Benjamin and Mary (Allen) Baker, of Windham. Mr. Small has re- cently traced his ancestry to Francis Small, who was born about 1620-7, and for the greater part of his life was a resident of Kittery, York county, Maine. He was a man of considerable note, and carried on a trading post with the Indians at what is now Corn- ish, Maine. He came to Kittery fromn Truro, Mas- sochusetts, where the last fifteen years of his life were spent. His son Samuel was born in Kittery, jived and died there, and had four children : Eliza-
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J. B. SMALL.
beth, Samuel, Joseph and Mary. Of these, Joseph, born about 1702, had six or seven children, one of whom was David. The latter was the father of Isaac, who was a Selectman in the town of New Boston (now Gray), Maine, in 1781, and Isaac's son, Jeremiah, was the grandfather of Josiah, the subject of this sketch. Josiah B. Small acquired his education in the common schools of his native town. Brought up on the farm, he was engaged in the various duties of farm work from early boyhood until the age of seventeen, when he went to New Hampshire, and there learned the trade of heating iron for forging car-axles and other machinery. In March 1866 he went to Boston and entered
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the agricultural implement store of Whittemore, Belcher & Company, where he remained two years, learning the ways of selling farm tools and machinery. In 1868 he entered into partnership with Frank F. Holbrook, son of Ex-Governor Hol- brook of Vermont, under the firm name of F. F. Holbrook & Small, and engaged in the manufacture and sale of the Holbrook s: "ivel-plows, Holbrook horse-hoes, garden seed-drills, and other specialties in farm tools. The firm continued for about two years, when another partne. was admitted, and the name changed to F. F. Holbrook & Company. The new house added several other lines to the special- ties which the old firm had put on the market, and continued the business until the fall of 1873, when it was wound up and sold out, and the firm was dis- solved. Mr. Sh .. 1 purchased the patterns and fix- tures, and re-started the business alone, but finding that more capital was required to develop it to his satisfaction, he associated himself with Thomas B. Everett, under the firm name of Everett & Small. This partnership continued until 1883, when Mr. Small withdrew, and formed a new association with A. H. Matthews, under the name of Small & Mat- thews, for the continued manufacture and sale of seed drills and other agricultural implements, includ- ing the celebrated Small's calf-feeders, of which he is the inventor and patentee. Mr. Small is now doing business under the firm name of J. B. Small & Company, that of Small & Matthews having been dropped in 1887, and is almost exclusively engaged in the manufacture and sale of his calf-feeder, of which upwards of twenty-two thousand have been made and sold since the device was patented in 1884, and which is now in use in every state and territory of the Union and in various foreign coun- tries. This feeder, which is said to be the only practical and successful invention of its kind in the world, has filled one of the greatest of the long ielt wants of farm lite ; although a marvel of simplicity, it is a most ingenious affair, and has been carried to such a degree of perfection as to call forth thousands of unsolicited testimonials from all over the coun- try. Many of its users write to thank the inventor for developing so useful and perfect an article adapted to farm needs, and to wish him a long life of business prosperity. In politics Mr. Small has always been a Republican. He was married first, October 19, 1870, to Miss Helen A. Smith, who died March 28, 1874, leaving a daughter, Ilila II. Small. His second marriage was December 24, 1879, to Miss Ada R. Smith; she died April to,
1882, also leaving a daughter, Grace A. Small. The eldest daughter graduated June 3, 1896, at the Boston University College of Liberal Arts, as Com- mencement Speaker of her class, and is now teach- ing at Ayer High School, Ayer, Massachusetts ; the younger daughter is in the Somerville High School, preparing for college. Mr. Small resides in East Somerville.
STAPLES, CYRUS EMERY, Banker and Broker, Brooklyn, New York, was born in Bangor, Maine, February 28, 1842, son of Isaac Richmond and Melvina Palmer (Spear) Staples His American
CYRUS E. STAPLES.
ancestor was an officer on one of the ships that accompanied the Mayflower to New England, who settled in Plymouth, and soon after moved to Cran- berry Isles, near Mount Desert, off the coast of Maine. Here he intermarried with the Bunker family, and the relationship has been kept up to this day, on both sides, the male members on each side being seafaring men. The Bunkers were pio- neers in the shipbuilding industry of Maine, and were among the first to open up trade with the West Indies. Mr. Staples' great-grandfather, Samuel Staples, son of the first settler, was a famous pri- vateersinan in the Revolutionary War, cruising near the Windward Islands in the West Indies,
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and preying on British merchantmen ; after the war he engaged in shipbuilding, meanwhile spending about half his time at sea as shipmaster. The first settler of Cranberry Isles was Samuel Staples, his son Samuel (second) being the privateer. Samuel (third), son of the last named, continued the business of his father, moving about 1835 to Lubec, where he died. Isaac R. Staples, son of the foregoing, and father of the subject of this sketch. was also a seafaring man, master of Maine vessels sailing mostly from New York to Mediterranean and other European ports ; he moved to Brooklyn in the fifties, and died there in December 1884, at the present home of his son Cyrus. Cyrus Emery Staples attended the public schools of Eastport and Lubec, Maine, until the age of fourteen. In his fifteenth year he went to sea, and for the next five years sailed out of New York to differ. t ports in the European and West Indian trades. When twenty years old he took command of a brig controlled by the old firm of Brett, Son & Company, shipping merchants of New York. Con- tinuing with them for about three years, he thel transferred his command to a bark under the control of James E. Ward & Company, and after about four years in their employ connected himself with Grin- nell, Minturn & Company, as master of the ship Em- erald Isle, in the famous "Swallow-Tail Packet Line " between New York and London. Captain Staples continued to sail in this relation and capacity for about four years, at the end of which time, the inno- vation of steam on the transatlantic route forcing the sail-packet lines out of service, he took com- mand of a ship in the East Indian trade. After making several successful voyages to Hong Kong, Yokohama, Bombay and Calcutta, he decided to retire from the sea, and in 1882 established himself in the banking and brokerage business in Montague street, Brooklyn, in which place and business, under the firm name of Cyrus E. Staples & Company, he is still engaged. While conducting a large banking business and dealing extensively in investment secu- rities, Mr. Staples has taken an active part in many large transactions of the gas, railroad and electric- light combines. He represented the big Boston syndicate in the purchase of the old Brooklyn Gas Company, whose capital was two millions, the Met- ropolitan Gas Company, with one million capital, and the Union Gas Company with capital of seven hundred thousand - all of which are now merged in the combination known as the Union Gas Com- pany of Brooklyn, with stock and bonded indebted- ness of thirty millions. He also effected the sale of
the corporate interest known as the Flatbush Gas- light and Electric Company to the Brooklyn Union, a transaction amounting to about seven hundred thousand dollars, and has been interested in all the gas and railroad deals that have been made in Brooklyn in the last ten years. Mr. Staples' ances- tors were men trained to cope with and manage large interests and industries, and to administer important trusts and affairs. He comes naturally, therefore, by the ability which he has shown in this direction throughout his busy life. Aside from his inherited qualities, his success may be largely at- tributed to his principle of doing to others as he would be done by, and to persevering in all his undertakings until the objective point is gained. Mr. Staples is a member of the Brooklyn, Hamilton and Crescent clubs of Brooklyn, and of a half-dozen or more sporting clubs outside of that city. He has a handsome house on Remsen street, considered one of the best and most exclusive streets in Brook- lyn, also a fine country residence at Great South Bay, and keeps both a steam yacht and a fine sailing yacht. He belongs to the Masonic fraternity, being a life member of Stella Lodge, the oldest lodge in Brooklyn, and is a member of the New England Society of Brooklyn, the Long Island Historical Society, and the Marine Society of the Port of New Vork, which latter organization is the oldest society in America. He has always been a staunch Demo- crat in politics, but voted for Mckinley at the last Presidential election. He was married February 8, 1865, to Anna Prentiss, daughter of William D. Prentiss, of an old Maine family ; they have no chil- dren. Mr. Staples has a daughter by a previous marriage : Georgianna Shepard Staples, now Mrs. E. Homer Trecartin of Brooklyn.
WHITEHOUSE, FRANCIS CLARK, Manager of the extensive pulp and paper mills at Lisbon Falls and Topsham, was born in Oxford, Oxford county, Maine, September 18, 1845, son of Benjamin and Susan Cobb (Putnam) Whitehouse. He is of Eng- lish descent. His paternal grandfather moved to Oxford from New Hampshire when a young man, cleared his farm and resided there for the rest of his life. His father also was a farmer. His grand- father on the maternal side was a descendant from . the Putnams of Salem and Danvers, Massachusetts ; and his maternal grandmother was Susan Cobb, a sister of Dr. Sylvanus Cobb, a noted Universalist minister and author, of Boston, Massachusetts. F.
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C. Whitehouse was reared on the home farm until sixteen years of age, in the meantime acquiring his education in the common schools and at High School in the adjoining town of Norway. From 1863 to 1865 he was in a drug store at Norway, and from 1865 to 1867 he was Route Messenger for the Canadian Express Company on the Grand Trunk Railway between Portland and Norway, and Port- land and Montreal. For the next six years he was engaged in the drygoods and clothing business with Dwinal Brothers & Golderman at Mechanic Falls, Maine, during the last two years of this period be- ing a member of the firm of Dwinal, Golderman & Company. In 1873-4 he was in the employ of the
F. C. WHITEHOUSE.
Denison Paper Manufacturing Company of Me- chanic Falls, and in December 1874 he moved to Brunswick, Maine, and connected himself with the Bowdoin Paper Manufacturing Company, of which since 1889 he has had the management. In the latter year he organized the Lisbon Falls Fibre Company of Lisbon Falls, and built the large mill of that company, which he has, also managed suc- cessfully to the present time, 's its Treasurer. In 1893 the Pejepscot Paper Company was organized, and as its Treasurer and Manager he began the erection of a large mill which was completed and put in successful operation in 1895. At the present time Mr. Whitehouse is Vice-President and Mana-
ger of the Bowdoin Paper Manufacturing Company, Topsham, Maine ; Treasurer and Manager of the Lisbon Falls Fibre Company, Lisbon Falls, Maine ; Treasurer and Manager of the Pejepscot Paper Company, Pejepscot Mills, Maine ; and Secretary of W. H. Parsons & Company (incorporated ) of New York City, also a Director in each company. Mr. Whitehouse is a resident of Topsham. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, identified with United Lodge and St. Paul Royal Arch Chapter of Brunswick, and Dunlap Commandery Knights Templar of Bath. In politics he is a Republican, but not active, practically all of his time being de- voted to the management of his extensive business. . He was married August 15, 1869, to Mary Elizabeth Pettie, of Mechanic Falls, Maine. They have four children : Ada Frances, Abbie Etta, Francis Adna (deceased) and Susan Mary Whitehouse.
WIGHT, JOHN GREEN, Ph. D., Principal of the Girls' High School, Philadelphia, was born in Gilead, Oxford county, Maine, March 2, 1842, son of Tim- othy and Mary Ann (Green) Wight. He is de- scended from Thomas Wight, who came from England in 1635 and settled in Dedham, Massachu- setts. His great-grandfather, Lieutenant Joel Wight, served in the patriot army of the Revolution, being in Colonel Phinney's regiment at Cambridge in 1776. When ten years of age the subject of this sketch moved from Gilead to Gorham, New Hamp- shire, which latter place continued to be his home until the time of his marriage. Thus his childhood and early youth were passed within the near view of the White Mountains. His early education was con- fined to the customary brief winter and summer terms of the rural public school. After moving to Gorham better opportunities for schooling were en- joyed, the terms being longer and the instruction more efficient ; and at least once each year a short term of private high school was added. In his early public school experience he had several noble men and women as instructors, whose influence upon his life has been of essential value. One of these deserving special recognition was Henry C. Peabody, now Judge Peabody of Portland, who was his teacher for two winter terms at Gorham, and who gave him his first aspirations for a college education. His preparation for college was made principally at Gould Academy, Bethel, Maine, and at the Maine State Seminary in Lewiston. He graduated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1864, and after
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