Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine, Part 6

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 6

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part in politics and is one of the leading Democrats of Gotham. He has served as Secretary, Treasurer and Chairman of the Democratic Town Committee, as a member of the Maine Democratic Inauguration Club, has been the nominee of his party for the . several town offices, and was elected one of the Gorham Village Corporation Assessors in May 1895. Ix 1893 he was appointed Postmaster of his native town by President Cleveland, in which capacity he still serves, He is a member, Past Chancellor and a. Trustee of Dirigo Lodge Knights of Pythias, in which he has nlied all the chairs, also a member of the Grand Lodge, and an honorary member of Jobn K. Adams Post Grand Army of the Republic. In religious belief he is a Catholic. Mr. Guthrie is a representative citizen of Gorham, honest and painstaking in his business contracts, and always interested in the public welfare. He was appointed Postmaster of the fourth class on April 3, 1893, and took possession of the office July I following. In April 1896 the office was raised to the Presidential class, and Mr. Guthrie was confirmed by the Senate on May 19. In the first year of his incumbency the postal revenue of the office increased thirty- three per cent ; in the second, thirty-five per cent ; in the third forty-six per cent. The increase in money order business has been no less astonishing. In the first year it was thirty-one and a half per cent ; in the second one hundred and thirty-one and three quarters ; in the third on hundred and sixty-eight and a half. Commenting upon these changes the Eastern Argus said : "This shows the result of admirable executive ability and business talent. We congratulate the people of Gorham upon their good fortune in securing so efficient an official, and upon the evidences of growing prosperity which these statistics supply. To Mr. Guthrie we also extend our felicitations. He has broken the record. We doubt if any other postoffice in the United States has within the last three years made a better showing." He was married June 1, ISSI, to Mar- garet E. Manning, a native of Augusta, Maine ; they have two children : Roger Hunt and Annie Elizabeth Guthrie.

HALE, CLARENCE, Lawyer, Portland, was born in Turner, Maine, April 15, 1848, son of James Sullivan and Betsey ( Staples) Hale. His father was a son of David Hale, who came from Old Newbury in Massachusetts and was one of the

MEN OF PROGRESS.

pioneers of Turner, where he settled upon a farm which is still in possession of the family. The ancestral line is traced to Thomas Hale of Walton, Hertfordshire, England, who with his wife Thom- ofle came to America and to Newbury in 1635, banging a letter of introduction to Governor John Winthrop from Francis Kirby, a maternal relative. Mr. Hale's mother came of an old Turner family. He was the youngest of five children : Eugene, the prevent senior United States Senator from Maine ; Hortense, who married Dr. John T. Cushing and now lives on the homestead ; Frederick, who was a Liwyer and partner of Senator Hale, and who died

CLARENCE HALE.

in 1868 ; Augusta, the wife of George Gifford, for many years United States Consul at Basle, Switzer- land; and Clarence, the subject of this sketch. Clarence Hale acquired his early education in the common schools of his native town, was fitted for college at Norway (Maine) Academy, and was graduated at Bowdoin College in 1869, near the head of his class, having received honors in oratory and general studies during his college course. Fol- lowing graduation he studied law with Hale & Emery (his brother, Senator Hale, and Hon. I. A. Emery, now a Justice of the Maine Supreme Judicial Court) at Ellsworth, was admitted to the Bar in October 1870, and in 1871 entered upon the practice of his profession in Portland, where he has enjoyed for

many years a large and lucrative law business. In 1879 Mr. Hale was elected City Solicitor of Portland, and during his three years in that office conducted successfully many important cases for the city. In 1883-5 he represented Portland in the State Legis- lature, where he took high rank as a debater and as a sound, well-equipped lawyer. In politics he is an ardent Republican, but while always ready to give his services in aid of his party, and participating on the public platform in every political campaign since 1872, he has been very little connected with personal politics, devoting himself to the demands of his extensive practice. He is identified, as a Director and Trustee, with the management of some of the large business interests of his city, but the greater part of his time and energies are spent in the labors of his profession, which have included much of the important litigation and legal work of the state. Mr. Hale's tastes are of a literary and scholarly character, and his private library is one of the best and largest in Portland. He has an especial fondness for historical study, and is a valued member of the Maine Historical Society. He was married March 11, 1880, to Margaret Rollins, daughter of Hon. Franklin J. Rollins of Portland ; they have two children : Katharine, born in 1884, and Robert Hale, born in 1889.

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HALEY, GEORGE FRANKLIN, Lawyer, Biddeford, was born in Saco, Maine, January 30, 1856, son of Henry U. and Martha P. (Boothby) Haley. He acquired his early education in the public schools of his native city, studied law, was admitted to the York County Bar in January 1882, and entered into a law partnership with B. F. Hamilton at Biddeford, under the firm name of Hamilton & Haley. This professional relationship existed until June 1891, when the firm was dissolved, and Mr. Haley opened an office by himself in Biddeford, where he is now in active practice. Mr. Haley has been actively engaged in both civil and criminal practice. Among the criminal cases in which he acted as counsel were the celebrated conspiracy cases when several promi- nent citizens of Biddeford were indicted for con- spiracy and for voting repeaters at the city election ; as counsel for defendants in the Biddeford election riot cases, the riots being caused by a decision of the court that about six hundred naturalization papers were void ; counsel for the Biddeford Alder- men indicted in the United States Circuit Court for

MEN OF PROGRESS.

conspiracy to violate the election laws ; counsel for defendants charged with assault with intent to kill, in Biddeford city election in 1894: counsel for Isaac Sawtelle, charged with the murder of his brother Hiram in the State of New Hampshire ;

GEO. F. HALEY.

counsel for Dr. Stevens, charged with murder, and also for I)r. Frost, charged with murder ; counsel for Dr. Smith, indicted for arson; counsel for Dr. Webber, indicted for burning town buildings in Lebanon ; and as counsel for Butler and Bushey, petitioners for Habeas Corpus, upon a hearing of which the law against the transportation of intoxi- cating liquors was declared by the Court to be uncon- stitutional. In politics Mr. Haley is a Democrat, but has never held any office and has never been a candidate for any. In 1892 he was elected City Solicitor and Chairman of the Board of Assessors of the City of Saco, but served only one week, resigning both offices on account of a disagreement with the reigning City Government. He was married in Feb- ruary 1894, to Miss Mariana Gaines of Saco ; they have no children.

HAWKES, JAMES FRANCIS, of Skillin, Hawkes & Company, Wholesale Grocers and Flour Merchants, l'ortland, was born in Windham, Maine, July 31, r$17, son of Samuel Robinson and Hannah ( Mor- rill) Hawkes. The progenitor of the Hawkes family

in this country was Adam Hawkes, who at the age of twenty-two, with seventeen hundred emigrants under Governor John Winship in a fleet of eleven vessels, landed at Salem, Massachusetts, June 12, 1630. He settled in Saugus, Massachusetts, where he built a iog house on the Saugus River, on an eminence which has always borne the name of "Close Hill : " this house was subsequently burned down in midwinter, the family barely escaping with their lives. The line of descent is - Adam (1), John (2), Ebenezer (3), Ebenezer (4), James (5), James (6), Samuel R. (7) and James F. (S). Descendants of Adam Hawkes, and of his brother (?) John, who came to America with him and settled in the Connecticut Valley, gathered in reunion, to the number of five hundred, at the Hawkes farm in Saugus in 1880, erecting their tent on Close Hill, over the site of the ancient dwelling. Ebenezer Hawkes, Sr., succeeded to the old home of his grandfather Adam, and resided there until nearly 1720, when he removed to Marblehead, where he became one of the committee appointed to locate and survey the town of New Marblehead (now

JAMES F. HAWKES.

Windham, Maine). Although he never moved there, he was one of the most active proprietors of the new town, having purchased for four of his grandsons (sons of Ebenezer, Jr.,) a tract of land near Duck Pond, upon which they afterwards

MEN OF PROGRESS.

ettled. He was on the committee to build a bridge over the Presumpscot River at Horse Beef ( now Mallison Falls) in 1735, and in company with three others built a saw mill there ; he died in 1766. His son Ebenezer had four sons - Amos, Ebenezer, Nathaniel and James. The latter was twice married and had by his first wife one son and two daughters. The son, James, married Rebecca Robinson, by whom he had seven children - Samuel R., Solomon, Beisey, Daniel, Lydia, James and Alley ; he built and carried on a carding mill at Windham, dealt in ship timber, and was for a number of years engaged in the grocery trade at Windham Hill, in company with his eldest son, Samuel R., father of the subject of this sketch. James F. Hawkes was educated in the town schools of Windham and at the Maine State Seminary in Lewiston. In 1867, at the age of twenty, he came to Portland and entered the employ of Shaw & Haskell, wholesale grocers, as clerk. After serving in this connection eleven years, he bought Mr. Haskell's interest and continued as partner under the firm name of Shaw, Son & Hawkes, which carried on the business ten years, until 1888. He then bought out Mr. Washburn of Washburn, Skillin & Company, and with Walter A. Skillin formed the present firm of Skillin, Hawkes A. Company, wholesale dealers in flour and groceries, 85 Commerical street. Mr. Hawkes is a Director in the Portland & Ogdensburg Railroad, the Chap- man National Bank of Portland, and the Cumberland Loan and Building Association, of which he is also President. He. entered the city government of Portiand as Councilman in 1880, and served as Alderman in 1883-4, in the latter year being Chairman of the Board. He is Vice-President and was for eight years Secretary of the Mercantile Library Association, and is a charter member and Vice-President of the Portland Club. He is also a prominent Mason, being a member of Atlantic Lodge, Greenleaf Chapter, Portland Commandery and the Thirty-second Degree Scottish Rite. In politics Mr. Hawkes is a Republican. He was married November 7, 1874, to Ardella H. Eames, daughter of Alexander Eames, formerly of Bethel, Maine ; they have one son : Charles Eleazer, born March 26, 1876, who went through the Portland schools and is now in Harvard College.

HAY, HENRY HOMER, Druggist of Portland for more than half a century, was born in Waterford, Oxford county, Maine, October 26, 1820, son of

Dr. Charles and Chloe (Smith) Hay, and died in Portland, August 9, 1895. His great-grandfather, Dr. William Hay, was born in Scotland in 1683, of an eminent family, was educated in Edinburgh as a physician, came to this country in 1708, settled in Reading, Massachusetts, married in 1717 Abigail Boutwell, and died in 1783 aged about one hundred years. . Dr. William Hay's son John was also a physician, located in practice first at Woburn, Massachusetts, removed to Reading, and died in 1815. His son Charles, father of the subject of this sketch, was born in 1769, and was a practicing physician in Cape Elizabeth at the time of the War

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H. H. HAY.

of 1812 ; he subsequently removed to Waterford, where Henry Homer was born, and soon afterward the family came to Portland. The father died three years later, and Henry, the youngest son among twelve children, after attending the public schools began his training for business, first in a flour and grain store and afterwards in the drug trade, which latter became his business for life, in which he continued for nearly sixty years. He was at the age of seventeen when he found his con- genial occupation, for which heredity had partly fitted him, in the drug, paint and dye-stuff estab- lishment of Masters & Company, Portland. In 1841, before he had quite reached his majority, he began business for himself by entering into partner-

MEN OF PROGRESS.

ship with Robert Dresser, under the firm name of H. H. Hay & Company, in the wholesale and retail paint and drug business. His first trip to Boston to buy goods for his store was when he was but twenty-one years of age. He left the old Elm Hotel at nine o'clock one December evening, and rode all night in the mail-stage, crowded closely with nine other passengers, and arrived at Ports- mouth in the morning. From there he took the train to Boston, ordered his goods and had them sent down by water. At that time the wholesale and retail trade in drugs were united in one store almost universally. "There was no law requiring an examination in order to obtain an apothecary's license. A young man who entered one of those stores as a clerk, as, Mr. Hay did, after learning the business was recognized, to be quite as competent to fill a prescription as to measure out a gallon of linseed oil or a pound of white lead. The great variety of stock in a modern drug store was then unheard of. There were only about twenty proprie- tary medicines on the market, and only a half-dozen of them had any sale. At that period if a man wished to get a little paint for his own use in an odd job, he could not buy it all prepared of the druggists ; they sold only the " dry colors," which house-painters bought and took to mill to be ground, as a farmer would take his corn. The large variety of fancy goods now handled by apoth- ecaries was also unknown in those days. Perfum- eries and hair and tooth brushes could not then be bought in any other stores, to be sure, but those articles with cosmetics and a few other toilet articles were the only fancy goods sold. In fact the variety in all departments and features of the druggist's stock has increased a thousand fold. Then a box of herbs put up in quarter-pound packages, consigned to Mr. Hay by the Shakers, containing only about fifty different species, were all that was ordinarily required in the botanic line. Now all vegetation, of whatever nature, in some form, is demanded by the trade, from the con- monest tree of the forest to the lowly clover of the field. Fluid extracts were unthought of and unknown, and the same was true of a thousand other preparations in the form of pills, granules, tablets, etc. It was under these conditions of trade that young Hay began business for himself. Two years after he sold out to his partner and purchased W. W. Lincoln's stock and fixtures in Market Square, and in 1856 he removed to the present triangular block at the junction of Free and Middle

streets, where the business has since been carried on to the present time, and which escaped in the great fire of 1866, though the buildings on the opposite sides of both streets were swept away. The escape was undoubtedly due to the presence of a spring in the cellar, from which forty men brought the water in buckets, and although the signs were burned off the walls, the building and its contents were saved. Here Mr. Hay built up a large business in drugs, paints and dyestuffs, both wholesale and retail, and established one of the finest and best-equipped 'apothecary stores and pharmacies in the State. In 1883 his son Charles M. became a partner and the firm was changed to H. H. Hay & Son, as it has since continued, although in 1892 another son, Edward A., was admitted to partnership. Mr. Hay was an enter- prising and progressive business man, and a public spirited and upright citizen, of genial personality and spotless character. He commanded the con- fidence and respect of the community, and espe- cially among his own craft was he held in much esteem and occupied a prominent position. When the Paint and Oil Club of Portland was formed he was elected its first President, was also one of the Executive Committee of the New England Paint and Oil Club, and was a member of the Maine and National pharmaceutical associations. He was a life member of the Portland Provident Association and member c' the Board of Trade and the Natural History Society of Portland, also for nearly fifty years a member of Atlantic Lodge of Masons and Ligonia Lodge of Odd Fellows. From early life he was a devoted member of the New Jerusalem Church. In politics he was a staunch Republican. Mr. Hay was twice married. His first wife was Josephine, daughter of Calvin Gilson of Portland ; she died a few years after her marriage, leaving a daughter, who became Mrs. Horatio G. Cook of Portland. In 1852, January 24, he was married to Eleanor Seavey, daughter of Marcian Seavey of Portland ; they had six children : Henry Clinton, Mary Adelaide, Charles M., William B., Eleanor S. and Edward Allston Hay, all of whom have survived him.

HILL, FRANK ALPINE, Litt. D., Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Education, was born in Biddeford, Maine, October 12, 1841, son of Joseph S. and Nancy ( Hill) Hill. He traces hts ancestry back on the paternal side to l'eter Hill,

MEN OF PROGRESS.

planter, who came from Plymouth, England, in 1033, and settled on Richmond Island, belonging to Cape Elizabeth ; in 1644 he leased land at Winter Harbor ( Biddeford Pool), and in 1648 he was a member of the court of Lygonia ; his death occurred in 100 ;. The descendants of Peter Hill are now widely scattered. Many of them figured conspicu- mais in the early history of Biddeford and Saco: On the maternal side, the ancestry is also one of Hill-, but not connected, so far as known, with the devendants of l'eter. The parents of Frank A. Hill were born, respectively, in Chatham, New Hunpshire, and Limerick, Maine. They were both len hers before their marriage. After marriage Joseph moved to Spring's Island, Biddeford, where he conducted a prosperous business as a manufac- tter of woolen goods. He died at the age of thirty- vw, leaving three children : Frank A., the eldest, at that time six years of age ; Melvin Joseph, now a Mister in the English High School of Boston ; and Harriet Jane, deceased. Frank A. Hill graduated trom the Biddeford High School at the age of fif- torn, entered Bowdoin College at sixteen, and was graduated at twenty. Like many of his classmates he had to " paddle his own canoe " through college, carning money, in particular, during the long winter vwations then in vogue. During his Freshman and phomore vacations he was an assistant teacher in the Biddeford High School. The remaining two vwations were spent in teaching district schools - one in Biddeford and one in Calais, Maine. During hi- high school and college life, he had several in- terests or " passions" outside of his regular studies, and among them a fondness for the debating club, for out-door botanical exploration and study, and for athletics. He played first base on the College Nine, served as Curator of the Cleveland Natural History Society, was editor of the Bowdoin Bugle, gave the prophecy on Class Day and an oration at Commencement, and was elected to membership in the l'hi Beta Kappa. After graduation in 1862, Mr. Hill became Principal of the Limington Acad- einy, Maine, where he taught one term, and then of the Biddeford High School, in which he was a pupil five years before. In 1864 and 1865 he studied law in the office of Hon. John M. Goodwin of Biddeford. By invitation of the city government of Biddeford, he pronounced the eulogy upon Abraham Lincoln in the local memorial service held there in 1865. The same year he took charge of the Milford (Massachusetts ) High School, and in 1870 he became Principal of the High School in Chelsea,

Massachusetts. In 1886 he was appointed Head- Master of the new English High School in Cam- bridge, which grew from three hundred and fifty pupils to seven hundred during his seven-years con- nection with it ; and for several years he was closely associated with Harry Ellis, Superintendent of the Cambridge Manual Training School for Boys, in the organization and development of that enterprise. This richly equipped and now famous school, founded and maintained by Frederick H. Rindge, is so connected with the English High School that Cambridge boys may receive, conveniently and without charge, academic instruction in the High

FRANK A. HILL.

School and manual instruction in the Training School. In 1893 Mr. Hill was elected Head Master of the New Mechanic Arts High School of Boston, and in 1894 he was chosen Secretary of the Massa- chusetts State Board of Education, which position he now holds. The position of Secretary of the Board of Education was established in 1837, and is practically that of State Superintendent of Schools. The following persons have held the office for an aggregate of nearly sixty years : Horace Mann, 1837-1847 ; Barnas Sears, 1848-1855 ; George S. Boutwell, 1856-1860; Joseph White, 1861-1876 ; John W. Dickinson, 1877-1893. Mr. Hill has always taken an active part in general educational

MEN OF PROGRESS.

work, both literary and executive. He has served as President of the Worcester County Teachers' Association, of the Massachusetts State Teachers' Association, and of the Massachusetts Classical and High School Teachers' Association. As a writer for the press, and as a public lecturer, his work has been received with marked favor. He has done also some school-book work, particularly in editing the revised Holines's Series of Readers, and in adapting for use in schools the Civil Government and the United States History written by John Fiske. Mr. Hill is ex-officio one of the two Con- missioners of the Massachusetts State School Fund, the Treasurer of the State being the other ; he is also a Trustee of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and a Trustee of the State Agricultural College. He is a meniber of the Corporation of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, both by election and ex- officio. In 1893 he was appointed a member of the Schools Examination Board of Harvard University. Bowdoin College at its Centennial Anniversary in 1894 conferred upon him the degree of Litt. D. For two years Mr. Hill was President of the Massa chusetts Schoolmasters' Club, the most flourishing organization of teachers in New England. He has also held the Presidency of the Cambridge Club, a long-established association of leading citizens of Cambridge, for the promotion of civic health and beauty as well as of social enjoyment. Among the traits that may be cited as a partial explanation of Mr. Hill's success, are his versatility in adapting himself to the various demands made upon him, his conscien tious attention to the details of whatever he has to do, his steadfastness in looking for and recognizing the best there is in pupils and in people, his trend towards constructive rather than destructive criticism and work, his evenness and courtesy of attitude in spite of adverse conditions, and a decided progres- siveness of educational spirit, side by side with a profound sympathy with teachers and a genuine recognition of the limitations under which they work. As a teacher, he was uniformly successful and in- spiring, always commanding the respect, love and loyalty of his pupils as well as of all associated with him. As an executive officer, he gave vigor and prosperity to every enterprise he was entrusted with. Except in his early years, when the neces- sities of youth and inexperience forced him, as they force most people, to seek opportunities for work, all of Mr. Hill's positions have come to him literally and absolutely unsought. He was mar- ried in 1866 to Margaretta S. Brackett, of Bidde-

ford. Their three sons, Myron Francis, Lewis Dana and Frederick Brackett Hill, are all graduates of Harvard.

HOPKINS, SAMUEL BUGBEE, President of the People's National Bank of Roxbury (Boston), Massachusetts, was born in Hampden, Penobscot county. Maine, March 23, 1823, son of Benjamin and Anna (Taylor) Hopkins, of old New England ancestry. Receiving his early education in the schools of his native town, his first practical training for business life was as a clerk in a store at

SAMUEL B. HOPKINS.

Hampden, in which capacity he served three years. At the age of eighteen, in 1841, he came to Boston and engaged as clerk with W. R. Lovejoy & Son, wholesale clothing, continuing with them ten years, and then filling a similar position for several years with John Gove & Company, in the same line of business. In 1858 he commenced for himself as a member of the firm of Whitten, Hopkins & Com- pany, and continued in this relation until he retired from active business in 1864. Since then, however, he has started three firms in business, composed of young men who had clerked for him, in each of which he has been a special partner, and all of which have been successful. These firms were respectively Goddard, Smith & Atwood; Davis,

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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 6

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