USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 65
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ALBERT W PAINE.
Minnesota. Connected with this history, it is an interesting fact that Mr. Paine has had occasion to try or argue cases with or before every Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, the District Court and the Supreme Judicial Court of Maine who has had a seat on the Bench since Maine was a state, except- ing only Judge Parris, who left the bench before Mr. Paine's admission ; also before every Judge of the Circuit and District Courts of the United States in Maine during the same time; the latter class including Judges Story, Woodbury, Curtis, Clifford, Ware, Fox, Putnam, Lowell and Webb. Judges Mellen and Preble both left the Bench before his admission to the Bar, but he has had cases to try
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with them both, one of the causes argued at, Wash- ington being argued by Preble as his opponent. Among the cases thus at different times committed to Mr. Paine for trial and argument a few notable ones are cited. The case of Moor against Veazie was one argued by him orally before the Supreme Court at Washington, involving the question of the Cc Istitutional right of the Legislature to grant a monopoly of steam navigation of the Penobscot River : bove Oldtown. The decision of the Court is a leading one, defining the extent of the general government's right to control the navigation of n ers from the sea. The Mallet case, involving the title of homestead farm and mills in Lee, Maine, was another of his Washington cases, in which the Supreme Court of the United States overruled sev- eral decisions of the Court in Maine. His client having removed from the state after several unfavor- able decisions, Mr. Paine commenced suit in the Cir- cuit Court, before Judge Story, with Judge Preble as his contestant. The case having been decided fav- orably, then went to the higher court at Washington, with the same result. In the course of his practice Mr. Paine has had occasion to try causes involving questions of title, or otherwise, respecting almost every dam or mill privilege on the Penobscot River, including the dam at the outlet of Chesuncook Lake at the head of the river, and the several mill privi- leges at Lincoln and Lincoln Centre, Oldtown and Milford, Lower Oldtown, Great Works and Bradley, Upper and Lower Stillwater, Eddington, Basin Mills and Veazie, and the dam at Bangor, besides others on the tributary rivers of Piscataquis and Matta- wamkeag. The right of the city to lay out and es- tablish the public square in front of the Universalist Church, and Pickering Square, in Bangor, was con- tested by the land owners, and suits were accordingly instituted by him to try the right. Other cases were brought to settle the question of right of the city to the shores of the Kenduskeag in front of the streets leading from Exchange street to the stream. All these cases were committed to Mr. Paine's care by the contestants. The right of a town to exempt property from taxation to encourage the introduc- tion of new enterprises, was committed to Mr. Paine by the town of Brewer, with a favorable result to his clients. The extent of the Oldtown Indian rights under their treaty with the state was tried in a suit brought (by Speaker Reed as Attorney General), by order of the Legislature, to recover several small islands along the shore of the river above Oldtown Falls claimed by General Veazie, whom Mr. Paine
represented, also with favorable result. The right of the city of Bangor to appropriate the Hersey fund to the erection of the City Hall was another of the questions committed to Mr. Paine to repre- sent on the part of the city. The question of the constitutionality of the Collateral Inheritance Tax was another. Owing to the very defective and er- roneous original survey and lotting by Park Holland of the territory of Bangor and the neighboring towns of Hampden, Hermion and Newburg, all the vacant and unsold lands in all of which towns, subject to the settler's lots, were conveyed by the state to Bussey, a very great amount of litigation was the re- sult in order to fix the true lines. As his attorney an immense labor was devolved on Mr. Paine during the many years of Bussey's life, in the work of pre- paring and trial of the suits commenced to deter- mine the questions litigated. Few if any persons of the present day are aware of the uncertainty of the lines which encompass the lots thus originally mapped out on the plans of those four towns, and the extent of litigation caused thereby. During his professional practice it has been Mr. Paine's habit, when he found a defect in any statute of the state, to seek a remedy by an appropriate ap- peal to the Legislature for amendment. His first work in that line was to procure an amendment of the statute that forbids attorneys to practice in the Supreme Judicial Court until their admission as counsellors, after three years in the Court of Common Pleas. The most important work in this line was the originating and procuring of the enactment of the statute allowing respondents in criminal suits to be witnesses in their own be- half. Until Mr. Paine's work was done, said right was nowhere existent. Having procured a former student of his (A. G. Lebroke), who had been chosen to a seat in the House, to introduce the measure, he followed it for six successive years, until 1864, when success crowned his efforts; so that in Maine a person could not be sent to the gal- lows or prison without having the right to tell his story to the jury. Having thus succeeded in Maine, he brought the subject before the people of Massachusetts by correspondence with the Daily Advertiser ; his last communication, a report of a murder case in Bangor, where the man's own testi- mony led to his acquittal, proving effectual there. The law thus started soon became universal over all the states of the Union and the United States Gov- ernment, the Canadian Provinces, and across the sea to England and France, and almost everywhere
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else. The law originating and establishing the Insurance Department in Maine, and in connection with that, the laws regulating the whole subject of Savings Banks, are also to be credited to Mr. Paine's efforts, in their introduction, drafting and subsequent work before the Legislative Committees. The Statute of 1887 originating and regulating ille-
gitimate hei.ship, by a repeal of the old doctrine of nullius filius, was readily effected by a forcible presentation of Mr. Paine's draught and a few
hard cases which had occurred in his practice, and whic' he laid before the Judiciary Committee
of the Legislature with success. The statute exempting stockholders from liability for corpo-
ration debts, enacted originally in 1879, is another of the works accomplished by his introduction, intercession and argument. The taxation of insur-
ance companies and railroad corporations by the statutes of 1874 was also of his originating and recommendation. Besides those above mentioned, many other statutes have been originated by him,
among them being those exempting cemetery lots
from attachment; the statute of 1873 providing for compulsory fire inquests; those of 1887 and 1889 amending the law of divorce, and others of less importance. Other of his amendments are
being one allowing the sick and absent voter to now on the tapis seeking enactment, among them
send his prepared vote to the polls by proxy ; another to regulate the descent of intestate personal estate, so that it may vest at death subject to debts,
etc., the same as real estate ; another vastly impor- tant subject is an amendment of the United States Constitution to meet the contingency of death of a President-elect after the electoral vote in January and before his inauguration in March, a contingency for which there is now no remedy, upon the hap- pening of which no Constitutional President could be elected. Congress has so far given attention to the latter subject as to refer it to the appropriate committee, where it is pigeonholed to await some future call. Early in life Mr. Paine resolved that he would not seek or accept any office which would interfere with his work as a lawyer. He steadily adhered to this resolution, until one morning he took from the postoffice a commission as Bank and Insur- ance Examiner, an office the existence of which he had no knowledge and which the Governor had just had created. His first impulse was to decline its acceptance, but on examination he concluded to accept, and did; and as a result he originated the two separate departments of Insurance and Savings
Banks, both of which, after much labor, he suc- ceeded in having adopted by the Legislature. He was thereupon appointed to the office of Insurance Commissioner, which he held for three years, during which time he perfected the practice under the statute. As such Commissioner he was an active promoter of the organization and work of the National Insurance Convention, of which he was the first presiding officer. As Chairman of the principal committee he originated the rule of assets which was adopted and is still the rule governing the subject throughout the United States. Other important subjects devolved on the Insurance Com- missioner from Maine during the sessions of Mr.
Paine's holding the office. The Convention is still in existence, having in 1896 held its twenty-sixth session. In 1874 Mr. Paine held the temporary office of Tax Commissioner of the state, under special appointment, during which time he pro- cured the enactment of the laws already alluded to,
taxing insurance and railroad corporations, having visited a large number of the states on this duty. For some forty years he has held the office of one of the Directors of the Maine Telegraph Company, and since the year 1876 has been its President. Since 1852 he has held the office of Treasurer of the Mount Hope Cemetery Corporation, the pres- ent form of the corporation, composed wholly of lot owners as members, instead of a close stock corporation as it was originally, having been effected by his effort after a somewhat long delay and discussion, a new act of incorporation having been obtained by him to effectuate the object. As senior member of the Penobscot Bar, Mr. Paine now holds the office of President, and since 1849 has been its Treasurer and Librarian ; the present library, with only a few old volumes, having been the result of his purchases, except a few volumes donated. In connection with his profession Mr. Paine has had frequent occasion to have in his care and under his management various parcels of prop- erty, real and personal. Among them were the Davenport lands, lying west of the Theological Sem- inary on both sides of Hammond street in Bangor, wholly unoccupied except as pasture land. The planning of the lands devolved on him, as also the work of preparation for its sale. The laying out, naming and making of the streets was consequently his work, including West Broadway, Hayward and Pond streets, Sixth and Johnson streets, and Cedar street west of Hammond, also Whitney Square. Davenport Square, near the Bangor House, in its
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present form, was of his originating and perfection instead of the old form which admitted of none of the present favorable and prominent features, Mr. Emerson as owner of the adjoining lots concurring with his suggestions. As Treasurer of the Mount Hope Cemetery Corporation having the sale of lots "as part of Mr. Paine's official duty, the Soldiers' C( hetery and Monument were the result of his suggestion, and the duty was devolved on him to originate and perfect the means of their perpetuation by organized corporation. For many years Mr. Daine was the Attorney for the State Land Office, which had its location in Bangor until its removal to Augusta at the commencement of General Conpor's governorship. As such he was obliged to familiarize himself with its work in its various departments, and especially with its records. As such attorney, and as attorney for other clients, it frequently de- volved on him to inform himself of the records in the Land Office in Massachusetts, inasmuch as originally all the lands in Maine (except certain Royal grants) before the separation, and one half afterwards for several years, belonged to that state. The defec- tive and erroneous surveys of the lands made this duty much more imperative and burdensome. After Massachusetts had conveyed all her interest in the lands to Maine, he found in his visits to the Land Office in Boston that the early records and docu- ments as well as plans of lands in all parts of the state were being carelessly managed and subjected to loss and destruction, many of them being in piles on the floor and otherwise subject to early disappearance. By his advice the Land Agent authorized him to take all necessary steps to obtain possession of all the records and papers connected with the lands in Maine then in the Land Office in Massachusetts, and he accordingly went to work. At the first opportunity he procured a Resolve of the State Legislature directing the Land Agent to take the necessary measures to secure the object. With this authority he went to the Legislature of Massachusetts filed the proper petition, which was at once referred to committee, before which he argued his cause with a favorable result. A Resolve authorizing the delivery of the documents as prayed for having been enacted and approved, he went to the Land Office at the Capitol in Boston and made thorough search, with the aid of the Massachusetts Land Agent there, through the several departments, having resolved that he would not give up the hunt until he found the missing record certificates of the settlers' lots in Bangor and other towns,
as these contained the only descriptions of the lots in the survey made by the surveyors, Holland and others. These at length he found, in what may be called the waste closet at the end of the entry under the stairs, into which the dirt of the entry was swept and waste papers were thrown, awaiting the spring cleaning when all would have gone to the damp. Here he found a large amount of valuable papers, including the ones especially desired and many others pertaining to other towns, of more or less importance. The maps and plans and documents, in all, thus recovered, filling two very large drygoods boxes, were packed and sent to the Land Office and under the general authority of Governor Connor and the especial care of the Land Agent have been gradually bound into volumes and preserved for all future time in the Land Office of Maine, a rich inheritance for its cit- izens, the title of whose homes is there largely to be found, in their origin, in all parts of the state. But for the zeal with which Mr. Paine pursued the mat- ter, the greater part would have gone to the dump or met some other equally objectionable fate. Con- nected with Mr. Paine's practice outside of the courts one, perhaps the most important, was his work in connection with the Lewiston manufacturing rights and powers. The several manufacturing corpora- tions of the city of Lewiston having made purchase of the several dams and water privileges among the lakes at the head of the Androscoggin River for the consideration of $350,000, the matter was committed to Mr. Paine to prescribe the plan and make the proper conveyances to effect the object of the purchase. It was readily seen that a proper cor- poration should be organized. A constitutional amendment had recently been adopted forbidding legislative enactment of private corporations, and the law then existing did not admit of corporations being formed by other or minor corporations as stockholders. Certain individuals by his advice were elected by the respective companies as trustees to receive the title and constitute a corporation under the general law, and the Union Water Power Company was accordingly organized. Then a new act of the Legislature was by him drawn to meet the contingency, making the several corporations capable of being its stockholders (being the Private Statute of 1879, Chapter 127), whereupon the sev- eral trustees conveyed their respective shares to the different corporations, including the city water- works, thus constituting the Union Water Power Company, a corporation of corporations under
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which the manufacturing powers of Lewiston have ever since been carried on with perfect harmony and success, the Androscoggin River being under its perfect control with equal flow at all seasons free from floods and drouth. Among the incidents of Mr. Pafffe's busy life is that of being the author of two or th" e books, including " The Paine Geneal- ogy, Ipswich Branch," before mentioned. The- family, as d .. tinct from others of the name, was un- known until his investigations, and the duty devolved on him to give it a name, as he did from the fact that the . riginal immigrant of the family spent the most important part of his life at Ipswich, though afterwards a merchant in Boston. "The New Phil- osophy," an exposition of mental phenomena here- tofore generally ascribed to the imagination, is an- other of the works which it has been Mr. Paine's privilege and pleasure to make public, the basis and origin of such being ascribed to the close connec- tion, now so fully proved, of the spiritual and natural worlds with each other. The " Territorial History of Bangor and Vicinity," a work of not many pages, carrying the city's history back to the days of the Puritan forefathers, is one of the results following his investigations of title in the various suits before alluded to. The manuscript of the work was sub- mitted to the Maine Historical Society, by whom it is published among its numerous volumes. As cor- respondent of the press of various kinds he has through his life had frequent occasion to exercise his writing faculties. He was the only correspond- ent of the Aroostook War, and his letters were pub- lished all over the country and some in England. Mr. Paine is a member of the Bangor, the Maine, the Webster and the Old Colony historical socie- ties, and of the American Institute of Civics. All secret societies of all kinds he has ever ignored and abjured. He was married July 9, 1840, to Mary Jones Hale, a lineal descendant of Rev. John Hale, so famed for his work in connection with the witch- craft delusion in Salem, and who, in company with Mr. Paine's ancestor Rev. Robert Paine, Jr., fore- man of the Grand Jury which found the many in- dictments for witchcraft, were mainly effective of the final dispelling of the delusion, by reason of which his wife was accused. His investigation was the means of establishing the true reason of Mrs. Hale being so accused, she being thus treated for the reason that her husband had abjured the sin, instead of his being led to do so by reason of her being accused ; the order of cause and effect being , thus reversed as heretofore universally represented,
it being generally charged that he was led to aban- don the heresy because she was accused. Their children are : Mary Abby; Selma Ware; Lydia Augusta, the wife of Henry H. Carter ; and Eugenie Hale Paine. Mrs. Carter has two children : Albert Paine Carter and Martha Carter. Mr. Paine has lived to be the oldest member of the Penobscot Bar, and is reputed to be the oldest member of the Bar in New England in continuous practice, except one, Hon. Mr. Roberts of Vermont, who is one year his senior both in age and profession.
PERCY, DAVID THOMAS, Merchant, Bath, is a direct descendant of the Thomas Percy, scion of
DAVID T. PERCY.
the illustrious English house, who came to America in 1730, settling in the Lower Kennebec region of Maine. With that inimigrant came his wife, two sons and three daughters. Of these children the eldest son, Arthur, made his home in Phipsburg, and from his loins spring those of the Percy name in the western part of the state. David, the second son of Arthur, and father of the subject of this sketch, settled in Bath, where he died February 9, 1867. David Thomas Percy, son of David and Elsie (Grace) l'ercy, was born in Bath, AAugust 15, 1831. His mother, who died January 3, 1866, was the granddaughter of James and Jane Grace, who
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came to this country with Alexander Drunimond (Jane's grandfather) in 1729. His maternal grand- father was William Grace, born April 13, 1764, and his grandmother was Sarah (Andrews) Grace, born May 30, 1757. Mr. Percy early evinced an aptitude for mercantile pursuits, in the following of which the major portion of his long, honorable and useful life has been spent. With the exception of the y ars from 1857 to 1859, when he was senior member of the firm of Percy & Marrett in Portland, the scene of his business activity has been chiefly /in Bath. There he is at the head of the extensive firm of D. T. Percy & Sons, which conducts a dry- goods, carpet and crockery business - an establish- ment of high repute and one of the largest in Maine. Taking a wide and intelligent interest in public affairs and commercial growth, Mr. Percy has for years been a prominent and active member of the Board of Trade of his native city and a leader in all judicious measures designed to promote its prosperity and enlarge its healthy growth. He is now Trustee and Vice-President of the Bath People's Safe Deposit and Savings Bank. He is also deeply concerned in religious and philanthropic movements, having been Deacon of the Winter Street (Congre- gational) Church for years, and Superintendent of its Sabbath School. There he has proved himself forward in all good work, liberal in all benevolent movements, a staunch friend to missions and an active and earnest worker in the temperance cause. In a word, he emphatically is a good citizen, the material from which communities and nations are founded. In politics Mr. Percy is classed as a Democrat, that being the party of his predilections, but not ranked as a partisan; ever preferring the great interests of the country and the advancement of its prosperity to the triumph of faction. He has been a member of both branches of the Bath city government, and the candidate of the minority party for the highest honors within its gift. Mr. Percy was married January 5, 1854, to Adriana Bosworth, daughter of Captain Robert Bosworth. Of this union seven children have been the issue, of whom six sons are living : Frederick B., graduated at Yale and the Boston Medical University, and in practice at Brookline, Massachusetts ; George E., graduated at the Bath High School and the Boston Medical University, in practice at Salem, Massa -. chusetts ; Frank H., manager of the crockery store of the firm of D. T. Percy & Sons, Bath ; Augustus A., who conducts the business of the drygoods and carpet departments of the firm; Arthur S., in the
humber business in Boston ; and David Thomas, Jr., graduate of Exeter, the Harvard Medical College and the Boston Medical University, now settled in Arlington, Massachusetts.
SANBORN, MOSES LENDSLEY. Lawyer, Boston, was born in Baldwin, Cumberland county, Maine, September 30, 1858, son of Ephraim and Sarah (Walker) Sanborn. After attending the town schools in Denmark, Maine, at the age of fourteen he entered Fryeburg ( Maine) Academy, pursued his studies there for four terms and then entered
M. L. SANBORN.
the Bridgton (Maine) High School, from which he graduated first in the class of 1878. Entering Bow- doin College in July of the latter year, he remained there for three years and then transferred to Dart- mouth College, where he entered the Senior class ' and graduated in 1882. Following graduation he taught High School for three years in Plainfield, Vermont, and afterwards in Denmark, Maine. Sub- sequently he read law with Mattocks, Coombs & Neal in Portland, and was admitted to the Cumber- land Bar in Portland on May 20, 1886, and to the Suffolk Bar in Boston on July 20, 1886. Since the latter date Mr. Sanborn has practiced his profession in Boston, where he has established a large and lucrative law business. In August 1893 he defended
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and won the suit brought against E. W. Walker & Company by Emily A. Corliss, widow of George H. Corliss, the great inventor, which settled the right of publishers and others to publish portraits and biographical sketches of public men. Mr. Sanborn is a Republican in political principles, and was a member of the convention at Lewiston in ISS6 that nominated Joseph R. Bodwell for Governor of Maine. In ISSo he took the census of Denmark, Maine, under General Francis A. Walker. He is a member of Hugh de Payens Commandery Knights Tem, ar, of Melrose, where he resides, and while in Dartmouth College was a member of the Theta Delta Chi fraternity. He was married September 16, 1896, to H. Bertha Falconer, of Boston.
SHANNON, RICHARD CUTTS, Representative in Congress from the Thirteenth District of New York, was born in New London, Connecticut, February 12, 1839, son of Charles T. and Jane Randall (Stanwood) Shannon. He is descended from Nathaniel Shannon (1655-1723), who settled in Boston, Massachusetts, about 1685, and was the first Naval Officer of the Port of Boston, serving from 1701 to 1723, when he died and was buried in the Old Granary Cemetery on Tremont street. Congressman Shannon is also descended from Richard Cutts (died 1679) of Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and from Chief Justice William Vaughan of New Hampshire (died 1719), through female lines of those families. His great-great-grandfather, Cutts Shannon, was a lawyer of some prominence in Portsmouth, and married Mary Vaughan, daugh- ter of Lieutenant-Governor George Vaughan of New Hampshire (1713-14) whose son William Vaughan was the projector and one of the leading spirits of the expedition against Louisburg, Nova Scotia. His great-grandfather Captain Thomas Shannon served as a soldier in the War of the Revolution. His grandfather Dr. Richard Cutts Shannon, for whom he was named, who was a graduate of Harvard in the class of 1795, and settled in Saco, Maine, in 1800, had previously served as Surgeon in the United States Navy. His father, Charles T. Shannon, was born in Saco, in 1802. Born of poor parents, whose life experience was little more than a con- stant struggle for existence, the subject of this sketch was early taught the great lesson of self-reliance, which he considers worth more than all the knowl- odlge acquired in school or college. He received his general education in the public schools and at
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