USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 68
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TRUE, CLARENCE FAGAN, Architect, New York, was born August 17, 1860, of an old Maine family. The place of his birth was Lynn, Massachusetts, and his parents were Reverend Edward Hyde and Susan Elizabeth (Fagan) True. He is a descendant of Henry True, who came from England in 1634, and landed at Salem, Massachusetts. Subsequently the family moved to Maine, settling in Poland. His paternal grandfather, Rev. Charles Kittredge True, D. D., a Methodist clergyman, was born in Portland, Maine. Clarence F. True acquired his early educa- tion in the public schools of Boston and at private school in New York, to which city he moved when sixteen years of age. Studying for the architectural profession, he received his preliminary training in the office of R. M. Upjohn, architect, and later as draughtsinan in several New York offices. He
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started in business as architect in 1889, and has continued to the present time with rare success. His work has consisted chiefly of building private residences on the West side of New York city, which he. enthusiastically pronounces " the most beautiful spot in the world." He is a member of the Reform Club of New York, and in politics is a Democrat.
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CLARENCE F. TRUE.
He was married in 1886 to Marie Schiller, of College Point, New York ; they have two children : Dorothy and Roland Schiller True.
WINSLOW, EDWARD BRACKETT, Ex-President of the Portland Board of Trade, was born in that part of Westbrook which now forms the city of Deering, Cumberland cou .ty, Maine, September 20, 1846, son of John T. and Mary K. (Noyes) Winslow. The Winslow family were among the early settlers of Falmouth, now Portland. They were distinguished Quakers, and were instrumental in forming the first Quaker society in Falmouth, and in building the first Quaker meeting-house, which long stood a familiar landmark on the banks of the Presumpscot River in that town. David Winslow, great-grand- father of the subject of this sketch, was the leading representative of the society there for many years. The grandfather, Moses Winslow, was long and fav-
orably known as a prominent business man of Port- land. The father, John T. Winslow, was for many years identified with the manufacture of stoneware in Portland, iu the maintenance and development of which industry the son has been chiefly engaged. Edward B. Winslow received his early education in the public schools of his native town and at the Westbrook Seminary, and after graduation at once entered upon the active dnties of business, entering the employ of the Portland Stoneware Company, with which his father was connected. The line of producis of the concern was at that time limited chiefly to the manufacture of drainpipe and coarse stoneware, in a small way and by a slow process. The young man was from the start imbued with the energy and spirit of enterprise that have been con- spicuous all through his business career, and his services soon began to show results in the increased sales and business of the company. His unusual business abilities becoming apparent to his em- ployers, he was taken into the company and made manager, principally of their outside business. For the past fifteen years he has been the executive head of this establishment as Manager, and as a member of the firm of Winslow & Company, proprietors of the Portland Stoneware Company. In that time the business has grown from a small manufacturing establishment employing a few hands, to a great in- dustry giving employment to a large force of work- men and attachés. The old and slow hand-methods have been supplanted by machinery and the most approved processes, the results of which are seen in a great and continually extending variety of prod- ucts, and the concern has become known far and wide as among the leading manufacturers of clay goods in this country. Mr. Winslow's business qual- ities have been too conspicuous to permit his ser- vices to remain unsought outside of his private interests and in a public capacity. He is President of the Central Wharf Towboat Company, Director in the First National Bank and the Union Safe De- posit and Trust Company, a Director in the Casco and the Portland loan and building associations, member of the Board of Water Commissioners, and was for two terms a member of the Police Commis- sion. He was also President of the Portland Board of Trade for four years ( 1892-96), in which he has for several years been an efficient member of the Committee on Manufactures, the most important standing committee in the Board. He has always taken a particularly earnest interest in helping to promote the establishment of new industries and
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the fostering of old ones in his city and throughout the state, and at all times has deeply at heart what- ever may tend to advance the interests and enhance the growth and prosperity of Portland and of Maine. Mr. Winslow served in the city government of Port- laand as a member of the Board of Aldermen in 1881-2-3, and in the latter year as Chairman of the Board. In politics he is a Democrat. On the sev- enteenth of June 1896, Mr. Winslow was, without solicitation from him and contrary to his wishes, unanimously nominated for Governor by the Demo- cratie State Convention on a platform containing a gold-st.ndard plank. He was also a Delegate to the
E. B. WINSLOW.
Democratic National Convention, where he sup- ported the gold policy. The outcome of that con- vention, being a virtu .I disruption of the Democracy, and Mr. Winslow finding himself unable to stand upon a silver platform, he declined to accept the gubernatorial nomination. His position is indicated in the following extract from his letter of declina- tion : "The platform adopted by the State Con- vention, which has declared for a single gold standard, is plain, and it was upon that platform that I was nominated ; and I could not, even had I so desired, accept this nomination under any other circumstances than to stand firmly upon the plat- forin made by the Democratic party of Maine. . . . It is very evident that if I wish to secure the vote
of the Democratic party I shall be obliged to har- monize with both the gold and silver platforms, and that I cannot do under any circumstances." The letter of declination was received by the Maine Democracy with deep regret, though it was recog- nized by political friends and foes alike as an eminently judicious step to take. His frank and manly course won for him the approval of conserva. tive men in both parties. In March 1897, the Democracy of Portland nominated Mr. Winslow for Mayor. He was supported by many Republican business men, and ran far ahead of his party ticket, failing of election by a slender adverse majority. Mr. Winslow is one of the commission which pre- pared the draft for the proposed new city charter - the charter submitted to the voters of Portland this present year, 1897. He was married in 1871 to Alice J. Leavitt, daughter of James A. Leavitt of Portland ; they have no children. Mr. Winslow is a resident of Portland, but his summer home is in a handsome cottage on his fine farm in Deering, where he takes great pride and interest in cultivating fruits, shrubbery and flowers, and where, amid the luxuries of rural life, he finds great enjoyment in the entertainment of his friends.
MAXCY, FERDERICK EDWARD, M. D., Washing- ton, District of Columbia, was born in Gardiner, Maine, May 15, 1853, son of Ira and Sarah A. (Fuller) Maxcy. He is a grandson of Smith Maxcy, son of Josiah Maxcy, whose father, Lieutenant Ben- jamin Maxcy, was an officer in the War of the Rev- olution. His mother was a daughter of Thomas and Abigail (Day) Fuller. Thomas Fuller was a son of Edward Fuller, a direct descendant of Edward Fuller the Puritan, of Mayflower fame. The subject of this sketch received his early education in the public schools of his native city, graduating at the Gardi- ner High School at the age of fifteen. Subsequently he attended Westbrook (Maine) Seminary for two years, and Cooper Institute in New York for a similar term. Later he entered upon a course of study for the medical profession, and graduated from the Maine Medical School at Bowdoin College in July 1879. Following graduation he was con- nected for a year with the Maine General Hospital in Portland as Interne, and in August 1880 com- menced the practice of medicine in Saco, Maine, in which city he continued for ten years. In October 1891 he moved to Washington, District of Columbia, where he has established a successful practice. Dr.
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Maxcy is Visiting Physician to the Freedmen's Hospital in Washington, and is a member of the Medical Society and the Medical Association of the District of Columbia, also of the Maine State Medi- cal Society. He is identified with the Masonic fraternity, acting as Surgeon to De Molay Mounted Commandery Knights Templar, and is a member of Lafayette Lodge, Eureka Chapter, De Molay Commandery, Columbia Lodge of Perfection, and of the Thirty-second degree Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. In politics Dr. Maxcy is a Republi-
FREDERIC E. MAXCY.
can. He was married January 18, 1883, to Estelle A. Gilpatric, of Saco, Maine ; they have two chil- dren : Caro Estelle and Kenneth Fuller Maxcy.
DAVIS, DANIEL FRANKLIN, Governor of Maine in 18So, was born in Freedom, Waldo county, Maine, September 12, 1843 ; died in Bangor, Maine, January 9, 1897. He was the eldest son and second child of Moses Franklin and Mary ( French) Davis. His father, the Rev. Moses F. Davis, was one of the pioneers and leaders of the Christian Church in Eastern Maine, and was a preacher of that faith and order from the age of nineteen to the day of his death in March 1874. He was of English descent, his progenitor in America, Colonel
James Davis, immigrating in the seventeenth cen- tury to New Hampshire, his descendants settling largely in that state and Massachusetts. The mother of Governor Davis, Mary French, was connected with the Frenches and Brewsters of the old colony of Massachusetts Bay, and was a native of Exeter, Penobscot county, Maine. Daniel F. Davis received his early education in the common schools, mainly in Stetson, to which town his father removed in 1854 ; and in home instruction, under his father, who had been a teacher by profession, assisted by his mother. He continued his studies while at work on the farm, in which he had to engage much at home and elsewhere, as the fam- ily were in straitened financial circumstances. In 1863 he effected an entrance into the academy at East Corinth, but had been there only a few weeks when he left school to join a company of troops for the Civil War, then being raised at his old home. Enlisting as a private soldier on October 15, 1863, he served until January 1865, at the close of the war. He had kept up his studies to some extent in camp, and on return from the army entered the academy at East Corinth, where he was a pupil for about a year, interrupting his course only to teach school in winter. He then attended the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill for about a year and a half, teaching again winters. He had also during this time some very competent private in- struction under Professor Sawyer of the Corinna (Maine) Academy. In the winter of 1867 he began to read law with the Hon. Lewis Barker, then a resident of Stetson, was admitted to the Bar of the state the following year, and commenced practice in East Corinth in August 1869. After holding some local offices and taking the stump from time to time for the Republican party, he was elected to the lower House of the State Leg- islature in 1874 and took an active part in leg- islation and the discussion of pending questions. Four years thereafter he represented Penobscot county in the State Senate, where he took a leading position. The same year he was more actively in the Republican canvass than ever before, speaking in several counties of eastern Maine. As a member of the Maine Senate in 1878 Mr. Davis attracted general attention to himself by an able, exhaustive and effective speech he made on the contested election case of Madigan vs. Burleigh. In 1879 he was made the Republican candidate for Governor, and of the 138,Soo votes thrown received 68,967, not a requisite majority ; accordingly the election was
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thrown into the Legislature, which apparently was anti-Republican. This Legislature was found by the Supreme Court to have been illegally organized, and the one which succeeded it elected Mr. Davis Governor. He made a very able Chief Executive and commanded the respect of all. The Green- back sentiment, however, did not immediately subside and his adherents succeeded in effecting a fusion with the Democrats which resulted in the election of Ge __ sral Harris M. Plaisted, who received one hundred and sixty-nine more votes than Mir. Davis. The latter then retired to private life, but his extensi : law practice and large business interests brought him frequently to public notice, and he was
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DANIEL F. DAVIS.
a familiar figure at legislative hearings on matters pertaining to wild lands. in which he was not only largely interested on h., own account, but also as the representative of other large interests. In January 1881 Governor Davis opened a law office in Bangor, in partnership with Charles A. Bailey, late County Attorney, under the firm name of Davis & Bailey. Under the Arthur administration he served as Collector of the l'ort of Bangor, filling that office with credit to himself and the utmost satisfaction to his supporters. Subsequently he entered into extensive lumbering operations with Senator Eugene Hale, Hon. William Engel, Clarence , Ilale, the late Frank Gilman and others. These
great operations grew in magnitude constantly, at times even overshadowing the Governor's law prac- tice. At the time of his death he was deeply engaged in lumbering interests. His well-nigh- superhuman labors in this way, in an endeavor to carry on both his law practice and his timberland affairs at one and the same time, were the final cause of his death, which took place January 9, 1897. He was regarded as one of the ablest business men in the state, and had a large and devoted circle of friends. Governor Davis was married in East Corinth, New Year's Day 1867, to Miss Laura, only daughter of William and Mary (Ireland) Goodwin, of that place. They had eight children, five of whom are still living : William Franklin, Frederick Hall, Margaret Ellen, Edward Ireland and Willis Roswell Davis.
DIX, CHARLES BRANSCOMBE, of Mckay & Dix, ship brokers and commission merchants, New York, was born in Tremont, Mount Desert Island, Han- cock county, Maine, March 14, 1836, son of George and Sarah (Pomeroy) Dix. He is of Scotch and French descent. His father, a native and lifelong resident of Maine, was a sea-captain, of Dixmont, Penobscot county, so named from one of his ances- tors, Dr. Dix, who was one of the original propri- etors of the town. His mother was a native of Mount Desert, Maine. His early education was received in the public schools of Mount Desert. At the age of fourteen, in 1850, he went to sea, and at twenty became commander of a vessel, in which capacity he sailed for several years. In 1877 he went to New York city and engaged in shipbuilding, and although his business has since branched out into various commercial lines, he still remains a builder and owner of ships in the metropolis. He has long been a member of the firm of Mckay & Dix, ship brokers and commission merchants, in South street, his associate being Captain Laugh- lin Mckay, a native of Nova Scotia, who like his partner has for years followed the sea. A lead- ing feature of their extensive business is their importation of cryolite from Greenland and export- ing general American merchandise to that country. The deposit of cryolite at Ivigtut, in Greenland, stands unique and alone. There is no other work- able mine or quarry like it in the workl. Pure cry- olite, to the ordinary observer, is a white stone. It is a good deal like white quartz and something like ice that has a mixture of snow in it. Until
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1864 the entire product of this deposit went to Europe. Then the Pennsylvania Salt Manufactur- ing Company of Natrona and Philadelphia, Pennsyl- vania, began to import it. The difficulty which they fast encountered was to get the cryolite from Ivigtut
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C. B. DIX.
to Natrona. When Messrs. Mckay and Dix organ- ized their business in New York in 1891 they pro- posed to the Pennsylvania company to build as fast as possible suitable vessels that would carry all the cryolite obtainable, having had considerable experi- ence in the Greenland trade and knowing what kind of vessels were needed. Their proposition was accepted, and the firm have since built twelve vessels, and under the management of this firm the annual importations are from eight thousand to ten thousand tons. By certain processes cryolite, the fluoride of sodium and aluminum, is converted into sal soda or carbonate of soda, into bi-carbonate of soda, into alum and into caustic soda. To chemists the processes are said to be extremely interesting, because they are simple and because the products are absolutely pure, the alum from cryolite being used in the manufacture of opaque glass; mixed with sand and oxide of zinc, a glass is made that very closely resembles porcelain and is yet almost as tough as iron. Messrs. McKay & Dix are
enabled, by reason of their vast practical experi- ence, ample resources and widespread connections, to conduct all operations under the most favorable auspices, handling all consignments with scrupulous care. Industry, capability and attention have placed them in the front rank of the shipping and commission trade of the metropolis. Both mem- bers of the firm are residents of Brooklyn, in the active prime of life, and enjoy the respect and con- fidence of their fellow-men in all the various rela- tions of life. Captain Dix is a member of the Montauk Club of Brooklyn, and in politics is a Democrat. He was married October 17, 1857, to Almira T'. Verrili, daughter of Captain John Verrill, a shipmaster of Mount Desert, Maine.
DUNCAN, HENRY EFFINGHAM, Musician, New York, was born in Brooklyn, New York, June 11, 1855, son of Charles C. and Hannah J. (Tibbets)
H. E. DUNCAN.
Duncan. His father, whose family for several gen- erations had lived in Bath, Maine, was a well-known unique in this respect. Cryolite has further been . shipmaster, retiring from the sea in 1854. Ilis mother was a native of Rockland, Maine. His early education was received at private schools in this country and abroad. Later he took a commercial course at the Polytechnic Institute in Brooklyn,
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subsequently attended the Law School of the Uni- versity of the City of New York, from which he received the degree of Bachelor of Laws in ISSo, and in the same year was admitted to the Bar. In the meantime, having shown marked musical talent at a very early age, he studied music under well-known teachers, and later was a favorite pupil of Zundel, under whom Le studied the organ, composition and orchestration. In 1873, when but eighteen years of age, he rec ived the appointment of Organist of the Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn, of which the Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs was and still is the Pastor. From ISS_ to 1887 he resided in Portland, Maine, in which city he played at several of the leading churches, organized and conducted the Portland Philharmonic Orchestra, and was prominent in musical circles of the state. In 1892 he accepted the position of Organist and Choirmaster of Grace Church in Brooklyn. In May 1894 he was selected to organize a chorus of three hundred and fifty boys and men, selected from the leading choirs of that city, and to conduct a musical service in commem- oration of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Con- secration of the Bishop of Long Island, on which occasion a full orchestra and organ were brought into use. The following year he was tendered and accepted the appointment of Organist and Choir- master of the Church of Heavenly Rest, Fifth Avenue, New York, which position he now fills. For the past two seasons ( 1895-6) he has conducted the chorus of the Seidl Society at their concerts at Brighton Beach, and at the present time he is the Musical Director of the Wagner Chorus. Mr. Duncan is one of the founders of the American Guild of Organists, and is a member of the Lotos Club of New York. He was married September 3, 1879, to Emma F. McLellan, daughter of Charles H. Mclellan, of Bath, Maine.
BROWN, AUGUSTU, HOMER, M. D., New York, was born in Topsham, Sagadahoc county, Maine, April 14, 1860, son of Captain Joseph and Lydia A. (Merritt) Brown. He is of English descent, and is a grandson of Jonathan Brown of Bowdoinham Sagadahoc county, Maine, who accumulated a good property for those times in building vessels and sailing them in the coastwise and West India trades, and died at the age of fifty-seven years. He served in town affairs and as a Representative to the State Legislature, and was a man of great integrity, being a Calvinist or so-called old-school Baptist and very
strict in his moral and religious principles. His family consisted of eight children -six girls and two boys, Jonathan and Joseph. Joseph, father of the subject of this sketch, was a shipmaster by pro- fession, and was washed overboard from his ship and lost at sea. He was of high character and intelligence, and accumulated quite a property. The maternal ancestors of Dr. Brown, the Merritts, were of old Puritan stock. Receiving his early ed- ucation in the public schools, Augustus H. Brown prepared for college at St. Nicholas Academy in Lewiston, Maine, and graduated from Bowdoin College in 1884. Adopting the profession of medi-
A. H. BROWN.
cine, he pursued his studies and received his pro- fessional training at the Harvard Medical School in Boston, the College of Physicians and Surgeons in New York, and Bellevue Hospital in the latter city. Since 1888 Dr. Brown has held the position of Med- ical Examiner for the Civil Service Commission of Massachusetts and the City of New York. He was married in May 1890 to Mary Jeannette Robson, of New York.
CARTER, ROBERT GOLDTHWAITE, Soldier, Teacher and Author, of Washington, District of Columbia, was born in Bridgton, Maine, October 29, 1845, son of Henry and Elizabeth Jane (Caldwell) Carter.
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He is ninth in descent from Edward Rainsford, born September 10, 1609, one of the founders of Massa- chusetts Bay Colony 1630, Founder and Ruling Elder of the Old South Church, died August 10, 1680, brother of Sir Richard Rainsford, Bart., of Dallington Manor, England, Lord Chief-Justice of the King's Bench 1676-8, born 1605 at Staver- ton, near Daventry, England, died February 17, 167., and fifth in descent from Colonel Thomas Goldthwaite of Boston, Secretary of War of the Province of Massachusetts Bay 1761-3, bom in Boston, January 15, 1717-18, died at Walthamstow, E-oland, August 31, 1799. He is also fifth in
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R. G. CARTER.
descent from Major Eleazar Hamlin of Harvard and Westford, Massachusetts, a Revolutionary soldier, born 1732, in Eastham, Massachusetts, died in Harvard, that state, December 1, 1807, and who was the grandfather of Hannibal Hamlin, Vice- President of the United States ; seventh in descent from Rev. Thomas Carter, one of the first settlers and first minister of Woburn, Massachusetts, in 1642, born 1610, graduated at St. John's College in Cambridge, England, came from St. Albans, Hert- fordshire, in the ship Planter, and died September 5. 1684 ; and also seventh in descent from John Caldwell of Ipswich, Massachusetts, born probably about 1624 in the North of England, died Septem-
ber 28, 1602. The subject of this sketch was the youngest of four brothers who served in the Civil War; one was at the First Battle of Bull Run, another at Appomattox, the other two coming be- tween those events. Their father was Judge Henry Carter of Haverhill, Massachusetts, formerly a law- yer of Maine, Editor of the Portland Advertiser 1847-57, member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives and Senate, Chairman of the Mili- tary Committee of the latter in 1863, for many years Judge of the District Municipal Court of Haverhill, and now eighty-two years of age. One brother, who died February 10, 1877, was a graduate of West Point, a Brevet-Major in the United States Army, and Captain of the Eleventh United States . Infantry when he left the service in 1870 to engage in business. Another brother, who died January 22, 1892, was a Sergeant in the First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. The third was Sergeant-Major of the Twenty-second Massachusetts, and was com- missioned as First Lieutenant, but declined to mus- ter ; he is now an Inspector in the Boston Custom House. Robert G. Carter was educated in the public schools of Portland, Maine, and the United States Military Academy at West Point, from which he graduated June 15, 1870. At the age of sixteen, on August 5, 1862, he enlisted as private in Com- pany H of the Twenty-second Massachusetts Regi- ment (Wilson's regiment), and served until October 1864. He was in every battle and skirmish in which the regiment participated while he served with it, including Antietam, Fredericksburg, Chan- cellorsville and Gettysburg. The regiment lost two hundred and sixteen killed on the field of battle, and stands Number Thirteen on the list of Union infantry regiments, with fifteen and a half per cent losses (Fox's Regimental Losses). His record of service included the first Maryland campaign, which culminated in the Battle of Antietam, September 16-17, 1862 ; in the advance of the Army of the Potomac and skirmishing with the enemy at Burn- side's Bridge on the night of September 18; in the advance through Sharpsburg towards Shepardstown and Blackford's Ford, September 19 ; in the engage- ment at Blackford's Ford, September 20; on the march to Fredericksburg, Virginia, October 31 to November 21 ; covering Snicker's Gap, November 2-6; Battle of Fredericksburg, December 13-14; rear guard of the army December 16; secret recon- noissance to Richards' and Ellis' fords, Rappahan- nock River, December 30, 1862, to January 1, 1863 : action at Richards' Ford, December 31, 1862, and
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