Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine, Part 74

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 74

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

occurred in the personnel of the firm. In 1881 they organized as Poor, Oliphant & Company, changed to Poor & Oliphant in 1882, and took the name of Poor, White & Company in 1883, upon the accession of B. Ogden White, who had been for twenty years the Secretary of the New York Stock Exchange. In 1884 the name was again changed to Poor, White & Greenough, by accession of John Greenough, a classmate of Mr. Poor in Harvard, and who for nerly had been a leading merchant in the South American business, in which he had accumu- lated a fortune. In 1886 the name was changed to Poor & Greenough, which represents its personnel at the present time. The firm has always managed its affairs with prudence, energy and ability, and is now prominent in Wall street, both partners being rated as millionaires. It represents a number of important foreign interests and corporations, deals largely in railway and other securities, having issued upwards of one hundred millions of railway loans, has borne a part in important railroad re-organiza- tions, and has acted as financial agents for many railway corporations. Mr. Poor purchased an interest in the Stock Exchange, October 2, 1890. He is at the present time President of the Kansas City & Pacific Railway ; Member of the Executive Committee of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, and Chairman of the Sherman, Shreveport & Southern Railway ; Director of the Atlantic Coast Electric Rail- way Company and Staten Island Electric Railway Company, also a Director of the United States Cas- ualty Company and the Consolidated Ice Company, and Director of the Bank of the State of New York. In May 1897, Mr. Poor was elected to succeed Charles S. Fairchild as Treasurer of the United States Casualty Company. He is an ardent student and a great lover of books, and has accumulated one of the finest private libraries in the state of New York. Among the clubs of which he is or has been a mem- ber are the Union, Union League, Harvard, Univer- sity, Players', Down Town, Riding and Driving, Racquet and Tennis, Tuxedo, Country, Lawyers', Aldine, Grolier, Barnard, Lotos, City. Vaudeville, Arkwright and Lawrence; the Seawanhaka Corin- thian and American Yacht Clubs ; Rockaway Hunt- ing, New York Athletic and Mendelssohn Glee clubs of New York city, and the Algonquin Club of Boston. He was first President in 1894 of the Good Government Club, and is Treasurer of the Parmachenee Club, a sporting club of Maine. From public spirit and interest in their objects he became a member of the New York Historical

Society, life member of the New England Society, and the American Institution of Fine Arts, a member of the New York Geographical and Statistical Society, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Amer- ican Museum of Natural History, the New York Botanical Garden and the Hakluyt Society of Lon- don, and a member of the Board of Managers of the New York Zoological Society. He is also a Director of the Symphony and Oratorio societies and a member of the Musical Art Society. By virtue of lineal descent from Ezekiel Merrill, above referred to, he is also a member of the Sons of the American Revolution of New York State. In politics Mr. Poor is a Republican. He was married February 4, ISSo, to Constance Brandon, of New York ; they have four children : Henry V., born ISSo; Edith, born 1882 ; Roger, born 1883, and Sylvia, born 1892.

RAYMOND, HARLAN M., Postmaster of Cumber- land Mills 1884-9, was born in Charlestown, Massa- chusetts, February 5, 1842, son of Samuel T. and Elizabeth (Andrews) Raymond. He is a grandson of John T. Raymond, a native and lifelong resi- dent of Lyman, York county, Maine. His father, Samuel T. Raymond, was born and reared in Lyman, and at the age of nineteen went to Boston and secured employment in a brickyard. Soon after he became a clerk in a grocery store in Charlestown, where he continued for five years, and for the next five years was engaged in that place in business for himself. Returning to Maine, he bought the farm at Cumberland Mills on which his son Harlan now lives, and three or four years later engaged in the grocery business, successfully conducting both store and farm for several years. Subsequently he became associated with George and Lewis P. Warren and Joseph Walker in the grain trade in Saccarappa (now Westbrook), in which he continued for a time, and then retired to his farm, devoting the rest of his life to agriculture. He was an enterprising man, always on the alert for profitable investments. During the war period he furnished large quantities of beef for the army, killing a hundred animals a week on an average. He also built a number of houses at Cumberland Mills, which he rented. He was a member of the Masonic fraternity, being a Knight Templar of Port- land Commandery, and in politics was a Democrat. He died in 1876, at the age of sixty-two. His wife, Elizabeth Andrews of Charlestown, Massa- chusetts, died in 1892. Of their three children,

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

two are living : Harlan M., the subject of this sketch ; and Addie M., wife of H. W. Gage of Portland. Harlan M. Raymond was educated in the public schools of Westbrook, and at the Maine academies of Gorham and Fryeburg. He worked for a while on the home farm, and for three years managed a milk route between Westbrook and Portland. He then entered the packing establish- ment of J. Winslow Jones in Westbrook, learning to make cans for putting up sweetcorn and other garden products, and retained his connection with this concern for several years after completing lis term of apprenticeship. He next entered the

H. M. RAYMOND.

emp oy of the Portland Packing Company, also in Westbrook, with whom he continued for eight years. The death of his father occurring at this time, he took charge of the home farm, but in the following fall renewed his connection with the Portland Packing Company, acting as Superinten- dent for four years, at the same time raising good crops of hay and sweetcorn on his farm. In Sep- tember 1884 he was appointed l'ostmaster of Cum- berland Mills, and closing up his other business, gave his whole attention to the duties of that office until April 1889, when he returned to the active management of his farm. Although successful as a farmer, Mr. Raymond considered his property

too eligibly located for building purposes, and therefore too valuable, to be devoted wholly to agricultura! uses. Consequently he has intersected it with streets and cut up a portion into house lots, many of which he lias sold, reserving about forty acres of intervale and twenty of pasture land from the original tract of one hundred acres. Mr. Ray- mond is identified with various fraternal orders and organizations, being a member of Temple Lodge and Eagle Chapter of Masons, Westbrook ; St. Albans Commandery Knights Templar, Portland ; Pequawket Tribe of Red Men, Westbrook ; and Westbrook Commandery of the Order of the Golden Cross. In politics he has always been a Democrat. He was married in April 1865 to Hattie Swan, daughter of Kaleb and Abbie Swan of Brownfield, Maine, and granddaughter of Wil- liam Swan, a native of Bethel, Maine, and a Drum- Major in the Revolutionary Army. They have had eight children, of whom seven are living: King, engaged in the drug business in Westbrook ; S. J., employed in the Cumberland Paper Mills, West- brook; William W .; Frank E .; Herbert ; Richard G. and Minnie Raymond.

STAPLES, GEORGE P., head of the carpet and furniture house of George P. Staples & Company, Boston, was born in Limerick, York county, Maine, October 4, 1845, son of Marshall and Harriet (Tilton) Staples. His father was a native of Lim- ington, Maine ; his mother was born in Deerfield, New Hampshire. He acquired his early education in the common schools and academy of his native town, attending the latter but one year, during which he paid his tuition by work about the institution. His school instruction terminated when he was thirteen years old, at which time he found employment in the country store of J. M. Mason at Limerick, York county, Maine. In this his first experience in active life, he gained a practical education and established habits of business that in after years he recognized as contributing very greatly to his successful career, and for which he has ever had most grateful feelings of kindly regard toward Mr. Mason, his earliest employer. In 1862 he entered the carpet and drygoods store oi F. A. Day in Biddeford, where he remained until 1868, "when he became broken down in health, as a result of an injury received at the great l'ortland fire, and went South to recuperate. Upon returning to Maine in 1869, he resumed for a time his former

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

position with Mr. Day. In the same year, ambitious for a wider field, he went to Boston, with only a few dollars in his pocket, but possessed of a good fund of energy and perseverance, and with a determination to succeed. He was first employed in the drygoods store of John C. Loring, in Trem . ont Row, where his services were recompensed by a salary of six dollars a week. Here he continued with frequent advances in salary, until he trans- fer. ad his services to Peasley & Bond, carpet deal- ers in Washington street, with whom he contracted for a term of years. This business was more to his living, and he remained with this house, as sales- man and bookkeeper, until 1873. Then accepting an offer from the well-known carpet house of John H. Pray, Sons & Co., he engaged with them for three years, as travelling salesman for the New Eng- land States. This contract was subsequently renewed for a year, at the end of which time Mr. Staples with three others was offered a partnership interest in the business, which continued for four years. At the expiration of this time there was a change in the firm, but Mr. Staples retained his connection with the house, in the position of head buyer and manager of the jobbing department. About 1890 his health again became impaired, and selling out his interest in the business, he left the city and went to West Newton, where he devoted himself to the cultivation of a small, six-acre farm. Here he regained in a brief time his former health and vigor, and with his physical restoration came renewed longing for active business life. Accordingly, about 1892, he associated himself with a Philadelphia car- pet concern, the Ivins, Dietz & Metzger Company, in which he became a Director, and established a Boston office, for the distribution of their goods throughout New England. Two or three years later, in 1395, he decided to enter the retail carpet and furniture business, and formed the present stock company of George P. Staples & Company, assuming the Presidency of the concern, and merg- ing the mill business of his Philadelphia interest with his own establishment, under one roof. The business thus established has been very successful, and with a steadily increasing trade and continually extending reputation, is already one of the largest and best-known furnishing houses in New England. Mr. Staples resides in West Newton, where he is actively interested in public affairs and in all move- ments for advancing the social and material welfare of the community. In politics he is a Republican. He has served for two years in the Newton City

Government, and five years as a meinber- of the City Republican Committee, of which he is now Chairman. He is a prominent member of the Newton Club, and is also a Thirty-second degree Mason, holding membership in Dalhousie Lodge, Newton Chapter, Gethsemane Commandery and Lafayette Lodge of Perfection. He has been twice married - first, in 1875, to Clara Goodwin, only daughter of John M. Goodwin, of Biddeford, Maine, who died six years later, leaving two chil- dren, of whom but one, Clara, is living; and second, in 1891, to Maria Hilton, daughter of Jonas

V. i'

GEC. P. STAPLES.

Hilton of Norridgewock, Maine. Mr. Staples has a beautiful summer home at Goose Rocks in Kenne- bunkport, Maine.

TOWLE, GEORGE BACON, Head Master of Trinity Church School, New York, was born in Kennebunk, York county, Maine, September 25, 1837, son of Nathaniel M. and Mary (Bacon) Towle. He received his early education in the public schools of Saco, Maine, and graduated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1858. He commenced the study of law with Ranney & Morse, Boston, but became Assistant Secretary of the Boston Board of Trade before completing that course of study, which led ultimately to abandonment of his purpose to prepare

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

for the legal profession. He was a frequent con- . of public trust and responsibility. In early life he tributor of commercial articles to the Boston Post during Colonei Greene's connection with that journal, and was a resident of Boston up to the time of the great fire. He then turned his attention to educa-

GEQ. B. TOWLE.

tional matters, and went to Medway, Massachusetts, as Principal of the High School, subsequently be- coming prominent in superintending the schools in that place. In 1884 he moved to Salem, New York, assuming a position as Head Master of St. Paul's School, where he continued for three years. In 1887 he went to New York city as Principal of the Mount Morris School for Boys, and served in that capacity for three years. In 1892 he was elected Head Master of the Trinity Church School in that city, which position he still holds. Mr. Towle is a member of the Church Club of New York city, and in politics is a Democrat. He was married Decem- ber 15, 1886, to Mary Louisa Haskell, daughter of William N. and Susan B. Haskell of Medway, Mas- sachusetts.

was engaged in mercantile business. During the Civil War he served as Quartermaster of the Nine- teenth Regiment Maine Volunteers. For twelve years he officiated as Postmaster of Bath. For seven years he was Collector of Customs for the District of Bath, and when he resigned from that office, on the accession of the Democracy to power, he was promptly nominated for Mayor of the city and elected by the largest majority ever given his party candidate. He has served in the Common Council and in the Board of Aldermen, also as Representative of Bath in the State Legislature for several terms. As Mayor of Bath for a continuous term of four years, 1885-8 inclusive, and again in 1894, his administration of city affairs was especially business-like and highly creditable. In politics no one has ever questioned his Republicanism ; he is a believer in the fullest measure of protection to American industries and American labor, and would

JAMES W. WAKEFIELD.

have a high protective tariff on every article im- ported that enters into competition with American manufactures, admitting all other importations free of duty. He served for ten years as a member of the Republican State Committee, and was a Dele- Cincinnati in 1876 and at Chicago in 1880. Mr.

WAKEFIELD, JAMES W., Mayor of Bath 1885-8. and 1894, was born in Bath, January 14, 1833, son of James and Susan D). Wakefield. He was educated in the public schools of his native city, in gate to the National Conventions of the party at which during later years he has held many positions

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

Wakefield has been engaged in and more or less intimately connected with various large business and manufacturing enterprises, both in Bath and outside, in all of which he has been successful.

WILLIS, ELIAS SAMPSON, Treasurer and Manager of the Richmond Mills, Richmond, was born in `New Bedford, Massachusetts, March 13, 1861, son of Jan ?s M. and Elizabeth (Sampson) Willis. He was educated in the common schools, and spent his first four years of active life on a whaling voyage. He w then for a year engaged in the stationery trade,

E. S. WILLIS.

and at the age of eighteen started with the Wam- sutta Mills in New Bedford to learn the cotton- manufacturing business. Subsequently he was connected with the New Bedford Manufacturing Company, New Bedford, and the Globe Yarn Mills in Fall River, and then with the Howland Mills of New Bedford as Superintendent. In 1895 in association with Chauncey H. Sears of Fall River, he purchased the Southard Cotton Mill in Richmond, Maine, and changed it to a yarn mill, also changing the name to the Richmond Mills (incorporated), of which he has since been Treasurer and Manager. Mr. Willis is a member of Star in the East Masonic Lodge, Adoniram Chapter Royal Arch Masons and

Sutton Commandery Knights Templar, New Bed- ford, and Aleppo Temple of the Mystic Shrine, Boston. He is also a member of the Wamsutta and Dartmouth clubs, New Bedford, and the Richmond Social Club, Richmond. In politics he is a Repub- lican. He was married September 20, 1883, to Nettie E. Newell, of Fall River ; they have a son : B. F. C. Willis.

ATWOOD, FRED, of Winterport, was born in Frankfort (now Winterport), Waldo county, Maine, November 12, 1838, son of John and Mehitable (Stubbs) Atwood. His father, Captain John Atwood, born July 11, 1804, was a native of Frank- fort, in which town he resided until his death, October 30, 1859. His mother, who died August 3, 1863, was also born in Frankfort, February 2, 1806. His paternal grandparents were Captain Joshua Atwood, born in Provincetown, Massachu- setts, July 2, 1767, died October 12, 1846 ; and Betsey Dyer, born in Truro, Massachusetts, died January 14, 1853, aged eighty-eight years. Captain Joshua, like most of the Atwoods of Cape Cod, was a navigator by profession, and successfully taught that science for several years ; his father was Samuel Atwood, a native of Provincetown, born August 24, 1735, and a son of Joshua Atwood, born 1710. The subject of this sketch acquired his early education in the common schools, and from early life was inclined to mercantile pursuits. He was for a time with John N. Gennin, the hatter, in New York ; then in Boston, and later in Providence, whence he was called home in 1857 by the sudden death of his brother Byron, a chemist in Frankfort, taking the position thus made vacant, with his brother John, a druggist of that place. Here he devoted his spare time to the study of medicine, under the direction and tutelage of the late Dr. Abbott, a noted prac- titioner of that section. In the midst of his preparatory studies, the illness and disability of his father necessitated an abandonment of his plans for a professional career. His services were required to manage his father's business, and upon the latter's death, which soon followed, the son became his successor as a dealer in masts, spars and ship stock. The breaking out of the Civil War in 1861 brought a change in the conditions of business, and after supplying quite extensively various materials for government vessels, including the new Ironsides, he entered largely into furnishing forage and other supplies for government contractors. Subsequently he engaged in the sale of agricultural implements,

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MEN OF PROGRESS.

a branch which he extended and developed to large proportions, and which in connection with an exten- sive insurance department has for many years been his principal business. Mr. Atwood has an ardent love for agricultural pursuits, and is a thorough believer in farming in Maine. He very early became interested in the development of Aroostook county, and created a widespread interest in that section throughout New England by inducing exhibits at the Maine State and New England fairs, by person- ally conducting an excursion of capitalists and journalists to that county in 1886, and later by promoting a large public meeting in Boston, of

FRED ATWOOD.

which one of the results in part is the successful building and operation of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroz 1. He has been for a quarter of a century one of the Trustees of the New England Agricultural Society, is one of the founders of the Maine Pomological Society, was the organizer of the Maine Poultry Association, and was a Delegate to the World's Congress Auxiliary of the World's Fair at Chicago in 1893 held under the auspices of the United States Department of Agriculture. In the Maine Senate of 1875, of which he was an active and influential member, he was Chairman of the Commit- tee on Agriculture. He was for several years a member of the Board of Trustees of the Maine State College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts (now

the University of Maine), also a Trustee of the East Maine Conference Seminary at Bucksport, and is the originator of the Winterport Free Library. He served as Assistant Quartermaster-General on the staffs of Governors Bodwell and Marble, and in 1893-4 was a member of the Executive Council under Governor Cleaves ; was on the Visiting Committee from . the latter body to the State Reform School, an institution in which he took a deep and active interest, and was Chairman of the Executive Council par'y that dedicated the Maine Building at the Columbian Exposition. In politics Mr. Atwood has always been a staunch Republican. At the age of twenty- one, at his first political convention, he met and formed an acquaintance with Hannibal Hamlin, from whom he received his first lessons in politics and with whom he held close relations during that statesman's life. He served as a member of the Republican State Committee with James G. Blaine, and was a Presidential Elector from the Third Con- gressional District of Maine in 1896. He was the organizer of the successful Legislative Reunion of 1895, and officiated as Chairman of its Executive Committee. Mr. Atwood is a man of positive opinions and with the courage of his convictions, yet never offensively partisan, conceding to others an equal right to opinions and preferences ; is of a marked energetic and pushing character, with special aptitude and fitness as an organizer and promoter ; is genial and charitable in nature, and always mindful of the interests and happiness of his fellow- men. He believes in protection to both labor and capital ; in intelligent immigration and the building up of the state of Maine, and in the physical, moral, intellectual and social elevation of mankind. Mr. Atwood was married November 23, 1860, by Rev. Joel A. Steele, to Susan J. Coffren, of Winterport ; they had two children : Edmund Souder, born Sep- tember 23, 1861, died May 30, 1886 ; and Lizzie Coffren, born October 28, 1863, died September 6, 1865. The son, Edmund Souder Atwood, was married September 14, 1885, to Bertha Frances Larrabee, daughter of the late Captain Isaiah Larrabee of Winterport ; the fruit of this union was a daughter : Lizzie Gregg Atwood, born November 23, 1886.

BARRY, CHARLES DUMMER, Shipping and Com- mission Merchant, New York, was born in Kenne- bunk, Maine, February 28, 1850, son of Captain Charles E. and Sarah C. (Lord) Barry. His father was a shipmaster engaged in the Calcutta trade, for

MEN OF PROGRESS.

507

many years sailing out of Boston, and was lost at sea in 1850. His mother was a daughter of William Lord of Kennebunk, a prominent shipbuilder and shipowner. He was educated at private schools in Kennebunk, and at the English and Classical School of West Newton, Massachusetts. Shortly after leav-

ing school he entered a drygoods commission house in Boston, and a year later connected himself in that city with Henry W. Peabody & Company, ship- ping: export and import commission merchants. Subsequently he was admitted as a partner in the house, which is one of the largest in its line in the United States, having its head offices in New York

CHAS. D. BARRY.

and branches in Boston, London, Liverpool, Paris, Hamburg, Sydney, the East Indies and Central America. He has long been identified with the Australasian trade, and his firm are proprietors of the well-known line of ships to Australia formerly sailing from Boston but now from New York. Mr. Barry resides in Montclair, New Jersey, and is a member of the Montclair Club of that place, the Reform Club, Chamber of Commerce and Maritime Asso- ciation of New York city, also of the Sons of the Revolution. He is a Republican in politics, but has never aspired to political office. He was mar- ried September 16, 1874, to Ida M. Thompson, daughter of Captain Nathaniel L. Thompson, a

prominent shipbuilder and shipowner, of Kenne- bunk, Maine. They have four children : Charles Edward, Elizabeth L., Edith C. and Julia L. Barry.

BRADFORD, ROYAL BIRD, Commander in the United States Navy, was born in Turner, Andros- coggin county, Maine, July 22, 1844, son of Phillips and Mary Brett (Bird) Bradford. Commander Bradford is a descendant of Governor William Brad- ford and of Elder William Brewster of Plymouth Colony, also of other prominent colonial families. His great-grandfather William Bradford went from Kingston, Massachusetts, to Sylvester Plantation (now Turner), Maine, in 1775, and was followed by his father (great-grandson of the Governor), mother, five brothers and two sisters, all of whom settled there. On the maternal side he is a descendant of Captain Aaron Bird of Dorchester, Massachusetts, and his wife Joanna Glover of Marblehead, Massa- chusetts, who settled in Minot (now Auburn), Maine, about the beginning of this century. The subject of this sketch received his early education in district, grammar and private schools of his native town, Auburn (Maine) Academy, the Maine State Seminary in Lewiston and Westbrook ( Maine) Sem- inary. In November 1861 he entered the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, having beer appointed by Hon. C. W. Walton, Member of Con- gress, and in June 1865 graduated number three in a class of fifty-four members, the first five being known as "stars," designating them as the five most distinguished men of the class. During his first year at the Naval Academy he was quartered on board the United States Ship Constitution ; and while at the Academy he served during practice cruises in the ships John Adams, Macedonian, Marion, America, Marblehead and Winnepec. In September 1865 he was detached from the Naval Academy with the rank of Midshipman, and entered upon active service. He served on board the Swa- tara in the West Indies, 1865-6; the Rhode Island, flagship of the North Atlantic Station, 1866; the Iroquois, on the Asiatic Station, 1867-9 ; and the Delaware, flagship of the Asiatic Station, 1870. During this time he was successively promoted to Ensign, December 1, 1866; Master, March 12, 1868, and Lieutenant, March 26, 1869. In 1871 he was critically ill during the entire year, from climatic disease contracted in China; and for a period following 1872-3, he was attached to the

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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 74

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