USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 77
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The Fresh-Water Alg.v of Maine - I. Bulletin Torrey Botan- ical Club, June ISSS, p. 155.
Contribution to the Fresh-Water Rhizopods of Maine. American Naturalist, January 18SS, p. 71.
First Report as Botanist and Entomologist to the Maine Experiment Station. Report Maine Experiment Station, IS88, pp. 136-195.
Preservation of our Forests. First Report Maine Forest Commissioner, Augusta, IS91, pp. 29-41.
Fresh- Water Algue of Maine - HI. Bulletin Torrey Botan- ical Club, July ISSo, p. 181.
Second Report as Botanist and Entomologist Experiment Sta- tion. Report Experiment Station, ISS9, pp. 148-254 (3 plates ).
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Some Fungous Diseases of Fruits. Transactions Maine State Pomological Society, 1889, pp. SS-107.
Third Report Botanist and Entomologist. Experiment Sta- tion. Report Maine Experiment Station, 1890, pp. 105-139.
A contribution to the Odonata of Maine - 1. Entomolog- ical News, April IS91.
Fourth Report as Botanist and Entomologist for the Experi- ment Station. Report Experiment Station, IS91, pp. 175-207.
An American Species of Templetonia. Entomological News, Philadelphia, March 1892. Illustrated.
Fresh-Water Alge of Maine - III. Bulletin Torrey Botan- ical C ib, April 1892, p. 1IS.
Co tribution to the Odonata of Maine - II. Entomological News, May 1892.
A New Smynthurus. Entomological News, September 1892, p. 169. Ill.
Notes on Maine Plants. Torrey Bulletin, November 1892, P· 340 ..
Fifth Report as Botanist and Entomologist. Experiment Station Report, 1892, pp. 99-146.
A New Achorutes. Entomological News, May 1893. Il1. 6 figs.
A New Papirus. Entomological News, February 1893. Ill. 3 figs.
- Bulletin Maine State Laboratory of Natural History, Vol. I., Pts. I and 2, containing Catalogue of the Blake Herbarium and Contribution to the Plants of Maine, by F. L. Harvey and F. P. Briggs. .
Sixth Report as Botanist and Entomologist. Experiment Station Report, IS93, pp. 145-18o.
Contributions to the Lichens of Maine - I. Bulletin Torrey Botanical Club, Vol. 21, 9, p. 389.
The American Species of the Thysanuran Genus Seira Psyche, November 1894. 2 ill., I new sp.
A New Species of Lepidocyrtus. Entomological News, December 1894. 4 ill.
Seventh Report as Botanist and Entomologist. Experiment Station Report, 1894.
Two New Species of Entomobrya Psyche. February 1895, pp. 196-9, 2 new sp. 3 ill.
The Egg of the Cattle Louse, Haematopinus Vitula, L. Psyche, Vol. 7, June 1895, p. 250.
Eighth Report as Botanist and Entomologist. Experiment Station Report, 1895.
Contributions to the Characeous Plants of Maine. Torrey Bulletin, September 1895, p. 397.
Notes on Smerinthus Cerysii, Psyche, January 1896, p. 231.
Contributions to the Lichens of Maine - Il. Torrey Bulle- tin, January 1896, ' 7.
Contribution to the Pyrenomycetes of Maine. Torrey Bulletin, February 1896, p. 50.
Ninth Report as Botanist and Entomologist Experiment Station Report, 1896.
Notes on Maine P'lants, Torrey Bulletin, July 1896.
Contribution to the Myxogasters of Maine. Torrey Bulletin, August 1896.
A Thysanuran of the Genus Anoura, Psyche, September IS96.
Tenth Report as Botanist and Entomologist. Experiment Station Report, IS97.
Notes on Maine Plants. Torrey Bulletin, January 1897.
The Myxogasters of Maine - II. Torrey Bulletin, February 1897.
Gasteromycetes of Maine. Torrey Bulletin, February 1897.
Professor Harvey's parents were in moderate cir- cumstances and he was always obliged to look out for himself. When only thirteen he left home to work out summers, while he went to school winters. He worked on dairy farms in New York, and grain and stock farms in Iowa, and for two seasons he worked at making brick. He paid all his way through college. He has always taken an interest in the social and moral questions of the day, and especially of the town in which he has resided, but has held no political positions. He was married June 27, 1878, to Addie Lillian Bartle ; they have four children : Le Roy Harris Harvey, born Septem- ber 25, 1879 ; Bartle Trott, born November 1, 1882 ; Willis Lake, born November 10, 1885, and Florence Evelyn, born December 17, 1887.
JORDAN, WHITMAN HOWARD, Director of the New York Agricultural Experiment Station, Geneva, New York, was born in Raymond, Cumberland county, Maine, October 27, 1851, son of James and Sarah (Symonds) Jordan. He is of the eighth gen- eration in direct descent from Rev. Robert Jordan. His grandfather John Jordan was born at Cape Elizabeth in 1768. His great-grandfather moved in 1774 or 1775 to Raymond, and his great uncle, Samuel Jordan, was the first lawful white male child born in that town. His maternal grandfather, Nathaniel Symonds, moved to Raymond from Salem or Danvers, Massachusetts. The talented Judge Symonds of Portland is also a grandson of Nathaniel Symonds, being the son of the oldest brother of Professor's Jordan's mother. The subject of this sketch acquired his early education in the com- mon schools of Raymond and New Gloucester, at the Bailey Home School in New Gloucester, at the Maine State Seminary in Lewiston, and in private instruction in Latin and mathematics while at home on the farm. He graduated from the Maine State College, now the University of Maine, in 1875, with the degree of B. S., and took a post- graduate course in Cornell University in chemistry and physics in 1877 and 1878. His training for active life included industrious application to farm work between the ages of twelve and nineteen, interspersed with occasional terms of school work, several years of college course and postgraduate
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
study, and experience as teacher of public schools in New Gloucester, Poland, Orono and Dennysville (High School), Maine. He was assistant in analyt- - ical chemistry and in the work of investigating the composition of American food-fishes at Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1878 until
1879, when he assumed the position of Instructor in Agriculture in the Maine State College and con- tinued there for two years. From 1881 to 1885 he was Professor of Agriculture and Agricultural Chemistry at the Pennsylvania State College. In June 1885 he came back to Maine to assume the « Directorship of the State Experiment Station at Orono. When in 1887 Congress passed what is
W. H. JORDAN.
known as the " Hatch Act," giving to each state fifteen thousand dollars annually for the mainten- ance of an Experiment Station, he was elected to the Directorship of this station, which by act of the Maine Legislature was made a department of the Maine State College. He held that position down to the summer of 1896, when he resigned to accept a similar position at the head of the New York Experiment Station, where he is at present located, his headquarters being in Geneva, New York. When in Pennsylvania he was Chemist to the Penn- sylvania Board of Agriculture from 1883 to 1885, about two and a half years. In 1894 he was elected Professor of Agriculture in the Maine State Col-
lege to succeed Professor Walter Balentine, deceased. The Maine Legislature by two separate acts has made the Director of the Maine Experiment Station responsible for the licensing and inspection of the fertilizer trade in the state, and the inspection of the chemical apparatus used in creameries in the state. His duties at Orono, before leaving for his larger field of labor in New York, required the administration of about seventeen thousand dollars annually in the work of experiment and investiga- tion, instruction in agricultural and biological chem- istry in the college, and certain police duties already mentioned. In addition to his more active work, Professor Jordan is an editorial correspondent of the Cultivator and Country Gentleman, published at Albany, New York, and is conducting investigations in human foods and nutrition, through the use of money appropriated by the United States Govern- ment ; Professor W. O. Atwater, of Middletown, Connecticut, being the Special Agent of the Depart- ment of Agriculture in general charge of this work. He has given numerous addresses throughout the state at Farmers' Institutes, and occasionally before Boards of Agriculture and similar conventions in other states, and has contributed articles to the Maine Farmer, Philadelphia Press, Germantown (Pennsylvania) Telegraph, and Agricultural Science. He edited and wrote portions of the annual reports of the Maine Agricultural Experiment Station from 1885 to 1896, and has contributed numerous and valuable papers to the annual reports of the Maine and Pennsylvania Boards of Agriculture. He was a member, ex-officio, of the Maine Board of Agri- culture 1894 to 1896, and Vice-President of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations in 1891-2 ; and is a member of the Maine Pedagogical Society, the Society for the Promotion of Agricultural Science, the Associa- tion of Official Agricultural Chemists, and the Amer- ican Association for the Advancement of Science, the last three being national organizations. In 1896 the degree of Doctor of Science was conferred upon him by the Maine State College. In politics Pro- fessor Jordan is a Republican. He was married March 3, 1889, to Emma Louise Barrows Wilson, daughter of the late Nathaniel Wilson, Esq., of Orono, Maine ; they have no children.
MERRICK, THOMAS BELSHAM, Retired Merchant, of Germantown, Pennsylvania, was born in Hallo- well, Maine, April 24, 1813, youngest son of John
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Merrick and Rebecca Vaughan. His father, John Merrick, one of the founders of the Maine Historical Society, died in Hallowell, October 22, 1861, at the age of ninety-five years, venerable in years, in per- son and in character. He was long identified with the cause of learning and science in the community, and deeply interested in every plan and enterprise for the development of the resources, and for the promotion of the growth and prosperity, of the state. He wes unquestionably a man of mark ; and though he was not a native of Maine, or of America, few men nave been so long, so intimately, or so effi- ciently connected with the interests and history of their adopted state. He was born in London, England, August 27, 1766. His father, Samuel Merrick, born in 1726, died in September 1767. The family, of Welsh origin, can be traced back to Cydawell, Ignad or Judge of the Court of Powys in the time of King John. A descendant of his, named Meuric, was esquire of the body to Henry VII. and captain in the guard of Henry VIII. With him the name originated, which is variously written Meuric, Meurick, Meyrick, Meric, Merick and Merrick. A grandson of this Meuric, an an- cestor of our John Merrick, was Sir Gelly Meyric or Meric, of Pembroke, Knight of the Shire, in the reign of Elizabeth ; he was executed in 1601 on a charge of conspiracy with the Earl of Essex. His children were afterwards restored in blood, and Sir Samuel Rush Meyrick, of Goodrich Court, lately de- ceased, a. thor of a well-known work on Ancient Ar- mor, was his lineal descendant. The mother of John Merrick, Mary, in 1769 married William Roberts of Kidderminster. Under the roof of their stepfather, a deacon in a dissenting congregation, a worthy man, and a good citizen, John Merrick and his elder brother, Samuel, received their early training. Samuel, being of robust constitution, was educated a merchant, but John, who was of a lighter make, and apparently of feebler constitution, was destined for the ministry. It is a remarkable fact that the puny boy lived to an extraordinary age, surviving his athletic brothe. nearly fifty years. He was eight years in the Grammar School connected with the Established Church at Kidderminster, where hc received a thorough classical training. In his old age he remembered with lively affection the school- house of his boyhood. About 1788 or 1789 he entered on the study of divinity at the dissenting academy for theological training at Daventry. The celebrated Thomas Belshamn was then at the head of this school. During young Merrick's connection
with it, Mr. Belsham changed his views, and from being a high Calvinist became an avowed Unitarian of the school of Priestley. He resigned his place and removed to take charge of Hackney College, a Unitarian seminary, whither Mr. Merrick followed him, and in after years always retained the highest regard for his early teacher. He preached for two years as a licentiate, at Stamford, but was never ordained. From 1794 to 1797 he was a tutor in the family of Benjamin Vaughan, LL. D., coming with them in 1795 to this country. He showed at this time, as he did to his latest years, a peculiar aptness in sympathizing with the spirit and sports of boy-
T. B. MERRICK.
hood. During this period he not infrequently prcached in Boston or its vicinity ; but soon relin- quished the clerical profession altogether. Return- ing to England in 1797, he married in April 1798, Rebecca Vaughan, daughter of Samuel Vaughan, Esq., of London, and sister of our Dr. Benjamin Vaughan. In May he returned to this country, with Mrs. Merrick, and settled at once at Hallowell, occupying at first a small house in the lower street, whence he soon removed to a little farm cottage which is still standing near his late residence. At this period, population and improvements began to make rapid advances in the Kennebec country. The settlement of the Vaughan family at Hallowell
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
and the removal to that town in 1794 of the sessions of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, gave an extraordinary impulse to the social devel- opment of the place. But the villages on the Kennebec were insignificant knots of houses. The town of Hallowell, which then included what are now the cities of Augusta and Hallowell, the towns of Kennebec and Chelsea and a part of Farming- dale, contained only about two thousand inhabitants. There were but six houses in the lower village at the time of Mr. Merrick's arrival. Mr. Merrick had no sooner come into the country and provided for his family a suitable dwelling - a neat cottage commanding a fine view of the Kennebec, the building of which he superintended himself - than he was found among the foremost in every plan for the promotion of the public good. He particularly interested himself in the cause of education. In 1802 he becanie a trustee of Hallowell Academy, the second incorporated academy in Maine, that at Berwick having been the first. He exerted him- self in enlarging and husbanding the resources of the institution, in securing the best instruction, in attending examinations and in stimulating the intel- lectual energies and the manlier and finer feelings of the students. Made President of the Board in 1829, he continued in this post until his death. He „was elected to the Board of Overseers of Bowdoin College in 1805, and received the honorary degree of A. M. in 1807. He attended the first Com- mencement of the college in 1806. Continuing a prompt and efficient member of the board until his resignation in 1851, he had been at that time for eleven years its oldest member in service. He never ceased to regret the transformation of the college from its original and catholic character as a general state institution, to that of a school under the exclusive control of a particular religious denom- ination. Being possessed of a competency, not choosing to devote his life to money getting, con- scientiously abstaining from an active participation in politics, beyond the casting of an honest vote, Mr. Me.rick had more leisure than most men around him. But he was not an idler. He made himself useful as a citizen, seeking in a great variety of ways to promote the physical and moral well-be- ing of the community, and held from time to time several municipal offices. He was for many years First Selectman of the town, several times Surveyor of Highways, and was for ten years annually elected one of the Overseers of the Poor. He shrank from none. of the duties of that troublesome office, and
while he exercised judgment and discretion as to lazy idlets, he was ever kind and considerate to those who were brought by infirmity to seek public aid. He had so fully the confidence of the town that he was authorized to lend money to persons in temporary trouble, which might be returned, and the pride of the poor thus saved. Many families were by this means relieved, and nothing ever pub- licly known about their cases. In November 1809 was held at Augusta one of the most important and exciting trials in the history of Maine. It was reported in shorthand by Mr. Merrick. Scarcely another man in the state could have performed the ieat. He had learned shorthand while under the charge of his stepfather, at the age of eight or nine years. The report of this trial was published in an octavo volune of nearly two hundred pages, under the title "Trial of David Lynn and others for the Murder of Paul Chadwick," etc. (Hallowell 1810). A project having been started for opening a road from the Kennebec to the Chaudiere and thence to Quebec, Mr. Merrick warmly entered into the plan, and under a resolve of the General Court of Massa- chusetts, he was appointed in March ISIO on a commission to examine its feasibility. His col- leagues were the Hon. Charles Turner of Scituate, then a member of Congress, and James Stackpole, Jr., Esq., of Waterville. The following notice in relation to their journey was furnished by Mr. Gardiner : " My father gave Mr. Merrick a letter of introduction to Sir James Craig, Governor of Canada, with whom he had been formerly ac- quainted. The Governor received him courteously, and highly approved the object, and through his influence that portion of the road lying in Canada was completed, and the state of Massachusetts had the road made from the Forks of the Kennebec River to the Canada line. A mail was established on the route, and a custom house on the boundary. . The advantages expected from the opening of this road were not realized. The road for a long dis- tance passed through a barren country. There was a distance of forty miles with only a single house, and no soil sufficiently good to tempt any one to build a second ; few persons either for pleasure or for traffic would go over a road where, in case of accident, aid could not be obtained. The rail- roads which have been since constructed through Vermont and Maine and Canada, have given to the Canadians much greater facilities to the ports on the Atlantic than could be obtained by a road through the wilderness." Several incidents of the
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
expedition have been gleaned from recollections of Mr. Merrick's conversations and from the Hon. Mr. Turner's letters ; they are related in Dr. Goodwin's sketch of Mr. Merrick, prepared in 1862 for the Maine Historical Society. On this journey, Mr. Merrick was absent six weeks, during which he camped out twenty-one nights, seventeen of which it rained. Yet, though in a delicate state of health when he started, he returned with greatly improved health and strength. After the failure of the origi- nal Hallowell and Augusta Bank, another bank was incorporated at Hallowell under the same unfortu-
nate name ; and Mr. Merrick being then desirous of the regular employment of some daily routine of business, accepted the post of Cashier, which he filled honorably to himself and greatly to the benefit and credit of the corporation, until, overwhelmed by the bankruptcy of others, the institution suc- cumbed in 1821. The township of Dover, in Pis-
cataquis county, was among other wild lands a part of the Vaughan patrimony. A portion of it was about 1830 accepted by Mr. Merrick in settlement
of his wife's claims upon her father's estate. He
immediately assumed in person the care of these lands and he managed them with singular judgment
and great consideration for the settlers. He spent two or three weeks every summer. and sometimes a
portion of the winter, among them ; and made him-
self personally acquainted with the circumstances,
character and ability of each individual. He es- pecially interested himself in fostering the schools
and improving the roads of the rising town. Feel-
ing a moral obligation to provide also for the spirit- ual wants of the settlers, he built and furnished at his own expense (some fifteen hundred dollars)
a house for public worship. Satisfied by observa- tion that "union meeting-houses" were constant sources of strife and discord, he determined to appropriate this to a single denomination ; and though himself at the time a professed Unitarian, he deeded it to the Methodists as embracing the largest portion of the inhabitants. From 1830 to 1840 he acted as attorney for owners of wild lands in the town of Harmony; and there carried his
ment of the business. He continued to attend to usual system of order and method into the manage-
business at Dover until within three or four years of his death, and had the happiness of seeing the town
shire-town of Piscataquis county. In the settle- rapidly advance in prosperity, and become the
ment of this town, he incorporated his name into the history of Maine. His venerable form is re-
membered by some there who used to welcome his annual visits as among the greatest events of the year. He belonged to a different sphere from most of those with whom he had intercourse in these visits; yet he always mingled with them as their neighbor and equal. Perfectly easy and familiar with every one, he never lost his dignity. His memory is cherished as that of an honest man, a liberal landlord, a judicious adviser, a kind friend, and a public benefactor. It is significant of the popular feeling that the village lyceum was named Merrick Hall. After the death of his wife in 1854, as indecd for some years before, Mr. Mer- rick withdrew very much from general society, and gave his thoughts increasingly to religious meditation. As the infirmities of age grew upon him, he found it advisable to seek a milder cli- mate for a large part of the year, and for several years he spent the months from October to June in Philadelphia, with his daughter Harriet, Mrs. J. A. Vaughan. Here, too, he was near his eldest son, who honored his father by his character and his deeds, Samuel Vaughan Merrick ; who by energy and skill in the business of constructing machinery acquired a large property ; and who by his practical science, business tact, administrative ability, en- lightened views, unwavering integrity and large public spirit placed himself among the most eminent in that great city. Here Mr. Merrick was widely remarked and recognized, with his erect form, agile - step, and long white flowing locks, as a beautiful specimen of old age. Having passed the summer of 1861 in Hallowell with his daughter Mary, Mrs. J. P. Flagg, he had already fixed the day for his return to Philadelphia, early in October, when he was seized with his last illness, and died on the twenty-second of the month. Mr. Merrick had a genuine scientific impulse. His special interest was with those sciences which can be most readily applied to practical life, or to the elucidation or conformation of religious truth. He was an exact mathematician, a good practical surveyor and even navigator, though merely as an amateur. His knowledge of astronomy was sufficient to lead to some practical applications of the science. He had a warm personal attachment for Professor Cleaveland of Bowdoin College, being deeply in- terested in his courses of lectures on chemistry, given in several towns and cities. His interest in geology amounted to a passion ; he prepared two lectures on this subject. which he delivered with great satisfaction to all who heard him. He was a
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
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great friend of lyceums as domestic institutions. He found great attractions in natural history. He successfully exposed the imposition in Dr. Kock's famous Hydrarchos Sillimanni. One of his especial pleasures in Philadelphia was to escort his friends through the magnificent museum of the Academy of Natural Sciences. He always took a special in- terest in men of the legal and medical professions. The wit and learning of the former attracted him, and with the medical profession his practical and benevolent tendencies found scope and employ- ment. On occasion he proved himself no indiffer- ent surgeon. In music he had an excellent taste and a very fine ear. He played the violoncello with extraordinary neatness, accuracy, and depth of tone, and until quite late in life sang with great sweetness. His knowledge of music was scientific, and he was for many years President of the Handel Society of Maine. In 1817, with Chief Justice Mellen, he compiled the " Hallowell Collection of Sacred Music." It was mainly due to him that the choir of the Old South Church in Hallowell became one of the most effective in the country. His elocution was remarkably perfect. So masterly was his style of reading, that persons have been known to refer to it after a lapse of thirty or forty years. But in nothing did he excel more than in the attractiveness of his social character and his fas- cinating powers of conversation. He was distin- guished by a habit of constant observation and inquiry. In his frequent journeys, generally made on horseback or in an open vehicle, he used critically to examine everything as he passed along. He made acquaintance with every one from whom he could learn anything, and never failed to repay them . by communicating more than he received. He had a delightful power of dropping hints to the young, so pointed that they never failed to find a lodgment. One day he saw a boy, in a passion, kick a hole through his kite. "Would you not better kick the boy for not understanding the busi- ness of kite-making? " he dryly asked, then stopped and drc'e the lesson home by showing how to balance the kite, etc. The boy referred to the incident thirty years later ; he had remembered it whenever he was in a passion. His habits of busi- ness were prompt, methodical and thorough. It was not easy to impose upon him ; yet he had no lawsuits, and had a horror of litigation. Of usury and speculation his abhorrence was almost super- stitious. His notions of honesty were almost romantic, and his sense of honor intensely delicate.
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