USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 79
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of the South Trinitarian Church in New Bedford, Massachusetts, and in the same month of 1851 he was installed Pastor of the Mercer Street Presbyte- rian Church in New York city, where he labored until the spring of 1858, when he resigned on account of ill health, and for the next two years sought rest in Europe. Upon his return he organized the Church of the Covenant, Murray Hill, New York city, and occupied its pulpit until 1873, when he resigned to become Skinner and McAlpin Professor of Pastoral Theology and Mission Work in the Union Theologi- cal Seminary in the city of New York. That chair was held by him until Jannary 1897, when he re- signed it and was made Professor Emeritus. The following extract from the minutes of the Board of Directors will show how he and his work were regarded by the friends of Union Seminary : "This institution owes more to Dr. Prentiss than can ever be recorded in this world, when as Pastor of the large, wealthy Mercer Street Church from 1851 to 1858, he rallied to the work of rescuing the seminary in the time of its struggling poverty some of the strongest and best men in his congregation. To that congregation he preached the first sermon advocating and urging the permanent endowment of this institution ; so to him belongs the honor of leading that movement which so many noble men followed, and which resulted in laying so deep and broad the foundations upon which Union Seminary rests securely today. . . . We shall always be thank- ful that God gave us such a friend and has continued him with us so long. His contemporaries have mostly gone before him, but while he is allowed to linger with us, to shine upon us with the light of his scholarly and gentle spirit, we shall cherish him as a precious and a vital part of our personal and our seminary life." Besides numerous sermons, addresses, and articles in various periodicals, Dr. Prentiss has published a memoir of his brother, S. S. Prentiss ; A Discourse in Memory of Thomas Harvey Skinner, D. D., LL. D. ; Our National Bane, or the Dry-rot in American Politics, a tract for the times touching Civil Service Reform ; and the Life and Letters of Elizabeth Prentiss, his wife. Both memoirs had a wide circulation, and the life of Mrs. Prentiss, the Author of "Stepping Heavenward " and " Little Susy's Six Birthdays," was eagerly sought for and read by thousands. Dr. Prentiss was married in 1845 to Elizabeth Payson, youngest daughter of the Rev. Dr. Edward Payson, of Port- land, Maine. Mrs. Prentiss was the author of numerous books that were widely read, including
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the "Little Susy " Series; "The Flower of the Family ;" "Only a Dandelion, and Other Stories ; " " Fred, Maria and Me ; " "The Percys ;" "The Home at Greylock ; " " Pemaquid ; a Story of Old Times in New England ; " and " Avis Benson, with Other Sketches." Her chief work, "Stepping Heavenward," which was first published in the Chicago Advance, has been translated into various languages, and it is estNated- that upwards of five hundred thousand copies have been sold. Mrs. Prentiss died in 1878.
STETSON, ISAIAH KIDDER, Shipbuilder and Wholesale Ice Merchant, Bangor, was born in Bangor, April 3, 1858, son of George and Adaline (Hamlin) Stetson. The ancestor of the Stetson family in America was Robert Stetson, commonly called Cornet Robert, because he was Cornet of the first horse company raised in Plymouth Colony, in 1659. He came from the county of Kent, Eng- land, and settled in Scituate, Massachusetts, in 1634. He was one of the most noted men in Plymouth Colony and held many offices of trust and responsibility Simeon Stetson, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, and sixth in descent from Cornet Robert, was born in that part of Braintree which is now Randolph, Massachusetts, October 26, 1770. When a small boy he went to Washington, New Hampshire, where he lived with Thomas Penneman, a farmer, until he was twenty- one years of-age. In 1805, at the suggestion of his brother, Major Amasa Stetson, of Boston, who had landed interests in Maine, he came to this state and located first in Stetson, Penobscot county, later removing to Hampden, where he established a store, ran a sawmill and built vessels which he employed in the West India trade, in all of which lines he was successful. George Stetson, son of Simeon and father of the subject of this sketch, was born in Hampden, January 25, 1807, and remained there until 1834, when he moved to Bangor, vnere he was one of the most prominent citizens up to the time of his death in 1891. He early engaged in wade, first under the name of Brown & Stetson, and later as Emery, Stetson & Company, the firm name being changed to Stetson & Company in 1850. They did a large wholesale and importing business, and were also extensive manufacturers and shippers of lumber. Mr. Stetson became President of the Market Bank in 1858, and in 1863 of the. First National Bank, which absorbed
the Market Bank, continuing at the head of this institution until his death. He was prominent in the affairs of the city, served two terms in the State Legislature, was leading promoter of the building of Norombega Hall and for many years President of the Central Market House Company, was Chairman of the Board of Commissioners to build the Bangor Water Works, was one of the principal organ- izers of the Union- Insurance Company and the Bangor Mutual Fire Insurance Company, and for many years held the Presidency of both corpora- tions. He was also prominently associated with the- Mount Hope Cemetery Corporation, and for many
ISAIAH K. STETSON.
years was its President. He married Adaline Hamlin, who was a daughter of Hon. Elijah Ham- lin, a brother of Hon. Hannibal Hamlin. Charles Stetson, a prominent lawyer and business man of Bangor, and Representative from this district in the Thirty-first Congress and Isaiah Stetson, a leading business man and for four years Mayor of Bangor during the Civil War, were sons of Simeon and brothers of George Stetson. Isaiah K. Stetson at- tended the public schools in Bangor and the Andover Phillips Academy, and graduated from Vale College in 1879. For two years after graduation he was in his father's office, and then entered into a partner- ship with his brother Edward under the firm name
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of E. & I. K. Stetson, which has since continued. The firm carry on a large business in connection with their shipyard, marine railway and extensive ice plants. They are also the owners of a large sawmill near Bangor and are extensive lumber oper- ators. Mr. Stetson is a Director of the First National Bank of Bangor ; Director of the Union Insurance Company ; Treasurer of the Aroostook Construction Company, the builders of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad ; Treasurer of the University of Maine, and Treasurer of the Hampden Academy. He is a prominent Mason, Thirty-second degree, and a member of St. John's Commandery Knights Templar of Bangor ; a member of the executive committee of the Tarratine Club, the prominent social organization of Bangor ; and member of the University Club of Boston, the Boston Whist Club, and the Ancient & Honorable Artillery Company of Boston. In 1892 he was elected President of the Republican Club of Bangor. In January 1893 he was appointed Lieutenant-Colonel and Aide-de- Camp on Governor Cleaves' staff. In 1895 he was appointed by Governor Cleaves and served on the commission to establish new ward lines for the city of Waterville. He is serving his second year as Chairman of the Republican City Committee of Bangor, and is a member of the executive com- mittee of the Eastern Maine Republican Club. He was in the fall of 1896 elected a Representative to the Legislature from Bangor, and served on the Fi- nance and Banks and Banking committees. Colonel Stetson is at present a member of the staff of Gov- ernor Powers. In religion he is a Unitarian, and is a member of the standing committee of the Unita- rian Church of Bangor. He was married November 30, 1882, at Bangor, to Clara C. Sawyer, daughter of Hon. F. A. Sawyer, late Assistant-Secretary of the United States Treasury, and United States Sen ator from South Carolina. They have two children living : Ruth W., born July 22, 1884, and Irving G. Stetson, born November 23, 1885.
BALLARD, MELVILLE, Instructor in the Kendall School .or the Deaf at Washington, District of Columbia, was born in Fryeburg, Oxford county, July 31, 1839, son of George and Susan F. ( Andrews) Ballard. He is of English ancestry. His pater- nal grandfather came to Fryeburg from Andover, Massachusetts, and his maternal great-grandfather from Billerica, Massachusetts. He was educated at the American School for Deaf-Mutes in Hart-
ford, Connecticut, and at Gallaudet College, Wash- ington, District of Columbia, from which institution he graduated in 1866. From 1858 to 1860 he was an instructor at the American School in Hartford, and from the latter year to the present time, with the exception of three years, has been a teacher at the Kendall School for the Deaf in Washington. A month before his graduation at Gallaudet College, Mr. Ballard received an offer of a position as instruc- tor at the California Institution for the Deaf, and shortly afterwards a similar position at the Michigan Institution was tendered him, both of which he declined. In 1881 he wrote an article entitled,
MELVILLE BALLARD.
" Reflections of a Deaf-mute before Education," which Professor Samuel Porter, a brother of Noah Porter, President of Yale College, cited in support of the affirmative side of the question, "Is thought possible without language?" in the October 1881 number of the Princeton Review. The discussion attracted considerable attention to the subject among metaphysicians. Several years ago Mr. Ballard wrote a letter advising the establishment of a State school for the education of deaf-mute chil- dren within the borders of Maine : and at the sub- sequent sessions of the State Legislature in AAngusta he sent communications to the members of that body, urging the necessity of taking this step. In
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these letters he deprecated the pursuit of the pure- oral method of instruction as practiced in the Port- land School for the Deaf, and urged the introduction of the combined system. This system subsequently, in 1895, supplanted the old one in the Portland institution, a committee appointed by the Board of Trustees of the Public Schools, after examining and comparing the methods at Hartford, Connecticut, and Northampton, Massachusetts, having pronounced the combined system superior to the other, and rec- ommended its adoption. At the organization of the Alumni Association of Gallaudet College in 1889, Mr. Ballard was elected President of the Association, in which office he served for four years. He was married July 15, 1874, to Grace A. Freeman, of Baltimore, Maryland ; they have three children : Gertrude E., Walter E. and Mary F. Ballard.
BENSON, ELLIOTT N., Postmaster of Bar Harbor, was born in Tremont, Mount Desert Island, Maine,
E. N. BENSON.
November 24, 1860, son of William H. and Lucy A. (Noonan) Benson. On the paternal side he comes of Scotch and English ancestors, who settled origi- nally at Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. Two of their sons who subsequently came to Maine, one locating on Mount Desert, the other settling near Skowhegan, were the progenitors of the Benson
family in Maine. His mother's grandfather was a graduate of Dublin University, and settled in Gouldsboro, Maine, where he was sent by the Eng- lish government for some official purpose. He acquired his early education in the public schools and at the Bryant & Stratton Commercial College, from which he graduated in June 1882. His train- ing for active life was received first at sea, then in a hotel, and subsequently as a clerk in the wholesale provision business in Chicago, and in mackerel fish- ing for two years 1883-5. In 1885-6 he conducted a summer hotel, and from 1887 to 1893 he was engaged in general business. In April 1893 he was appointed Postmaster of Bar Harbor, in which office he still serves. Mr. Benson is a member of the Masonic and Odd Fellow fraternities. He is a Democrat in politics, and served as Town Clerk of Tremont in 1883. He was married May 29, 1886, to Lena C. Shaw.
BIGELOW, JONATHAN GORDAN, Lawyer, Wash- ington, District of Columbia, was born in Saint Albans, Somerset county, Maine, July 16, 1839, son of Jonathan and Melissa (Abbey) Bigelow. He is descended from (1) John Bigelow of Watertown, Massachusetts, whose marriage to Mary Warren, August 8, 1642, was the first recorded in Water- town; both parties were born in England, and Mary Warren was of the same family from which came General Warren of Bunker Hill fame. Their seventh child was (2) Joshua Bigelow, born Nov- ember 5, 1655, who married Elizabeth Flagg, October 20, 1676. Among their children was (3) Jonathan Bigelow, born March 22, 1679, married Elizabeth Bemis, June 11, 1702. Of this marriage was born May 17, 1722, (4) James Bigelow, whose son (5) James, born January 1, 1743, married Mary Sawyer in 1763, and served in the French and Indian War and throughout the Revolution. James and Mary had a large family, and in 1786 removed from Templeton, Massachusetts, with all their chil- dren, to the Kennebec Valley, in Maine, settling in Bloomfield, now a part of Skowhegan. Their son (6) James, born January 1, 1766, married Betsey Davis in 1796; and their son (7) Jonathan, who was born October 17, 1811, married Malissa Abbey in 1832 and settled in Saint Albans, Somerset county, was the father of the subject of this sketch. John Bigelow and Mary Warren above mentioned were the progenitors of all the Bigelows wheresoever found in this country. Most of them spell the
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name in three syllables, Big-e-low; a few in two syllables, Big-low, and a very few Big-a-low; but all are traceable to the original John. Jonathan Gordan Bigelow was born and reared on a farm, attended the public schools until sixteen years of age, fitted for college at the Bloomfield and Saint Albans Academies, and graduated from Amherst College, as prize scholar in mathematics, in the class of 1863. He taught two terms of public school in the winter of 1857-8, in the towns of Rip- ley and Saint Albans ; was Professor of Mathematics in Bloomfield Academy in the summer term of 1858 ; then taught public school in Industry, Frank-
J. G. BIGELOW.
lin county, in the winter of 1858-9, High School at Saint Albans, spring of 1859 ; and public school at Princeton, Worcester county, Massachusetts, in the winter of 1860-1. In June 1861 he entered the military service as a private in Company G, Third Maine Infantry ; was promoted from a non-com- missioned officer to a Captaincy in the Eightieth United States (Colored ) Infantry in February 1863, whence he was transferred in August 1863 to the Eighty-third and thence in August 1864 to .the Sixty-fifth United States Colored Infantry, which he" commanded until discharged in January 1865. Following the close of the war Colonel Bigelow read and studied law in the office of Hon. James C.
Abbott of Lowell, Massachusetts, and was admitted to the Bar at Norridgewock, Maine, September 21. 1866. In November following he removed to Washington, District of Columbia, where he was admitted to the Bar of the Supreme Court of the District, also to the Court of Claims, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of the United States. Colonel Bigelow has since been continu- ously engaged in the practice of law in Washington, and has tried many cases of more than local impor- tance. In 1882 he defended Sergeant Mason before a General Court Martial, on charges of shooting at Guiteau, the assassin of President Gar- field. He also, in 1889, championed the cause of those soldiers and sailors who had lost both an arm and a leg in the military service, and finally brought their joint cause to the notice of the Supreme Court of the United States by mandamus proceedings against the Commissioner of Pensions; the test cases being brought on the relation of Charles R. Miller, Oscar Dunlap and Frank Rose, in three separate petitions. The cases are reported in the 128 United States Supreme Court reports. As the result of his efforts, all the pensioners thus disabled, twenty-two in number, had their pensions increased from thirty six to seventy-two dollars a month, with over five thousand dollars arrearages of pension to each one. Colonel Bigelow has never belonged to any societies or club organizations, and has never engaged in politics, but is a believer in bimetallism as the money of the Federal Constitution. He was first married August 12, 1866, to Lydia A Given, daughter of Deacon David and Susan (Clark) Given of Saint Albans, by which marriage he has two sons : Edward Maynard, born December 22, 1867 ; and Clifton Montague Bigelow, born August 13, 1872, now the law partner of his father. Mrs. Bigelow died January 18, 1890. On March 26, 1896, Mr. Bigelow married, second, Lula Sidney Knight, ninth and youngest daughter of James Thomas and Emily Susan (Hillman) Knight of Winchester, Frederick county, Virginia.
BLACK, WILLIAM T., M. D., Calais, was born in St. John, New Brunswick, October 20, 1832, son of Thomas Henry and Mary (Townes) Black. His father, a man of culture and refinement, university bred, was of Scotch-Irish ancestry. His mother was a native of St. John, her father having settled there after the Revolutionary War, in which he fought and surrendered with Burgoyne. His carly
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education was acquired in the common and high schools of his native city, supplemented by an academic course at Mount Allison, New Brunswick. After reading medicine for a year with Dr. Hunter of St. John, he entered the Pennsylvania Medical College, where he graduated in 1857. Following graduation he had a hospital residence of about a year in Philadelphia, and then commenced the practice of medicine in Moncton, New Brunswick, reme ing in 1860 to Calais, Maine. In 1861 he entered the army as Assistant Surgeon of the Twelfth Maine Regiment Volunteers, and subsequently served as Surgeon of the First Louisiana Regiment. After the war he resumed practice on the St. Croix River, with office in St. Stephen, opposite Calais, where for some years he resided. In 1869 he went to Europe and remained abroad for about a year and a half, visiting schools and hospitals. Dr. Black is a member of the New Brunswick Medical Association and the Maine State Medical Society, and is United States Examining Surgeon for pensions. He was Trustee of Schools under the free school system in St. Stephen, New Brunswick, for nineteen years, until he moved to Calais. He is a member of the Masonic fraternity, and in politics is a Democrat. Dr. Black was married December 9, 1857, to Frances E. Cutts, daughter of Captain Theodore Cutts of Eastport, Maine. .
BROWNE, CHARLES LOUIS DE MELVILLE, D. D. S., New York, was born in Bowdoinham, Maine, April 4, 1850, son of Rinaldo De Melville and Nancy F. (Jack) Browne. His great-great-grandfather, Nathaniel Browne, came from England to Charles- town, Massachusetts, a few years prior to the Rev- olution. He was a merchant and a Tory, and left Charlestown about 1772, and moved to the Kenne- bec Valley, then a part of Massachusetts, and after- wards the town of Bowdoinham, Maine. In 1783 he moved to Horton, Nova Scotia, where he was given by the king a grant of land, and where he died in 1795. His son Jacob, great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, remained in Bowdoinham, where his grar ifather and father were born and died - all men of solid integrity. Dr. Browne obtained his early education in the schools of his native town and at the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill. After completing his academic course he studied dentistry in Brunswick and Lewiston, Maine, and in 1870 began the practice of his profession in Lyndon, Vermont, but in 1871 went to Brooklyn, New York,
and was soon asked to take charge of a large prac- tice in Poughkeepsie, where he spent five years. Finding the field there too small, he moved to New York and began the hard task of building up a prac- tice in that city, where he soon made himself known, selecting for his friends only men of good character and the highest standing. He soon became promi- nent in his profession, being known as a successful dentist with a high-class practice. In 1879 he was elected a Vestryman in one of the most prominent churches in the city, in which capacity he served for fifteen years. Dr. Browne is an enthusiastic and expert yachtsman. He was three times elected
CHAS. L. BROWNE.
Commodore of the Knickerbocker Yacht Club, and is now serving his second year as Commodore of the smart Corinthian Fleet of New Rochelle. He is also a member of the New England Society of New York. In politics he is a Republican.
BUTLER, NATHANIEL, President of Colby Uni- versity, Waterville, was born in Eastport, Maine, May 22, 1853, son of Nathaniel and Jeannette Loring (Emery) Butler. His father, Rev. Nathan- iel Butler, D). 1)., was a Baptist minister, well known in Maine and Ilinois ; and his grandfather, Rev. John Butler, was a noted minister, revivalist and teacher of Maine, having established in 1825 the
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first strictly female school in Maine, where he diately after graduation he went West and engaged instructed over five hundred young women. Rev. John Butler was born in Nottingham, New Hamp- shire, in 1739, and his father, the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, also bore the name of John Butler and came from England, settling at Cape Ann. In the line of maternal ancestry Mr. Butler's great-grandfather was Moses Enery, the first settler and mill builder of Minot, Maine. His son, grandfather of the subject of this sketch, was Stephen Emery, who graduated from Bowdoin Col- lege in 1814, working his way through college by teaching ; settled in Paris, Maine, as a lawyer ; was
NATHANIEL BUTLER.
Judge of Probate for a long period ; was Attorney General, appointed by Governor Fairfield, and Dis- trict Judge, appointed by Governor Hubbard, and was a lifelong patron of learning and temperance reform. He was born in 1790 and was twice mar- ried. The eldest daughter of the second marriage was the mother of the subject of this sketch. Hon. Hannibal Hamlin married for his first wife a daughter of Judge Emery by the first wife ; and for his second wife Mr Hamlin married a daughter of Judge Emery by his second wife. Mr. Butler attended the public schools of Canden, Maine, the Waterville Classical Institute and Colby Uni- versity, graduating from the latter in 1873. Imme-
in teaching near Chicago, as Assistant Principal of Ferry Hall Female College, Lake Forest, where he remained front 1873 to 1876. He then became Principal of the Highland College for Women at Highland Park, Illinois, continuing there from 1876 to 1884. In 1884 he accepted the Professorship of Rhetoric and English Literature in the Old Univer- sity of Chicago. When that institution closed its doors in 1886 Mr. Butler went to the University of Illinois, where he taught, first Latin, then English literature. The University of Chicago, as it is known to-day, was opened in 1892, through the munificence of Mr. Rockefeller, and Professor Butler was one of the first to be called to that remarkable staff which President Harper drew about him. He became Associate Professor of English Literature in 1892 and continued till 1896. He became Director of the University Extension Department of the University of Chicago in 1894 and held this position also until 1896. In the summer of 1894 he represented the University of Chicago at the International Congress of University Extension in London. He has published a mono- graph on "The Study of Latin," a preparatory Latin text book, "Syllabi of Studies " in English and American Literature, and contributed to the latest edition of Johnson's Encyclopedia. Twice he declined the tendered offer of the Presidency of Colby University, but a third time it was made and then accepted. He assumed the duties of this responsible position January 1, 1896, and under his able and progressive management this old-time and historic institution has flourished as never before. He received from Colby the degree of A. B. in 1873, A. M. in 1876, and D. D. in 1895. Dr. Butler is a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity, the Quadrangle Club of the University of Chicago, and the University Club of Boston. He was married April 28, 1881, to Florence Reeves Sheppard, of Chicago; they have three children : Sheppard Emery, born in 1883 ; Albert Nathaniel, born in 1888; and Frederick Hamlin Butler, born in 1892.
CLARKE, CHARLES LORENZO, Consulting Me- chanical and Electrical Engineer, and Expert in Patent Causes, New York, was born in Portland, Maine, April 16, 1853, son of Daniel and Mary Lewis ( Bragg) Clarke. His paternal great-grand- father was Captain Daniel Clark of Wells, Maine,
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