USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 84
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AUSTIN P. BROWN.
calf Mason, his wife, was born in Orland, in 1820, daughter of Horatio Mason, who was born in Princeton, Massachusetts, in 1775, settling in Or- land at an early date in its history. He died at eighty-three years, having lived an active, success- ful life. His wife's name was Prescott. She was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, and died in Or- land, aged fifty-nine. Thomas Mason, Mr. Brown's maternal great-grandfather, was a Revolutionary patriot and served at the battles of Lexington and Bunker Hill. Mrs. Samuel P. Brown died in 1858. She was the mother of twelve children, six of whom are still living. Austin P. Brown began his school life very early, attended several schools of repute,
and graduated from Eastman's Business College, Poughkeepsie, New York. During the Battle of the Wilderness he went to Fredericksburg with the Maine State Agency and was constantly among the sick and wounded. At the close of the war he associated himself with his father in business. The business was successful for some years, but finally financial embarrassment followed. Mr. Brown then said, in his quiet, determined way, "I will bury those debts or they shall bury me !" and he has kept his word, making it the principal object of his life to liquidate every dollar. Mr. Brown has had a wonderfully full and busy life. He has furnished the government with millions of dollars' worth of supplies. In 1885 he became actively interested in real estate. He lived on the beautiful historical old place known as " Cliffbourne." The house was built by Postmaster-General Hobby and during the war was used as Hospital Headquarters. He lived in this fine old mansion for years, entertaining diplo- mats, statesmen and friends with lavish hospitality. He sold the place to Francis G. Newlands. Mr. Brown has always had control of large estates and interested himself in railroads and steamboat lines. He is a member of the United States Naval Insti- tute, the Washington Board of Trade, and the Brightwood Citizens' Association. In politics he is a thorough Republican, and during the last national campaign he was in constant correspondence with Mark Hanna of the National Committee. Mr. Brown has been twice married and has two children by the first wife. His present wife was before mar- riage Cornelia Carr Brown, daughter of Warren Brown, deceased, late of Brooklyn, New York, for- merly of Portland, Maine. To this union have been born four children, two of whom are living : Clifford Hudson and Gladys Austin Brown. Mr. Brown is a man most highly esteemed by all, and much loved by those fortunate enough to know him well. His modest, retiring nature makes his lamp of life burn low, although always steady and clear, while others' lights may blaze and flash before our eyes to dazzle and blind, only in the end to leave a few ashes. It is not so in the case of Mr. Brown, for when his light goes out people will only then realize the friend, comforter, and substantial giver, the quiet, unpretentious, self-sacrificing man he was. He professes no especial religion, but it would be safe to say there is not a church in Washington that has not some poor member who could tell a tale of some kind act done by the man of few words and modest mien.
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BURPEE, EDWARD BUTLER, Lawyer, and Man- ager of the American Development Company, New York, was born in Rockland, Maine, October 6, 1864, son of John Ruggles and Mary Abby ( Butler) Burpee. On the paternal side he is from Huguenot ancestors, who fled from Paris at the time of the Massacre of St. Bartholomew's and went to the Netherlands, thence to England and thence to America, and from which family all the Burpees in the United States and Canada are descended. His maternal ancestors, the Butlers, came early front England to Massachusetts, and served with distinc- tion in the Revolution. His mother's mother was a Hunstable, from Boston, whose grandfather of that name was a Freemason and a member of the Boston Tea Party ; and her mother's mother was a Parkman, cousin of Francis Parkman the historian. John R. Burpee, father of the subject of this sketch, was a veteran of the late war, serving in Company B, Fourth Maine Regiment of Volunteers; he died January 17, 1873. Edward B. Burpee received his early education in the public schools of Rockland, fitting for college in the Rockland High School, and graduated front Bowdoin College in the class of 1887, receiving a Commencement part on gradu- ation, also being elected to the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and three years later taking the degree of Master of Arts. Commencing to rely upon his own resources at the age of fourteen, he put himself through college and law school by canvassing and as a general agent for publishing houses. MIr. Burpee figures that he has personally solicited more than fifty thousand individuals. He has also done considerable work in the advertising field. Soon after the termination of his college course he went into the law office of Allen, Long & Heminway in Boston, and at the same time entered the Law School of Boston University, from which he graduated with an honor degree, cum laude. He was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in April 1891, and practiced law in Boston for three years, then moving to New York, where he has since practiced and resided. Mr. Burpee is now associated with the law firm of Brown & Wells, in Wall street, and is also the Man- ager of the American Development Company, which is capitalized for a million dollars and has entered into a practical partnership with the Bolivian Government to largely control that country for development purposes. He is a member of the Kappa Chapter of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity, the Phi Beta Kappa Association and the Bowdoin Alumni Association of New York, and Correspond-
ing Secretary of the National Academy of America. In Boston he was a member of the University Club, Pine Tree State Club and the Bowdoin Alumni Association, and a non-resident member of the Psi Upsilon Club of New York. While in college he was Business Manager of his class during part of his course , was sent as a Delegate from Bowdoin to the National Convention of the Psi Upsilon Fraternity in his Senior year; was Editor for the Bowdoin Chapter of the Psi Upsilon Catalogue ; organized and led an orchestra in college for three years which gave concerts and played at the college exhibitions, and held the all-round athletic championship during
EDWARD B. BURPEE.
his four-years course. Mr. Burpee was married January 1, 1895, to Beatrice Elizabeth Comstock, of New York city; they have a daughter : Susanne Comstock Burpee.
CHAMBERLAIN, JOSHUA LAWRENCE, Governor of Maine 1867-71, was born in Brewer, near Bangor, Maine, September 8, 1828, son of Joshua and Sarah Dupee ( Brastow) Chamberlain. His paternal ancestors were from England, tracing their origin to Normandy, France. His great-grandfather was an officer in the War of the Revolution ; his grand- father, Colonel in the war with England in 1812;
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and his father, Lieutenant-Colonel, second in com- mand, of the American forces in the northeastern boundary troubles known as the Aroostook War. On the maternal side he is of Huguenot descent ; Jean Dupuis of Rochelle, France, who came to Boston in 1685, being his ancestor in this country. His early education was received in the public schools and under private tutors, and at Major Whiting's Military Academy at Ellsworth, Maine. He graduated at Bowdoin College in 1852, and at Bangor Theological Seminary in 1855. In the latter institution he devoted himself especially to the study of the oriental languages, acquiring consider-
JOSHUA L. CHAMBERLAIN.
able facility in four of them. Before graduating, he received calls from three important churches ; but the remarkable reception by the critics and the public of his Master's Oration at Bowdoin College in 1855, on "Law and Liberty," resulted in his being called to that college immediately, as Instructor in Logic and some of the branches of the chair of Natural and Revealed Religion just vacated by Professor Stowe. In 1856 he was elected Professor of Rhetoric and Oratory at Bowdoin, which chair he filled until 1862. In the meantime, 1857, he was partly relieved from the proper duties of this chair, and appointed Instructor in the Modern Languages of Europe, and in 1861 was elected
Professor in this department. At this time leave of absence was granted him to visit Europe to pros- ecute his studies ; but the Civil War having broken out, he at once tendered his services to the Govern- ment, and on the eighth of August 1862 he entered the army as Lieutenant-Colonel of the Twentieth Regiment of Maine Volunteers Inheriting military traditions and proclivities, and having received in early life the elements of a military training, he naturally and rapidly adapted himself to the severe ordeal of being called suddenly to a responsible position in the midst of a great war, and at its gravest crisis. He served continuously and con- spicuously in the Army of the Potomac until the end of the war, rising rapidly through all the grades, to the command of the First Division of the Fifth Corps. Within a few months after enlistment he received a Colonel's commission. At Gettysburg, July 2, 1863, he held the extreme left flank of the Union line, and his conduct upon that occasion, in the memorable defence of Round Top, which won for him the admiration of the army and public fame, was recognized by the government in the bestowal of a medal of honor for distinguished personal gal- lantry. In August of that year he was placed in command of Butterfield's renowned old Light Bri- gade. Early in 1864 two brigades of the old First Corps, formerly Doubleday's division, were assigned to him as a veteran brigade in the Fifth Corps, to which was added a fine new regiment, the One Hundred and Eighty-seventh Pennsylvania. With this splendid brigade he made the famous charge at Petersburg, June 18, in which he was desperately wounded, and was promoted on the field by General Grant to the rank of Brigadier-General for gallant and meritorious conduct in leading his brigade in that terrible charge; which action was ratified by the President and the Senate. In the last campaign of the war, General Chamber- lain with two brigades led the advance of the infantry with Sheridan; and his command had the brilliant opening fight on the Quaker Road, March 29, 1865, where he was twice wounded, not seriously, but narrowly escaping with his life. His conduct here again drew the attention of the government, and he was promoted to the brevet rank of Major-General, "for conspicuous gallantry and meritorious service in action." In the Battle of Five Forks he greatly distinguished himself and won special mention by his promptitude and skillful handling of troops. In the final action at AAppomat- tox Courthouse on the ninth of April, his Corps
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Commander says, " General Chamberlain had the advance, and was driving the enemy rapidly before him when the flag of truce came in." At the formal surrender of Lee's army he was designated to command the parade before which that army laid down the arms and colors of the Confederacy. It is characteristic of him that he received the surrender- ing army with a salute of honor in that act. On the disbandment of the Army of the Potomac, General Chamberlain was one of the few general officers retained in the service, and was assigned to the corps designed to go into Mexico to deal with the French forces by which Maximilian was holding the country. On the reorganization of the regular army he was offered a Colonelcy with the brevet of Major-General, and the privilege of retiring on account of wounds with the rank of Brigadier-Gen- eral of the United States Army ; but there being little to interest him here except in active service in the field, and at that time suffering from several unhealed wounds, he declined these honorable offers, and was mustered out of service January 16, 1866. He was then offered a choice of several diplomatic appoint- ments abroad, but preferred to return to Maine and resume his professorship in Bowdoin College. In the summer of that year, however, the people of Maine elected him Governor of the State by the largest majority that had ever been given to a candi- date for that office, and he was three times re-elected. His gubernatorial administration was made notable by several important measures, among which were the settlement of the complicated accounts with the General Government growing out of the rais- ing troops for the war ; the procurement of pay- ment of the old joint war-claim of Massachusetts and Maine against the General Government for advances in the War of 1812 ; the opening of the European & North American Railroad ; the Hy- drographic Survey of Maine ; the planting of the Swedish Colony in Aroostook county, and other internal improvements. The tenor of his state papers gave a start and needed impetus to public and local enterprises ; they were remarkable for their clear and complete presentation of state affairs, and were regarded as models of composition. During his terms of office he had more than one oppor- tunity of being chosen to the United States Senate ; but he was unwilling to allow himself to be a candidate to displace either of the eminent men - Hamlin, Fessenden and Morrill - who had adorned that position. His political friends, however, cen- sured him for this attitude, and inany joined them-
selves to other leaders who were willing to take care of themselves and their friends better. On retiring from the Governorship in 1871 he was elected President of Bowdoin College, in which position he served for twelve years ; by invitation of the Boards continuing his lectures on Public Law for two years longer. His administration was marked by an advance in the direction proposed by him in his inaugural address, which was in effect to liberalize the college ; instead of shutting it in for a few students in the conventional classical " curricu- lum," to open its advantages in all possible ways to the community; to let its light shine out; in short, to face it outward, instead of inward. Under the impulse of this spirit the college entered on a " new departure," and a course more closely related to modern life and affairs. Several chairs of instruc- tion were added during his administration, new halls built and furnished, and the institution wit- nessed a considerable increase of funds for general purposes. From 1874 to 1879 he was also Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy. In 1876 he was elected Major-General of the State Militia, and in the exciting political troubles of January 1880, when for a considerable time there was no legal nor act- ing civil government, he was summoned to the Capital to "preserve the peace and institutions of the state, until a legal government could be seated." Without assuming to decide the question of the legality of any claims to government that were set up, he addressed himself to the task of preserving the peace and honor of the state. Though urged with insistence and impatience by the political leaders of that day to order. out the troops, he steadily pursued his purpose of seeing the civil gov- ernment of his state go on without the intervention of military force. And he accomplished this, amidst great jealousies and antagonisms, without ordering out a single gun or a single soldier, or making show of military force - though having at his command the entire military power of the State. The State Capitol was thronged with men armed to the teeth, among them adventurers of all sorts; and it may truly be said he was the only unarmed man on the scene. By his firmness, prudence and command of public confidence, he held the peace and honor of the state inviolate, amidst the plots of desperate factions and the imminent peril of civil war. His masterly conduct in this crisis drew the admiration of the whole country, and the gratitude of his state. In 1878 he was appointed by the President a Com- missioner to represent this country at the Universal
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Exposition in Paris. For his Report on Education as represented at the Exposition, he was rewarded with a medal of honor from the French Govern- ment. This Report was published as a Government `document, and was pronounced by Hon. John D. Philbrick, LL.D., Director of the Educational Exhibit of the United States at the Exposition, " the best original production on public schools abroad that has been printed in America." General Chamberlain is an eloquent writer and orator, and is frequently called to give public addresses through- out the country. He gave the oration at the organi- zation of the Society of the Army of the Potomac in New York city in 1869, at a time when there was an almost bitter rivalry among partisans in the army ; and the wonderful way in which he brought peace and goodwill to the whole assembly by his broad recognitions and profound sympathies has made that service memorable. At the founding of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion in Philadel- phia he gave the oration, the subject of which was " Loyalty," and his analysis of this sentiment, refer- ring it to principles more vital than constitutions or institutions, produced a profound and lasting effect. One of his most noted and elaborate addresses was that given by invitation of the authorities on the occasion of the Centennial Cele- bration at Philadelphia in 1876, where he took for his subject, " Maine ; Her Place in History." This was repeated on invitation before the Legislature of Maine in '1877, and was afterwards published and widely circulated. His address at the dedication of the Maine Monuments on the Battlefield of Gettysburg, on the relations of "The State, the Nation and the People," attracted great attention ; two editions of this have been already published, and the state is now placing it at the head of its beautiful and valuable volume on its service at Gettysburg. His Memorial Day address given in Boston in 1893, on " Personal and National Ideals," was a highly conceived and eloquent oration, and attracted widespread attention for its nobility of sentiment and elegance of diction. Not less cele- brated is his oration at the " Meade Memorial Ser- vices" in the Academy of Music, Philadelphia, in 1880, before a most distinguished audience - among whom were the President of the United States and Members of the Cabinet, Senators and Representa- tives of Congress, Governors of States, Officers of the Army and Navy, and many eminent citizens - on the theme, "The Sovereignty and Sentiment of Country," which created a profound impression,
and has been widely published. His oration on the last Memorial Day, May 31, 1897, in Springfield, Massachusetts, is perhaps the most remarkable of all his public addresses. The subject of this was " The Two Souls." The Springfield Republican says of it : " A more remarkable discourse on such a theme has seldom, if ever, been produced. In the future record of his work, nothing else that General Chamberlain has said will take so high a rank as this great consideration of man's duty to his fellow- man." It will be perceived that the tendency of his thought is towards the great ethics of society and life. He is now engaged on a work which will present this subject in its more profound reasons and relations In his army experience General Chamberlain participated in more than twenty hard- fought engagements, including many of the most famous battles of the war, such as Antietam, Fred- ericksburg, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, Spottsyl- vania, Bethesda Church, the North Anna, Petersburg and Five Forks. He was six times struck by bullet and shell, twice very severely wounded, once so terribly that his recovery was without precedent. From the effect of this he will seriously suffer all his life, and at last probably fall under it. But he still maintains great vigor of bearing and action. For some years past he has spent his winters mostly in New York, chiefly for surgical treatment ; but he has now returned permanently to his home in Brunswick, Maine. He was married in December 1855 to Miss Frances C. Adams of Boston, a lineal descendant of Mabel Harlekenden, conspicuous in early Colonial history as " the Princess of New Eng- land," being of royal lineage, directly descended from Joan of Beaufort and Ralph Neville, to which line nearly all the monarchs of Europe are related. His wife's American ancestors, like his own, were meritorious soldiers in the wars of their times. They have two children : Grace Dupee, wife of Hon. Horace G. Allen of Boston, and Harold Wyllys Chamberlain, graduate of Bowdoin 1881, lawyer, of Ocala, Florida, lately removed to New York city.
CRAWFORD, HARVEY FERNANDO, Shoe Manu- facturer, Brockton, Massachusetts, was born in Ripley, Somerset county, Maine, August 20, 1852, son of Rufus and Annie T. Crawford. He is of English descent on the paternal side, and on the maternal side is of Scotch ancestry. He acquired his education in the common schools and the High School of Oldtown, Maine, to which place his
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parents removed when he was a boy, attending school winters and working on the farm summers. His early training for active life was received, between the ages of twelve and twenty-one, as surveyor's man and measurer of lumber on the Penobscot River, and thereafter for several years in various minor pursuits and occupations over the country. Subsequently he settled in Brockton. Massachusetts, and engaged in the shoe-manufactur- ing industry, starting in 1879 with twenty-four dollars capital. Mr. Crawford had no practical knowledge of the business, and was never inside of a shoe shop until he engaged in active business on his own account. He commenced manufacturing with a partner under the firm name of Crawford & Gould. Later the firm became Crawford & Eaton, and under this name a manufacturing and wholesale business was carried on for about two years, until 1882, occupying small quarters and producing a medium priced shoe, turning out three hundred pairs a day. He then bought out his partner and continued alone until May 23, 1887, when he became associated with George F. Bouvé of Brock- ton, and under the firm name of Crawford, Bouve & Company conducted the manufacturing business upon a large scale, and also opened retail stores in various cities throughout the United States. Since 1887 the business has been incorporated as the Crawford Shoe Company, with Mr. Crawford as President and M+ Bouve acting as Treasurer. The company's factory is one of the largest in Brockton, three hundred feet long by thirty-five feet wide, three stories, employing three hundred hands, and turning out twelve hundred pairs of fine shoes or three thousand pairs of cheaper grade a day, the retail prices of their shoe products ranging from three dollars to ten dollars a pair. They have twenty-one stores in various parts of the country, including the cities of Boston, Providence, Hart- ford, New Haven, New York, Brooklyn, Philadel- phia, Baltimore and Washington. Mr. Crawford was the originator of the retail store as an adjunct to the factory, and of this method of selling direct to the consumer. He is also the inventor of sev- eral devices in manufacturing and of eight or ten patents in the Crawford shoe which have helped to make its reputation and popularity, and these sup- plementing the original methods of introducing the goods throughout the country have made the busi- ness very successful. Mr. Crawford is a member of the New England Boot and Shoe Club of Boston, and is identified with the various Masonic bodies to
the Knights Templar and Shrines degrees, also with the Knights of Pythias and Knights of Honor fra- ternities. Politicaily he is a Republican. He is very much interested in floriculture, devoting his hours of recreation to the personal oversight of two large greenhouses at his fine residence in Brockton, where from ten to twenty thousand easter lilies, six or seven thousand chrysanthemums, forty to fifty thousand pinks, and roses and other flowers innu- merable are in blossom in their respective seasons every year. He was married November 24, 1874, to Miss Susie E. Packard, of Brockton ; they have had two children, both now deceased.
FROST, WILLIAM, for many years a well-known and honored citizen of Boston, was born in Lim- ington, York county, Maine, January 4, 1822, son of James and Nancy (Davis) Frost; died in Boston, April 20, 1896. Mr. Frost came of a line of ancestors whose contribution to the settlement and development of Western Maine is a matter of record in published histories of Maine and of New England. His early American progenitors were among the stalwart men who came from the motherland and braved the difficulties, hardships and dangers of settling the virgin territory of Maine early in the seventeenth century. His great-grand- father James Frost, son of William Frost of Ber- wick, moved about 1760 from Berwick to Falmouth, now Portland. James' son Wingate, grandfather of our William, was one of the first settlers of the tract of land in York county known as the Ossipee Townships, lying on the west side of the Saco and between the great Ossipee and Little Ossipee rivers, and purchased of the Indian Sagamore Captain Sunday, whose deed was a subject of litigation ir. the early courts of Maine. Wingate Frost was for many years Clerk of the Proprietors of this tract; and his son James, the father of William, was also for many years prominent in the later development of that part of the tract which afterwards was incorporated into the town of Lim- ington. Both father and son were among those to whom were committed the most important interests of the town, not only in its local business but in the State Legislature as well. James served at various times in nearly every town office, including Clerk, Treasurer and School Supervisor, also as Post- master and Representative to the Legislature. Subsequently he was for a long period engaged in surveying and laying out township lines for the
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