USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 86
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EDWARD MOORE.
sagacity, he soon found his way. From 1868 to 1869 he was engaged in building the Knox & Lin- coln Railroad of Maine and the Sugar River Rail- road of New Hampshire. From 1869 to 1874 he was engaged in sub-marine engineering and con- tracting on the Atlantic coast, a pursuit in which he further developed his fine natural aptitude for this occupation. In March 1875 he visited the Pacific coast and removed for the United States Government the Noonday Rock, thirty feet under water and situated some twenty miles off Cape Reese in the Pacific Ocean. But one and a half tons of nitro glycerine, which he had manufactured on the coast expressly for the purpose, were used -
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a singularly small quantity for the magnitude of the work. It was done, too, with one wire, the water itself supplying the return current, and is justly regarded as one of the notable engineering feats of the day. In January 1877 he formed a partnership with A. R. Wright of Portland, and took the con- tract, under the firm name of Moore & Wright, to build the famous Louise Docks and Embankment (named after the Princess Louise) for the Canadian Government at Quebec, being the largest works of this kind upon the continent. From 1877 to the present time the firm has been engaged continu- ously upon large contracts for public works. Colo- nel Moore served two terms, 1887-1891, as Repre- sentative to the Maine Legislature from the city of Deering, and as Senator from Cumberland county from 1889 to 1891. He was Chairman of the committee on railroads. In politics Colonel Moore is a Republican. He is a member of the Grand Army and of the Loyal Legion, Vice-President of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, President of the Third Army Corps Union, and a member of the Knights of Pythias and other organizations. He was married April 26, 1864, to Clara A. Webb, daughter of Nathan Webb, of Portland. Colonel Moore resides in Deering, near Morrill's Corner, where he has a fine stock.farm.
REED, THOMAS BRACKET, Speaker of the National House of Representatives, was born in Portland, Maine, October 18, 1839, son of Thomas Bracket and Matilda (Mitchell) Reed. He received his education in the public schools of his native city, and at Bowdoin College, from which he graduated in the class of 1860. Following graduation he spent a year and three months in teaching, a part of the time as assistant in the Portland High School, and in the study of law. In April 1864, before admission to the Bar, he received an appointment as Acting Assistant-Paymaster in the Navy, and was assigned to duty on the " tinclad " Sybil, then under command of Lieutenant H. H. Gorringe, later a distinguished naval officer and commander. Returning to Port- land at the close of the Civil War, Mr. Reed was admitted to the Cumberland Bar and entered upon the practice of his profession in that city. In. 1867 he was elected as a Representative to the State Legislature from Portland, and at the end of his terni was re-elected to the legislature of 1869, serving on the Judiciary Committee during both sessions. The following year he represented Cum-
berland county in the Maine Senate, and while still a member of that body, in 1870, was nominated and elected to the office of Attorney-General of the state. Mr. Reed was thirty years of age when he assumed the Attorney-Generalship, and was the youngest incumbent of that responsible office in the history of the state. He served three terms, all of which were marked by the successful trials of many important causes for the state. For the four years 1874-8 he was also City Solicitor of Portland, in which capacity his experience and ability were most successfully applied to the management of city affairs in which large interests were at stake. At
THOMAS B. REED.
the opening of the national campaign preceding the election of 1876, Mr. Reed's friends and admir- ers in the First District determined that he should be the Republican nominee for Congressional honors. In a memorable canvass he was nominated and elected, and at the present time by successive re-elections is serving his eleventh term as a mem- ber of the National House, and his third term as Speaker of that body. The House of Representa- tives which he entered was Democratic, as have been all the Houses but four since he has been in Congress. But he was not long in coming to the front, and gave early promise of the distinguished legislative career of influence and leadership which
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has marked his membership of the House. As Speaker of the Fifty-first Congress, and as a leader of the Republican side, he has won great fame. Mr. Reed's speakership marked a new era in the legislative history of Congress. Before that it had always been within the power of a strong and , determined minority to stop any legislation. Minori- ties had never failed to use this power, and the absurdity of allowing a minority to dictate in a popular government, where all government is sup- posed to be by majorities, had not only been tol- erated, but had actually been elevated to the dignity of a great principle of statesmanship. It was Mr. Reed's great work to abolish this pernicious usage. His famous rulings caused a tremendous uproar in the national House and throughout the country. He was denounced in unmeasured terms by partisan papers ; but his rulings were sustained by the Supreme Court of the United States, and the prin- ciple that he enunciated of the inviolability of the right of the majority to rule has been followed by his political opponents. Although they have stu- diously asserted that the "Reed Rules " would never be adopted by them, they have used the same methods with slight changes in detail and now no minority is allowed to thwart the will of the majority. As a leader on the floor Mr. Reed has attained dis- tinguished success. This is in a large measure due to the fact that he has added to unrivaled forensic ability, good common sense and honesty of purpose. Al. undoubted partisan, he has always had a firm conviction that in the domination of the Repub- lican party lies the surest safeguard of the fame and prosperity of his country. Keeping the mission of his party in view, he has never allowed his influence to count for any partisan move of doubtful patriot- ism. In the Fifty-third Congress he led the Repub- lican minority in the repeal of the Sherman law, when the Democratic majority found itself powerless by itself to carry out the programme of its President. Mr. Reed has not allowed his engrossing duties as a public man to interfere with his taste for literary pursuits. He is a student of English literature and a great admirer of its masterpieces. He is also familiar with the literature of several foreign tongues, and especially French literature. Few names are more familiar on the title-pages of the great maga- zines than his, and the North American Review for the last few years has rarely failed, at any memorable juncture of public affairs, to contain a luminous and charming article from his pen. Mr. Reed's attach- ment to the city of his birth is sincere and strong ;
and whenever public duties do not call him away, he is to be found at his office or his home in Port- land. He was married in February 1870 to Susan P. Merrill, daughter of the late Rev. S. H. Merrill ; they have one child, a daughter.
SMITH, ORLAND, Representative of the Balti- more & Ohio Railroad system on the Board of Managers of the Joint Traffic Association in New York, was born in Lewiston, Maine, May 2, 1825, son of John and Joanna (Morrill) Smith. His father was for a number of years Judge of the Muni-
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ORLAND SMITH.
cipal Court of Lewiston, having moved there from Gray, Maine, when a young man, and his mother was a daughter of Jedediah Morrill of Lewiston. He acquired his education in the common schools and at the Lewiston Falls Academy. He taught in the public schools and the academy of his native town, and for two years was a teacher at the Gorham (Maine) Seminary, but being unwilling to follow that occupation permanently, he availed himself of the first opportunity for a change. In 1850 he secured a position as station agent on the Andros- coggin & Kennebec Railroad at Lewiston, where he continued to reside until 1853, when he went to Ohio and was engaged in the construction of the
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Marietta & Cincinnati Railroad, now a part of the Baltimore & Ohio system. After its completion he entered the service of the company at the general office in Chillicothe, and rose to the position of Auditor. Resigning his office in order to enter the volunteer service in 1861, in October of that year he was appointed a Colonel by the Governor of Ohio, with authority to recruit and command a regiment, resulting in the mustering in of the Sev- enty-third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, which entered the field in January 1862. Colonel Smith served with the Army . of the Potomac, commanding the Second Brigade, Second Division, Eleventh Army Corps, until September 1863, most of the time under
General O. O. Howard. He participated in the . personal narrative of one of the most conspicuous
battles of Second Bull Run, Fredericksburg. Chan- cellorsville and Gettysburg, and was transferred to the Army of the Cumberland, under the command of General Hooker. He ably performed the important duties intrusted to his charge at the battles of Wauhatchee, or Lookout Valley, in Octo- ber, and Missionary Ridge, in November 1863, and his bravery and efficiency as an officer are duly credited to him in the official report. By reason of family bereavement he resigned his commission in February 1864, and as a mark of recognition of his valuable services he was brevetted Brigadier-General in March 1865. After the war Mr. Smith was con- nected with the constru cion of railroads in the West, and in their operation, until 1877, when he became Vice-President of the Columbus, Hocking Valley & Toledo Railroad, with headquarters in Columbus. In 1882 he was elected Vice-President of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Company, and continued in that capacity until February 1896, since which time he has acted as their representative upon the Board of Managers of the Joint Traffic Association. In politics General Smith was orig- inally a Democrat, but since the breaking out of the war has been a Republican. He was Superintendent of Public Schools in Lewiston during the years 1851-52, but since that time has been too much occupied with active business affairs to accept public office. He is still President of several railroad companies, is a member of the Lincoln Club of Cincinnati, of which he was a director for two years, and is connected with the Maryland and Athenaeum clubs of Baltimore. He was married November 20, 1850, in Gorham, Maine, to Caroline Baldwin Pea- body, daughter of the late Dr. William H. and Hannah (March) Peabody. Of this union were born two daughters : Emma and Anna, neither of whom are
living. Mrs. Smith died August 12, 1895. Gen- eral Smith had the honor of delivering the oration at the Twenty-seventh Annual Reunion of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, held in Bur- lington, Vermont, September 16-17, 1896, and his address which consisted of a review of some of the important military movements in the late war, is printed in full in the report of that gathering. Of this oration, General Horatio C. King, Secretary of the Society of the Army of the Potomac, said : " This most valuable historical address was listened to with the most profound interest, interrupted fre- quently by applause. Its enjoyment was greatly enhanced by the fact that it was in large part the actors in that war drama, though his identity was modestly concealed by the speaker." In intro- ducing General Smith on that occasion, the Presi- dent of the Society, General John T. Lockman, said : " Before introducing the orator of the even- ing, I would like to have you indulge me for a few moments while I relate a little bit of history. Those of you who recall the 19th of September, 1863, will remember that the battle of Chickamauga was then fought, and that it never has been decided whether it was won by our side or not. It became necessary to reinforce the Army of the Cumberland. The Eleventh and Twelfth Corps were sent down from the Army of the Potomac, and the unparalleled feat of reinforcing an army one thousand miles away was accomplished by our government, and that army received the two corps. Before they connected it " was necessary to make a march of some two days. General Howard led the advance. He connected on the afternoon about five o'clock with the Army of the Cumberland. That night the commands became separated, one of them halting a mile or two in the rear. General Longstreet saw the sepa- ration of the two commands, and he instantly set to work and wedged a division of his men between the Eleventh and Twelfth Corps, and made an attack on the Twelfth. General Howard's com- mand at once marched to the assistance of the Twelfth. The Confederates had not even time to throw out a picket before our corps was on its march. When the leading brigade of the Eleventh Corps had partially passed the hill that stood at the right, they were assailed by a murderous fire of musketry. We all know that was bad enough under the best of circumstances, but at midnight, without warning, to be assailed by a galling mus- ketry fire would startle the bravest. Most of you
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thought that brigade ran away, but it did not. Its commander charged and carried that hill, driving the rebels from their position. I now have the honor of introducing to you, as the orator of the evening, the Commander of that Brigade, Genera! Orland Smith, United States Volunteers, for whom that hill was named."
SHAW, HORACE H., Shoe Manufacturer, Port- land, was born in Hampden, Penobscot county, Maine, February 18, 1842, son of Abial and Dorcas Elizabeth (Philbrook) Shaw. His father was a son of William Shaw of Frankfort, Maine, and was for many years engaged in farming in Hampden. His mother was a daughter of Moses Philbrook, also a resident of that town. His boyhood was spent on the home farm, where hard work was plenty and educational facilities few. In his sixteenth year, having won his father's consent to obtain an educa- tion by his own efforts, he began to earn his living. By working summers and teaching school winters he procured means to fit himself for college, and in the summer of 1862 was prepared to enter. But under the call of President Lincoln for troops, he enlisted in Company F, Eighteenth Regiment Maine Volunteers, was mustered in as First Sergeant, and was promoted to Second Lieutenant in January 1863. His alertness in the discharge of his duty and soldierly bearing in action won him favor with his superior officers, and he was next detached as an Aide-de-Camp to the Brigade Commander, and during his service in that capacity was assigned to duty as Ordnance Officer and Inspector of Artillery. The following summer he was promoted to the rank of First Lieutenant. In 1863 his regiment, the Eighteenth, was changed to the First Regiment Maine Heavy Artillery, and was in some of the severest actions of the war. In the campaign of 1864, acting as Aide-de-Camp to the Brigade Commander, he participated in the battles of Spottsylvania, North Anna, Hanover Courthouse, Tolopotomy Creek, Cold Harbor and Petersburg, being in active service from May 1864 to Septem- ber 1865. In February 1864 he was commissioned as Captain, but declined to muster. Ir the last campaign of 1865 he was ordered to the Quarter- master's Department, Third Division Second Army Corps, charged with important and critical duty - was at the capture of Petersburg, the battles at Sailor's Creek, Farmville, Rice's Station and High Bridge, and the Surrender of Lee at Appomattox.
When the aniny was disbanded he was retained in the service and ordered on June 15 to Fort Baker, Maryland, with a remnant of his regiment, which was consolidated with the Third, Fourth, Seven- teenth and Nineteenth Maine regiments, and served as Brigade Quartermaster from June 16 to September . 5, when he was mustered out with his regiment. It had been his intention to return to college at the close of his military service, but the intense activity of his later army life had unfitted him for a student, and he entered into business as a grocer in his native town. associating himself with a partner under the firm name of Shaw & Smith. After a year of
HORACE H SHAW.
profitable business he sold out, and went to Boston to study law, preparatory to entering a larger field. In February 1867 he entered the employ of C. H. Breed & Company, shoe manufacturers of Portland, as salesman. In 1871, in company with A. Walden, he succeeded this firm as Walden & Shaw, and in 1873 organized the firm of Shaw, Goding & Com- pany, which until 1893 carried on the leading busi- ness in their line in the state. In 1886 he founded a large and successful shoe-manufacturing industry "at Freeport, Maine, under the style of A. W. Shaw & Company, and in 1895. bought out a plant at Lewiston, Maine, and established there one of the largest shoe factories in the state. He is still largely
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engaged in shoe manufacturing in Portland, and has an office in Boston, and business in nearly every section of the United States. Mr. Shaw has been active in promoting all movements for the public good, in the various places where he has had interests, and has done much for the city of Port- land, where he resides. He is a staunch Repub- lican in politics, has served in the City Government and in the State Legislature, and in 1888 was Presi- dential Elector-at-Large and made President of the Electoral College, casting the vote of the state for Benjamin Harrison. In religion he is a Methodist, a member of Congress Street Church in Portland, and was Delegate from Maine to the Second Ecu- menical Conference in Washington in 1891. He is also a Trustee of the Maine Wesleyan Seminary and Female College at Kent's Hill, and has done much efficient work for that institution. Mr. Shaw was married in August 1867 to Celeste M. Gay, daughter of William Gay of East Corinth, Maine. They have a daughter, Mrs. Annabel Shaw Smart, well known in Portland literary circles ; and one son, Winfield L. Shaw, aged seventeen, a graduate of the Portland High School in the class of 1896, and serving as Major commanding the battalion of Portland High School Cadets.
VOSE, EDWIN FAXON, M. D., Portland, was born in Watertown, Massachusetts, October 17, 1850, son of Henry C. and Rachel W. (Faxon) Vose. On both sides he is of Puritan ancestry. The Vose family was represented in the settiement of Boston, and among the founders of Milton, Massachusetts, in 1636. The paternal great-grandfather of Dr. Vose was a soldier in the First Massachusetts Regi- ment, of which his brother was Colonel, in the Revolutionary army. The grandfather was a shoe manufacturer of Providence, Rhode Island. Henry C. Vose, the father, was a graduate of the Theological Seminary at Clinton, New York. He was Pastor of the Universalist Churches at Watertown and at West Scituate, Massachusetts, and at Clinton, New York, and spent the last thirty years of his life at Marion, Massachusetts. He was a strong abolition- ist, counting William Lloyd Garrison and other prominent agitators among his personal friends ; and at the time of the uprising against Freemasonry, when it took courage to avow connection with the order, he was prominent in its councils. He spoke on the anti-slavery question at so many out-door meetings that he ruined his voice and was obliged
to give up his work as a clergyman. He devoted the rest of his life to medical practice, and died in 1887. His wife, the mother of the subject of our sketch, was a daughter of Thomas Faxon of Brain- tree, Massachusetts, and was a direct descendant of John Clark, who came over in the Mayflower. Her grandfather, Thomas Faxon of Stoughton, Massa- chusetts, was one of the minute-men of the Revo- lution. Edwin F. Vose received his early education in the public schools and at the Massachusetts Agricultural College in the class of 1872. After a course of medical study with his father he entered the Medical Department of Boston University and
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EDWIN F. VOSE.
graduated therefrom in 1876. Before graduation he served for a year as House Surgeon of the Massa- chusetts Homeopathic Hospital. After receiving his diploma he commenced the practice of medicine in partnership with Dr. Eliphalet Clark at Portland, who was one of the pioneers of homoeopathy in the state of Maine. In 1877 the retirement of Dr. Clark left him in full charge of their combined practice, which he has since continued and steadily increased. Dr. Vose was President of the Maine State Home- opathic Medical Society in 1895, a member of the Maine Academy of Medicine, and when the Levis. lature in 1895 passed the bill requiring that all phy- sicians practicing in the state be registered or pas?
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examinations, he was appointed by Governor Cleaves a member of the Examining Board. He is promi- nently identified with fraternal societies and organ- izations, being Past Master of Portland Masonic Lodge, Past High Priest of Mount Vernon Chapter of Royal Arch Masons, Past Master of Portland Coun- cil Royal and Select Masters, Past Commander of Portland Commandery Knights Templar, member of the Maine order of High Priesthood, the Maine Con. sistory of thirty-second degree Masons, Aleppo Temple Nobles of the Mystic Shrine (Boston), the order of Red Cross of Constantine and the Royal Order of Scotland, the latter of which is limited to a membership of three hundred in the United States and is controlled at Edinburgh, Scotland ; also Past Grand of Hadattah Lodge and a member of Una Encampment in the Odd Fellows, member of Bram- hall Lodge Knights of Pythias and Samoset Tribe of Red Men. He is also a Director in the Fal- mouth Loan and Building Association, and in active membership in the Maine Charitable Mechanics Association, the Portland Club, the Young Men's Athletic Association, and the Sodality of the Sons of the Revolution. In politics Dr. Vose is a Repub- lican, and as such has been a member of the Port- land School Board since 1894. He was married July 5, 1876, to Lizzie M. Begg, daughter of John and Lizzie (McCurdy) Begg of Brooklyn, New York ; they have two children : Eleanor Rae and Clifton Henry Vose.
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WINGATE, JAMES I., of James I. Wingate & Son, painters and decorators, Boston, was born in Gorham, Cumberland county, Maine, June 4, 1837, son of John and Sophronia (Irish) Wingate. He is of the sixth generation in descent from John Wingate, who emigrated from England about 1650 and settled at Dover, New Hampshire, under a land grant from the king, establishing the homestead where his descendants have resided for nearly two hundred and fifty years. The ancestry of John Wingate is traced back to Lord Hemyng de Wyn- gate, in the reign of King Henry II. (1154-89). On the maternal side the subject of this sketch is fourth in descent from James Irish, one of the first settlers of Gorham, Maine, in 1736; grandson of the late General James Irish of Gorham, and great- grandson of Mary Gorham Phinney, the first white
child born in the town. James I. Wingate acquired his early education in the public schools and at Gorham Academy in his native town, and his train- ing for active life was received at Gorham and Portland by the ordinary methods of acquiring skill in a mechanical trade. At an early age, in 1854, he became a resident of Boston, where he worked at his trade until 1860, when he started business on his own account, in which he has continued to the present time. In 1890 his son became a partner in the business, since when the firm has been James I. Wingate & Son. The firm is one of the best known
JAMES I. WINGATE
in its line in New England, and its business ranks among the largest and most extensive of the painters and decorators of the country. Mr. Wingate is a charter member, and in 1891-3 was President of the Master Builders' Association of Boston and is a member of the Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association, the Masonic and Odd Fellows fra- ternities, the l'ine Tree State Club of Boston and the Republican Club of Massachusetts. In politics he is a Republican. He was married in Boston, May 18, 1870, to Helen Frances Snow : they have a son, Frank E. Wingate, born January 3, 1872.
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JOHN W. BALLOU.
BENNETT, HENRY BABBITT, of Portland, was born in Houlton, Aroostook county, Maine, June 26, 1850, son of Samuel W. and Nancy Prentice (Kendall) Bennett. His father was a native of Derbyshire, England, in which country he passed his childhood. Coming to America while still young he first settled at Woodstock, New Brunswick, removing therefrom to Houlton. In 1850 he died at Butte des Morts, Wisconsin, during a visit there to look after the lumber business in which he was interested. His widow, the daughter of Samuel Kendall, one of the earliest settlers and land owners in Houlton, and till the time of his death one of its leading citizens, is yet alive in her eighty-eighth year, making her home in Portland with her son, the subject of this sketch. A lady of strong liter- ary proclivities and scholarly attainments, she has made herself a reputation as a teacher and a poet. Besides Henry she has had two other children : Charles W., now a resident of San Francisco, and Lilla K. (now deceased) who married W. R. M'Donald of Calais, Maine. Henry B. Bennett, after completing his school studies at Houlton Academy, came to Portland in 1867, to acquire the stencil-cutting trade, taking his lessons from Edward Fairfield. So successful was he that in less than six years Mr. Bennett became the proprietor of the
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