USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 88
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tion, with a hospital appointment if he wished it, was his reward for a hard fight to overcome the deficiencies of his early education. He graduated in the class of 1881-2. Dr. Blaisdell now holds the position of Surgeon-in-Chief of the Eastern District Hospital in Brooklyn. He is a member of the Kings County Medical Society, Physician to the Mutual Aid Society, also a member of the Hanover Club and honorary member of the Seawanaka Boat Club. He was married January 29, 1883, to Ella Rebecca Fisher, daughter of Elanson Fisher, the portrait painter.
E. E. CROCKETT.
1 CROSWELL, JAMES GREENLEAF, Master of the Brearley School, New York city, was born in Bruns- wick, Maine, August 29, 1852, son of Andrew and Caroline (Greenleaf) Croswell. His father, an Episcopal clergyman, was a native of Massachusetts. His mother was the daughter of Simon Greenleaf, LL. D., of Maine, afterwards Professor of Law at Harvard University. He received his early educa- tion in the public schools and the High School of Cambridge, Massachusetts, and graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1873. Following graduation he spent three years in Germany, at the Universities of Leipzig and Bonn. He was for a
time teacher in St. Mark's School, Southboro, Massa- chusetts, and then Tutor and Professor of Greek at Harvard College until 1887, when he went to New York city and assumed the position of Head Master of the Brearley School, an incorporated private
J. G. CROSWELL.
school, preparatory for college, which he still holds. Mr. Croswell is a member of the Harvard Club, the New England Society, the City Club and the Barn- ard Club of New York city. He is also a member and Past Secretary of the Harvard Chapter of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. In politics he is a Demo- crat with independent proclivities. He was mar- ried May 10, 1888, to Letitia Brace, daughter of Charles L. Brace of New York city ; they have no children.
DUDLEY, SANFORD HARRISON, Lawyer, Boston, was born in China, Kennebec county, Maine. January 14, 1842, son of Harrison and Elizabeth (Prentiss) Dudley. He is a lineal descendant of Thomas Dudley, second Governor of the Colonies of Massachusetts Bay, through Samuel Dudley, eldest son of the Governor, who settled at Exeter, New Hampshire. His boyhood and early youth were passed with his parents successively in China, St. Albans, Auburn and Richmond, Maine, and at the age of fifteen he came with them to Fairhaven,
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Massachusetts, where he began his college prepara- tory studies in the High School. Completing his preparation for college under the direction of a well-known classical teacher in New Bedford, dur- ing which time he taught a country school, he
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SANFORD H. DUDLEY.
entered Harvard in 1863 and graduated in the class of 1867. For three years following graduation he taught mathematics and the classics in the New Bedford High School, meanwhile reading law in the office of Eliot & Stetson, New Bedford, and subse- quently pursuing his studies at Harvard Law School, from which he graduated in 1871. He has received from his alma mater the degrees of A. B., A. M. and LL. B. Immediately upon leaving the law school he was admitted to the Bar and began practice, open- ing offices in Boston and Cambridge, in which latter city he has always resided since coming to Boston. After a few years however he confined himself wholly to his Boston office, where he has been engaged in general practice ever since. Mr. Dudley has served in the City Government of Cambridge, but has never sought political office or preferment, choosing to give his whole time and energies to his profession. In politics he was originally a Republican, and was for many years an active member of the local party committees ; preferably he is still an adherent of Republican principles, but of late has acted inde- pendently. He is a member of the Universalist
Church in North Cambridge, and active in religious matters, both in church and Sunday School. He has been President of the Universalist Club, the representative lay organization of that denomination in the state ; and has served as President of the Universalist Sunday School Union, an organization representing all the Sunday Schools of the denomi- nation in and around Boston and vicinity. He is also a member of the Cambridge Club, the principal social organization of his city ; has been President of the Sons of Maine Association in Cambridge ; is a member of the New England Historic Genea- logical Society, and was the first President of The Governor Thomas Dudley Family Association, a cor- poration established not only for social purposes, but also for the elucidation of early New England his- tory, especially as affected by the lives and careers of Governor Dudley and his descendants. Mr. Dud- ley has written occasionally for the press, and from time to time has delivered public addresses upon historical and other topics. He was married April 2, 1869, to Laura Nye Howland, daughter of John M. Howland of Fairhaven, Massachusetts. They have three children : Laura Howland, Howland and Elizabeth Prentiss Dudley. The son, Howland Dudley, is destined for his father's profession.
J. H. DEMERITT.
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GREENE, JOHN ARTHUR, of the American Book Company, New York, was born in North Waterford, Oxford county, Maine, March 27, 1854, son of John Adams and Lydia (Cummings) Greene. His grand- father Hezekiah Greene was a native of Maine, and his great-grandfather Benjamin Greene, also a native of Maine (then Massachusetts), was a Revolutionary soldier. On the maternal side he is a grandson of Francis P. Cummings of Maine, and great-grandson of Ephraim Chamberlain of Massachusetts, whose niece, Grace Fletcher, married Daniel Webster. His ancestral stock on the paternal side is all English, and on the mother's side, as the name indicates, was Scotch and English ; all God fearing and serving men of sterling worth. Four of his great-grandfathers served in the Revolutionary War, besides several other relatives. He received his early education in the public and high schools, and graduated from the Maine State Normal School at Farmington in the class of 1876. He had already taught the usual country schools, and the day after graduation was engaged to teach in the Abbot Family School for Boys at " Little Blue," Farmington, where he continued until 1878, when he was placed in charge of the Farmington High School and the public schools of that village. Taking up the study of law, he was in 18So admitted to the Bar in Oxford county, Maine, and went to Chicago and began practice in that city ; but soon after was offered a position to represent the old publishing house of Ivison, Blakeman & Company in New England, the acceptance of which changed his plans for a career. He expected to return to the law, but was sufficiently successful in his new occupation to tempt him to remain in the business of publishing school books. In 1891 he was tendered an important and respon- sible position with the American Book Company, the largest concern in the world engaged in pub- lishing schoolbooks. He became Superintendent of the Agency Department in New York for this company in 1894, and was made Manager in 1896, which position he still occupies. He is also a stockholder in the company, and it has been said that " Mr. Greene knows more prominent school superintendents and eminent educators in the United States, and possesses the esteem and con- fidence of more of such men, than any other man in the country." Mr. Greene is a member of the Aldine Club, an association of authors and pub- lishers ; the New York Press Club, and other social organizations of the city ; also of the Republican Club of the City of New York, in which he was an
officer for several years. In politics he is a staunch Republican, and an earnest worker for the party, but has never been an aspirant for public office, being too much engaged in business. He was married April 12, 1830, to Clara F. Allen, daughter of Charles L. Allen, Esq., of Rockland, Maine ; they have one child : John Arthur Greene, Jr., born May 13, 1983.
DENISON. ADNA CURTIS, Founder of the Deni- son Paper Mills at Mechanic Falls, now owned and operated by the Foland Paper Company, was born in Burke, Vermont, November 15, 1815, son of Isaac and Electra E. (Newell) Denison. Accord- ing to Burke's " Book of the Landed Gentry of Great Britain," the Denison family is of ancient origin, the name appearing in the charter of King Malcolm I, who died in 1665. The English Deni- sons are said to have sprung from a cadet of this ancient house, who went from Scotland at the time of Charles I, and who fought at Marston Moor. The family is undoubtedly of Norman origin, and its members fought in the Crusades, and were entitled to bear a coat-of-arms, the motto of the Denisons being Domus Grata. The American Denisons are descendants of William of England, who came in 1631 in the ship Lyon, with his wife Margaret, sons Daniel, Edward and George, and John Eliot, afterwards apostle to the Indians, who was a tutor to his sons. William Denison settled in Roxbury, Massachusetts, where he was deacon, and prominent in affairs, and died in 1653. The son George had two children born in Roxbury ; his wife died in 1643, and he returned to England, served under Cromwell, was wounded at Naseby, and nursed at the house of John Boredell, whose daughter Ann he married. He returned to Rox- bury, and subsequently settled in Stonington, Con- necticut, where he was almost constantly placed in important public position. His wife was always called " Lady Ann." They were remarkable for magnificent personal appearance and force of mind and character. Captain George Denison was dis- tinguished in the military movements of the times, and also active in civil affairs. He has been (described as " The Miles Standish of the settle- ment." His oldest son, Captain John Denison, who held a high position and was a man of mark in Stonington, married Phebe Lay ; of their children, William, the fourth son, resided in North Stoning- ton, and married Mary, daughter of John Avery.
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MEN OF PROGRESS.
Avery Denison, son of William and Mary, was born in 1712, and married Thankful Williams in 1734. Elisha Denison, the oldest child of this marriage, married Ketureh Minor ; their children were born in Stonington, but they eventually moved to Lud- low, Vermont. Isaac Denison, son of Elisha, born in 1778, married Electra E. Newell of Farmington, Connecticut, October 21, 1798. He was a pioneer settler of the town of Burke, Caledonia county, Vermont, going there when a young man, and by his industrious labors developing a fine farm and pleasant home from the forest wilderness. He died in Norway, Maine, January 9, 1867. His third son and eighth child is the subject of this sketch. Adna C. Denison received a common school and academic education, and when fifteen years old became a clerk at Sutton, Vermont, in the store of Morrill & Denison, of which firm his father was a member. Here he remained for twelve years, developing during this period a peculiar aptitude for mercantile life. In 1842 he moved to Norway, Oxford county, Maine, and with E. W. Fyler and Clark W. True opened a store under the name of A. C. Denison & Company. In a short time he wrought a revolution in the mercantile business of the Androscoggin Valley, carrying on trade in a different manner from former merchants, buying everything the farmers had for sale, inaugu- rating cash payments, and transacting a vast busi- ness for years. From 1845 to 1848 he had his store at Auburn, Androscoggin county. He was also largely engaged in supplying contractors on the . Atlantic & St. Lawrence Railroad (now the Grand Trunk), as the head of local firms at South Paris and Bethel in Maine, and Gorham, Northumberland and North Stratford in New Hampshire. In 1848, in connection with Dr. Asa Danforth, he built at Norway one of the earliest paper mills in the state. He also operated sawmills and carried on other enterprises, and his influence was felt in every in- dustry of the section. In 1851 Mr. Denison turned his attention to Mechanic Falls, where he bought the old mill then owned by Isaiah Perkins and others, and built the paper mills there. In 1855, with Sewell Danforth, he erected a paper mill at Duck Pond in the town of Windham, which he later purchased and moved to Mechanic Falls. From 1856, when he made Mechanic Falls his resi- dence, he was the leading business element of the place. In the development of paper manufacturing, in trade, in building improvements and develop- ment, and in the encouragement of other manufac-
turing enterprises, Mr. Denison more than all others added to the growth and importance of Mechanic Falls. He continued the manufacture of paper until four mills and two auxiliary mills were in oper- ation there, on three dams, with a daily production of fifteen tons. His company was among the first to manufacture chemical wood-pulp for use in paper making, building about 1880 a large mill at Canton for this purpose, having a daily production of twelve tons. In 1862 and thereafter Mr. Denison's son, Adna T., was associated with him in his various enter- prises. In 1868 they were also prominent in a stock company that purchased and re-modeled a large paper mill on the Farnsworth privilege in Lisbon, Maine, which was burned shortly after it was com- pleted. Mr. Denison's extensive business operations have prevented him from giving much time to posi- tions of a public nature, but he has served with credit in both branches of the Maine Legislature, as Representative from Poland in 1864, and as Sen- ator from Androscoggin county in 1865 and 1866. He has been a Whig and a Republican in politics, an active Universalist in religion, and has won the respect and esteem of an extensive circle of busi- ness acquaintances and personal friends. He was married September 13, 1838, to Hannah True, daughter of Thomas and Mary ( Kennedy) True, of Sutton, Vermont, who died March 23, 1881. They had two children : Adna T. Denison, now resident in Boston ; and Fanny M., wife of Calvin Morse Cram, of New York city.
EMMONS, WILLIS T., County Attorney for York County, is a native of Saco, Maine, in which city he still resides. Though yet a young man, he has held important positions in the State and Federal service and is looked upon by his personal and political friends throughout Maine as a man of most promis- ing future. So widely recognized were his legal acquirements and his ability and tact at the Bar, that he was chosen Judge of the Municipal Court in his native city (in 1883) at an age when most young attorneys are struggling for a foothold in practice. His service on the Bench confirmed the high opinion in which he was held by his fellow-citizens; for there he displayed the fair-mindedness, the knowl- edge of procedure, the intimacy with recoudite branches of his profession, and above all, the urbanity, which go to the make-up of an upright and judicious magistrate. It was therefore quite as matter of course that, on the return of the
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Republican party to national power, he should be considered in connection with Federal appoint- ments; and it was at the earnest wish of Maine Republicans that President Harrison appointed him to the dignified and arduous position of Deputy Collector for the Customs District of Portland and Falmouth, one of the most important districts on the New England coast. So well did he acquit himself in this responsible place that he was con- tinued in office far into President Cleveland's second term, and indeed only resigned to accept the County Attorneyship of York County, to which office he was elected in 1894 by an unprecedented
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WILLIS T. EMMONS.
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majority, and which he still holds. In this position many important criminal cases have come into his hands, and in the conduct of them he has empha- sized those legal talents which gave him so early and so rapid rise at the Bar.
HADLOCK, HARVEY DEMING, Lawyer, was born at Cranberry Isles, Hancock county, Maine, Octo- ber 7, 1843, youngest son of Edwin and Mary Ann (Stanwood) Hadlock ; died in Boston, Massachu- setts, April 13, 1897. He was of the seventh gen- cration in descent from Nathaniel Hadlock, who came from Wapping, England, in 1638, settled first
in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and subsequently was one of the founders of Lancaster, Massachu- setts. Through his paternal grandmother he was also descended from Thomas Manchester, one of the earliest settlers (1642) of Portsmouth, Rhode Island. On the maternal side he was a descendant of Philip Stanwood, one of the first settlers (1653) of Gloucester, and in the fifth generation, of Job Stanwood, the soldier mentioned in history, and Martha Bradstreet, his second wife ; and through his maternal grandmother, of Captain John Gilley, an eminent shipmaster of his time, son of William Gilley, who came to America in 1763. Two of the sons of the first Nathaniel Hadlock were in King Philip's War ; three Hadlocks were in the Battle of Lexington ; others of the family name, including the great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, were soldiers of the Revolution ; his uncle Captain Sam- uel Hadlock, Jr., was in the War of 1812, and his brother, Colonel William E. Hadlock, served in the Civil War. His grandfather, Captain Samuel Had- lock, acquired by purchase the greater part of Little Cranberry Island early in the present century, and settling there, engaged in shipping and general trade, to which business his father, Edwin Hadlock, who was a master mariner in early life, succeeded. Harvey D Hadlock received his early education under the supervision of his mother, a woman of superior culture, and in the schools of his native town. At thirteen years of age, the family having moved to Bucksport, Maine, he became a student in the East Maine Conference Seminary, in which institution and under private instructors he pursued an advanced course of classical studies, which he supplemented by a partial course in the scientific department of Dartmouth College. His legal studies were pursued in the law office of the Hon. Samuel F. Humphrey at Bangor, Maine, under the friendly supervision of ex-Governor Edward Kent, at that time one of the Justices of the Maine Supe- rior Court. At the age of twenty-one he was ad- mitted to the Bar of that court, and later to the Federal Courts of the district. He began his prac- tice in Bucksport, Maine. Business drawing him to New Orleans, he spent the winter of 1865-6 there, devoting much of the time to the study of civil and maritime law, under the direction of the eminent jurist, Christian Roselius. Within the next three years he was admitted to practice in the courts, State and Federal, of Nebraska, Massachusetts and New York, establishing his main office in Boston in the autumn of 1863. He was then engaged largely
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in criminal cases, in the defence of which he met with marked success. In 1871 he returned to Bucksport to engage in promoting the railroad from Bangor to eastern points by way of Bucksport ; and in the spring of 1873. the construction of the road being assured, he resumed general practice at Bucksport. He became one of the Directors of the Bucksport & Bangor Railroad, and counsel for the corporation ; and his practice extended to nearly every county of the state, embracing some of the most important cases tried in Maine, in the con- duct of which his reputation as an able advocate and jurist was firmly established. In 1881 he moved
HARVEY D. HADLOCK.
to Portland, and there, during a residence of six years, maintained a leading place among the ablest lawyers of the Cumberland Bar, as a successful prac- titioner in causes involving important interests of railroad corporations, valuable patents and maritime affairs, besides notable criminal cases. It has been said that during that period he tried more causes than any other lawyer in Portland, and performed a prodigious amount of work. Since 1887 Mr. Hadlock had his residence and practiced his profession in. Boston, also maintaining an office and enjoying a lucrative practice in New York, the range of his practice extending beyond the limits of the State and Federal Courts of New England and New York, and
embracing cases of great importance before the United States Supreme Court. Among the large number of notable cases which he successfully con- ducted was that of Campbell vs. the Mayor, Alder- men and Commonalty of the City of New York, involving the validity of the steam fire-engine patent, for many years before the courts, and of national importance, affecting every city which used steam fire-engines from 1864 to 1881. Other cases of note were the petition of Frederic Spofford for certiorari vs. the Railroad Commissioners of Maine and the Bucksport & Bangor Railroad ; the Treat & Company bankrupt case, pending in the United States District Court of Maine `from 1868 to 1889; numerous great trademark cases, maritime, railroad, consular conspiracy and will cases, conspicuous among the latter being the Jenness will case (Con- cord, New Hampshire) in 1892. Mr. Hadlock's thorough research of the law, coupled with the accuracy and honesty of the conclusions drawn by him, has for many years caused his opinion on constitutional and corporation law to be highly valued and sought after and frequently published. His devotion to his profession throughout his legal career was characterized by the closest application. Case succeeded case without intermission, and day succeeded day of unremitting and unwearied indus- try, which never could have been performed but for the vigor and unfailing spirits arising from recupera- tive qualities of the highest order. The results thereby achieved were most brilliant. Mr. Hadlock was of distinguished presence, and his features were indicative of the intellect which carried him at an early age into the vanguard of the legal profession in the country. His arguments were at once con- densed and comprehensive of important details. He was alert and vigilant. In addressing a jury, by adapting his expressions to the comprehensions of each member, he combined the eloquence of the orator with the acute reasoning and crisp directness of the special pleader. Naturally he had a large body of appreciative clients, for the resources of the most extensive reading, study and observation, were so finely displayed in his arguments, that his agree- ment to promote a cause was looked upon as a positive assurance of success. His career is a remarkable illustration of what native ability and persistent, untiring industry can accomplish in the legal profession. Mr. Hadlock, with one exception, in 1876, when he accepted the nomination as Jud_e of the Probate Court for Hancock County, Maine, refused all judicial and political nominations and
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appointments tendered him. He was married Jan- uary 26, 1865, -to Alexene I .. Goodell, eldest daugh- ter of Captain Daniel L. Goodell of Searsport, Maine, a prominent shipmaster and later in life a successful shipbuilder. Of this marriage two children are living : Inez Blanche and Webster Deming Hadlock. Their eldest son, Harvey D. Hadlock, Jr , born December 4, 1870, died January 22, 1886. Mr. Hadlock's summer residence was in Bucksport, Maine, occupying a picturesque site on the banks of the Penebscot River.
HAMILTON, BENJAMIN FRANKLIN, Lawyer, Bid- deford, was born in Waterboro, Maine, in 1840, son of Benjamin and - Hamilton. His ancestors were among the early settlers of the district of Maine, and many of them figured conspicuously in public affairs. Both of his grandfathers figured prominently in the Colonial struggle for indepen- dence, and among his kinsmen was Alexander Hamilton, the distinguished statesman. His father was an extensive and prosperous farmer of Water- boro, noted for his public spirit and high-minded liberality. Upon the home farm the boyhood of Benjamin F. Hamilton was passed. He attended the district schools, and after completing a course of study at the New Hampton (New Hampshire) Literary Institute, he returned home, and for a period of several years succeeding taught winter terms of school and worked summers on the farm, meanwhile operating a small industry of his own in burning charcoal and selling it in the Portland, Saco and Biddeford markets. He presided over schools in various towns of the county including Kenne- bunk, Waterboro and Alfred; and in the latter town, the county seat, where he taught four years, he planned to relinquish the occupation of peda- gogue, and began the study of law in the office of Ira T. Drew. Under the preceptorship of this able lawyer he applied himself earnestly to the acquire- ment of legal knowledge for three years, at the expiration of which time, in 1860, he was admitted to the York County Bar. After attending a course of lectures at Harvard Law School, he commenced in 1861 the practice of law in Biddeford, where he has ever since been established. In 1867 he formed a law partnership with Samuel K. Hamilton, a consin, under the firm name of S. K. & B. F. Ham- ilton, which continued until 1872, when the former withdrew and moved to Boston. Two years later Charles W. Ross became his partner, and under the name of Hamilton & Ross an extensive general law
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