Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine, Part 9

Author: Herndon, Richard; McIntyre, Philip Willis, 1847- ed; Blanding, William F., joint ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston, New England magazine
Number of Pages: 1268

USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 9

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McDONALD, CHARLES JOSEPH. of C. J. McDonald & Company, general woodworkers, Portland, was born in Gray, Maine, June 20, 1849,

Rufus Deering Company under the firm name of C. J. McDonald & Company, each buying one-half interest. Since that time he has served as General Manager, which position he now holds. Mr. Mc- Donald was a member of the City Council of Port- land in 189.4-5, and is now serving as Alderman. He is a member of Siloam Lodge of Gray and Una Encampment of Portland, Independent Order of Odd Fellows; Jay Lodge; Rebekahs; Knights of Pythias ; Trinity Lodge, Knights of Malta; and Beacca Commandery Knights Templar. In politics he is a Republican. Mr. McDonald was married January 1, 1871, to Miss Dora S. Pierce of New Gloucester ; they have had two children : Pierce McDonald, born December 8, 1874, drowned at eleven years, in July 1885 ; and Stanley McDonald, born March 6, 1888.

McQUILLAN, GEORGE FULTON, Attorney and Counsellor at Law, Portland, was born in Naples, Maine, April 18, 1849, son cf Reverend Hugh and Elvira (Wight) McQuillan. He is of North of Ire-

C. J. McDONALD.

son of Joseph and Clarissa A. (McIntyre) McDon- ald. His ancestors were Scotch Highlanders. He was brought up on the paternal farm in Gray, acquired his early education in the public schools, and served an apprenticeship at the cooper's trade. In 1879 he came to Portland to work for the Star Match Company. In 1883 he entered the planing mill and woodworking establishment of Littlefield & Wilson, continuing with them until Mr. Littlefield's death in 1886, when the business was sold, a copartnership being formed by himself and the

GEORGE F. McQUILLAN.

land descent, having come from the stock which gave lords to Dunluce Castle from the time of the first Eng- lish occupation until that of James the First, when they were dispossessed by MacDonnell, one of James's Scottish favorites. Dispossessed of their paternal

MEN OF PROGRESS.

estates they became scattered over the land. The first McQuillan to come to America was John, an officer in the British Navy, who left the service at Portland, Maine, and subsequently settled in Gorham. He married Olive Edwards of that town, where he resided until his death in 1807. The Rev. Hugh McQuillan was his second child by her, lworn at Gorham, July 18, 1803. Hugh was married at Naples, Maine, in 1842, to Elvira Wight, a native of Otisfield, Maine, who bore him three children : . 189r, to Miss Mary F. Robie, daughter of Ex- Ruius H., formerly of Varmouth, Maine, merchant, / Governor Frederick Robie; they have one child : who died in that town April 23, 1896; George F., Harriet Robie McQuillan, born March 14, 1894. the subject of this sketch ; and Liza A., now resid- ing in Portland and unmarried. The Rev. Hugh died in Casco, Maine, April 14, 1861, his widow MELVIN, ANDREW ALONZO, Editor and Proprietor of the Westbrook Chronicle, was born in Boston, Massachusetts, December 10, 1849, son of Alonzo surviving him a score of years, passing away at Yarmouth, Maine, November 27, 1881 ; she came of an old Dedham, Massachusetts, family. George Fulton McQuillan's boyhood was passed in the town of Raymond. When but eleven years old he lost his father ; but his mother, a woman of the good old-fashioned New England mold, kept the iumnily together and saw to their education. After attending the common schools George fitted for college at the North Bridgton (Maine) Academy, and was graduated from Bowdoin College in the class of 1875, where he proved himself a diligent student. Meanwhile he was Supervisor of Schools at Raymond, Maine. After graduation he taught high schools in various parts of Cumberland county for two years, and then began the study of law with the Hon. Bion Bradbury of Portland. He was admitted to the Bar on October 14, 1879. He began practice in Casco, where he remained a year, and where he held the offices of Town Clerk and Supervisor of Schools. In October ISSo Mr. MetQuillan removed to Portland, where he has since resided and practiced his profession. Besides being a member of the Bar of the State and United States courts, he was in 1892, at Washington, A. A. MELVIN. District of Columbia, admitted to the Supreme Court of the United States. He has for a number of years been the attorney for several towns of Cumberland county. He was appointed Judge Advocate General on the staff of Governor Plaisted, with the rank of Colonel, June 6, ISS1, and served in that capacity until January 3, 1883. Colonel MeQuillan has been the Democratic candidate for Clerk of Courts of Cumberland County, on which o casion he ran well on the ticket, getting his faniy's full support, and in 1892 he was the Demo- cratic candidate for Judge of Probate. On

December 1, Isoz, he formed a law partnership with Colonel Albert W. Bradbury, which continued until May 28, 18044, when Colonel Bradbury received from President Cleveland the appointment to the office of United States District Attorney for Maine. Colorei VicQuilian is recognized as one of the soundest and most conservative lawyers at the Cumberland Bar, while in social circles he is a general favorite. He was married February 5,

Augustus and Sarah Elizabeth ( Masters) Melvin. His father was a clerk in the Boston Custom House under Collector Morton at the time of his death, which untimely event occurred when he was yet a young man. His mother was a daughter of Colonel Andrew Masters of Hallowell, Maine, by his first wife, Sallie Phipps Livermore. On the paternal side Mr. Melvin is descended from Benjamin Melvin, a farmer and Revolutionary patriot of Scotch-Irish descent, living in Chester, New Hampshire, 1733- 1802. Benjamin married Mehitabel Bradley, 1764,

MEN OF PROGRESS.

whose father was killed by the Indians, 1745. They had nine children, three of whom settled in the state of Maine. The Livermore blood is one of the oldest and best strains in New England, appearing notably in the Hamlin family in the person of Hon. Hanni- bal Hamlin, and running back through a line of Colonial dignitaries and connection with the Phipps family, eminent in the person of Sir William Phipps, the navigator. Upon his father's death, in 1850, the subject of this sketch being then an infant of ten months, his mother removed to Hallowell, Maine, where he was brought up in the home of his grandfather, Colonel Andrew Masters. His edu- cation was begun in the city schools, but for the most part was obtained in the old Hallowell Acad- emy, where he took the full academic course, graduating in 1866. He entered upon his training for active life in the printing office of Masters, Smith & Livermore in Hallowell, and after learning the trade worked as a journeyman printer for a time in various places and newspaper offices. While work- ing as a printer he began contributing articles to the press, which led eventually to his giving up the stick and rule and devoting his abilities to the pen, as a newspaper reporter. He served in that capacity for a short time with the Hallowell Register, and then went to Syracuse, New York, where he obtained a situation as reporter on the Herald. After about a year in Syracuse he returned to Maine, and bought an interest in the Portland Evening Express, then a small and feeble paper. At the end of six months he sold out to his partner, W. H. Laughl n, and went as reporter on the Advertiser. Later he engaged with the Eastern Argus and remained as reporter and city editor for about three years, and then, in 1892, purchased the Westbrook Chronicle from its founder, Marcus Watson, and has con- tinued its publication to the present time. Mr. Melvin is a journalist of progressive and independ- ent habit of thought, and is a clear and incisive writer. One of his traits as a journalist often remarked by comrades in his profession is his clear insight and faculty of arriving without circumlocu-

tion directly at the bottom of the matter. This

faculty, valuable to an editorial writer or exchange editor, is fatal to sensational reporting, and many a

story that some less judicious or less conscientious man would have strung out to the extremest agony

of two or three hysteric columns, got. at his hands the true news value that the bottom facts deserved. One incident illustrative of this faculty occurred in his connection with the Syracuse Herald, when a

certain wealthy operator in the salt district sunk a salt well through the Onondaga shales in the hope to strike a strata of rock salt, which he imagined might possibly exist below. After a month or more of work, the well going steadily deeper day by day, the drill at last began to bring up particles of a white substance, and the news spread, creating a wild excitement in the district, that rock salt had been struck. A rush of speculators and newspaper men was made. Mr. Melvin viewed the scene, and with hundreds of others handled the white substance brought up from the bottom of the well. Examin- ing the minute crystals through a microscope, he found them hexagonal in form and that settled the matter with him. Going back to the office he made a full report, stating the facts. To his surprise the report was not satisfactory, being contrary to the general report upon the street, and he was told to re-write the portion which cast a doubt upon the genuineness of the find. He remonstrated, but with- out avail, and under pressure of official displeasure consented to insert the expression, " presumably a deposit of rock salt." Finally the report was taken out of his hands and a desk man in the office finished it to suit the demand. Talking with the city editor about the matter Mr. Melvin said, "You will do well not to make that report too strong ; you had better leave a hole to crawl out of, because you will certainly have to recede ; there is no rock salt there."

The end proved Mr. Melvin to be right. After being a nine-days wonder and serving as a means of getting an appropriation from the State Assembly to continue the work, the crystals were proved to be some other mineral than salt, the brine being poisonous " bitter waters " super-saturated with the mineral brought up with it, and worthless for any purpose in the salt-making industry. Mr. Melvin is a Republican in politics and a Roman Catholic in religion. He belongs to no secret societies, and was never a member of but one club, the Press Club of Portland, now disbanded. He was married in 1889 to Miss Sonverein Marie McGraw Musroll of Portland, born in Tracadie, New Brunswick, of Acadian parentage ; they have one child : Marie Florence Elizabeth Melvin, born February 15, 1895.

MOULTON, AUGUSTUS FREEDOM, Counsellor at law, Portland, was born in Jay, Franklin county, Maine, May 1, 1848; son of Freedom and Shuah Coffin (Carter) Moulton. His father was born in Scarboro, fitted for college in Gorham, but did not

MEN OF PROGRESS.

enter, was a teacher and farmer, a member of the School Committee in Jay and in Scarboro, and Town Clerk of Scarboro at his death in 1857. His mother was a daughter of Ezra Carter of Scar . boro, and was also a teacher. His paternal ancestry

A. F. MOULTON.

traces back through Freedom Moulton, Captain . Joshua Moulton and Charles Moulton to Captain Daniel Moulton, active in Revolutionary times, who came to Scarboro from Hampton, New Hampshire, about 1745, and who was a descendant of William Moulton. emigrant from Norfolk county, England, to Hampton, New Hampshire, in 1638. Augustus F. Moulton received his early education in the com- mon schools, Saco High School and Gorham Sem- inary, graduated from Westbrook Seminary in 1869 and from Bowdoin College in 1873. Following graduation he was a tutor in Bowdoin for a year, and then, 1874-6, read law with William L. Put- nam in Portland. He was admitted to the bar in October 1876, in Cumberland county, and since that time has been actively engaged in the work of his profession in Portland, making a specialty of mercantile and corporation law, and establishing an extensive practice both in the State and United States courts. He is also the legal representative in Portland oi the Bradstreet Mercantile Agency. Al- though established in business in Portland twenty years, Mr. Moulton has retained his residence in

Scarboro, where he was a member of the School Committee for fifteen years, and has held various other town offices. He was a member of the State Legislature two terms, 1878-9, has been a candidate for County Attorney twice, and twice a candidate for Judge of Probate. Mr. Moulton is a member of the Board of Trustees of Westbrook Seminary, also of the Fraternity and Cumberland clubs of Portland, the Portland Board of Trade, Maine His- torical Society, Maine Genealogical Society, and in college was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon and Phi Beta Kappa. He is a prominent Mason, having held various offices in Portland Commandery Knights Templar, and is a member and ex-chief officer of Bramhall Lodge Knights of Pythias. In politics he is inclined to be somewhat independent, but has uniformly acted with the Democratic party. He is unmarried.

NORCROSS, ORLANDO WHITNEY, of Norcross Brothers, Building Contractors, Worcester, Massa-

O. W. NORCROSS.

chusetts, was born in Clinton, Kennebec county, Maine, October 25, 1839, younger son of Jesse S. and Margaret (Whitney) Norcross. When two years old his parents removed to Salem, Massachu- setts, where he was educated in the public schools.

MEN OF PROGRESS.

Having inherited the building instinct from his father, a man of unusual mechanical ability, whose chief business had been setting up sawmills in the woods of Maine, he learned the carpenters' trade, and in 1864, after his return from the war, he started business in Swampscott, Massachusetts, in company with his brother, James A. Norcross, under the firm name of Norcross Brothers, carpen- ters and builders. The beginning was modest, with little pronrise of speedy expansion, but two years later they secured a contract to build the Congregational Church in Leicester, Massachusetts, and in 1867 they found their opportunity in the city of Worcester, which had then entered upon a stage of extensive improvements. From that time the advancement of the firm was rapid, and their work soon became of the first importance. Within the three years 1868-70 they built in Worcester the Crompton Block, the First Universalist Church and the Worcester High School, and had begun opera- tions in Springfield, Massa husetts, building there the South Congregational Church. In 1872 they took the contract for the Hampden County Court House, Springfield, and in 1873 began Trinity Church in Boston, the architectural masterpiece of the lamented Richardson. Subsequently they exe- cuted other notable work of Richardson's design. In the six years 1873-9 they constructed the Nor- wich Congregational Church, at Norwich, Connecti- cut ; the beautiful All Saints' Church, Worcester ; the Cheney Block, Hartford, Connecticut ; the Latin and English High Schools, Boston ; the Gymnasium and Sever Hall, Harvard College ; the Ames Library and Town Hall, North Easton, Massachu- setts ; the Woburn Library, Woburn, Massachusetts ; Trinity Church parsonage, Boston ; and the New- port villa of Mrs. Annie W. Sherman. During the eighties they extended their operations over the country, building the City Hall at Albany, New York ; the Allegheny County Court House and Jail, Pittsburg, Pennsylvania; Chamber of Commerce, Cincinnati ; Howard Memorial Library, New Or- leans ; Turner and Lionberger Buildings, St. Louis, Missouri ; Marshall Field Building, Chicago, Illi- nois ; New York Life Insurance Buildings at Omaha and Kansas City; Presbyterian Church, Albany, New York ; Lawrenceville School, Lawrenceville, New Jersey ; and Crouse Memorial College, Syra- . cuse, New York. Within the same period they built in New England the Yale College Memorial Building ; Harvard College Law School Building ; a Vermont University building; the Durfee High

School, Fall River ; Crane Memorial Hall, Quincy : Malden Library, Malden ; Fiske Building. Syndi- cate Building, and other business structures, also the First Spiritual Temple, and the Algonquin and Art Clubs, Boston ; Burnside Building, Worcester ; the South Framingham and Springfield stations on the Boston & Albany Railroad, and the Union Rail- road Station at Hartford ; Baptist Church at New- ton, and Grace Church, New Bedford ; also in New York city, the Union League Club, Union Theo- logical Seminary, and St. James Episcopal and Holy Trinity churches, and numerous pretentious and costly private residences in various cities throughout the country. They also constructed the Soldiers' Monument at West Point, New York, the largest polished monolith in the world; and the Ames Memorial Monument at Sherman, Wyoming, on the highest elevation of the Rocky Mountains crossed by the Union Pacific Railroad. Their later work includes the Ames Building, Chamber of Commerce, Tremont Building, Youth's Companion Building, Devonshire Building, State House Extension, Ex- change Building, Boston ; Industrial Building, Tele- phone Breding and Banigan Building, Providence ; also the Rhode Island State House, now in process of construction ; Dormitory Building and Commence- ment Hall, Princeton College ; Perkins Hall, Conant Hall and Fogg Art Museum, Harvard College ; Society for Savings Building, Hartford, Connecticut ; State Mutual Life Assurance Building, and City Hall, Worcester, now under construction; College for Teachers, New York; residence of the late Col. Elliot F. Shepard, Scarboro, New York ; Bloomingdale Asylum, White Plains, New York ; Library, Physics and Natural Sciences buildings, now in process of construction, Columbia College, New York ; Equi- table Building, Baltimore : Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington ; New England Building, Cleveland, Ohio ; Chemical and Physical Laboratory, Amherst College. The firm conducts extensive woodworking and ironworking shops in Worcester, also large stoneworking plants and yards in Boston and in Cleveland, Ohio, and own and operate granite, sandstone, slate and marble quarries in various states. Mr. Norcross served three years in the Civil War, enlisting in the Fourteenth Massachusetts Infantry, which became the Massachusetts Heavy Artillery. In 1875 he served as a member of the commission of experts appointed to investigate the condition of the Federal Building in Chicago, whose findings were all sustained by subsequent events. Mr. Norcross has taken an active interest in local

MEN OF PROGRESS.

public affairs in Worcester, and is an earnest sup- porter of the temperance cause. He was married in May 1870 to Ellen P. Sibley of Salem, Massa- chusetts ; they have had five children, of whom three are living : Alice Whitney, Mabel Ellen and Edith Janet Norcross.

NYE, JOSHUA, of the Boston Custom House, for many years prominent as a Prohibition advocate and temperance worker, was born in Bucksport, Maine, December 25, 1819, son of 'Joshua and Mary (Hincks) Nye. He was educated in the common schools, the Benton and Waterville acad- emies, and the Maine Wesleyan Seminary at Kent's Hill. In 1840-4 he was a store clerk in Groton, Massachusetts, and Bucksport, Maine, and for the next ten years he was in trade in Fairfield and Waterville, Maine. In 1852 he represented Water- ville in the State Legislature. In 1855 he was elected Treasurer of the Androscoggin & Kennebec Railroad, and for seventeen years he served as Treasurer and Financial Agent of that and the Maine Central Railroad. Later he was appointed State Insurance Commissioner by Governor Perham for three years, at the expiration of which he was reappointed by Governor Connor for a similar term. In 1868 Mr. Nye was appointed State Constable, by Governor Chamberlain, with authority to appoint thirty deputies for the enforcemer c of the Prohib- itory law, and which office he held until the law was repealed. He was earnestly devoted to the temperance cause, and was an ardent supporter and champion of the prohibitory methods relating to the sale of intoxicants which have become widely known under the name of the " Maine Law." He was President of the Maine State Temperance Society for twelve years, and has been for fifty years a member of the Sons of Temperance, having joined Ticonic Division of Waterville, June 3, 1846. He was twice elected Grand Worthy Patriarch of the Grand Division of Maine, joined the National Division in Boston in 1850, and was one of the members of that body who voted against the accep- tance of the committee-report declaring it inex- pedient and illegal to admit colored persons to membership. In the order of Good Templars he was elected Grand Chief Templar of Maine in 1869 and again in 1874, and is a member of the Right Worthy Grand Lodge at the present time. He is also a member of Waterville Masonic Lodge, and

of Samaritan Lodge and the Maine Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows. For nearly thirty years he met regularly every week a juvenile temple in Waterville or Augusta, and he believes that the greatest amount of good he has done in the temperance work has been in working for the children. Mr. Nye repre- sented Maine as Commissioner to the Centennial Exposition at Philadelphia in 1876, and was on duty there six months. He came to Boston in 1885, and since 1890 has filled a responsible position in the Boston Custom House. He was married June 23, 1846, to Miss Elizabeth Wood of Groton,

JOSHUA NYE.

Massachusetts. They have had two children : Francis Edward Nye, now a Major in the United States Army ; and Herbert Thayer Nye, died in 1885 at the age of three and a half years.

OWEN, GEORGE CUSHMAN, of Owen, Moore & Company, Portland, wholesale and retail distribu- tors of fancy goods and furnishings, was born in Portland, September 6, 1848, son of George and Ellen Louisa (Merrill) Owen. His ancestors Owen and Merrill came from Wales and England, respectively, about the years 1650 and 1618, and both settled in Massachusetts. His great-grand- father Ebenezer Owen was the first of the family

MEN OF PROGRESS.

known in Portland ; he was a merchant, and his morning and continuing his work until school house and store, destroyed by the burning of the town by Mowatt, were situated on Fore street, where the Bethel now stands. He married a daughter of Deacon William Cotton, for whom Cotton street was named. Their son John Owen carried on the tanning business, and was for many years a Deacon of the First Parish Church of Portland. His son George Owen, father of the subject of this sketch, was associated with him in his business, and resided in Portland and Cape Elizabeth until 1867, when he removed with his family to Cambridge, Massachusetts. George

GEO. C. OWEN.

Cushman Owen's mother was a daughter of Thomas Merrill, a merchant and shipowner of Portland, who did business on Fore street near Merrill's wharf, built by him. He married Sophia Smith of Newburyport, a cousin of George Peabody, the London banker; Miss Smith's ancestors came from England and settled in Massachusetts. Mr. Owen also comes of good old Pilgrim stock, his paternal grandmother, for whom he is named, being a Cushman of Duxbury, Massachusetts. Mr. Owen was educated in the public schools of his native city. While pursuing his studies there he never allowed his spare moments to remain idle, but worked early and late, earning money in various . ways, and much of the time rising at four in the

began. At the time of the great fire of July 1866 he left the Portland High School, and for the balance of the year was clerk for the Ocean Insur -. ance Company. But having a desire to know the drygoods business thoroughly, at the close of that year he entered the wholesale house of Jordan, Marsh & Company, Boston, where he remained until August 1, 1874, when in association with George M. Moore he founded the present business of Owen, Moore & Company, Portland. For the first two years Mr. Owen managed the business alone, Mr. Moore retaining his position in Boston, but doing the buying. Meanwhile the business reached such proportions as to require the whole of Mr. Moore's time as well as Mr. Owen's. From this time on the business has been steadily increas- ing, and in 1892 it was incorporated, under the same name, with George M. Moore as President, George C. Owen as Treasurer, and Albert G. Rollins as manager. Mr. Owen has been a Director - of the Cumberland National Bank since 1891, and in 1894 was elected Vice-President of the Stevens Silver Plating Company of Portland. He is an enthusiastic yachtsman, and since 1875 has been a member of the Portland Yacht Club, of which he was Fleet Captain 18So-3, and Vice-Commodore 1883-91, declining the office of Commodore for want of time to properly attend to the duties of that position. He was also a member of the Ariel Boat Club in 1862-5. Mr. Owen is a member of the Portland Camera Club, the Portland Society of Art, Portland Society of Natural History and the Portland Board of Trade. In politics he is an Independent. He was married October 20, 1885, to Eleanor Dow Knight, of Portland. They have had three children : Margaret Bradley, born June 25, 1887, died January 30, 1888; Mildred Van-der- Velde, born December 1, 1888 ; and'an infant son, born November 23, died November 25, 1893.

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Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine, Part 9

Author: Herndon, Richard; McIntyre, Philip Willis, 1847- ed; Blanding, William F., joint ed Publication date: 1897 Publisher: Boston, New England magazine Number of Pages: 1268

Author: Herndon, Richard; McIntyre, Philip Willis, 1847- ed; Blanding, William F., joint ed
Publication date: 1897
Publisher: Boston, New England magazine
Number of Pages: 1268