USA > Maine > Men of progress; biographical sketches and portraits of leaders in business and professional life in and of the state of Maine > Part 90
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LITTLEFIELD, LYMAN AUSTIN, of Washington, District of Columbia, was born in Springvale, York county, Maine, December 14, 1845, son of Lyman and Julia Ann Littlefield. His grandfather and great-grandfather on the paternal side were both natives of Wells, Maine. The subject of this sketch was educated in the public schools of Springvale and of Boston. At the age of seventeen, October 17, 1862, he enlisted in the United States Navy, and served during the war. On the eighth of Sep- tember 1863, while on an expedition on a picket boat below Charleston, South Carolina, he was taken prisoner in company with one hundred and eight .others, eleven of whom were officers. They were first placed in the magazine in Fort Sumter, and at midnight of the next night were removed to the city jail at Charleston, where they were retained for a week, with only a handful of mush per day for food. A plan to break out was discovered, and the prisoners were sent to the city jail in Columbia, South Carolina, where they were kept about three months. Nearly all the party had only shirt and trousers for clothing, and suffered much from cold. The food here consisted of a small " corndodger " and a very small bit of meat per day. From thence they were taken to Richmond and confined at Castle Crew for about four months, with some four hundred on each of three floors. The food here
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was cornbread once a day and pea-soup once a week, with sometimes a little meat of poor quality. In order to keep warm they were obliged to sleep . " spoon fashion," occasionally turning over in squads to alternate the exposed portion of their bodies. The prisoners were here vaccinated with bad virus, in consequence of which many lost their arms from gangrene, and some deaths occurred from its effects. In February they were taken to Andersonville, Georgia, where they were kept until September 8, the anniversary of their capture. There were thirty- eight thousand prisoners confined in one stockade, with scarcely any shelter, although a few had some
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pieces of old tents. The food was scarce and bad, and many died from starvation. Nearly all were barefooted, and many had no clothing at all. A few of the men had some money and they were allowed to purchase articles at exorbitant prices - flour at two dollars per pound, molasses at one dollar and a half per pint, etc., and short measure at that. While here Mr. Littlefield had a box sent him from the North, but after being notified that it was at the gate, together with several others sent by loving hearts at home for friends confined there, the prisoners saw the boxes broken open and rifled of their contents, which were made to furnish supplies for a picnic held in their very sight, but in which
they were not allowed to participate. From thence the prisoners were sent to Savannah, Georgia, whence Mr. Littlefield and all the naval prisoners were to be sent North for exchange. While in hos- pital at Savannah, Mr. Littlefield and another man attempted their escape. They eluded the vigilance of all the sentries and travelled by night through a swamp, but on the third night, just as they were congratulating themselves on their prospect of suc- cess, they were recaptured by three guards, who robbed them of their pocket knives - everything of value they possessed. The next day they were placed in a surfboat on wheels and sent back to Savannah under a cavalry guard, and were marched through the city, all the while subjected to taunting insolence. Mr. Littlefield was placed in a cell for three days, and Lieutenant Davis (a nephew of the Confederate President), who had charge of all the prisoners, attempted to have him shot, but learned with intense chagrin that he had not the authority. Mr. Littlefield was then taken to the stockade, where he was three or four times a day triced up by his wrists until he grew black in the face, and then made to stand on a barrel and hold up a board labelled, " I have broken my parole." For two days he was obliged to mark time for four hours with a heavy joist on his shoulder, at the end of which time a peremptory order came for imme- diately sending all the " blue jackets " to Charleston for exchange. They were first sent to Charles- ton, but on account of the yellow fever could not be exchanged there, so they were forwarded to Richmond. Sixteen days after leaving Savannah, orders came for sending the Yankees to the Union lines. They left Libby Prison in the morning and went by flag-of-truce boat down the James River. At Vienna the prisoners were landed and marched about a mile, when they embarked on board the Union flag-of-truce boat City of New York, and on the twentieth of October landed at Annapolis, Maryland, rejoicing that God had preserved them through all their privations and dangers and brought them once more under the dear old flag. When he arrived at Annapolis Mr. Littlefield was reduced almost to a skeleton. He reached the Union lines with no clothing but an old shirt, and and a pair of trousers made of a couple of cottonmeal sacks, which while acting as Sergeant of his mess at Andersonville, he had contrived to confiscate. Mr. Littlefield's term of service expired October 6, 1864, but as he had not been exchanged he remained a paroled prisoner. After the war Mr.
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Littlefield settled in Washington, District of Colum- bia, where he has since resided. In politics he has always been a Republican. He was married August 14, 1873, to Alice Cumberland ; they had three children, all born in Washington : Julia Ann, aged twenty-two ; Charles Austin, aged twenty, and George Howard Littlefield, aged sixteen years. Mrs. Littlefield died December 31, 1895.
LUDWIG, GARDNER, M. D., late of Portland, was born in Waldoboro, 'Lincoln county, Maine, June 20, 1812, son of Jacob and Susan (Hutchins) Ludwig ; died in Portland, February 17, 1896. He was a direct descendant in the fourth generation from that Joseph Ludwig ( Englished as Lewis) of Nenderoth, in the German Principality of Dietz, who embarked for this country, with his wife Catherine Kline and three children in June 1753, but died on the passage. The widow and children arrived safely at Broad Bay, Waldoboro, in Septem- ber of the same year, where the well-known German Colony was formed under the auspices of General Samuel Waldo. The eldest of the children, Jacob, born in Germany in 1730, became a Captain in the Revolutionary War, and was the first Town Clerk of Waldoboro. His second son, also named Jacob (father of the subject of this sketch), represented the town of his birth in both the legislatures of Massachusetts and of Maine. Gardner Ludwig received his early education in the common schools and at Warren and Lincoln academies. Evincing an inclination for the pursuit of the science of medicine he entered upon the study of the pro- fession with his kinsman, Dr. Moses R. Ludwig of Thomaston, and with Dr. J. G. Brown of Waldo- boro. He was graduated at the Medical School of Maine, Bowdoin College, in the class of 1833, afterwards attended a course of lectures in New York city, and began the practice of his profession at Searsport, Maine. Thence he removed to Rock- land, where he practiced thirteen years. Forty-five years ago he removed to Portland, where he con- tinued a general practitioner of medicine and surgery to the day of his death. He was a member of the Maine Medical Society, and Superintendent at the United States Marine Hospital at Portland
politics Dr. Ludwig was a Democrat, but he held no political office except that of member of the Portland Common Council under Mayor Thomas in the time of the Civil War. He married January 28, 1836, Elizabeth Lothrop, daughter of A. Loth- rop of Portland and granddaughter of Thomas Weighty. The union, otherwise ideally happy, was not blessed with children. Mrs. Ludwig was all her life interested in charitable work and for many years identified with the Samaritan Association of Portland. On the twenty-eighth of January, 1896, Mr. and Mrs. Ludwig celebrated the sixtieth anni-
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versary of their wedding. The seventh of the following February Mrs. Ludwig died, aged nearly eighty-six years. On the seventeenth of the same month, Dr. Ludwig's life also drew to its close. Happy in life, death did not long divide them.
MCQUAIGE, PETER, Stevedore, New York, was born in Ireland, December 1, 1846, son of Patrick when an infant. His father was a cooper by occu- pation. He was educated in the public schools of
under the administration of President Pierce. . and Mary McQuaige, and came to Portland, Maine, Held in great love and esteem by his patients and in high honor by his confreres in the profession he adorned, he leaves behind him the memory of a Portland, and in early life followed the sea for learned, benevolent and successful physician. In twelve years. For the last twenty-five years he has
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been engaged in a general stevedoring business in New York. Captain McQuaige is a Democrat in politics. He was married eighteen years ago to Bella James. seven or eight years, until the firm dissolved. He then, 1876, went into partnership with Mr. Seaverns, under the firm name of Seaverns & Com- pany, which continued until Mr. Seaverny' decease in April 1895. Since then Mr. Morison has con- tinued the business under the name of Seaverns & MORISON, LINCOLN, Fruit and Produce Mer- chant. Boston, was born in Livermore, Andros- coggin county, Maine, March 23, 1844, son of Haines Learned and Sarah (Gibbs) Morison. On the Morison side he is of Scotch descent; his maternal ancestry is English. His grandfather James Morison was one of the first settlers in East Company, with B. R. Hafford as partner. Mr. Mor- ison has worked hard and been very successful. He has for the past three years carried on the home farm of one hundred and eighty-five acres in East Livermore, where he makes a specialty of raising cattle. He has remodeled and rebuilt the oldl house from its foundations, and erected a new barn a hundred feet long by forty-five feet wide, making, about the best farm buildings in the county, the improvements costing six or seven thousand dollars. Besides cattle raising, he is breeding some fine horses at the old farm, having a stud of twenty-five or more, including some of the best stock in New England. He also owns a large fruit farm in Tem- ple, Franklin county, Maine, the Libby Orchard, so called, about four miles from West Farmington, on which he has raised some of the finest fruit grown in the state of Maine. His success in fruit- raising is mainly due to the constant care bestowed upon the trees, trimming, fertilizing, etc. His apple orchards consist of from thirteen to fourteen hundred trees, and the varieties grown are largely the Snow, King, Baldwin and Russets. The product is expected to be about six hundred barrels the present year. Mr. Morison is actively interested in the affairs of his native town and county, and has served as President of the Androscoggin County Agricultural Society since 1895. He was married at the age of twenty years to Mary A. Norton, of Livermore, who died in 1889, having borne him six L. MORISON. children, of whom three are living : Stella Winifred, now the wife of Ernest S. Currier of Hallowell, Livermore ; his grandmother Morison was a Learned. On the maternal side his grandfather was Jacob Gibbs and his grandmother was a Hatha- way, both natives of Livermore. The subject of this sketch spent his early life on the homestead farm, attending district school in East Livermore winters, until the age of eighteen, in the spring of 1862, when he went to Boston. For two years he worked on a farm in Weston, then for a time drove team for a tannery in Brookline, returning and In the succeeding fall he entered the employ of Seaverns & Company, Boston, in the fruit and produce business, with whom he continued for Maine ; Charles Haines and Ned Lincoln Morison. In 1893 he married Nellie O. Norton of Livermore, a cousin of his first wife, by whom he has a son : Stanley Houghton Morison. Mr. Morison resides in Medford, Massachusetts, on a fine place covered with fruit trees, which he has owned for the last fourteen years, situated on Pearl street, one of the prettiest streets of that charming suburban city. He keeps two horses, and drives to Boston every day in the year, except Sundays. Electric cars he has working for another summer on the Weston farm. . no use for, as he takes great pleasure in driving, and finds needed rest and exhilaration at night after the business of the day, in the buggy-ride of five miles to his suburban home.
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PARSONS, EDWIN, the subject of this sketch, was the eldest of the Parsons Brothers widely known as The Three Financiers, all of whom were . born in Alfred, York county, Maine, son of William and Mary (Parsons) Parsons ; the date of his birth was April 25, 1823 ; he died in New York, August 21, 1895. The name of Parsons is a very ancient one, and is found on record in various counties of England and Ireland. Walter Parsons resided at Mulso and was the owner of Ross Castle in 1290. In. 1481 Sir John Parsons was Mayor of Hereiord. Robert Parsons resided at Bridgewater in 1546, and later founded an English College at Rome. Thomas Parsons was knighted by Charles I. in 1634. (i his descendants, Sir John and Sir Humphrey Par- sons were Lord Mayors of London respectively in 1704 and 1731-40. The first record we have of the family in America is of Cornet Joseph Parsons (1), who sailed from Gravesend, England, to Bos- ton, in the brig Transport, Edward Walker master, July 4, 1635. The Parsons Brothers, Edwin, George and Charles, are his descendants in the seventh
Parsons of Parsonsfield, January 14, 1814. Edwin Parsons (7), son of William and Mary, was born April 25, 1823. He began his business life as a clerk.in a mercantile house in Boston in 1841. At the age of twenty-one be accepted a position in a cotton house in Savannah, Georgia, at a salary of two hundred dollars a year. Three years later his employers took him into partnership, and changed the firm name from Scott, Carhart & Company to Edwin Parsons & Company. The firm held a high rank, and continued under his management until 1856, when his brother George, who had in the meantime become a partner, took control of the
generation. Cornet Joseph Parsons settled in Springfield, Massachusetts, whence he moved to Northampton, that state, in 1652. His wife was Mary Bliss. Their eldest son, Joseph Parsons (2), born November 1, 1647, married Elizabeth Strong and lived in Northampton, where he was Justice of the Peace and Captain of the Militia. Their eldest son, Rev. Joseph Parsons (3), born January 28, 1671, married Elizabeth Thompson in 1701, and was ordained at Lebanon, Connecticut. Their eldest son was also Rev. Joseph Parsons (4), and was born May 4, 1702, married Frances Usher, daughter of Lieutenant Governor John Usher of Medford, New Hampshire, and was ordained in EDWIN PARSONS. 1726 at Bradford, Massachusetts, where he preached until his death in 1765. He had six sons who Savannah house. At this time occurred the disso- lution of the New York firm of Brigham & Carhart, correspondent of Edwin Parsons & Company, and Edwin went to New York and became a partner of 1 .. H. Brigham in the firm of Brigham & Parsons. In 1862 this firm dissolved, Mr. Brigham retir- ing, and was succeeded by the new firm of Edwin Parsons & Company, in which Charles Parsons, the youngest of the three brothers, was a partner. Mr. Parsons was an exceptionally good judge of invest ment securities, and in a quiet way accumulated /property rapidly. Before his death, which occurred August 21, 1895, he had donated to relatives and friends over a million dollars. His brother Charles grew up, three of whom were respectively clergy- man, physician and lawyer. His son William Par- sons (5), born October 22, 1743, in Bradford, Massachusetts, married Abigail Frost Blunt, great- granddaughter of Colonel William Pepperell of Kit- tery Point, Maine, February 19, 1769; he was a farmer, trader, dealer in lumber, manufacturer of potash, and was the first Justice of the Peace in Alfred, Maine, where he died August 4, 1826. His son William Parsons (6), born in Alfred, June 14, 1780, was a farmer and for some years one of the Selectmen of that town, and died in Kennebunk, Maine, October 8, 1864; he married his second cousin, Mary Parsons, daughter of Colonel Joseph . was appointed administrator of his estate, which
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amounted to between four and five millions. One of his especial characteristics was a dislike to be in debt, and at his death the household bills for a few weeks formed his entire indebtedness. He was largely interested in the Champion and Republic mines in Michigan, properties that were exceedingly valuable and the securities of which proved very profitable investments. He was one of the incor- porators, member of the first Board of Directors and for a time President of the Marquette, Hough- ton & Ontonagon Railroad, now a part of the Canadian Pacific system ; was a Director of the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad Com- pany, and assisted in reorganizing and rehabili- tating many railroad corporations and enterprises ; and was a member of the New York Chamber of Commerce, the Union and Lawyers' clubs of New York, and the American and New York historical societies. Mr. Parsons was an extensive traveller, and was a careful observer of the scenes incident to tourists' trips. He had a clear and happy way of describing by word-painting the people and cus- toms of the countries he visited, which charmed his hearers and made him welcome in any company. He had a great fondness for fine paintings and statuary, and the beautiful collection which he acquired is evidence of his appreciation of works of art and his good judgment in selecting them. In politics he was a Whig until that party dis- banded, when he became a Republican. He advocated making gold the standard of currency, and never would purchase for investment any bonds that were not payable in gold. He was half-owner of the Bank of Middle Georgia, at Macon, and by forwarding to it large amounts of gold, enabled it to maintain specie payments in 1857, when nearly every other bank suspended such payments. His foresight in having the funds of the bank forwarded in 1861, part to Baring Brothers at London and part to New York, enabled the Bank of Middle Georgia when wound up after the war to redeem all its bills and obligations, and pay its stockholders two hundred dollars for each one hundred dollars of stock, a result not equalled by any other Southern bank. He was married in 1872 to Miss Mary Llewellyn Swayne, daughter of Justice Swayne of the United States Supreme Court, who survived him. His New York residence was one of the imposing houses of the city, situated on Riverside Drive, at the southeast corner of Ninetieth street. Mr. Parsons' donations and benefactions were un- ostentatious and many were never known to the
public. At Bethesda, near Savannah, Georgia, he erected for the Bethesda Society a building where orphan boys are instructed in various trades. More than a score of young men and young women received from him the financial aid that enabled them to go through seminaries or colleges, or other- wise equip themselves for a start in life. His career, like that of his ancestor Colonel William Pepperell of Kittery, was a "plane of continued elevations." His resting place is in Trinity Ceme- tery on the bank of the majestic Hudson.
PARSONS, GEORGE, President of the consoli- dated street-railway system of Savannah, Georgia, was born in Alfred, York county, Maine, November I, 1826 ; he was the fifth son of William and Mary (Parsons) Parsons ; and the seventh generation from Cornet Joseph Parsons of Springfield, Massachu- setts. His boyhood was spent at home, going to school in the winter and assisting his father on the farm in summer until he was seventeen years old. Then he spent a year with his uncle, Dr. Usher Parsons of Providence, Rhode Island. Throughout boyhood and his whole business life, George was so closely associated with his older brother Edwin that a sketch of him would not be complete unless con- nected with that of his brother. Edwin was about four years the senior of George, and directed and assisted his younger brothers in starting his busi- ness, for he was a born captain, and in early boyhood was called "Esquire" by his seniors (at a time when the title meant something), and was called the "Old Squire " by his juniors when they disliked his rulings. In 1843 Edwin went to Savannah, Georgia, and entered the office of J. D. Carhart & Scott, cotton merchants, and two years later, in 1845, George joined his brother in the same office. In 1846, Mr. Scott having moved to Macon, the firm took the name of Edwin Parsons & Company, and thus at the age of twenty-three Edwin Parsons was at the head of one of the best cotton houses of Savannah, with ample means and credit for anything he desired to do. The firm prospered. In 1856, when it seemed best that a house should be opened in the North, the firm took the name of George Parsons & Company, and Edwin went to New York, leaving many warm friends in Savannah, for he was a jovial, handsome and magnetic man. Business con- tinned prosperous in New York and Savannah until 1861, when the political horizon looking very squally, Edwin and George contracted their credits, invested
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their funds largely in cotton and shipped it to Liverpool. They were the principal owners and directors of the Bank of Middle Georgia, and at this same time closed the business of the bank while solvent and before it got filled with Confeder- ate currency. With most of the banks in the South " it was not so." The Savannah office was closed in 1861, and not again reopened, but the New York office remained open during the war. From that time on Edwin and George gave their attention to railroad and mining interests. For fifty years they were intimately associated in business, and after the war, until the death of Edwin in 1895, they occu- pied the same office and were interested in similar securities. Mr. Parsons has business interests in the South, and spends a portion of each winter in Savannah. He is President of the Savannah, Thunderbolt & Isle of Hope Railway Company, which operates all the principal electric street and suburban railways of Savannah. He is also a Director in the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad Company, the South Carolina & Georgia Railroad Company and the Virginia Midland Rail- way Company. Mr. Parsons was married Decem- ber 13, 1865, to Sarah Elizabeth Eddy, of Fall River, Massachusetts; they have seven children. His summer home is in Kennebunk, Maine.
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PARSONS, CHARLES, President of the Rome, Watertown & Ogdensburg Railroad Company, was born in Alfred, York county, Maine, February 6, 1829, son of William and Mary ( Parsons) Parsons. He spent his boyhood chiefly in Alfred and Kenne- bunkport, Maine, receiving his early education in the local schools and at Yarmouth (Maine) Acad- emy. At the age of seventeen he made his first thousand dollars, on a lot of timber land in Kenne- bunkport, which he purchased of a brother of Hugh McCulloch. In 1850 he went to Providence where he completed his education, residing with his uncle, the late Dr. Usher Parsons of that city. Dr. Par- sons was for some years a Surgeon in the Navy, and was tying up arteries on the flagship Lawrence in the Battle of Lake Erie when Commodore Perry sent his brief but historic message to General Harrison : " We have met the enemy and they are ours." He was the only Surgeon in the fleet able to do duty, and the Commodore's message was justifiably brief, with over three quarters of the officers and crew strewn about the vessel, dead or wounded. Charles Parsons at the age of twenty-three started on a
pleasure trip for Cuba. The steamer touched at Key West to deliver the mail and he decided to land. He remained there a month. About the time he landed, a good English vessel, the Cambyses, bound from New Orleans to Liverpool, with a cargo of cotton, put into Key West on account of the ill- ness of her Captain, and while making port she touched a reef. Although she sustained no injury, she was condemned by the Islanders, dismantled and sold in several parcels. Mr. Parsons, through agents, purchased all of them and in a few days had her refitted, purchased a cargo of cotton at auction, put it on board, obtained American papers for the
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Cambyses and dispatched her under the American flag to New York, where his agents, Brigham & Car- hart, sold both vessel and cargo at a good profit. The parties instrumental in having the vessel ille. gally condemned at Key West were much annoyed that a young stranger should purchase and send the vessel away. This was an early evidence of Mr. Parsons' quickness to grasp business matters. Dut- ing the winter of 1853-4 he resided in New Orleans, and was engaged in shipping Southern produce to Northern markets. From 1854 until i86t he was engaged in the commission business in Savannah, Georgia. Two days before Savannah was blo kade !. he dispatched three vessel to foreign ports, and the
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