Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 65

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856

USA > Missouri > Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I > Part 65

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Bremer, Ludwig, physician, was born January 5. 1844, in Blankenburg, Germany,

and grew to manhood in the Fatherland. He received his academic education at the Gym- nasium of Eisleben, and studied philosophy and the sciences at Berlin. He came to the United States in 1865, and for a time there- after was a school-teacher at Glasgow, Mis- souri. He then took up the study of medi- cine and was graduated from St. Louis Med- ical College in the class of 1870. Thereafter, until 1871, he was resident physician at the Quarantine Hospital, at that time the con- valescent station of the City Hospital. After that he practiced in Carondelet and at Belle- ville, Illinois, until 1880, when he returned to Europe and continued his medical stud- ies and researches at Strasburg, Zurich and Paris, until 1883. Returning to St. Louis in that year, hie at once took a prominent position in his profession in that city, and has since constantly added to his prestige and prominence through his successful la- bors, his contributions to medical literature and his services as a medical educator. From 1886 until 1891 he occupied the chair of physiology and pathology in the Missouri Medical College, and from 1888 until 1891 he was physician to one of the leading benev- olent institutions of the city. He has writ- ten extensively on the subjects of histology. pathology, neurology and hematology, and his writings have been widely read and highly commended by his professional brethren. Throughout his career as a physician he has been recognized as a student and a scholar, an accomplished practitioner, and a man of broad and varied information.

Brennan, Martin S .- This distin- guished priest was born in St. Louis, July 23, 1845, soon after his parents had come to this country. These were William Bren- nan and Margaret Hackett, who were born in County Tipperary, Ireland. His family in one line is descended from the chieftains of Castle Comer. in Kilkenny, and in another, the Waterford line, from the family of which St. Brendan-or properly, St. Brennan-the famous navigator, was a member. Ilis pa- ternal grandfather was an officer on the side of the rebels in the battle of Vinegar Hills during the outbreak of 1798. As a child he went to school at the old Cathedral, and later attended the Christian Brothers' Col- lege, where, in 1865, he received the degree of bachelor of arts, and afterward that of

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master of arts and sciences. His theologi- cal studies were pursued at St. Vincent's College, Cape Girardeau. Archbishop Ken- rick ordained him priest at St. John's Church, St. Louis, April 3, 1869. After serv- ing missions at Ilannibal and Lebanon, Mis- souri, and the Cathedral, St. Patrick's and St. Michael's, St. Louis, he was for eleven years assistant priest at St. Malachy's, where he was so esteemed and beloved by the par- ishioners that when he was transferred to the rectorship of St. Thomas Aquinas he was presented with a munificent testimonial. Re- maining at this post for eight years, he was, in 1891, promoted to St. Lawrence O'Toole's parish, and at the synod called by Arch- bishop Kain, he was made one of the six permanent rectors of the city. During his pastorate in this large parish, which he is still-1901-serving, and which contains a branch of every Catholic society organized in St. Louis, twenty-two in all, the church, and especially its parochial schools, taught by the Christian Brothers and Sisters of St. Joseph, have been wonderfully advanced. Father Brennan has himself contributed largely to educational work. He is a pro- fessor of astronomy and geometry at the Kenrick Theological Seminary. The public schools have adopted his work on "Electric- ity and Its Doctrines" as a reference book ; and as a man of science, particularly in the interesting field of astronomy, his contribu- tions to the world's knowledge enjoy far more than a circumscribed fame, having received the highest praise of scientists. He has been made a member of the St. Louis Academy of Science, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and the British Astronomical Asso- ciation. Among his works are "What Catho- lics Have Done for Science," "Astronomy, New and Old" and "Science of the Bible," each of which works has passed through sev- eral editions. For many years he has been delivering popular lectures on scientific sub- jects, and has. besides, found time to write numerous magazine articles on these lines. Ile has officiated as master of ceremonies at the consecration of many bishops, among them Bishop Bonacum, of Lincoln, Nebraska, and Bishop Hennessey, of Wichita, Kansas; also at the celebration of the golden jubilee of Archbishop Kenrick, in 1801, and at his funeral ; at the conferring of the pallium on Archbishop Kain; at the service in honor

of Cardinal Satolli; and, in fact, at every important Catholic ceremonial for a score of years or more. In 1891, having been awarded the prize by a newspaper vote as "the most popular pastor in St. Louis," he receiving nearly a quarter of a million votes, Father Brennan, according to the terms of the award, made a tour of Palestine and Europe, which gave him the subjects of a series of lectures on his return, given to magnificent audiences, one of them, at the Grand Music Hall, numbering not less than six thousand. In speech he is both rhetorical and oratori- cal. infusing his great store of knowledge without display and with charming simplic- ity. He is thoroughly familiar with litera- ture, classical and modern, and one of his marked characteristics is the unfailing readi- ness of his wit and humor, his quickness at repartee, and his delightful faculty of telling a good story, in which his audiences begin often in laughter and end in tears. The charity, faith and hope he teaches are exem- plified in his own life, which is one of gen- tleness, contentment and benevolence. His true Christian nature touches all hearts, and responds with unaffected sympathy to every pang of suffering or sorrow in the hearts of his fellow men.

Breton, Asa, prominent among the early settlers of southeast Missouri, was born in France in 1710. and at an early age came to America. He was a soldier in the army that defeated Braddock's troops at Fort Duquesne, in 1755. Later he located in Missouri and became a hunter, and while on a hunting trip in 1763 discovered a mine, which was named "Mine a Breton." after its founder. In his advanced age he lived with a family named Michaud, at Little Rock ferry, two miles above Ste. Genevieve. He died, at the age of one hundred and eleven years, March 1, 1821, and was buried in the Catholic cemetery at Ste. Genevieve.

Bridge Arbitrary .- A term applied to the charge for carrying passengers and freight across the Eads Bridge, between St. Louis and East St. Louis-in other words. the charge for crossing the Mississippi River at St. Louis. This charge shows many com- plications. For instance, it varies as to pas- sengers on railway trains from six cents on persons traveling between St. Louis and

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Belleville and other adjacent points in Illi- nois, to sixty cents on passengers traveling from the Atlantic to the Pacific, or from the Pacific to the Atlantic. The charge is greater for the greater distance, because it is dis- tributed among the greater number of roads on which the passenger is carried; and it is smallest on the commuters' travel between St. Louis and the near-by points, because it forms so large a proportion of the total fare paid.

D. M. GRISSOM.

Bridge, Hudson E., manufacturer, was born May 17, 1810, at Walpole, New Hamp- shire-whither his parents had removed a short time before from Worcester. Massa- chusetts-and died in St. Louis. February 25, 1875. He was descended from that old Puritan stock which found its way from the shores of the old world and settled in the vicinity of Boston, about the middle of the seventeenth century. In his early childhood his parents removed to Bennington County, Vermont, where, under the shadows of the Green Mountains, he grew up in the life of the ordinary New England boy, spending the greater part of the year in the labors of the farm and eagerly availing himself of the limited facilities for education which were provided during the winter months. When he was twenty-one years of age, against the protests of his friends, he turned his face toward the West, full of confidence that in its boundless resources there was a wider field for what he considered his own capacity for business success. He left the parental roof with only six dollars in his pocket, to save which he walked to Troy, New York, and there entered a store. where he remained six months. accumulating sufficient to take him to Columbus, Ohio, the place he had originally selected as his destination. Arriv- ing at Columbus in the autumn of 1831, his first care was to survey the field before him, and while so doing he opened a school for the winter months, in which he was so suc- cessful that he was urged to continue it. But teaching was but a temporary expedient, not at all congenial to his tastes or disposi- tion, and at the earliest opportunity he en- tered the employment of a firm there, doing. for the place and period, an extensive busi- ness. While connected with this house as salesman he made trips covering the whole West, from Detroit to Nashville. and from

Columbus to St. Louis. To his knowledge of the West and Western people, acquired at this time, Mr. Bridge attributed much of his later success. He was a man of great enterprise. always adventurous; and to do something that had not been done before- to extend the facilities for business, to cheap- en the cost of manufacture, to make at home something that others thought necessary to bring from abroad-was always with him an object to be attained. It was with this view that, in 1835, he left Columbus and went to Springfield. Illinois, and, in connection with Jewett, Matther & Lamb, inaugurated the manufacture of plows in that city, which, up to that time, had been brought from Cincin- nati. The Jewett plow, manufactured by them, became the leading plow of the time, and the business of the firm was one of uninterrupted success. It was during one of Mr. Bridge's trips to the Cumberland River for iron that his attention was attracted to St. Louis as a promising point for business, and after endeavoring without success to in- terest his partners at Springfield in the pro- posed new location, he removed in 1837 to St. Louis, and in company with Hale & Rey- burn established the business in that city. Mr. Hale dying soon after, the business was continued by Bridge & Reyburn, and the department of stoves and hollow ware was added. At this period all manufactures of .this character were brought down the Ohio River. Mr. Bridge. however, conceived that the cost might be lessened by having the plates manufactured on the Tennessee River and put together in his own shop, and this was the first innovation. But this did not satisfy him. With only the experience in iron manufacture acquired in Springfield. he determined to make the plates in St. Louis, and in 1838 a little foundry was established in connection with his store. Okl stove deal- ers warned the young man, then only twenty- eight years of age, of his folly in endeavor- ing to compete with the older manufacturers of Cincinnati, and of the failure that must inevitably follow. But Mr. Bridge soon found that, by careful economy, the cost of manufacture was less than the cost of bring- ing from the East. At this time he was his own foreman and salesman by day, and his own bookkeeper at night, and though of very humble pretentions in comparison with the establishment of to-day, the foundation

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was 'thus laid of the Empire Stove Works, which was destined to become one of the largest and best known manufacturing enter- prises of the Mississippi Valley. Before 1840 he had gathered into his own family circle his parents and brothers, all of whom have passed away under his roof, leaving himself alone, to rest with them at last in the family lot at Bellefontaine. In the year 1842 Mr. Bridge associated with him his younger brother, Harrison Bridge. and the firm of Bridge & Bro. was established. His broth- er's death in 1850 left him again alone for several years. In 1857 John H. Beach, who had been for several years connected with the house, was admitted as an associate, and the firm of Bridge, Beach & Co. has contin- ued to the present time, being incorporated January 28, 1870, as the Bridge & Beach Manufacturing Company. Mr. Bridge's re- lation as founder of the great manufacturing interest with which his name has been so long and honorably associated is but a small portion of his public history, and while his name is enrolled high on the list of mer- chants and manufacturers of St. Louis, he stands higher still as the pure-minded, public- spirited and honored citizen. It is not stat- ing the case too strongly to say that there are few left who command in an equal degree not merely the esteem and confidence, but the affection, of the citizens of St. Louis. Of singular purity and simplicity in his private life, during the thirty-eight years of his residence in St. Louis no breath of re- proach was ever heard against his good name. Honorable in all his dealings, rigor- ously just even against himself, his delicate sense of public and private duty made his name in the community the synonym of mer- cantile rectitude and honor. A successful business career did not separate him from his fellow men, but to all alike, the highest and the lowest, he preserved the simplicity of character and frank, cordial manner which those who knew him will long remember. For the entire period of his residence in St. Louis he was a part of its business and activ- ity. So far from retiring from business pur- suits on achieving success, increased wealth only opened new avenues for investment in business enterprises. He was a constant and generous contributor to, and for many years an active worker in, every new public enterprise that could conduce to the growth

and prosperity of the city. He was an orig- inal subscriber and worker in the inaugura- tion of the Missouri Pacific, the North Mis- souri, the Iron Mountain, and the Ohio & Mississippi Railroads, the St. Louis & Illinois Bridge Company, and many kindred enter- prises, and was one of the original incor- porators of Washington University, the Poly- technic Institute, and the Mary Institute. In all of these institutions he was a trustee and contributed generously to their support. During portions of his residence in St. Louis he was a director in the Boatmen's Saving Institution, the Merchants' Bank, the Pacific Railroad for fifteen years, and one of the founders of Bellefontaine Cemetery, which was dedicated upon his fortieth birthday, and of which he was the first president, continu- ing as such through many years. He was also one of the founders and managers of the Institution for the Education of the Blind as a private institution, before it was conveyed to the State, a director and twice president of the Mercantile Library Association, and a director in the St. Louis & Illinois Bridge Company, and other institutions with which his connection was less conspicuous. It was one of his business maxims that no citizen should allow his name to be used as a direc- tor in any corporation, or in connection with any public trust to which he was unable or un- willing to devote his personal attention, and on this ground he frequently declined the use of his name as a responsible manager, even when he was largely interested as a stock- holder. He was a warm supporter of the Union at the outbreak of the Civil War, and did as much, perhaps, as any citizen of St. Louis to aid the government during that ter- rible period. At the beginning of the war he was among the first to announce his position as one of unqualified devotion to the Union cause, and was elected a member of the Con- vention of 1861, whose prompt action in establishing a provisional government for the State secured the position of Missouri in the Union. He was a liberal contributor in the organization of the earlier regiments, when no assistance could be had from the gov- ernment at Washington, and he was at all times a generous donor to all the sanitary and other associations growing out of the war. His membership in the Convention of 1861, however, was the only political trust he ever consented to accept.

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Extensive as were his connections with business interests up to the day of his death, he did not allow such connections to rule his life or to absorb his time. Having passed the years of his boyhood in the country, he always retained a strong inclination to rural

death he purchased a considerable estate, a few miles from the city, and devoted much of his time to improving and beautifying his residence and grounds, bringing to it the same practical method and personal super- vision that characterized all his relations. With rarely an exception, he returned from the city to his home every day at noon. There at Glendale, in the midst of delightful surroundings, and in the enjoyment of the society of his children, to whom he was de- votedly attached, and of friends, he passed one-half of every day, dispensing a hospital- ity not less warm and generous than it was simple and unostentatious. Mr. Bridge had been a member of the Unitarian Church of the Messiah since his arrival in St. Louis. In his benefactions during his lifetime Mr. Bridge was unostentatious, and it is difficult to estimate their amount. They will, how- ever, largely exceed a quarter of a million dollars, chiefly to educational institutions, in which he was greatly interested. His gifts to Washington University alone, including its several departments, amounted to $175.000, the whole of which was bestowed without solicitation and without conditions annexed. He gave freely wherever he thought good could be accomplished, but never wished his name to appear if it could be avoided. The secret of Mr. Bridge's success may be found in his serupulous performance of every en- gagement and in his abhorrence of debt. He was ready to excuse almost any fault except the want of business integrity, and could not be tempted by the largest hope of profit into trading upon borrowed capital. His progress was, therefore, sure and steady, and although at the first slow, it ultimately became rapid, even to the accumulation of great wealth. There was no department of business life in St. Louis which did not feel his loss, and he left the enviable record of a good citizen, a practical philanthropist, and a faithful business man. Mr. Bridge left six children-Isabella, the wife of Colonel George E. Leighton; Emma, wife of Joseph G. Chapman ; Mary, wife of N. C. Chapman ;

and Hudson Eliot, Harrison and Amy. The two last named have since died.

Bridge, Hudson Eliot, manufacturer, was born April 4. 1858, in St. Louis, son of Hudson E. and Ilelen A. Bridge. His father,

pursuits. About thirteen years before his . of whomextended mention is made in the pre-

ceding sketch, was long one of the leading men of affairs in St. Louis, and the son was born to the inheritance of a good name, phys- ical and mental vigor, and the responsibili- ties which devolve upon those favored by fortune. He passed his boyhood at his father's homestead in Glendale, Missouri, en- joyed the best educational advantages, and while still young completed his academic studies at Washington University, of St. Lonis. In 1876 he entered the office of the Bridge-Beach Manufacturing Company, the great manufacturing institution founded by his father, and at once became a factor in directing this enterprise, the elder Bridge having died a year earlier. He has proven himself a worthy successor of a worthy father, and is now president of the corpora- tion which came into existence as the result of the genius and enterprise of Hudson E. Bridge, Sr. As head of one of the great iron industries of the country, he is widely known to those identified with this interest, and his executive ability, sound judgment and cor- rect business methods have won for him their unqualified esteem and admiration. To ac- cumulate a fortune requires one kind of ge- nius ; to retain a fortune already acquired, to add to it its legitimate increment, and to make such use of it that its possessors may derive therefrom the greatest enjoyment, and the public the greatest benefit, requires quite an- other kind of genius. Mr. Bridge belongs to that younger generation of the business men of St. Louis, called upon to shoulder re- sponsibilities differing materially from those which rested upon their predecessors. In a broader field of enterprise they find them- selves obliged to deal with affairs of greater magnitude, and to solve more difficult and complicated financial and economic problems. Mr. Bridge is one of the men who have proven themselves masters of the situation, and worthy successors of the men who laid the foundations of our present prosperity. wealth and civilization. He is a director of the Bellefontaine Cemetery Association, of which his father was first president, but with

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this exception is not officially identified with any corporation other than the Bridge-Beach Manufacturing Company, preferring to de- vote such time as he can spare from this in- terest to various recreative outdoor sports. He has all of the native New Englander's love for an ancestral home, and has a beat- * tiful country residence at Walpole, New Hampshire, which was the birthplace of both his father and mother. The old homestead in which his father lived having been removed, he purchased some years since the ground on which it stood, and has erected thereon a public library building, which has been fitly named "the Bridge Memorial Library." He has a large farm in connection with his New Hampshire country home, and he and his family spend several months of each year there. Although in no sense a politician, Mr. Bridge has long been an influential member of the Republican party. His religious affili- ations have been with the Unitarian Church, of which his father was a prominent and use- ful member. His club connections in St. Louis are with the St. Louis Club, the Noon- day Club and the Country Club. February 4, 1885, he married Miss Helen Durkee, daughter of Dwight Durkee, of St. Louis, who was one of the earliest residents and first bankers of that city. A lady of rare social and domestic graces, Mrs. Bridge is well known also as an artist of very superior attainments, and one of the unique features of the palatial family residence in St. Louis is a perfectly equipped studio, in which she devotes much of her time to painting in water and oil, and to the most artistic china painting. The children born to Mr. and Mrs. Bridge have been Helen Bridge, Hudson E. Bridge, Lawrence Durkee Bridge, George Leighton Bridge, John Dwight Bridge, Kath- erine Bridge and Marion Bridge.

Bridger, James, the resident partner of the Rocky Mountain Fur Company, friend and associate of General Ashley, Robert Campbell and Captain William Sublette, of St. Louis, and a famous pioneer and explorer. was born in Richmond, Virginia, in 1804, and died in Jackson County, Missouri, July 17, 1881. When and under what circumstances he came west is not known, but we find him in the Rocky Mountains as early as 1820, when he was only a lad of sixteen years, be- ing associated with Fitzpatrick, one of the

most conspicuous fur traders and mountain characters of that day. In 1832 he became a partner in the Rocky Mountain Fur Com- pany, and managed its affairs in the moun- tains. This company had little or no deal- ings with Indians, securing its supplies of skins and furs from white trappers and hunt- ers only. It maintained a considerable reti- nue of these, and Bridger, who seems to have cared little for civilized life, and preferred communion with mountain, stream and for- est, remained in the centre of the trapping region as resident manager of the business. He was held in high respect not only by the trappers, hunters and traders, for his sagac- ity, courage and hospitality, but by the In- dians also for his uprightness. His wife was a member of the Shoshone tribe, and he pos- sessed the confidence of this and other tribes throughout the long period he lived in the mountains. He was an intrepid explorer ; he was the first white man to tell of Great Salt Lake; he discovered Bridger Pass ; he went over Yellowstone Park a quarter of a century before its name was made known to the world, and he could describe its wonders at a time when his stories appeared so absurd and incredible that they were set down as fables. He built Fort Bridger, in the beautiful valley of Black Fork of Green River, and made it his home and the rendezvous for mountain- men and plainsmen.

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Encyclopedia of the history of Missouri, a compendium of history and biography for ready reference, Vol. I, Part 65

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n Publication date: 1901 Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors Number of Pages: 856

Author: Conard, Howard Louis, ed. 1n
Publication date: 1901
Publisher: New York, Louisville [etc.] The Southern history company, Haldeman, Conard & co., proprietors
Number of Pages: 856