USA > New York > Rensselaer County > Landmarks of Rensselaer county, New York, pt 2 - 3 > Part 15
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The alertness and activity of Troy's great merchant, even in his vacation days,
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are shown by a sumptuous volume, entitled " Five Weeks in Europe," which contams the joint work of Mr. Frear's pen and camera. The book bears the sub-title of "A Photographie Memorandum," and is a unique and felicitons recognition of the memor- able welcome given to Mr. Frear by the employees in his store on his return from a transatlantic jaunt. Appended to each photograph taken by Mr. Frear is an appro- priate descriptive extract from Mr. Frear's letters to his wife while on the journey.
Mr. Frear has publie spirit and that rapidity of judgment which enables him, in the midst of intense business activity, to give to the affairs of the community effort and counsel of genuine vale. His penetrating thought has often added wisdom to public movements. Always responsive to the calls of charity, his was one of the names first thought of when a conflagration in February, 1896, in the Burdett build- ing wrought terrible terrible loss of life and destruction of the property of working women. As treasurer and one of the chief almoners of the relief fund, he assumed a task which involved weeks of almost unremitting attention.
In politics Mr. Frear is a loyal Republican, but while too busy a man to seek or desire public office, yet he has not escaped having official positions seek him with such insistence as to compel acceptance. He was a member of the Troy Centennial Committee of One Hundred in 1889 and of the Citizens' Committee of Public Safety in 1894. Hle has also been a trustee of the Second Presbyterian church, the Troy Young Women's Association, the Troy Young Men's Christian Association, adirector of the Troy City National Bank and associate member of Post Griswold, G. A. R. At one time Mr. Frear served on the staff of Brigadier-General Alonzo Alden, with the rank of captain.
The chief element in Mr. Frear's mercantile success has been personal attention to the details of business. He has known his store, his salespeople and his custom- ers, his knowledge being first hand. The motto which he had engraved on his trademark at the start: "Par Negotiis Neque Supra," expresses it exactly, Next to this personal insight has been the practice of cash payments for goods bought. llis customers have been cash buyers, and when he he has gone into the markets of America and Europe he has taken in his hand the golden key which has opened the gates to the best goods at the lowest prices. Mr. Frear's check book is proof that " the nimble sixpence is better than the slow shilling," but the aggregate of those sixpences would astound any one except a metropolitan buyer.
An mendent of Mr. Frear's undaunted energy and extraordinary enterprise occurred in December, 1893, when fire destroyed his stock of goods and seriously damaged his store. On the morning of the fourth day after, the ponderous icebergs had dis- appeared, a temporary roof had been built, settlement completed with the insurance companies, he had re-opened his store and his holiday trade went on with its usual mammoth proportions.
WESLEY O. HOWARD.
WESLEY O. HOWARD was born in the Sixth ward of Troy, N. Y., September 11, 1863. His grandfather came to this country from Germany when a boy and settled in Grafton, N. Y., where he resided all his life. His father, Joel T. Howard, was
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WESLEY O. HOWARD).
IRVING HAYNER.
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bord in Grafton, was for many years on the old capitol police force, and died in 1869. Ilis mother, Susannah (Sweet) Howard, died in 1866.
Wesley O. received a common school education in Grafton and an academic edu- cation in Lansingburgh, after which he taught school for seven years. He entered the law office of Robertson, Foster & Kelley in the fall of 1886, was with that firm about two years, then went with William W. Morrill to finish his legal studies, and was admitted to the bar in the fall of 1889.
Mr. Howard was attorney for the Board of Supervisors two years. He had the management of the prosecution and collection of the evidence against the repeaters and election offenders in the winter of 1893, and was attorney for the committee in charge during the whole examination. He was one of the attorneys for the Commit- tee of Safety which continued the same work, and was also one of the attorneys for the Senate investigating committee. He was secretary of the Republican County Committee for three years. Ile was elected district attorney in the fall of 1896. Ile is a member of the Knights of Pythias.
Ile was married October 1, 1884, to Carrie A. Millias, of Grafton; they have two daughters, one ten and the other three years of age. Mr. Howard's residence is in Bath-on the-Hudson.
JAMES J. CHILD.
JAMES J. Cit.b, son of Joseph and Agnes (Johnston) Child, was born in Brooklyn, N. Y., April 22, 1854, and moved to Troy with his parents in 1862. He finished his education at the Lansingburgh Academy in 1871, and on December 8, 1872, entered the employ of David Judson, the leading coal dealer of Lansingburgh. Soon after- ward Mr. Child was made manager, and upon Mr. Judson's death in 1881 he formed a partnership with the latter's son, David A. Judson, which continued successfully until May 1, 1893, when he organized the James J. Child Coal Company, of which he has since been the president and treasurer. This company probably handles more coal than any other concern in Northern or Eastern New York, and conducts strictly a wholesale business, largely with railroads and other large corporations.
Mr. Child has always taken a keen interest in public affairs, lending his support and encouragement to all worthy objects. He is a member of the Riverside Club of Lansingburgh, and was a prominent member and trustee of Olivet Presbyterian church of which he was also an elder for many years until the spring of 1886, when he transferred his membership to and became an active worker in Westminster Presbyterian church.
He was married on April 1, 1882, to Miss Marion E., daughter of Duane Lock- wood, of Lansingburgh, and they have three children Grace A., Dudley IL, and Mildred I.
IRVING HAYNER.
IRVING HAYNER was born in Brunswick, N. Y., April 8, 1838, the son of David and Lanah (Bornt) Hayner. His father and mother died in 1876 and 1884 respectively.
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Mr. Hayner was educated in the publie schools and was graduated from Fort Ed- ward Institute in 1857. He read law with Hon. W. A. Beach, was admitted to the bar in 1865, and began practice in Troy, where he now conducts a general law busi- ness. He represented the Fifth ward of Troy in the Board of Aldermen two years, and was school commissioner for six years. He is a member of King Solomon's Primitive Lodge F. & A. M., Apollo Chapter, Apollo Commandery and the Mystic Shrine, is a director in the National State Bank, and is one of the charter members of the East Side Club, a prominent social organization, and has been its president for two terms.
In 1868 he married Carrie Il. Halladay, of Vermont, and his children are Horatio H., a lawyer, Mittie, Helen and Carolyn.
NELSON DAVENPORT.
NELSON DAVENPORT was born September 13, 1827, in Tompkins county, N. Y., the son of John G. Davenport, of the Rhode Island family of that name, and Esther (Miller) Davenport of the Millers of White Plains, N. Y.
HIe entered the Troy Conference Academy with Esek Cowen and R. A. and F. J. Parmenter. Deeiding to enter the profession of law, he entered the National Law School, and in 1850 was admitted to practice in the Supreme Court of the State, and subsequently to the Supreme Court of the United States. In 1865 he was appointed by Governor Fenton one of the commissioners of the capitol police and held that position five years. He is one of the trustees of the Troy Young Men's Association, one of the new Court House commission, and one of the commissioners of State prisons. For over twenty years he has spent the mornings and evenings of the sun- mei months on his farm in East Greenbush, on the heights overlooking the Hudson.
In 1857 he married a daughter of Hon. Jason C. Osgood and has one child living, who is the wife of Casper V. W. Burton.
CALVIN II. CLARK.
CALVIN HI. CLARK was born in Troy, N. Y., April 6, 1842. Ile is the grandson of of Peter Clark, one of the first settlers of Green Island. His father, Willard Clark, was born in Troy and for many years was in the employ of the D. & H. Railroad Co , and died July 4, 1848. His mother, Eliza J. (Capron) Clark, was born in New Hamp- shire and is now living in Troy.
Calvin H. Clark began self-support at eleven years of age; he worked in a satinet .factory in Troy and in cotton and hosiery factories until 1869, when he entered the bakery of Charles Vail, where he remained for four years. He later was in the em- ploy of the National Express Co., and after six months bought the baggage express business of Henry Ogden. Later he was baggageman on the railroad for three years, and was four years employed by the Troy & Albia Railroad, when he bought out a general store at Albia, which he sold out and again went into the Vail bakery;
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CALVIN H. CLARK.
R. H. WARD, M. D.
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later he was agent for Little & Stillman, tobacco manufacturers, following which he was in the Troy & Boston freight office for three years, during which time he was learning undertaking and embalming. October 18, 1883, he engaged in the under- taking business with Charles J. Reedy under the firm name of Clark & Reedy; four years later he bought out Mr. Reedy, and since that time he has carried on the busi- ness alone at 820 River street. He has built two fine business blocks in North Troy, and has one of the most complete undertaking establishments in the city of Troy. Ile is a 32 Mason, a charter member of the Royal Arcanum, trustee of the Exempt Firemen, and a trustee of Grace M. E. church, of which he is also treasurer.
January 1, 1863, he married Maria Hastings, daughter of Nathan and Roth Hast ings, of Troy, by whom he has one daughter, Mrs. George Blake, of Troy.
R. HALSTED WARD, M. D.
RICHARD HALSTED WARD, A. M., M. D., F. R. M. S., was born in Bloomfield, N. J., June 17, 1837. He was the eldest son of Israel C. and Almeda Hanks Ward, a leading family of the place, and prominently connected there, as well as in the neighboring city of New York where the business interests of the family were mostly situated.
After preparation in the local schools, he entered Williams College at the age of seventeen, and was graduated at twenty-one (A. B. in 1858, A. M. in 1861). While in college he was librarian, and afterward president, of the Philotechnian Lit- crary Society, editor of the Williams Quarterly, and a most active member of the " Florida Expedition" (1857), one of the first and most successful of the parties that have been sent out from the various colleges for the purpose of scientific study and collection.
lle next spent four years of thorough study in the medical schools and hospitals of New York and Philadelphia, and took the degree of M. D. in 1862, from the College of Physicians and Surgeons, New York. After a short service in the U. S. Military Hospital at Nashville. Tenn., and a year's residence, as a sanitary measure, in Min- lesota, he established in Troy, in 1868, being soon associated with Dr. Thomas W. Blatchtord until his sudden death in 1866, the large and important medical practice in connection with a course of earnest scientific activity, which has been maintained uninterruptedly ever since. He is a member of the Medical Board (attending phy- sician since 1868, consulting physician since 1892), and of the Board of Governors (since 1868, secretary since 1875), and of the Committee of Management (since 1885, secretary of the committee since 1888), of the Marshall Infirmary; an institution in which he has always taken an unceasing interest, and to whose executive as well as medical and sanitary affairs he has alwaystakeu pleasure in giving a large amount of time and labor, He was president of the Rensselaer County Medical Society (1877, re-elected in 1878); is member of the Medical Society of the State of New York (dele- gate 1868, permanent member 1873), and of the American Medical Association ; and Fellow of the New York State Medical Association (1886), and of the American Academy of Medicine (1889). Hehasbeen a delegate to the International Medical Congress, at severalmeetingsheld in different countries; and at the Berlin Congress in 1890 he was
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oneof the very limited number that received invitations and attended the emperor's reception at court. In his numerous and extensive travels in this country and abroad, he has always made a study of the medical and sanitary affairs, especially as to climate and local conditions of importance to health, as to domestic habits and hy- giene, water supply, hospital facilities and management, etc. Several of Dr. Ward's papers on medical subjects have been published in the " Transactions of the Medical Society of the State of New York"
His instinctive fondness for scientific studies was obvious in his school-boy days, when his assistance was constantly sought in the scientific work of the institutions where he studied. In college, the same taste remained and grew more prominent in connection with a reputation as an original, independent and analytical writer; and after concentrating his attention upon botany, under the teaching of the young and enthusiastic Professor (afterward President) Paul A. Chadbourne, he permanently fixed upon that and the related departments of biology and microscopy as his special field of work.
Ile was appointed instructor in botany at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in 1867, and was made professor of botany the second year following, until his resig- nation after twenty-six years of service, in 1892. He has also delivered courses of lectures on microscopy at the Institute on several occasions, and he was lecturer on histology and microscopy in the scientific course leading to the degree of B. S.
Outside of the Institute he has long been known, not only in this country but abroad, as a thorough student, a philosophical and suggestive writer, and an in- structive lecturer. He has always been a popularizer of science, taking the greatest pleasure in treating the most difficult and unpromising subjects, and in so simplify- ing them as to make them easy and interesting. He has been especially interested in philosophical, applied and economic botany, and his writings and lectures, on whatever subject, have seldom lost sight of his favorite theme, the practical appli- cations of science. A characteristic incident occurred at the Nashville meeting of the American Association for the advancement of science in 1877, when an evening was given to a microscopical exhibition for the entertainment of the citizens, and the instruments were arranged in the great hall of the State Capitol. But when the hour arrived the whole place was packed solidly "from pit to dome" with the best people of the city. To move about and view the objects was impossible, and an ad- dress must be substituted, but no speaker had been provided. The choice fell upon Dr. Ward to fill the gap, and without preparation he gave an address, which one of the local professors illustrated with a lantern ; and only after the andience was dis- missed and most of them had gone home, were those who remained able to circulate and view the exhibits.
His necessities as well as his taste have led him to accumulate a large and useful library, especially in the direction of science, industries and arts. Ilis microscopical library is equalled by very few private collections in the world, containing many rare and valuable works, all the microscopical journals ever published in America as well as most of the foreign ones, and thousands of pamphlets, reprints. extracts, etc., pertaining to biology and microscopy in its widest sense.
His botanical experience furnished a large part of his recreation as well as of his work, Botanizing walks were always his best pastime and rest from the care and wear of business. ITis smummer vacations were yearly spent in travel, avoiding as
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far as possible the haunts and habits and notoriety of tourists, and studying unnoticed the peoples and their regions from their own point of view. In this way he has, during a very active life, gained some familianty, especially as to their vegetation, and horticulture, and their sanitary and medical characteristics and affairs, with selected points in nearly all the States of this country, and in nearly every country of Europe. His habits as well as his love of instruments of precision gave him great fondness for the rifle, and especially for target shooting, and he was for many years a member, and much of the time president, of the Trojan Rifle Club.
Professor Ward's original work in the advancement of science, and that which has gained him most distinction abroad, has been chiefly in the direction of microscopy, of which he was one of the pioneers in this country, and in which he has long been an acknowledged authority. In addition to an extensive use of the microscope from the first, not only as a constant aid in his own medical practice but also for the ben. efit of other physicians, he was among the first to apply that instrument successfully to the discrimination of different kinds of blood in connection with criminal cases, and to the detection of forgeries, erasures and other falsifications in handwriting. Besides introducing the microscope as a critical element in important criminal trials, he has made it prominent and sometimes decisive in many legal, medical, sanitary and economical cases pertaining to water supply, adulterations or falsifications of food, medicine or other commercial products, etc. His address as president of the American Society of Microscopists, at its Buffalo meering in 1879, on the Practical Uses of the Microscope, gave an importance and prominence to this class of work, and secured for it a development which was far in advance of former experience. Finding the existing standards of measurement quite unsatisfactory for work of such precision, he took a leading part, in connection with the late learned President F. A. P. Barnard of Columbia University, in organizing in 1878, the " National Com- mittee on Micrometry," and in securing the standard micrometer of the American Microscopical Society, which is now acknowledged as authority for such purposes. Among his inventions and contrivances, which have been steps in the progress of development of the modern microscope, are an erecting arrangement for binoculars, and an illuminating arrangement for the same, the iris illuminator, an eye shade which has been extensively used with great comfort and satisfaction for the protec- tion from fatigue of the unemployed eye while working with the monocular micro- scope, a lens holder for dissecting purposes, and a safety mailing box for slides which has been used for twenty years by the American Postal Microscopical Club in the circulation of thousands of slides throughout the country, with a convenience and immunity from danger of breakage of the specimens that was wholly unknown before.
llis connection with numerous scientifie societies, of several of which he was a founder and most active and efficient supporter, has brought him into intimate rela- tions with the most advanced scientific work and progress of the times. He was the first president of the Troy Scientific Association (1870-77, and 1880- -- ), and in its early years he often entertained the society at his residence, at annual soirées and microscopical exhibitions, at which the custom was introduced of cataloguing the exhibits according to the character of the objects themselves, and arranging them ac- cordingly in different parts of the house in natural groups suitable for instructive study, instead of the fashion which is still common of listing the microscopes, mostly accord-
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ing to the bigness of the stands, and letting the objects come wherever they happen to. He was the designer and leader of the many "field meetings" held by this so- ciety, and contributed the chief share of the work that made them successful and famous for many years; and he bas also been, from the first, the leader of the micro- scopical section of the society, in connection with which he has been always ready to assist others however inexperienced, and has done scientific work that has been recognized abroad and that gained for him, as president, an honorary appointment in 1879 as ex officio Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society in London. He was one of the originators, and the president, of the National Microscopical Congress held at Indianapolis in 1878, and the first president of its successor, the American Society of Microscopists (1879); and in 1896 the latter society, now known as the American Microscopical Society, elected him as an honorary member, a distinction which has been conferred on but three or four persons during the whole history of the society. Ile was manager of the American Postal Microscopical Club for twenty years, from its foundation in 1875 until 1895, when he became president; he has acted as editor of its published reports, and has been a large contributor to the original notes and other work of the club; and some idea of the amount and charac- ter of his work in this enterprise can be gained from one or two extracts from the published comments of various members: "Dr. Ward is the president and father of this club. An unusual love of microscopical science prompted him to organize it, and an inborn ability to guide and interest, enabled him to conduct it successfully for twenty years. Those of us who know him best sincerely hope that he 'may live long and prosper' and continue yet to guide for many years. Dr. Ward's careful essays in this series of books are a most valuable feature, and should be at- tentively studied. They contain information not easily obtained elsewhere. - S. G. S." " There are many members who will be pleased to see the photo of such a dis- tinguished, unselfish, untiring worker for the best interests of our elub as Dr. R. H. Ward, of Troy, N. Y .- G. M. Il." "All these essays by Dr. Ward are veritable word-pictures; only a long experience as a teacher could fit one to carry information in such clear-cut sentences. - S." lle is also a member of the American Metrological Society (1879), in which he labored earnestly in connection with the late President F. A. P. Barnard for reform in weights and measures, an agitation which was an important step in the adoption of the metric system in American microscopy ; also of the Phi Beta Kappa Society. He is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (member IS68, Fellow 1874; chairman of the sub-section of microscopy 1872, 1876 and 1877), and active member of the local committee of arrangements for the meetings at Troy (1870) and Saratoga (1879); and Fellow of the Royal Microscopical Society, London. He has attended, as associate member, several meetings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Ile is honorary member (1877) of the Société Belge de Microscopie, which rare distinction has been conferred upon but one other American, the late Dr. J. J. Woodward of the U. S. Army Medical Museum in Washington ; of the Minnesota Academy of Natural Sciences (1873); of the Troy Citizens Corps (1878), etc. He is corresponding meni- ber of the Boston Society of Natural History (1872); of the Albany Institute (1870), where he has delivered addresses on several occasions; of the New York Microscop- ical Society (1888), State Microscopical Society of Illinois (1872), San Francisco Microscopical Society (1879), and many other societies in various parts of the country.
GEORGE A. ROSS.
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In the summer of 1891 he attended and represented this country as a member of the Committee of Honor and Patronage, the International Exposition of Microscopy held at Antwerp, Belgium, in celebration of the three hundredth anniversary of the invention of the microscope, a report upon which he published the following year.
Professor Ward is author of the elaborate article on " Microscopy" in Appleton's Annual Cyclopedia for 1881; of a " Microscopical Slide-Catalogue" (4°, Troy, N. Y., 1886), for the systematie and descriptive registering of the slides in any collection ; of " Plant Organization " (4º, Troy, N. Y., 1889; 2d ed., Boston, 1890), an analysis of plant forms and structures, for the use of students by the written method; and editor, conjointly with Rev. A. B. Hervey, of the American Revision of Behrens on the " Microscope in Botany" (Boston, 1885), to which work he made extensive cop tributions respecting the microscope and its accessories from the point of view of American experience. Ilis numerous scientific papers, published during the last thirty years, and many of which have been reprinted abroad, have pertamed mostly to such subjects as the " Practical Uses of the Microscope," " Medical Microscopy," " The Study of Blood and of Handwriting," " Mierometry," " Illumination," " The Powers, Aperture and Nomenclature of Objectives and Oculars," "Students' Dis- secting and Binocular Microscopes," etc. Ilis papers have been mostly published in the Proceedings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and of the American Society of Microscopists, now American Microscopical Society, and in the Reports of the American Postal Microscopical Club, in the American Naturalist (Salem, now Philadelphia), American Journal of Microscopy (New York), American Monthly Microscopical Journal (Washington), The Microscope (Ann Arbor, now Washington), the Monthly Microscopical Journal (London), the Journal de Micrographie (Paris), the Microscopical Bulletin (Philadelphia), etc. Many of them have been republished in pamphlet form and extensively circulated. For twelve years he was associated with the editorial corps of the American Naturalist, having; established (1871) the department of mieroscopy of that journal, the first micro- seopical department in any scientific journal in this country; and during that time he contributed a monthly budget of critical notes in regard to that branch of science, which were prepared with such care and judgment as to be constantly quoted as authority.
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