USA > Vermont > Men of Vermont : an illustrated biographical history of Vermonters and sons of Vermont > Part 122
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The record Mr. Thurston has made thus early in life is one not often met. He has at- tained his legal eminence as the result only of natural ability and close application to his profession. Manly, loyal and affection- ate, he enjoys in a remarkable degree the de- voted love of his friends. There are many who are willing to administer to his fortunes. Besides these multitudes there are some who are nearer to him, whom circumstances or personal relations have brought into the in- ner circle of his affections, whose devotion is never weary or relaxed.
On Christmas, 1872, Mr. Thurston was married to Miss Martha Poland, daughter of Col. Luther Poland, of Omaha, a most estimable lady whose family were, like her husband's, originally from Vermont. Her uncle was the honorable and venerable Luke P. Poland, for many years chief justice of the Green Mountain state, a representative in Congress for several terms and United States Senator. Of six children born of this mar- riage, four were sons and two daughters. Two of the sons died of diphtheria, leaving two sons and two daughters, who now, with his estimable wife, comprise Mr. Thurston's family.
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TINKER, CHARLES ALMERIN, of Brook- lyn, N. Y., descended from John Tinker, one of the early settlers of Windsor, Conn. His grandfather removed to Vermont previous to the Revolution and was one of the volun- teers who went to the defense of Bennington. His father and mother, Almerin Tinker and Sophronia B. Gilchrist, lived for many years
TINKER.
at Chelsea, where Charles A. Tinker, their oldest son, was born jan. 8, 1838.
Mr. Tinker was taken by his parents, in infancy, to Michigan, where he had only the advantage of a common school education, but returning to his native state in 1851, established their residence in Northfield. He subsequently attended school at New- bury Seminary, but owing to sickness did not complete his course. In 1852 he ob- tained a position as clerk in the postoffice at Northfield, and was there taught the Bain system of telegraphy. In 1855 he obtained a position as operator with the Vermont & Boston Telegraph Co. at Boston, and soon after with the Cape Cod Telegraph Co. in the Merchants' Exchange, having in the mean- time acquired a knowledge of the Morse system. In January, 1857, he went to Chi- cago, accepting a position there in the office of the Caton lines, and soon after became manager of the Illinois & Mississippi 'Tele- graph Co.'s office at Pekin, Il1.
During this period he made the acquain- tance of Abraham Lincoln. At Mr. Lin- coln's request, Mr. 'Tinker explained to him the methods of the telegraph system, and an intimacy thus begun was renewed later when Mr. Lincoln was President, and Mr. Tinker was employed as telegraph operator in the War Department at Washington. Mr. Lincoln was a frequent visitor at Mr. Tin- ker's office during the war, and received from him the first news of his re-nomination as President and that of Andrew Johnson as Vice-President. word uttered by Mr. Lincoln on this occasion, intimating his preference for Mr. Hamlin was recalled in later years by Mr. Tinker, and was the means of settling the important controversy that arose after Mr. Hamlin's death.
In the summer of 1857 Mr. Tinker re- turned to Chicago from Pekin, Ill., and en- tered the service of the Chicago & Rock Island R. R. Co., and two years later that of the Ga- lena & Chicago Union R. R. Co., as book- keeper and telegraph operator. During this period he joined the Chicago Light Guard, and served with his company as escort to Stephen A. Douglas to the Wigwam where he made his last great speech for the Union, and two weeks later as guard of honor in the procession which laid his remains away to rest on the banks of Lake Michigan.
At the breaking out of the war he was offered the lieutenant-colonelcy of a regi- ment, but declined the proffered honor. He soon after entered the United States military service in the War Department at Washing- ton, and was almost immediately ordered to service in the field under General Banks, and opened the military telegraph office at Poolesville, Md. He performed similar ser- vices under General Wardsworth at Upton
Shaft Funding
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Hill, where he was selected as one of the eight operators to serve under General Me- Clellan on the steamer Commodore, and afterwards in the army headquarters in front of Yorktown, and before Richmond. He was present at the evacuation of Yorktown, and at the battle of Williamsburg, and finally at General Heintzelman's headquarters at Savage Station after the battle of Fair Oaks. During his services at the front he lost his health, and returned to Vermont for one month, when he had regained health, and was then appointed by Major Eckert to the responsible position of cipher operator in the War Department at Washington, having for one of his associates A. B. Chandler of West Randolph. Here he remained until the close of the war, when he was appointed manager of the U. S. Military Telegraph, continuing until it was closed up and its lines turned over to the telegraph companies.
He was then appointed manager of the Western Union Washington office, serving therein until January, 1872, when he became superintendent of telegraph and general train dispatcher of the Vermont Central R. R., at St. Albans, with jurisdiction over the lines of the Western Union and Montreal Telegraph Cos. on that railway system. In 1875 he was appointed general superintendent of the Pacific Division of the Atlantic and Pacific Telegraph Co., with headquarters at Chicago. In 1879 this company having fallen under the control of the Western Union company, he resigned and accepted the management of the telegraph lines of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Co. While holding this position he became one of the incorporators with Jay Gould, of the American Union Telegraph Co., and received from Mr. Gould a check for two and a half millions of dollars to pay for his subscription to its capital stock. He was also superintendent of a division of that company. In 1881, after the consolidation of the Western Union and American Union Telegraph Cos., he was recalled to the service of the Western Union Telegraph Co., and on Feb. 1, 1882, he was made general superin- tendent of the Eastern division, comprising all the territory from Washington, D. C., north to the Canada line, west to the Ohio river and east to Cape Breton. This posi- tion he still holds.
He is vice-president of the American Dis- trict Telegraph Co., of New York City, and a director and vice-president of the Ver- mont and Boston Telegraph Co., and an officer of numerous other telegraph and telephone companies.
He has for some years been prominent in the religious and social circles of Brooklyn. He was one of the organizers and is now vice-president of the Brooklyn Society of Vermonters ; he is a member of the Illinois
Society of the Sons of Vermont, and has been for several years an officer and trustee of the Washington Avenue Baptist Church and of the Lincoln Club of Brooklyn.
He was married, in 1863, to Miss Lizzie A. Simkins, of Ohio, who deceased in April, 1890, leaving three grown children, two others having died in infancy.
He is a man of fine physique, still in the prime of manhood, capable of great endur- ance, and fully equal to the arduous and re- sponsible duties connected with his position.
TOWLE, ALLEN, of Towle, Cal., eldest son of Ira and Annis (Doe) Towle, was born in Corinth, July 26, 1833.
ALLEN TOWLE.
He was educated in the district schools, and in Corinth Academy. At the age of nineteen he went to New York where rela- tives of his mother were engaged in the ice business and with whom he remained some two years. In the meantime his father had made the discovery of copper in Corinth, and in 1853 a start was made with outside capital to devolop the mine, and he was sent to Vermont by a New York company to look after their interests in that locality. He took kindly to the pursuit of mining but the scope was hardly broad enough, when com- pared with the Munchausen-like tales which were at that time being sent home by his fellow townsmen, many of whom were among the first to seek gold in California, and in December, 1855, he sailed from New York, via Panama, arriving in San Fancisco
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in January, 1856. Here he lost no time but proceeded at once to the mines and com- menced operations at Steep Hollow, Placer county, where he cleaned up a few hundred dollars which he used to run a tunnel into a gravel claim at Thompsons Hill near Dutch Flat. For this business he seemed to have a natural bent, and although in those early days it was rather rough sailing he was prosperous. In the mean time a wagon road was built from Dutch Flat to Don- ner Lake, by which to reach the Comstock mines, which were then in the height of their success-and he built another mill near Blue Canyon. This wagon road was but the forerunner of the trans-continental railroad, the Central Pacific line passing through Dutch Flat, Blue Canyon, and on to the summit, and the Towle saw-mills became veritable mints. They supplied lumber to the railroad for ties, snow sheds, culverts and camps, and literally turned their lumber into gold. Their receipts from the railroad amounting at times to twenty-five thousand dollars per month.
Mr. Towle was followed to California at dif- ferent dates by his two brothers, who became his partners, but he has retained the man- agement. He has built at different times fifteen saw mills ; he has also built thirty miles of narrow gauge railroad, supplied with five locomotives and eighty-five cars with which to handle lumber from the mills off the line of the Central Pacific. He has five lumber yards in different localities in Cali- fornia and another in Tucson, Arizona ; also a box factory in Sacramento, which is chiefly employed in making orange boxes.
At Towle are situated a planing mill, sash, door, blind and box factory, and a pulp mill. This mill runs day and night and is lighted by electricity, the dynamo for which also furnishes lights for the town. The Towles own 24,000 acres of land in Cali- fornia, including the town, which has a town hall, hotel, boarding houses, one store, shops for car building and blacksmithing, and numerous dwelling houses. Has one hun- dred and eighty voters, with a school of seventy-five pupils. They decline to sell a foot of land lest a saloon should be located ; no liquor can be bought or sold on land owned by them. They employ in the busy season four hundred men, some of whom have been in their employ for over a quarter of a century, and who are independent as far as money is concerned. For many years Towle has been a sure place of employment for any young man from Vermont, and scores of well-to-do men on the Pacific coast date their prosperity from the start they got here.
Mr. Towle is a member of the Olive Lodge, I. O. O. F., No. 81, of Dutch Flat, and of Auburn Encampment.
TOWNSEND.
He is a Republican and has been delegate to both county and state conventions many times, but has never aspired to any office. He was appointed by the Governor a delegate to the Irrigation Congress which met in Salt Lake City in September, 1891 ; he was also appointed by the Governor a member of the Viticultural Commission for El Dorado dis- trict, and elected by the commissioners as their treasurer. He is also president of the Gold Run Ditch and Mining Co. and of the Feather River Canal Co., incorporated for furnishing water for irrigation in Butte county.
Mr. Towle was married at Dutch Flat, Cal., March 3, 1869, to Ella W., daughter of Stephen Young and Lydia K. (Richey) Halsey, and has four children : George G. (who was married in 1892 to Miss Kate Meister, of Sacramento) and is bookkeeper for his father, Orra H., Alleen L., and Sadie
The family have a beautiful home in Sac- ramento where they spend most of the year on account of schools, but retain their resi- dence at Towle where they go for the sum- mer and where they entertain troops of friends.
It has been a marvel to many how Mr. Towle has stood the care of such large and varied enterprises. The secret seems to his biographer (who has known him from child- hood), to lie in his ability to lay aside care. When he goes to his home he leaves his business in the office. The Towle family (a brother and two sisters) are all settled in California, but the old farm in Corinth where he and his father before him, first saw light (although it has like many another in Ver- mont, ceased to be a source of income) is still one of the cherished possessions of the Towle family. Great executive ability and integrity, coupled with a kindly and charit- able nature, have placed him in the foremost rank of California's adopted sons.
TOWNSEND, JOHN, of San Francisco, Cal., son of Moses and Azubah W. (Hatha- way) Townsend, was born Nov. 17, 1857, at Pittsfield.
His education was begun in the common and high schools of his native town, and his technical training acquired in the Massachu- setts College of Pharmacy, the California Medical College, the Hahnemann Medical College of San Francisco, and the Post Graduate Medical College of Chicago.
Until seventeen years of age he worked upon his father's farm and attended school, and then engaged as attendant at the Mc- Lean Asylum for Insane at Somerville, Mass., where he remained a year. He then entered the employ of Dr. J. D. Mansfield, of Wake- field, Mass., and by close devotion to his duties he became a druggist, and was soon head clerk and general manager of the store.
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While here he attended lectures at the Massa chusetts College of Pharmacy. After three years' service in Wakefield, he practiced his profession in leading establishments of Bos- ton, and continued his course of instruction at the college.
In 1876 Mr. Townsend established a phar- macy at Weymonth, Mass,, and in a short time built up a large and successful business. In 1877 he graduated at the head of the class from the Massachusetts College of Pharmacy. In 1881 he removed to San Francisco, and visited Oregon and Washing- ton, and the following spring again took up the study of medicine and in October, 1884, graduated from the Hahnemann Medical College, and received the first diploma granted from a homopathic college on the Pacific coast. He was then appointed resi- dent physician and surgeon of the San Francisco Homeopathic Hospital, and the next year received the same appointment at the St. Luke Hospital, and the further dis- tinction of professor of chemistry and demonstrator of anatomy at the Hahne- mann Medical College. After two years of hospital service he engaged in private prac- tice and now has a large and increasing business among the best people of San Francisco.
Dr. Townsend has always taken an active part in fraternal and social orders; is an Odd Fellow and Knight of Honor, and a member of various other organizations, and is vice-president of the Pacific Coast Asso- ciation of Sons of Vermont.
In his professional labors he has invented several valuable instruments for use in treat- ment of diseases of the throat and lungs, and the application of electricity both in therapeutics and surgery.
TWITCHELL, MARSHALL HARVEY, of Newfane, resident of Kingston, Canada, son of Harvey and Elizabeth (Scott) Twitchell, was born in Townshend, Feb. 28, 1840.
He was educated in the common schools and Leland Seminary. Like many young men of Vermont he taught school winters, worked on the farm and attended the semi- nary the other portions of the year.
In 1861 he enlisted with Co. I, 4th Regt. Vt. Vols. He was in fourteen battles with the old Vermont Brigade and was severely wounded at the battle of the Wilderness, be- ing at the time in command of the com- pany. In the winter of 1863-64 he made application and was appointed captain in the 109 U. S. C. T. and was in the column which broke Lee's line at Petersburg and finally surrounded his army at Appomattox court house. In October, 1865, he was ap- pointed provost marshal and agent of Freed- man's Bureau with headquarters at Sparta,
North Louisiana. Here, twenty-five miles from the nearest post, with no experience in civil government, he was legislator, judge, jury and sheriff. Ilis government was so satisfactory that he was elected almost with- ont opposition to represent the parish (county) of Bienville in the constitutional convention of 1868. He was appointed judge of the parish of Bienville in 1868. Elected to the state Senate for a term of four years in 1870 and re-elected for a second term in 1874. During his eight years in the Senate he was the principal agent in the creation of the parish (county) of Red River, building of the town of Conchatta and the organization of the public schools in the parishes of Bienville, Red River and De Sota.
MARSHALL HARVEY TWITCHELL.
He protected colored schools by the threat that as president of the school board he should refuse to sign the warrant for the pay of the teachers. The 2d of May, 1876, an attempt was made to assassinate him, from which he received six bullets, necessi- tating the amputation of both arms just above the elbow ; his brother-in-law, George A. King, was killed at that time. His only brother, Homer, and his other two brothers- in-law, Willis and Holland, had been pre- viously murdered in what is known as the Couchatta Massacre of 1874. Had the as- sassination been successful the result would have been to change the majority in the state Senate, which would have recognized
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a different House of Representatives, de- clared a different Governor and elected a different United States Senator. April, 1878, he was appointed Consul of the United States at Kingston, Canada.
In 1868 he purchased a cotton plantation on Lake Bisteneau. In 1869 took the direction of two plantations belonging to his father-in-law. In 1870 he purchased "Star- light " plantation on Red river, every year adding to his business, either by lease or purchase. He directed as principal owner two stores, two sets of mills, the hotel and the only newspaper established in the parish. His large property interests were partially abandoned after his attempted assassination in 1876, and entirely abandoned after the murder of John W. Harrison, his last agent, at "Starlight," in the fall of 1875.
In 1864 he joined Blazing Star Lodge, F. & A. M., at Townshend. After the war he was J. W. of Silent Brotherhood Lodge, scribe of Chapter No. 35, and member of Jacques De Molay Commandery, all of Louisiana ; he is also a member of Burchard Post, G. A. R., and Loyal Legion of Ver- mont.
In 1866 he married Adele, daughter of Colonel Coleman, one of the large cotton planters of North Louisiana. By this wife he has one son: Marshall Coleman. In 1876 he married Henrietta Day of Hamp- den, Mass., by whom he has one son : Emmus G.
TYLER, GEORGE WASHINGTON, of Alameda, Cal., son of William B. and Mary (Hall) Tyler, was born in Warren, Jan. 16, 1827.
He attended the public schools of his na- tive town until he went to Kalamazoo, Mich., in the fall of 1844, and prepared for college at a branch of the University of Michigan, under the auspices and at the expense of the Baptist Association of that state. In 1847, when prepared to enter the sophomore class, finding that he could not consistently preach the doctrines of that church, he re- paid the Association and returned to Ver- mont. He taught school in Warren during the winter that followed and in the spring of 1848 commenced the study of law in the office of O. H. Smith of Montpelier.
He went to California in 1849, sailing from Boston on the ship Leonore, in the spring of that year, and arriving in the Gold- en state on the 5th day of July, his course having been around Cape Horn.
In April, 1850, upon the organization of the state of California, he was elected sheriff of Yolo county, but in the fall of that year re- signed that office and went to Yreka, Syski-
you county, where he held the office of dis- trict attorney for one and one-half years, after which he practiced criminal law as a spe- cialty until May, 1856, when he returned to Vermont, and in September of that year he entered the law school of Cambridge, Mass., and graduated in July, 1858, returning shortly after to Yreka.
He was county judge of San Joaquin county, from 1861 to '63, and was a member of the Assembly from Alameda county in 1880.
GEORGE WASHINGTON TYLER.
He was mustered into the service of the United States by Captain Alden (formerly in charge of Military Academy at West Point), in Rogue River Valley, Oregon, as one of the staff of Gen. Joseph Lane, with the rank of lieutenant ; fought during the Rogue River Indian war of 1853, having gone there from Yreka, Cal., at the first outbreak. He was in command of a company that fought the battle of " Bloody Point " at which one-half of his command were killed or wounded, he re- ceiving two slight wounds.
Judge Tyler is a Master Mason in good standing, and ranks high as a lawyer in his adopted state.
In August, 1851, Mr. Tyler married Miss Alla Jane, daughter of William and Anna (Lovett) Frazier, in Cambridge, Mass. Of this union there are four living children : William B., George Norton, Alla Frazier, and Maud G.
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VAN VLIET, STEWART, of Washington, D. C., son of Christian and Rachael Van Vliet, was born July 21, 1815, at Ferrisburg.
General Van Vliet, as he is everywhere known, received the educational advantages of the home of his youth, Fishkill, N. Y., and entered the United States Military Academy at West Point in 1836, graduating in 1840, in the class in which was General Sherman and other famous men whose names have become prominent in history. He was ap-
STEWART VAN VLIET.
pointed second lieutenant in the third artil- lery, then in Florida, and served there two years during the Seminole war. He was in several engagements, in one of which he killed an Indian chief in a hand to hand fight. Subsequently he was engaged in the Mexican war and was with General Taylor at Monterey, where he led the final charge and received the flag of surrender. At Vera Cruz he commanded a battery under Gen- eral Scott. From Mexico he was ordered to Fort Leavenworth and built forts Kearney and Laramie on the Platte river. He was in the Sioux expedition and in the battle of the Blue Water. Under Sydney Johnson he organized the expedition to Utah, and went to Salt Lake. Gen. Stewart Van Vliet served with distinction in the civil war. He was chief quartermaster of the Army of the Poto-
mac, and was with MeClellan in all the bat- tles of the Peninsula; and was afterwards stationed in several of the large cities of the country. He was retired at the age of sixty- four, and received the brevets of brigadier- general and major-general in the regular army and in the volunteers. He now lives with his family in Washington, D. C., and during the summer months at Shrewsbury, N. J.
General Van Vliet is fond of society. His genial and hearty manner makes companion- ship with him most enjoyable. He is a member of many clubs and organizations, among them the Aztec Club, of which he is president ; the Holland Society, of which he is vice-president ; the St. Nicholas Society ; the Loyal Legion ; and the G. A. R.
General Van Vliet was married at Fort Laramie, March 6, 1851, to Sarah Jane Brown, the daughter of Maj. Jacob Brown (who was killed by the Mexicans while de- fending a fort opposite Matamoras. The fort and city, Fort Brown and Brownsville, were named after him). He has two sons : Dr. Frederick C., and Lieut. Robert C. of the roth U. S. Infantry.
VILAS, WILLIAM F., of Madison, Wis., was born at Chelsea July 9, 1840 ; removed with his father's family to Wisconsin and settled at Madison June 4, 1851 ; was grad- uated at the State University in 1858, and from the law department of the University of Albany, N. Y., in 1860 ; was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of New York and by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in the same year, and began the practice of law July 9, 1860 ; was captain of Co. A, 23d Regt. Wis. Inf. Vols., and afterwards major and lieutenant-colonel of the regiment ; has been one of the professors of law of the law de- partment of the State University since 1868, omitting four years, 1885 to 1889 ; was one of the regents of the university from 1880 to 1885 ; was one of the three revisers ap- pointed by the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in 1875 who prepared the existing revised body of the statute law adopted in 1878; was a member of Assembly in the Wisconsin Legislature in 1885 ; was a delegate to the Democratic national conventions of 1876- '80-'84, and permanent chairman of the latter ; was postmaster-general from March 7, 1885, to Jan. 16, 1888, and Secretary of the Interior from the latter date to March 6, 1889; received the unanimous nomination of the Democratic legislative caucus and was elected Jan. 28,1891, United States Senator to succeed John C. Spooner, Republican.
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