USA > Vermont > Vermonters : a book of biographies > Part 9
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His later life has been rich and varied. He further im- proved the flat turret lathe, and brought out the cross sliding head type of machine for the infant but growing automobile in- dustry in 1910. The Hartness automatic lathe followed, and in later years the comparator, an ingenious optical measuring in- strument and the Hartometer gauge.
Always adventurous in imagination and action, he built up a large and profitable foreign business from the little country town of Springfield, six miles from the railroad. His trips to Europe were frequent and effective.
In 1916, he took the extraordinary step of learning to fly the crude and dangerous airplanes of the time-and gained an amateur pilot's license. He does not fly now, but his interest in aviation remains, and showed itself in establishing a land- ing field in Springfield as a memorial to the soldiers and sailors of the World War. At the time of Lindberg's tour the "Lone Eagle" landed there on Vermont soil. Mr. Hartness has since donated the property to the town, and it is now rated as a municipal field.
Astronomy also engaged his attention, and he turned his mind to the problem of devising a telescope which could be used from a sheltered and heated observatory. The result was the "turret equatorial" which invention gained him member- ship in American and English astronomical societies. Visitors
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to the Hartness residence in Springfield are always interested in this ingenious instrument, in the large underground study and workroom adjoining it, and in the long, heated tunnel which connects it with the house.
His interest in astronomy took other effective forms. With his encouragement that universal genius (and native son of Spring- field) Russell Porter-architect, artist, arctic explorer, mountain climber and physicist-was encouraged in those activities which have made the town famous as the seat of an amateur telescope makers guild. This has spread to every continent of the earth and numbers over 8000 enthusiasts-among them being young Tombaugh whose discovery of the new planet Pluto from the plates at Flagstaff Observatory may be indirectly, but surely, traced to Springfield, Vermont.
Meanwhile, his fellow engineers had honored Mr. Hartness by electing him vice president of the American Society of Me- chanical Engineers. During a European trip of that society in 1914, he acted as head of the party in the absence of the president. So acceptable was his personality to both European and American confréres that he was elected president in 1914. Later, in 1924, he was elected president of the Engineering Council-the associated body set up by the combined engineer- ing societies of the country for public service in Washington. He has thus received the highest elective honor that his fellow engi- neers can bestow upon him.
During the war Mr. Hartness served as Federal Food Admin- istrator under Mr. Hoover and as chairman of the Committee of Public Safety. He also served six years, from 1914 to 1920, as chairman of the State Board of Education. In the latter part of the war he was a member of the Inter-Allied Aircraft Com- mission, and as such was in Paris on the fateful April day on "which Big Bertha first bombarded the astounded city.
From 1918 to 1920 he was vice chairman of the Congressional Screw Thread Commission, whose work standardized bolt and nut threads for the country.
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In 1921 Mr. Hartness entered the gubernatorial contest in Vermont. Mr. Hartness' interest was particularl engaged with the problem of making a place for young Vermonters in local industry, instead of making it necessary for them to leave and go elsewhere. He won by a large majority in both primary and election contests. His term of office was an active one, and the increased publicity work of the state and the reorganiza- tion of the highway department may be listed among the achieve- ments of the administration.
Mr. Hartness is a member of numerous American and foreign scientific societies. He has been honored with the degree of M.E. by the University of Vermont in 1910 and LL.D. in 1921, and by the degree of A.M. by Yale University in 1914. In 1921, he was awarded the John Scott Medal by the Board of Directors of the City Trusts of Philadelphia, and the Edward Longstreth Medal by the Franklin Institute.
GEORGE B. M. HARVEY
By Harry C. Shaw
G' EORGE B. M. HARVEY, native product of Peacham, Ver- mont, belongs well toward the top of the list of distin- guished Vermonters, although the greater part of a busy life in the making of newspapers was passed amid other scenes than those he loved in the town of his birth. Vermonters probably will cherish the memory of George Harvey largely because of his distinction as ambassador to the Court of St. James's. But it is the part he played in politics-both Democrat and Repub- lican -- which made this courteous, brilliant and square-shooting newspaper man of genuine interest to his fellow craftsmen in the field of journalism.
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George Harvey started in life with an objective and he at- tained it. He decided to be the editor of a great newspaper. He reached this goal in becoming the editor of the NEW YORK WORLD, under the ownership of the elder Pulitzer, and later, after his service as ambassador to England, as the editorial chief of the WASHINGTON POST. Thousands, of course, will probably think of George Harvey only as the head of the great publishing house of Harper & Brothers and later as publisher and editor of HARVEY'S WEEKLY, which did not achieve the financial suc- cess he hoped for.
This brief epitome of one of the busiest newspaper careers can give only a smattering of what George Harvey did in the role of a publicist and as advisor extraordinary to those engaged in politics.
One of the interesting chapters in the life of the man who was to become an American ambassador to England is the romance of his boyhood which ended, as all such narratives should end, by his wedding a Peacham girl who was his schoolmate sweetheart and who shared with her distinguished husband his triumphs.
As Harvey would probably say, reams might be written about the stories behind this distinguished Vermonter and already a biographer has told many interesting yarns about the man who was given the sobriquet of "maker of presidents." The last years of his active newspaper life were devoted to political writing and it is probably not extravagant to say that during those years no man had a better "grapevine" connection with what was go- ing on behind the scenes in both major political camps than did George Harvey. He specialized in politics and when he felt like putting his impressions into print he was a past master in the use of English. He was not a wastrel in the use of words nor was he ambiguous in telling his readers what he had for them.
The dates of significance in the life of George Harvey begin with February 16, 1864, when he was born in Peacham, the son of Duncan and Margaret Varnum Harvey. The journalist-to-be received his early scholastic training in the Peacham academy. He acquired the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Erskine
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College in 1904, the same honor from the University of Nevada in 1907 and a like degree from the University of Vermont in 1911. But to George Harvey the most significant year in his life was that of 1887 when he married his boyhood sweetheart, Miss Alma A. Parker of Peacham. There are literally scores of other dates which connect the life of George Harvey with historical and political events, with "big stories" in the making of newspapers but these must, because of space limitations, be left to those who may wish to tell more of the truly significant, highly valuable and intensely fascinating things that made the former Peacham man not only a power but a genuine asset to those who guided the destinies of two political parties for many years in America.
An epitomized story of George Harvey's professional and po- litical life tells that after an apprenticeship on the old ST. JOHNS- BURY CALEDONIAN, he became a reporter on the SPRINGFIELD (Mass.) REPUBLICAN and then went to the staff of the CHICAGO DAILY NEWS; became managing editor of the NEW YORK WORLD; insurance commissioner for New Jersey; colonel and aide-decamp to Governors Green and Abbett of New Jersey ; honorary colonel under Governors Hayward and Ansel of South Carolina; constructor and president of various electric railroads; editor of HARPER'S WEEKLY for many years; purchased the NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW in 1899; president of Harper & Brothers in 1900; appointed by President Wilson as ambassador to England in 1921.
It was during the long period covered by the years mentioned that "Colonel" Harvey (as he was perhaps better known in his latter years) played his role of political advisor and this he con- tinued to the very moment of his death which came suddenly from an asthmatic attack in a summer domicile he had established in Dublin, New Hampshire, in September, 1928. A group of less than a half dozen intimate friends, including the writer, held almost daily conferences with this master in political accu- men at the outset of the campaign which made Herbert Hoover President and it was Colonel Harvey's advice and many of his
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political formulae around which was constructed the campaign machinery that year.
Despite the demands made upon him by his professional news- paper work, George Harvey found time to write several books, among his works being WOMEN, published in 1908, and THE POWER OF TOLERANCE, issued in 1911.
Excluding even his appointment to the ambassadorial post, it is probably true that the "break" between Woodrow Wilson and Colonel Harvey, after the latter had "picked" the Princeton University president to be the Democratic presidential candidate and had later received the diplomatic portfolio from his friend, was really the high light in Harvey's public life. When Harvey deserted Wilson and the Democratic party, with which he had been associated from the day he reached voting age, the people of both sides of the Atlantic speculated on what was really the reason for the breach. Colonel Harvey did not tell even his most intimate friends. He found himself interested soon after in the Republican party.
Then came the label to him of "maker of presidents" for it was the former master mind of the Democratic legion who se- lected Warren Harding one night in Chicago to carry the banner in the presidential campaign and to be elected. There have been told innumerable stories about Harding being nominated in a "smoke-filled room" but these, the intimate associates of Colonel Harvey know, are incorrect. It was to Harvey that the dead- locked Republican leaders turned when the Republican National convention could not make a choice. It was Harvey who put some personal questions to Harding and upon receiving a satis- factory answer told the managers of the convention that Harding should be and could be nominated for the presidency.
While Colonel Harvey thoroughly enjoyed the social life asso- ciated with his diplomatic post and received no end of good natured chafing at the hands of his newspaper friends, he was one of the best examples of a man's man during the generation in which he lived. It was to this distinguished journalist that
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literally hundreds of newspaper men resorted for accurate infor- mation that could not be otherwise obtained.
When it became evident that someone skilled in politics, one who could map out a publicity campaign that would be effective, was needed, the managers of the Hoover organization enlisted the good offices of Colonel Harvey who went from his New Jersey home to a wonderfully located mansion in the hills of south-western New Hampshire to establish himself and act as ad- visor. It was to this summer retreat that men high in the coun- cils of the Republican party came to listen to the political saga- city of the man credited with being the best informed person to be found to act as an over-lord of publicity during the campaign.
His health was far from robust when he went to New Hamp- shire in August and his death, which came without a moment's warning one afternoon the following month, took from the Re- publican party one of its most potent and influential advisors.
There is bound to appear what some may term fulsomness in any epitome that newspaper folk may make of George Harvey but really this is not the proper characterization of such a nara- tive. Men who have followed newspaper work with the former ambassador will tell of the man in terms that Colonel Harvey would have used, in terms that he would have wanted used, terms of sincerity. He wrote sometimes with a vitriolic pen but always with accuracy and always with sincerity of purpose.
The place that Colonel Harvey held in the hearts of men was probably more vividly exemplified in tributes of flowers on his bier than is the case with thousands of others. The tiny bouquets of autumn flowers from the gardens of the homes in Peacham mingled with the great masses of orchids, offered as the tributes to kings, princes and ambassadors of foreign countries, made a picture that probably will long remain in the minds of the people of the little village to which the friends of the famous journalist accompanied the body of the man who had done his share to make Peacham known.
Colonel Harvey's wife and daughter Dorothy, survive him.
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ABBY MARIA HEMENWAY
By Mary Spargo
T 'HE foundation of any good library of Vermont history is THE VERMONT HISTORICAL MAGAZINE, a five-volume work containing the history of most of the towns in the state, edited and compiled by Miss Abby Maria Hemenway, a native of Ludlow. Few states in the Union have been so fortunate as to have had three early historians of such merit as Samuel Williams, Zadock Thompson and Miss Hemenway. Despite its defects, HEMENWAY'S GAZETTEER is still a standard references book. The publication was originally issued as a quarterly maga- zine, THE VERMONT QUARTERLY GAZETTEER, but the financ- ing of the project was so difficult that the name was changed, the quarterly being dropped.
Abby Maria Hemenway, who accomplished a task which can- not be described as less than monumental, was born in Ludlow, October 7, 1835, the daughter of Daniel Hemenway and Abigail Barton Hemenway. The mother was a descendant of a prominent pioneer family of Andover, Vermont. Miss Hemenway had what was for her day a sound education at Black River Academy in her native town. Soon after she left school she was engaged as a teacher in Michigan, where she remained for three years.
After she returned to her home in Ludlow, she conceived the idea of publishing a volume of Vermont poetry, being her- self of a literary turn of mind, and acquainted with many literary people throughout the state. She published THE POETS AND POETRY OF VERMONT in 1859, when she was thirty-one years of age. The volume holds an honored place in Vermont literature.
Encouraged by the success of this book, and inspired by a letter of Pliny White's in a St. Johnsbury newspaper urging that towns preserve their local history, she decided to start a quarterly maga- zine devoted to the history and literature of Vermont. She
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first broached her plan to friends in Middlebury, having in mind the fact that Addison County boasted the only historical associa- tion in the state at that time. Here she received considerable encouragement at first, but opposition arose among the faculty of Middlebury College on the ground that Miss Hemenway was a woman, and therefore could not possibly succeed in this pro- ject which at one time and another had been attempted unsuc- cessfully by over forty men. With characteristic persistence, Miss Hemenway refused to be discouraged and started her com- pilation of sketches of other towns of the county. Middlebury followed later as a matter of course.
Just as it is impossible to over-exaggerate the value of Miss Hemenway's work to Vermont history, so it is impossible to over-exaggerate the difficulties under which she labored. First of all came the matter of finances. The securing of funds to carry on her task, a labor of love, was a heartbreaking proposi- tion. She pinched, scraped, borrowed, and resorted to every possible expedient to get enough money to pay for the publish- ing of each volume. She earned small sums by carrying on a business in books and pamphlets, advertisements of which may be seen in some volumes of the GAZETTEER, but there was was never a time when she was not driven by the worry of how she was going to pay the publisher. To secure sketches of the different towns she had to visit almost every one, travel- ling by stage coach long hours over muddy and snow-filled roads. Often for months at a stretch she would work fourteeen hours a day editing material for the magazine and carrying on extensive correspondence about historical matters.
The first six numbers of the GAZETTEER were published while Miss Hemenway lived in. Ludlow and during the same period she found time to compile SONGS OF WAR and to write ROSA MYSTICA, a religious poem subtitled MARY OF NAZARETH, OR THE LILY OF THE HOUSE OF DAVID. This book, written under the name, Marie Josephine, was published in New York in 1865, one year after Miss Hemenway had been converted to the Roman
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Catholic faith and baptized under the name, Marie Josephine, at St. Joseph's church in Burlington by Bishop De Goesbriand. Her baptismal certificate is dated April 28, 1864. The book was the first of a series of three, the others of which were ROSA IMMACULATA, OR THE TOWER OF IVORY, IN THE HOUSE OF ANNA AND JOACHIM and THE HOUSE OF GOLD AND THE SAINT OF NAZARETH, a poetical life of St. Joseph. These last two were written in Burlington where Miss Hemenway moved in 1865. She lived there at the home of Mrs. Lydia Clarke Meech in whose memory she published the Clarke Papers, until 1885. It was in Burlington that she wrote FANNY ALLEN, THE FIRST AMERICAN NUN: A DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS.
After the death of Mrs. Meech, Miss Hemenway moved to Chicago, where she planned to finish the historical series upon which she had been working all her lifetime. Her self-imposed task was almost completed when, four or five years before her death, a fire broke out in her home and destroyed all that she had done on Volumes V and VI, the former being almost ready for the printer. Undaunted by what would have been to many natures a crushing blow, this woman, then fifty-six years of age, started immediately to repair the damage. She gathered again the material for Volume V, issuing a little magazine, NOTES ON THE PATHWAY OF THE GAZETTEER, during the years following the fire from 1886 to 1889 in order to raise funds for the continuation of her work.
This magazine, copies of which are now rare, was really a serial autobiography telling of her struggles with the GAZET- TEER.
By 1889 she had the material all collected once more for Volume V, and commenced the task of preparing that for the printer and gathering the sketches for Volume VI. This last · volume was never to be completed, for on February 4, 1890 at the age of sixty-one, she was seized with an attack of apoplexy, and died very suddenly. She was laid to rest in the peaceful cemetery of her native town of Ludlow.
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The only part of Volume VI ever printed is THE LOCAL HISTORY OF ANDOVER, VERMONT by Hiland Gutterson and others, originally issued in pamphlet form and recently reprinted. The other material she had collected for that volume she gave as security for a debt and just when, many years after her death, arrangements had been made to have that printed, a fire broke out in the home of the man who held it, and the sketches were all destroyed.
HENRY OSCAR HOUGHTON
By Charles Miner Thompson
T HE life of Henry Oscar Houghton, the publisher, was not dramatic, but it is impressive as an example of what sheer force of character can accomplish. The youngest but one of twelve children, he was born on April 30, 1823, in Sutton, Vermont. His father was Captain William Houghton, a native of Bolton, once a part of Lancaster, Massachusetts, which had been the home of the Houghtons ever since their first American ancestor, John Hough- ton of Lancaster, England, came to the Colonies in 1635. William Houghton was poor and of a roving disposition that kept him shifting from one place of residence to another. His wife, as is so often true of the mothers of notable men, was a woman of unusual strength of character. When the young Houghton was ten years old, the family moved from Sutton to Bradford. There for three years the boy attended Bradford Academy. When he was thirteen years old, he was apprenticed as a printer in the office of the BURLINGTON (Vt.) FREE PRESS. He seems, how- ever, to have had some further schooling at Nunda, and at Wyoming near Portage, places in New York to which the wanderings of his family led him. In spite of interrupted
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and inadequate training he managed to fit himself for col- lege, and in 1842, when nineteen years old, entered the Uni- versity of Vermont. With some help from his brother-in- law, David Scott, he was able to maintain himself in college, largely by setting type in the office of the FREE PRESS, and to graduate with his class in 1846. He was a thorough rather than a brilliant student: he read and pondered serious books like Milton's prose writings and Bacon's ESSAYS, and in spite of natural disadvantages, he made himself a good debater. What these facts mean is that he had shown many admirable qualities; thrift, industry, strength of will, thoroughness, self-re- liance, ambition of solid and useful attainment. The succeed- ing steps in his career were to reveal that he had in addition the special gifts that make the successful business man,-the ability to judge and govern men and accurately to analyze busi- ness conditions.
Immediately after graduation, he left Vermont to seek his for- tunes in Boston. He did some reporting for the BOSTON TRAVELLER, and also worked as a printer and proof-reader at Dickinson's Type Foundry. But with his usual self-reliance and initiative, he soon started a modest business of his own. He took a desk in the offices of G. C. Rand and Company, where to such printers as needed extra help, he offered his services in preparing manuscripts for press and in reading proof. His energy and capacity must have impressed the men with whom business brought him into contact, for in 1848, only two years after he had left college and when he was only twenty-five years old and wholly without capital, Freeman of Freeman and Bolles-"among the best printers in the State"-offered to sell him his half of the business on easy terms for $3000. Houghton raised $1500 and accepted the offer. The opportunity was a good one, for the firm had a printing contract with the well-known house of Little, Brown and Company, who did an extensive business in the publication of law books. James Brown became a warm friend and backer. The first step of the reconstituted firm was
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to move the business from Boston to Remington Street in Cam- bridge, where it obtained quarters at one half the former rent. Later it occupied the poorhouse on the Charles River, which it remodelled as a printing establishment. When 1852 arrived, the firm was known as H. O. Houghton and Company, and the establishment from its situation was later named The Riverside Press. Houghton was in complete control, for Bolles had retired, and the "Company" was a friend who had advanced some capital, but who took no share in the management. Houghton was still under thirty years of age and only six years out of college. The achievement is notable.
Another valuable quality in Houghton's equipment for the business that he had entered now became manifest; he had the gift of good taste. He had in him enough of the artist combined with practical sense to enable him to form a sound theory of typography. In selecting his types his ideal was beauty through simplicity. "His aim," said Horace Scudder, later to be Hough- ton's literary advisor, "was not to startle, not to distract, but to make his type so clear, simple, and orderly that it should do its plain work of expressing language with the least ostenta- tion." He studied the best models-Aldus, Bodoni, Basker- ville, Pickering-and it is proof of his personal force and auth- ority that, instead of being the mere executor of other persons' wishes, he was able to impose his standards on the publishers who employed him. He became known as a printer of well- made books of notable typographical beauty-a reputation that any one who will look at the edition of the British Poets that he printed for Little, Brown and Company, or at the "House- hold" edition of Dickens that he printed for Sheldon and Company of New York, will see was fully deserved. The business deseredly grew, and the plant increased in size.
In 1864, Houghton took the next step: he became a publisher as well as a printer. He formed a partnership with Melancthon M. Hurd. Before beginning to publish, however, he got, with characteristic shrewdness and foresight, the contract for printing
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