Revere City (part 2 of 6)

The announcement of the death of George Baty Blake, the senior member of the firm of Blake Brothers & Co. , bankers, will cause wide-spread feeling of sorrow in the business and social circles of Boston. It is not often that we are called upon to record the death of a Boston merchant who has quietly and unostentatiously promotetl the substantial interests of this city in the effective manner that was characteristic of Mr. Blake. . . . George Baty Blake was a strong man, one whose clearly defined individuality and indomitable will would have made his power, nerve, and brain felt in any walk in life which he might have chosen. In both the dry goods trade and the banking business he was very successful, although through nearly his whole life he labored with the disadvantage of a physical infirmity which would have paralyzed the efforts of men with weaker vifill or less active brain.

What he has done for Boston can hardly be summed up in a few words or partic. ularized in any special manner, since one of the leading aims of his life has always been to advance her interests. He was early a director in the Boston and Albanj' Railroad, where his ripe judgment and eminent business qualifications were utilized to advance the interests of the road and of Boston. He was also largely instrumental in securing the regular visits of the European steamers to this port, and in numerous ways used his utmost influence to promote Boston's welfare. During the darkest days of the war Mr. Blake never lost courage, but remained firm in his conviction and hope that the Union would be preserved intact, and he was in those trying times ever self-sacrificing, patriotic and generous in upholding the cause he believed in so thoroughly.

Mr. Blake was a man of the strictest integrity, was upright in all of his dealings with men of all classes, and gentlemen who have dealt with and associated with him more or less for a quarter of a century, or more, speak in the highest terms of his capacity and fidelity to principle, fairness and justness.

Boston has certainly lost in Mr. Blake one of her most positive, self-reliant and enterprising business men - one who achieved where many others failed, and one whose integrity, industry and perseverance may well be copied by the younger men of the city who are coming into the places he and others like him are vacating as the weeks, months, and years pass on.

Samuel Crocker Cobb

Samuel Crocker Coub was a descendant in the fifth generation from Austin (or Augustine) Cobb, who first appears as a resident of Tiiunton, Mass., in 1670, and who received a deed of his farm in that town from John Cobb, his cousin, August lo, 1G79. General David Cobb, the great-grandson of Augustine, was born in Attleborough, Mass., September 14, 1748, and died in Taunton, April 14, 1830. He was a man of varied accomplishments, and played a conspicuous part during and following the period of the Revolutionary War. After graduating from Harvard College in the class of 1706, he studied medicine under Dr. Nathaniel Perkins in Boston, and was practicing his profession in Taunton when called upon to serve with Robert Treat Paine, his brother-in-law, in the Provincial Congress, so called, which held its first meeting in Salem, October 5, 1774. In 1775 he appears as a member of the Committee of Inspection and Correspondence for Taunton. During a part of the year 1770 his name is borne upon the rolls of Col. Thomas Marshall's regiment as " Surgeon." In January, 1777, he was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in the Sixteenth Regiment, and later was assigned to duty on General Washington's sj;aif. He was a gallant and meritorious officer; and at the close of the war his services were rewarded by a grant of land and the brevet rank of brigadier-general. As soon as he was relieved from military service, he was appointed (June 7, 17S4) by Governor Hancock to be special justice of the Court of Common Pleas in Bristol county; and in the following year (January 28, 1785) he was commissioned as one of the standing justices of that court. In December, 1785, he was chosen by the Legislature to be major-general of the Fifth Division of the Massachusetts Militia. It was while holding these positions of judge and general that he won something more than a local reputation, by his firmness in checking the riotous demonstrations against the law courts of the Commonwealth in the autumn of 1786.

General Cobb's subsequent career in the public service has been described elsewhere, and does not call for extended notice 'nere. He was speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives for four years (1789-1792); member of the Third Congress of the United States (December 2, 1793, to March 3, 1795); president of the State Senate four years (1801-1804); member of the Executive Council eight years (1805, 1808, 1812-1817); lieutenant-governor of the Commonwealth,

ISUIJ; chief justice of the Court of Common Pleas for Hancock county, District of Maine, from June 14, 1803, till 1809. He removed from Taunton to Gouldsborough, Me., in 1705, having been appointed agent of the " Bingham Purchase." In 17'.>9 he was appointed agent of the proprietors of Gouldsborough. His own grant of land for military service was in Sullivan, Me. In 1831 he returned to Taunton, where he spent the remainder of his life - a kiiid-hearted but somewhat choleric old gentleman, who did much to promote the educational and religious interests of his townsmen, and made it impleasant for those who did not walk in the path which he appointed He received the honorary degree of A.M. from New Jersey College in 1781!, and from Brown University in 1790; was a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and of the Society of the Cincinnati, of which he was vice-president in 1810.

General Cobb married in 1766 Eleanor Bradish, and had six sons and five daughters. The youngest son (born January 14, 1790; died February 37, 1833) was named George Washington ; but after the death of his brother David, who was killed by the Indians on the northwest coast, October 34, 1794, he took the name of David George Washington. He was educated as a lawyer. In 1810 he was chosen to represent the town in the General Court, and in the following year was appointed register of probate for Bristol county. He held that office until his death in 1833. He married Abby, daughter of Hon. Samuel Crocker, of Taimton, and had two sons and two daughters.

The subject of this .sketch, Samuel Crocker Cobb, was the second son, and was born in Taunton, May 33, 183G. Among other private schools which he attended in his early youth was the one kept by Rev. E. M. P. Wells, in South Boston. His stay there was brief and unsatisfactory. He was then sent to the Bristol Academy, in Taunton, of which his grandfather. General Cobb, was the founder in 1793. He was fitted for college there, and expected to enter Harvard College in 1843; but much to his regret then, and indeed throughout his life, he was obliged to give up his studies and begin earning his own living. On September 19, 1843, being then only a little over sixteen years of age, he became a clerk in the service of Messrs. A. & C. Cunningham, foreign shipping merchants, at No. It5 Rowe's Wharf in Boston. On April 37, 1847, he formed a business connection with a former clerkmate, J. Henry Cunningham, under the firm name of Cunningham & Cobb, and took an office in a brick building, then new, opposite the head of Rowe's Wharf, 109 Broad street. Their place of business was subsequently removed to IG Rowe's Wharf. On July 1, 184-8, Charles W. Cunnino-ham, an older brother of Henry, was admitted as partner, and the firm name was changed to Cunning-hams & Cobb.

On November 21, 18-18, he married (at Belfast, Me.) Aurelia L. Beattie, of East Thomaston, Me., third daughter of William and Jane D. Beattie of that town.

The firm of Cunninghams &- Cobb was dissolved in 1850, when the house of A. Cunningham & Sons was formed. Mr. Cobb then made arrangements to go to the East Indies and remain there as the agent of Weld & Baker; but on the eve of sailing he had some difficultv with his principals, and withdrew from their service.

In 1851 he formed a partnership with Mr. Josiah Wheelwright for the pro.secution of a foreign shipping and commission business. The firm occupied the store No. VI Central Wharf. This connection continued till August, 1858, when the firm was by mutual consent dissolved, Mr. Wheelwright retiring from active business.

From 1858 until 1878 Mr. Cobb carried on business alone and in his own name, first on Central Wharf, afterward at No. 3 Merchants' Row, and later in the New England Mutual Life Insurance Building on Milk street.

During the twenty years he was alone in business he was engaged principally in the Sicily trade, and with the Cape de Verde Islands and Northwest Coast of Africa (Senegal and Gambia); but to some extent prosecuted the Brazil trade (Pernambuco and Bahia), and also that of Russia and Malaga.

From 1860 to 1877 Mr. Cobb gave considerable time to the public service, often at the expense of his private interests. He was originally a member of the Whig party, and voted for the candidates of that party as long as it existed in sufficient strength to make nominations. He never felt at home in any other party. After 1860 he generally acted with the Democratic organizations on State and national questions; but on questions of local government he refused to be bound by an}^ party caucus or convention. He was essentially a business man, and held and expressed very decided opinions on the absurdity of bringing national party politics to bear in the determination of questions relating to roadways, sewers, water-supply, and local police. In his public speeches and addresses he lost no opportunity of trying to impress the voters with the fact that in the management of the affairs of municipal corporations the same rules should appl}- as in the management of large business corporations, and that the introduction of party tests which have no relation to local affairs has done much to corrupt the service and bring our system of local government into disrepute.

In ISGd Mr, Cobb was elected a member of the Roxbury Board of Alderman, and served for two years with credit to himself and his constituents. He was then called to Europe on business connected with his shipping interests, which had been seriously affected by the war. On the annexation of Roxbury to Bostim, in 1867, he was elected to the Boston Board of Aldermen. At that time the members of the board were voted for on a general ticket, and it is a striking evidence of the estimation in which he was held by his neighbors, and of the position he then occupied as one of the leading merchants of Boston, that he was chosen by a nearly unanimous vote. The charter under which the city was then ruled provided that the executive powers of the government should be exercised by the Board of Aldermen ; but the Common Council had usurped a large share of the executive functions by having a stronger numerical representation upon joint committees which practically controlled many of the departments. Mr. Cobb was one of the first to see the weakness of the existing system and to urge a greater concentration of power and responsibilit)'. He found that the duties of the aldermanic office demanded the larger part of his time, and that the results of his labor were far from satisfactory. For these reasons he declined a re-election. But in the following year he accepted a position on the Board of Public Institutions, where his firmness of purpose and business ability were brought to bear with practical results which the average citizen could well appreciate. A very determined effort was being made to commit the city to the building and maintenance of a great institution for the insane on a lot of land which the best expert opinion had condemned as unsuitable. Mr. Cobb took the ground that it was the duty of the State to provide such institutions; and that, in any case, the site selected and the plans submitted were defective and ought not to be approved. During his service of about four years and a half on the board he introduced some reforms in the purchase of supplies and in the business management of the institutions which were of lasting value.

On November 11, 1873, at a meeting of the citizens of Boston, which included prominent members of the two leading political parties, Mr. Cobb was unanimously nominated for the office of mayor. The city ccinimittces (if tlie Democratic and Republican parties alsd ndniinatccl liim at a later day; and on the day of election he received ]<), I'.tl votes, while his only opponent, a Prohibitionist, received 508. Although the local politicians had no liking for him, the popular demand for his reelection in the following year was so strong that the leaders of the two parties felt obliged to nominate him again, and he was chosen for a second term by a nearly unanimous vote. In 1875 the party leaders made a desperate effort to get possession of the office, and with that view succeeded in getting both the Democratic and Republican city committees to unite on another candidate. Mr. Cobb had stated that he should not be a candidate for a third term, but a paper asking him to serve another year received the signatures of some two thousand prominent citizens, and he did not feel at liberty to decline such a call. A spirited contest followed, resulting in the election of Mr. Cobb by a plurality of 2,574 votes. He states in his journal that he did not contribute, nor was he solicited to contribute any money, directly or indirectly, towards the expenses of his election.

At the time Mr. Cobb was placed at the head of the government the popula,tion of the city had reached a point which made a change in the methods of administration almost as imperative as it was when the representative system was substituted for the popular assembly. The annexation of Chariest own. West Roxbur}- and Brighton had nearly doubled the municipal area, and had added about 44,000 inhabitants. The first city charter was drawn on lines as close to the town-meeting system as the representative plan wottld allow. The revision of 1854, necessitated to some extent by the amendments to the State Constitution, tended to weaken what indeed had most need of strengthening - the executive power and responsibility of the chief executive. Hon. Henry L. Pierce, who had preceded Mr. Cobb in the office of mayor, had been so impressed with the inefficiency of the old system that he had recommended the appointment of a commission to revise the charter. The recommendation was adopted by the City Council, and the commission appointed in the latter part of 1873.

The two branches of the City Council were unable to agree either upon the charter recommended by the commission or upon any modification of it ; bat some of its provisions were subsequently incorporated into special laws relating to the city. It was fortunate, perhaps, that the plan of government submitted by the commission was not adopted as a whole. It was too elaborate ; it provided for too many heads of departments, and it undertook to limit and define their duties so closely that there was no room left for discretion, and no inducement to take the initiative in any new work. The need of a strong and responsible execittive was not so generally recognized then as it was at a later day. It was necessary that the inefficiency and wastefulness of the old system should be brought out more clearly before anything like an adequate remedy could be applied. Mr. Cobb and others, who heartily supported the plan as reported, did not regard it as a measure good for all time, but simply as a step - and at that time it was looked upon as a long step - in the direction of separating and defining the powers of government and securing a better S3'stem of accountability. Ten years later Mr. Cobb, as chainnan of a commission appointed by the mayor, recommended a plan which went much further in the direction of strengthening the power of the chief executive and curtailing the powers of the legislative department ; and public opinion had so far changed in the mean time that the leading propositions were adopted without serious opposition, and incorporated into the act under which the city is now governed.

A number of important acts affecting the future welfare of the city were adopted during Mr. Cobb's administr;ition. In his first message to the City Council, January 5, 1874, he said:

I am decidedly in favor of the establishment of several public squares in different sections of the city, to be connected together if practicable, and which shall be easily accessible to the people ; and I believe this to be a suitable time to decide on some definite plan, with a view to proceeding with the work at an early day The first outlay, though distributed over several }'ears, will no doubt be large, but the experience of other cities can be cited to show that, as a business transaction, aside from the sanitary benefits, it would be a financial success.

Upon this recommendation a petition was sent to the General Court, and in the following year an act was passed which authorized the establishment of the present system of public parks.

It was also upon his recommendation that the im]3ortant department of water supply was transferred from the unpaid and inefficient board (composed of members of the City Council and of citizens at large elected by the City Council) to a commission of three persons selected by the mayor and paid for their services.

During the second year of his administration, and largely perhaps through his influence, an act was passed to regulate and limit municipal indebtedness. This enabled him to introduce what he tersely described as "the pay-as-you-gTj policy," - that is, to raise sufficient money by taxation annually to pay all ex]:)enses except those incurred for the enlargement of the water works, for which a separate tax is levied. What he was able to do in that direction gave him more satisfaction as a business man than all the rest of his work in the mayor's office.

At the conclusion of his three years" service he was able to say that the tax levy had been reduced $2,775,098 ; and that the rate of taxation had been reduced from $15.60 on a thousand dollars to $13.70, notwithstanding' the fact that the valuation of real and personal property had been reduced in the mean time by the amount of $49,876,950.

Soon after retiring from the mayor's office, Mr. Cobb went to Europe, where he spent some months in traveling. On his return he was chosen (September 1, 1877) president of the Revere National Bank, to succeed the Hon. Samuel H. Walley, who had recently deceased. Much to the regret of the directors of the bank, he resigned the presidency on March 30, 1878, to accept the position of actuary in the Massachusetts Hospital Life Insurance Coinpan}', formerly held by the Hon. George Tyler Bigelow. Of his services in this office - which is one of much dignity and responsibility, but by no means one of ease in these days of accumulated capital competing for investment - the Board of Control placed on their records, after his death, the following statement :

During the thirteen years that Mr. Cobb was connected with the company he conducted its affairs with ability, prudence and skill ; with conscientious fideht)'- to the duties of his responsible position, and entire devotion to the administration of the trust confided to him. His high manly character, his sagacity and public spirit, his genial temper, generous disposition, and courteous bearing, united to win the love and esteem of all who were associated with him, while throughout the community he was recognized and honored as a loyal, far-seeing, influential, and useful citizen.

Mr. Cobb well illustrated the .saying that it is the busy man who finds time for everything. His intimate and peculiar knowledge of commercial affairs and of the financial standing of his business contemporaries led to a constant demand for his services in positions of public and private trust, and on boards of arbitration selected b}^ the courts or by the parties in interest. He gave much time, and often to the injury of his health, in aid of the various charitable, religious and educational institutions to which he belonged. He had a keen sense of his responsibility in every position in which he happened to be placed. The

Maysachusftts .Society of the Cincinnati, of which at the time of his death he was president, placed on record the statement that " his services to the society as an officer for more than twenty-five years, and as a member of its standing- committee since 18(il, is a history of constant and disinterested devotion. . None took a higher pride in its membership than he; none watched more constantly over the maintenance of its traditions and usages; none guarded it more jealously against any tendencies toward the destruction of ancient and useful landmarks."

Mr. Cobb was for some years an active and influential member of the Board of Directors of the Institute of Technology. He was also one of the directors of the Old Colony Railroad Company, a trustee of the Ba)' State Trust Compan}'', and of the Forest Hills Cemetery; chairman of the commission to select a site and build the Danvcrs Hospital for the Insane, and treasurer of the vSociety for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians.

He was often called upon to speak in public as the representative of the city or of some organization of which he was a member, and although without either special training or natural aptitude for such sei"vice, he acquitted himself well. ( )n occasions for which he was able to make some preparation beforehand, the matter and form of his addresses were excellent. His address of welcome to the city's guests at the one hundredth anniversary of the battle of Bunker Hill (June 1(J, 1875), his oration on the centennial anniversary of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati (July 4, 1883), and his speech at the bancpiet of the General Society of the Cincinnati in Baltimore (May, 1890) contain matter of historical value.

During the greater part of his business life Mr. Cobb lived on Highland street in Roxbury, having for his next-door neighbor Rev. George Putnam, D.D., of whose church he was long one of the most active and valued members. In 1878 he removed to Boylston street in Boston, and subsequently became a member of the First Church, Berkeley street.

Until middle life he was a man of more than ordinarily strong and vigorous constitution. In 1870 he had a serious illness, growing out of his arduous services in the Board of Aldermen in addition to his large private business. He never fully recovered his former vigor, although outwardly he showed no signs of impaired health until the spring of 1890. He was then suffering intense pain from an internal disease, but continued to perform his usual amount of work until the peremptory orders of his physician obliged him to desist. The nature and extent of his illness were not fully known until near the end. After many weeks of suffering, which he bore with admirable courage, "sustained and soothed by an unfaltering trust," he passed away peacefully and apparently without pain on February 18, 1891. He was buried at Forest Hills Cemetery.

Mr. Cobb's character was not one that calls for elaborate analysis. He was a thoroughly healthy-minded man, to whom life was sweet. He possessed a singularly frank and open nature, and was candid and direct in motive and purpose. He had a good knowledge of character and somid business instincts. His mental and ph3'sical courage were equal to any emergency; and his promptness in action, and contempt for anything like trifling or a want of resolution, showed that he had inherited the prominent traits which history and tradition had assigned to his paternal grandfather.

At a yery early age he began to keep a diar}', in which he noted, at first in the briefest form, his own doings from day to day. Later he introduced some comments on those with whom he came in contact, and on the principal events of the times. He also kept in addition, during the latter years of his life, a journal, in which he gave biographical notices of his contemporaries and some account of the affairs in which he took part or in which he felt a special interest. The value of the work is somewhat impaired by the form in which it was put, and by the difficulty of separating the statements made on the writer's personal knowledge from those copied from the newspapers of the day. It has, however, considerable historical value, and is well worth preservation as a work of reference.

Osborn Howes

Mr. Osi:orn Howks is one of the few living representatives of a class of men who during several generations gave to Boston the greater part of its prominence as a hii-siness center. From a period antedating the Revolution down to the outbreak of the war of the Rebellion, Boston was essentially a ccimmercial city, and those of her merchants whose reputation extended beyond her borders, were in most instances en- gaged in the shipping business. This interest has of later years fallen to such meagre proportions that it is hard to realize that it was during the greater part of the business life of the subject of this sketch the most important factor in the mercantile affairs of this city.

Mr. Howes was born the 2(ith of September, ISOO, in the town of Dennis, on Cape Cod, where the first American progenitor of the family had settled in 1G39. The latter, Mr. Thomas Howes, was a cadet member of a family that owned an estate at Besthrope, Norfolk county, England, where it had established itself in 1457, being at that time a migrating brancli of a Berkshire family, descended from John de Huse, a Norman knight, who received from William the Conqueror in 106G the gift of a manor in the count)' of Berks.

Mr. Thomas Howes left England in lOIJT with his wife and two sons (another son was born on the passage over) at the time when the religious persecutions, instituted by Archbishop Laud and approved by Charles I, were driving so many of the Puritans out of England. From the published papers of Governor Winthrop it appears that one of his intimate correspondents was a member of the Howes family, and it is not improbable that this led to the choice by Mr. Thomas Howes of the colony of Massachusetts Bay as a place of settlement.

The partial destruction by fire in 1G74 of the early colonial records of the family makes it impossible to say why it was that Mr. Thomas Howes left the settlement at Salem, where he landed; but in 1G3D, with Mr. Anthony Thacher and Mr. John Crow, afterwards Crowell, he settled, under a grant from the Plymouth Colony, on Cape Cod, giving to the newly formed town the name of Yarmouth, from the town of the same name in his native county in England, a name afterwards changed, so far as the eastern section of the town is concerned, to Dennis.

This first American ancestor of the subject of this sketch was, like his descendant, a vigorous, sturdy individual. His standing in the colony is indicated by the prefix Mr. that appears with his name wherever written, which was the only colonial title of distinction, and which was reserved for tho.se possessed of rank through birth or education. In this detached section of the country Mr. Thomas Howes brought up a family in conformity with their surroundings, for although his descendants took part in King Philip's war - one of them acting as captain in that colonial campaign - their tastes turned naturally toward the sea, which almost surrounded them, and through succeeding generations they appear to have been hardy and venturesome seamen.

The father of Mr. Osborn Howes, Capt. Elisha Howes, was an experienced seaman, for many j'ears sailing from the port of Boston as commander of vessels trading with Europe, Soiith America and the West Indies, and visiting his Cape Cod home only at intervals between his long voyages. During the war of 1812 he was three times taken prisoner by the English, on one occasion recapturing the vessel and taking the English prize crew as prisoners to Portland. The wish to have his family located so that he could visit them more conveniently led hiin, in October. 1818, to move them to a home in Dedham, where the subject of this sketch spent the remainder of hisschool daj^s, which were, however, chiefly confined to the winter months of the year.

In 1823 the latter went into the employ as clerk of David and Rufus Ellis, who had a store, a cotton factory, a rolling-mill and a nail factory at Newton Upper Falls. The business carried on at this establishment was largely illustrative of the times. When the quarterly settlements were made with the men employed in the mills and the factory it was commonlv found that quite one-third of their entire earnings had been paid by charges for liquor which they had purchased at the store, and yet, at that time, these men were nearly all native-born citizens.

After a stay of about two years at Newton Upper Falls, Mr. Howes received a letter from his father, written at Konigsburg, Prussia, saying that the business of purchasing a cargo for his vessel would detain him there over one trip, and that if his son cared to come out there in the brig, on her return voyage, he could do so. This was the first of a large number of voj-ages made by the latter. On his return from this trip he went into the office, in Boston, of Messrs. Edmimd Baylies and Thomas B. Curtis, merchants, engaged in exporting and importing goods to and from the ports on the Baltic Sea, from Copenhagen to St. Petersburg. In less than twelve months' time, and when twenty years of age, he was sent by them up the Baltic as supercargo, on the brig Ciplicr, Captain Winter (father of William Winter, the poet) commanding, to sell a cargo of cofiiee, rice, sugar, cotton, indigo and cigars. Having sold this and other cargoes sent out on other vessels at Copenhagen and Konigsburg, and having purchased return cargoes, he came back for instructions, after an absence of fifteen months, in the fall of 1827.

It was known that in all probability a high protective tariff would be enacted by Congress early in the following year, and his employers, Messrs. Baylies & Curtis, wished him to hurry back to Prussia and pur- chase carj^'oes of woul, hemp, horse hair, etc., before the proposed customs laws went into effect. For this reason he set sail on January 1, 1828, from New York on one of the line of London packet ships, arrived off Dover in twenty da^'s, and from there via London, Hamburgand Berlin, hurried on to Konig-sburg-. Having sold the cargoes of the vessels that were consigned to him by his Boston principals, and having purchased cargoes to reload them, he received orders to return home. The so-called ' ' Tariff of Abominations, " that of 1828, had been enacted, and was framed with the avowed purpose of making its pro-, visions obnoxious to New England; it placed extraordinary taxes upon importations from the Baltic, thus interdicting Boston trade with the countries bordering on that sea. The business which Mr. Howes had been working to build up, had therefore to be abandoned.

An indication is given of the uncertainties attendant iipon sea-g-oing at that period by the statement, that while it had taken him but one month and three da}^s to g'o from New York to Konigsburg on his outward passage, on his return, sailing from Konigsburg the last of October, it was five months before he arrived in Boston, and even then the trip of the vessel he was on was among the shortest made b}^ the considerable fleet of American vessels that left the Baltic at about the same time.

After a short stay on shore he went as supercargo on the brig }Icl>c to Gibraltar, and on returning from there was requested by the owners of the vessel to take charge of her as captain as well as supercargo. This was a serious responsibility to impose upon a young man of twentythree, who, although he had made several voyages across the ocean, had never served as sailor or ship's officer. But as during his four trips to Europe he had studied navigation, and had acquainted himself with the practical work of sailing a ship, he found less difficulty than he had anticipated in meeting the requirements of this new position.

This voyage to Brazil was the first of a series of voyages which he made, voyages which kept him almost constantly at sea, and which took him several times to Western Asia, to South America, the West Indies and Europe. On these trips he was often obliged not only to navigate the vessel when at sea, but when in port to sell her cargo and use his judgment in purchasing a cargo to load her with for her return voyage.

eiybtccn years of aye, who, having shown eonsiderable talent, had been yiven the money needed to pa}' his passage to Europe. The voyage ended at Antwerp, and when, a week after arriving, the brig was about to leave port for England, young Brown came on board and begged to be taken back, saying that he was homesick, had spent all of the money that he had, and that if left in that foreign country he should die of starvation. Mr. Howes pointed out to him the weakness and folly of such a surrender and gave him the money needed to get to Paris and to support himself for a short time. It was more than twent)- years before the two men met again, but the subject of this sketch has in his possession a painting, a gift of the artist, in remembrance of an event which was the turning point in the life of the latter.

Arriving in Boston from Cadiz in February of 183G, Mr. Howes concluded that he had had enough of sea life, and from that time forward never went on a sea voyage e.Kcept as a passenger.

In the month of June of that year he started, in company with the late Joseph Nickerson, of Boston, on an enterprise which was then as formidable as any sea voyage. This was a trip through the West, made to consider the advisabilit)- of purchasing westei^n land. The journey from Boston to Philadelphia was made partly by rail and partly by steamer. From Philadelphia for some seventy miles westward the route was by railroad, then a transfer was made to canal boat, which carried the travelers up to the foot of the Alleghany Mountains. The ascent of these was made on an inclined railway, up which the cars were drawn by a stationary engine at the top; there stages were taken up to the point of descent, where another inclined railway was taken, and then by canal boat to Pittsburg. The time required from Philadelphia to this point was four days, with two days more to reach Cincinnati bv steamer down the Ohio River.

Cincinnati then had a population of about ten thousand. From there the travelers went by steamboat to Louisville, St. Louis and Alton, then up the Illinois River to Peoria, and from thence across the prairie in a wagon to Chicago over a gountry where there was not the least sign of a road, and where it was necessary to ford streams and watercourses. Chicago had at that time, if the statements of its citizens were to be trusted, about 2,500 inhabitants, but after a careful enumeration these visitors came to the conclusion that 1,000 was a fair estimate of their number. The site of the city was low and sandy, the place had been flooded by recent rains, the land was held at what seemed extravagant prices, and Mr. Howes and liis companion, Mr. Nickerson - who afterwards proved himself to be one of the shrewdest investors - congratulated themselves that they had made arrangements to buy real estate at such a promising place as Alton, and had not waited to invest their money in land in and around Chicago.

After a week's stay in this latter place, the travelers, in company with others, chartered a schooner of some sixty tons, which took them across the lake to vSt. Joseph, Mich. From this point the route lay over a corduroy road to Kalamazoo, the distance, fifty miles, the means of conveyance, a long open wagon, and the time required, about thirtysix hours. From there to Detroit the roads were better, but the journey occupied four days. From Detroit a steamer was taken through Lake Erie to Buffalo, from thence canal boat to Utica, there steam railroad to Albany, then stage to Worcester, and finall)' railroad to Boston. The time required to make this trip was two and a half months, and the conditions surrounding it were almost as wearisome and perilous to health as those which now obtain in making a trip across Central Asia.

On returning to Boston in the fall of 183U, Mr. Howes entered into the ship-chandlery business with Captain Willis Howes, an uncle of his. This business relation lasted for some three years, after which he formed, in 1839, the firm of Howes & Crowell, taking his wife's brother as a partner, the last-named partnership lasting thirty-four years, or until the former retired from active business life.

The new firm carried on the shipping business, and also dealt in corn and flour, which was purchased in the Southern markets. At first its shipping ventures were modest enterprises, as indeed were most of those at that time, when a ship of 400 tons burden was considered a large vessel; but Mr. Howes was quick to perceive the change which the discovery of gold in, and the acquisition by the United States of, California was destined to cause in the shipping business of the country, and the benefit that American commercial interests were to derive from the low tariff of 1846.

The firm of which he was the head had established favorable financial connections on Cape Cod, and could, if they had wished more money, have obtained it from Boston capitalists, who soon came to recognize the good judgment shown by it in the conduct of its business.

The firm beg'an buildinj^- ships for its own use in ]8-t5, and the following is a list of the vessels which during the next twenty-five years it either built or bought :

The tonnage of these ranged all the wa)* from 300 or 400 for the first three or four, to 2,000 for those last on the list. Mr. Howes has a thorough knowledge of ship construction, and the vessels that his firm constructed were built from the keel upwards under his immediate supervision. For a number of years the firm had constantly from twelve to fifteen ships imder its control, at the time as large if not a larger number than any other Boston firm, and its house signal - a white flag with a red star in the center - could be seen at the foremast of its ships, not only in the harbors of New York, Boston and San Francisco, but in the docks of Liverpool and London, and lying at anchor at Calcutta, Hong Kong, Melbourne and Callao.

The period from 1845 to ISGl was the high water mark of the American merchant marine; the American merchants were constantly improving the size, model and speed of their ships, American merchant tonnage was constantly increasing, American sailors were showing an

' The bark Kilby was the vessel which was so fortunate as to discover, while on a voyage from New Orleans to New York, the disabled steamship San Francisco. Quite a part of the cotton with which the Kilby was laden was thrown overboard to make room for the passengers and crew of the ill-fated vessel. Quite a number of these were transferred, when darkness coming on the work of the boats was suspended to await the morning, but during the night the steamer went down with the several hundred persons who were left on board of her.

2 The double topsail, a device now in general use on square-rigged sailing vessels all over the world, was first applied to the ship Revere, Messrs. Howes & Crowell giving to the inventor, Capt. Frederick Howes, who was then the captain of the vessel, an opportunity to in this way prove the value of his invention. The use of double topsails has permitted of the carrying of smaller crews, and has also been the means of saving from destruction the lives of a large number of sailors.

unrivaled aptitude for their business, and American .ship merchants a willingness to make the most of their opportunities. In this industrial development, which if it had not been arrested by the war and its results, would long before this have made of the United States the mistress of the ocean, Mr. Howes took a prominent part. The house of which he was the chief partner was one of the leading shipping firms of Boston, and with its associates in business gave the city a worldwide reputation for wealth, sagacity and enterprise - a reputation that has since been lost because evidences of these qualities are not now seen, as they once were, in every seaport in the world. That the success of the American merchant marine depends upon the cheapness of the ships, and the ability of those in charge of them, was and still is his firm conviction. While in active bu.siness he was always annoyed at any attempt at interference on the part of Congress. "If Congress would only give us free ships and let us alone," he was accustomed to say, " we should ask favors of no one."

During the war of the Rebellion, the vessels which he controlled, unlike those of some of his associates in business, were continued in their voyages under the American flag, and although frequently sailing within the range of the depredations of the Confederate privateers, were all fortunate in escaping capture. But the insurance against war risks, and the disadvantages in procuring charters, which American vessels then labored under when compared with foreign craft, led to the sale to foreigners of a number of the ships controlled by his firm, so that when the war closed its shipping business had been reduced to narrow dimensions.

In this respect its position did not differ from that of other Boston ship merchants. The Welds, the Bakers, the Nickersons, the Forbeses and others had also reduced the tonnage that the)' owned or controlled till it neared the vanishing point, and it was with all a question of whether they should, with the changed conditions brought about by peace, enter again upon the work of redeveloping the shipping bu.siness, or should turn their attention to other lines of industry. A number of the leading Boston ship merchants chose the latter of these alternatives; they invested the money received from the sale of their vessels in western railroad enterprises, and in this way, by a definite abandonment of the sea, laid the foundation of enormoits fortunes whicli were built up during the two subsequent decades.

Mr. Howes could not bring himself to make this change, particularly as the members of his firm were solicitous that the shipping business should be continued. Arrangements were therefore made at Medford and elsewhere to build new vessels to take the place of those that had been lost, condemned or sold, and realizing that steamships were soon to take the place of sailing craft, his firm became one of the chief subscribers to the stock, and the business managers of a company formed t<j build and run steamships between Boston and Liverpool.

The American Steamship Company, as it was called, had a brief and unfortunate experience. A number of mistakes were made, not the least of which was in beginning operations before a sufficient amount of capital had been subscribed, and in using wood instead of iron for the hulls of the steamers. Two steamships were built, the Ontario and Eric ; the former made several voyages across the Atlantic, and then the insufficiency of the financial re.sources of the companv becoming apparent, it was necessary to su.spend operations, and after wearisome delay the steamers were sold at a mere fraction of their first cost.

The experience of the firm in the efforts made to resuscitate the sailing merchant marine in the United States was more prolonged, but hardly more satisfactory. New ships were built or purchased and sent upon the accustomed deep sea vo)'ages ; but under the system of war taxes the cost of construction and of home repairs was so great that the vessels could not successfullj' compete with the iron ships that were then conning out in great numbers from the ship-j'ards on the Clyde and the Tyne. Realizing that unless he could obtain the right - which was impossible - to purchase iron ships built in Great Britain, it was useless to continue in the shipping business, since it was certain to eventuate in failure, Mr. Howes, after largely reducing his resouixes by his ineffectual efforts to restore the American flag to its old-time position upon the high sea, definitely retired from active business life in the spring of 1874, and passed the next year with a part of his family in Europe.

Since taking this step he has led a quiet and uneventful life. For a time he continued his connection with the commercial world by serving as director of three Boston insurance companies, the China, the India and the New England, and teinporarily took the position of president of the latter. He is still a director, the oldest one, of the Second National Bank and of the Simpson Dry Dock Company, and is also an cxpresident and the oldest living member of the Boston Marine Society.

His recognized practical good sense and impartiality led during the the years of his business life to his selection as referee in a number of mercantile controversies, involving the payment of large amounts of money.

Mr. Howes's public services have been confined to one year's term (1859) in the Boston Common Council, and to several j-ears' membership on the Board of Trustees of the iState School Ships. He has been interested as contributor in a number of charitable enterprises, and during the war of the Rebellion was a large subscriber to the funds raised in aid of the soldiers.

Horatio Harris

Horatio H.vrris, son of Joseph Harris, was born in Boston, February 12, 1821. He was educated in the public schools, and early m life, leaving the English High wSchool, he entered the commission house of Thomas W. vSears cK: Co. His natural activity and aptitude for business made him at once valuable to his employers, who admitted him a member of the firm when he attained his majority, though he was without capital. In 1847 the well-known firm of Horatio Harris & Co. was established, which continued until his death.

Mr. Harris was largely interested in the Oxnard and Continental vSugar Refineries, and in connection with his commission business was agent for the buying and selling of the products of these refineries.

His success in life was achieved by a manly, straightforward course, and his competition admitted no devious methods. As a merchant he belonged to that class who believed in the commercial importance of Boston, and who were ready at all times by act and deed to prove such belief. With an intuitive sagacit}^ for business, followed by an almost unchecked career of business success, he never made himself conspicuous, and would never accept a public office. He was a man of sterling integrity, with a frank and honest manner. He was a lover of nature, and also a natural musician, possessed of a quick ear and ready touch, and a devoted admirer of the best music.

By the will of the late Jushua Sears, Mr. Harris was appointed one of the three trustees of the large property, which has become famous as the Sears estate, and through his taste and exertions were built the first oriiaiiicntal business buildings in Boston, which during his life were successively erected by the Sears estate.

In 1857 Mr. Harris completed his elegant mansion at the corner of Walnut avenue and Townsend street, Roxbury, where he lived until his death, February ii!), 1870. This house, built at great expense, was one of the finest residences in the city of Boston at that time. It was surrounded by nearly thirty acres of grounds, beautifully laid out with walks and drives, which were always open for the enjoyment of the public.

In 1847 he married Eunice Elizabeth Crehore, daughter of luhvard Crehore, of Dorchester, who died March VI, 1873. Mr. Harris had four children- Horatio Harris, jr., born February 12, 18-18, died February 13, 1871. Edward C. Harris, born June 29, IS-tfl, died June 27, 1890; married Florence E. Howe, and left one son, Horatio Harris. Minnie Harris, born August 25, 1854, married Joseph Stone, and has one daughter, Marion vStone. Georgia Anna Harris, born June 27, 1860, died August 15, ISOO, married Dr. Frederick W. Kennedy, and left one son, George Harris Kennedy.

Phineas J. Stone

Phinf.as Jones .Stonk, eldest son of Colonel Phineas and Hannah (Jones) Stone, was born in Weare, New Hampshire, May 23, 1810. Colonel Stone, his father, a lineal descendant of Gregory, brother of Rev. Samuel Stone, who came to this country from Hertford, England, in 1635, was born in that part of Harvard, Mass., now known as Boxboro'. He was a captain of a company of New Hampshire detached militia of the First Regiment, under Lieut. -Col. N. Fisk in the war of 1812, and was subsequently chosen colonel of the regiment. In 1824 he removed with his family from Weare to Charlestown, Mass., where he engaged in mercantile business tmtil his death, January 9, 1852, at the age of seventy-six years. The boyhood of Phineas J. Stone was passed at Weare until his fourteenth year, when, as previously stated, the family moved to Charlestown. He began business in the West India goods trade in 1834, and by untiring industry and perseverance laid the foundation of his success in after life. He retired from this occupation in 1851, and devoted his time to his real estate interests. He was selectman of Charlestown in 1S39 and 1840; member of the Lower House of the Leg'islature in 1840, 18oG, 1862 and 1863; and inspector of the Massachusetts State Prison three years, from 1856 to 1859. It was during this time that Deputy Warden Walker and Warden Tenn}' were murdered, and Mr. Stone had charge of the prison for six weeks, pending the appointment of new officials by the governor. In this position he displayed great executive ability, and gave courage to the officers under him by keeping in order the prisoners, excited and almo,sl; demoralized as they were by this double act of blood. "Will there be services in the chapel this morning?" he was anxiously asked after the murder of Warden Tenne}'. " Most certainly," he replied, and providing arms and ammunition for each officer, gave order for their immediate use in case of any indication of a revolt. He was mayor of Charlestown in 18G2, 1863 and 1864. and was instrumental in raising and forming several companies for the defence of the countr}' during the civil war, which did actual service in the army of the North. During his administration was completed the introduction of water from Mystic Pond, yielding an ample supply to the inhabitants, not only of Charlestown, but of several surrounding towns. He was United States assessor. Sixth Massachusetts District, from 1867 to 1873, when the office was abolished by act of Congress. He was one of the original movers for the act of incorporation, authorizing the improvement of about one hundred acres of flats lying between the north and south channels of the Mystic River, upon which to-day there is taxable property of more than $1,000,000, and which eventuall)^ will increase to man}' millions, as it is the terminus of the northern railroads to the deep water of Boston harbor. At the organization of the Charlestown Five Cent Savings Bank in 1854, he was elected its president, a position he held until his death, on August 12, 1891. He was also a director of the Charlestown Gas Company, and the Mutual Protection Fire Insurance Company. He was a man of commanding presence, loyal to his country in its hour of peril, of sterling integrity of character, upright and honorable in all his dealings, sympathetic with distress, his hand being open to relieve suffering without ostentation or publicity. His wife was Ann Maria (Lindsey), a native of Charlestown, who died in 1851. They had four sons: Phineas J., jr., born in 1842, who served as paymaster in the Federal army during the civil war, and died in 1889 ;

Joseph, born in 1S4S, who was formerly agent of the Manchester (N. H.) Mills, and of the Pacific Mills of Lawrence, Mass., who married Minnie Harris, a daughter of the well-known merchant of Boston, Horatio Harris, and now resides in Roxbnry. The other two sons died in infancy.

David Snow

David Snow, for many years prominently connected with the commercial and shipping interests of Boston, and later in his career an active factor in financial affairs, was born in that part of Old Eastham now known as Orleans, Barnstable county, in November, 1799. He was a descendant in the sixth generation of Nicholas Snow, who came to Plymouth in the ship Ann in 1623, and had a share in the division of land at Plymouth. On the maternal side he was a descendant of Richard Higgins, of French Huguenot extraction, whose name appears among the list of freemen of Plymouth as early as 1G33. Both of these American ancestors were aniong the seven original purchasers from the Indians of Nauset. In 1G42 the settlers of Plymouth, on account of the barrenness of the soil, having become dissatisfied with their situation, a removal of the whole colony to Nauset (afterwards Eastham) was seriously contemplated. Nauset was frequently visited up to 1043 by the Plymouth settlers for the purpose of procuring means of subsistence; but no effort was made until the year last named to begin a plantation at this place, which was then owned and occupied by the Indians. It was felt that it would be a more eligible situation than Plymouth, consequently the church appointed a committee of seven, composed of Thomas Prince, John Doane, Josiah Cook, Richard Higgins, John Smalley, and Edward Bangs, to inspect this locality more fully. This committee not only purchased Nauset from the Indians, but became the first settlers of the place and were known as "the seven proprietors of Nauset." Both Nicholas Snow and Richard Higgins wei'e men of prominence in the Plymouth Colony, they and their descendants also occupying various positions of trust and responsibility in the town of Nauset. Nicholas Snow was one of Governer Prince's associates, and served as deputy, town clerk and selectman of Nauset for many years. His son Mark, who married a daughter of Governor Prince, was town clerk for twelve

David Snow, the father of our subject, married Lucia Higgins, the daughter of Richard Higgins, a descendant of Richard Higgins, who was one of the original settlers of Nauset. He was lost on a voyage from Boston to the West India Islands when his son, the subject of this sketch, was but three weeks old. The son grew to manhood in the home of his mother and sister Ruth, devoting his time to various interests until he arrived at the age of thirty-five, when with his small capital he came to Boston. Here for a time he engaged in the West India trade, but later embarked in the flour commission business. In 1843 he formed a copartnership with Isaac Rich, under the firm name of Snow & Rich, which continiied for ten years, during which time a number of ships were built, which became the nucleus of quite a fleet. Through the success of this enterprise the reputation of the firm became favorably known, not only in this country, but also extensively abroad. In 1853 the firm of Snow& Rich was dissolved, Mr. Rich taking the business and real estate, which included Constitution Wharf, for his share, and Mr. Snow taking the fleet of ships as his part. During the next decade Mr. Snow built, owned and controlled fourteen ships, ranging from one thousand to fourteen hundred tons burden. Among the number were the Storm King, Reporter, Nauset, Idaho, Astcrion and others. In 1800 the entire fleet of ships was sold to Mr. Thomas Nickerson, at that time also largely interested in navigation. Mr. Nickerson later was well known by his connection with the Mexican Central and the Atchison, Topeka & Sante Fe Railroads. This was in war times, and with the penetration which characterized most of his acts, Mr. Snow thought it wise to sell out his shipping interest. At about this time he obtained a charter for and organized the National Bank of the Republic. The success and reputation of this institution is well known. He was elected its president by his contemporaries, which office he held at the time of his death, a period of sixteen years.

It is a remarkable thing that during a business career of nearly fifty years, Mr. Snow met with singularly few reverses. Throughout his business career he never failed to meet fully and promptly all of his business obligations. Of his high moral and religious character much might be written in deserved praise. His integrity was never questioned. He was honest, truthful, and a high-minded Christian gentlemen, contributing with liberal hand from his resources to the poor and needy, and to the religious institutions which he luved. His private life was pure and unspotted, and his memory is enshrined in the hearts of his descendants. He died in Boston, Janiiary 1"2, 187(5.

Daniel Lothrop

Daniel Lothrop was a typical American publisher. What this means in the advancement of American literature but few among the millions of American readers ever pause to consider, esteeming the publisher as, at best, only the middleman, the medium through which the author is introduced to the reader. But the true American publisher is much more than a medium; he is a cause, a creator, an inspirer. As such he must be considered and studied; as such he is recognized and received by inquiring and classifying minds. To his energies and his exertions are due the development and bettering of Ainerican literature ; he, quite as much as the writer, is the means of refuting vSidney Smith's famous sneer of a half-century ago, " In the four quarters of the globe, who reads an American book?" The steps in advance that American literature is taking with each new year are the results, as they are also the reasons, of the chapters of effort that mark the story of the publisher's busy and helpful life.

Daniel Lothrop, of Boston, was a typical American publisher. He was a typical American. He was a typical New Englander. He was b<jrn in the old New England town of Rochester, in the State of New. Hampshire, well up toward the foothills of the White Mountains. It is related that an observant traveler was one day passing through that rocky and semi-sterile section of New Hampshire's rolling country - that region so poorly planned for successful agriculture, so apparently a soil needing that eternal vigilance that is the price of paying crops as well as of liberty. The traveler, viewing the landscape in mingled surprise and skepticism, asked one of the farmers, who seemed to be harvesting only rocks, "What can you raise here, anyhow?" And back came the instant answer, " We raise men! " It was one of these real men of New Hampshire's rocky raising that was given to the world in Daniel Lothrop, the son of Daniel Lothrop, the elder, and Sophia Home Lothrop, of the town of Rochester, and the county of Strafford, where he was born on the 11th of August, 1831.

Daniel Lothrop came of sturdy English stock. In his veins i-an the blood of Priscilla Alden, fairest and most famous of the Plymouth Pilgrims. His distant ancestor, John Lothrop, of the Riding of York, in Old England, was the man who dared assert his manhood and withstand the aristocratic arrogance of the famous Archbishop Laud, in the days of the first Charles Stiiart, and who suffered imprisonment rather than abate one jot of his sturdy and determined independence. His maternal ancestors, the Homes, were vigorous pioneers in the early New Hampshire days, one of whom, on the "distaff side," Elizabeth Hull Heard, of Dover, was known as "the brave gentlewoman," because she courageously held and successfully defended the old garrison house of Dover against the flood of Indian massacre of Dover that well-nigh depopulated that feeble New Hampshire settlement in the dreadful sinnmer of 1081). Springing, then, from such "forbears'" - from brave women and stalwart men who could both dare and do - Daniel Lothrop had behind him generations of that heroic blood that flowed into and filled the veins of pioneers and patriots and contributed to the upbuilding and development of a free and vigorous republic.

Daniel Lothrop was the youngest of three brothers, to whom were given, as was the custom then, the three "Bible names" of James, John and Daniel. Under the influence of a practical American father, who repeatedly served the State in its Legislature, and was one of the original three who founded the famous Free Soil Party, under the guidance of a wise American mother, he developed into a wide-awake, thoughtful and ambitious American bo}^ whose dreams of a successful career were active almost in his baby days, for it is stated that when but five years old he scratched upon a piece of tin the prophetic words " D. Lothrop & Co." and tacked the sign upon the door of his playhouse. The mathematical, which is so largely the basis of the business faculty, wag also developed in Daniel Lothrop at an early age, giving him a grasp of the values and mysteries of the "baffling numbers" that was almost remarkable - so much so that at the age of seven he could demonstrate a problem in cube root to the " big boys and girls " of the upper class, alike to their astonishment and the delight of the teacher. With this quickness of reasoning, with a relative and accurate memory, and with the habit of study early fastened upon him, he was ready for college at the age of fourteen, but his physique was not considered equal to the college demands of those days, when athletics was not a part of the college curriculum. He therefore went into the drug

Store which his l^jruther James had opened in the town, and when that brother desired to avail himself of the opportunity of attending medieal lectures in Philadelphia, the charge of the drug store was given to Daniel Lothrop, the bright boy of fourteen. As an extra inducement to assume this responsibility, the older brother, James, agreed to give to Daniel an equal division of the profits of the drug store and to place above the door the firm name " D. Lothrop & Co.," an early realization of Daniel's dream.

Daniel Lothrop, therefore, before he was fifteen years old, had founded the firm of D. Lothrop & Co. and given to the world a business name that has stood as the synonym for integrit}^ and truth for nearly fifty years. He proved a success in the drug business, as his brother James foresaw he would. More than this, he looked around for new opportunities. These speedily came. He hired and stocked a drug store in the village of New Market, not far away, and inviting his second brother, John, to enter the firm as one of the "Co.," he stocked and started another drug store in the village of Meredith Bridge. These three brothers continued, until death broke the combination, in a unique partnership ; each conducting separate busines.s ventures in different business centers and yet sharing their profits irrespective of direction and the volume of individual business. It was a unity of interests and of brotherly fidelity that is not f)ften recorded in the business annals of the world.

In 1850 Daniel Lothrop, watchful for opportunities, bought out the stock of Elijah Wadleigh, a bookseller of Dover, N. H. The details of the drug business, in those days as now, involved other things than drugs. Fancy goods and stationery were a part of every drug dealer's stock, and to deal in books is but a logical development. Before he was twenty, therefore, Daniel Lothrop was established in an important trade center as a successful druggist and bookseller, with " branches " in Berwick, Portsmouth and Amesburv, and with the intention of branching out in publishing when the right opportunity offered. In the interests of his business, as well as of his health, he undertook a -Western trip, which ended in the then prevalent "Western fever." He saw and appreciated the opportunities for successful business ventures otfered by the growing " New West " - the West that then called Chicago an outpost and Minnesota territor}' the frontier. In ISolJ Daniel Lothrop was in the new settlement of St. Peter in southern Minnesota. It gave promise of l)eing a "booming western city," and yielding' to the fascination of the "fever," he resolved to locate there and open a store in St. Peter. He bought out a stock of drugs in St. Paul, and, though the rivers were ice-bound, moved his goods in sledges and opened his store on the first day of December according to announcement. The drug store grew into a banking business. Branch drug and book stores, to which he called his uncle, Jeremiah Home, were alscj opened in the new country^ and Daniel Lothrop'.s business ventures were exhibiting his rare business ability when the panic of 1857 burst upon the country, and the failure of others reacted upon him. He met and paid every dollar of his liabilities, but it broke his health and well-nigh closed his career.

Returning health found him in the East again in his Dover book store. With health came energy, and out of both was evolved the realization of his life-long dream - to become an American book publisher. Carefully maturing his plans, which were based upon a thorough knowledge and experience of the demands of the American book market, the tastes of the American people, and the possibilities of American literature, he entered upon his new career as an American publisher, and in 1868 removed his business to Boston.

The corner-stone of his plan of work was good literature for the young. He took as his motive these rules of procedure which years afterward he put into two pertinent and practical phrases : First, never to publish a purely sensational book, no matter what chances of money it has in it; second, always to publish books that will make for true, steadfast growth in right living. As the proper channels for the development of this class of literature, he selected the family and the Sundayschool libraries, heretofore given up largely to literature that was at once weak, disappointing and unattractive.

So he came to Boston, opened a large and handsome book-store at 38 and 40 Cornhill, opened his list of new books with " Andy Luttrell " - a book that is still having a steady sale - and followed it up with other good and attractive books. Thus, still pursuing his plan of combining liberality with wise selection, he announced a series of generous prizes of one thousand and five hundred dollars each - a then almost unheard of thing - for books for the young, and by thus stimulating literary creation he had speedily in hand manuscripts of merit that led to popular and meritorious publications.

his work as a publisher he eould have the satisfaction of knowing- that wherever went a book bearing the legend " D. Lothrop & Co." on its title page, those who were to choose reading matter for the young knew that they could accept it unhesitatingly and present it to their children without query or investigation.

The list of books thus started grew with each year of effort and selection, and though largely devoted to publications intended for young people, it contained also books of merit for older readers. These books, for young and old alike, touch almost every branch of literary endeavor, and it is estimated that Daniel Lothrop, during the years he was in the pulDlishing business in Boston, introduced more American writers to public attention and has added to his list - now including more than two thousand titles - more American writers than any other American publishing house.

Once on the road to successful book publishing, Mr. Lothrop's energy sought expression in another branch of the publishing field, and one that had also been a part of his long-cherished plans. This was the publication of periodicals for children. Out of this desire came, in 1875, the initial numbers of a monthly magazine for young people in their "teens," now known to the whole English speaking world as Wide Aioakc. For nearly a generation this magazine has regularly appeared, going into thousands of homes with its monthly budget of good and bright and attractive and interesting things, and has called into its service the best literary and artistic workers in America. Following the publication of Wide Aioake, other and subsidiary publications were conceived and started, intended for the helping and interesting of still younger readers. These were Babyland, Our Little Men and Women, and Pansy, and it is safe to say that the four Lothrop magazines reach a larger constituency, and have a larger following - spanning as they do the space that stretches from the cradle age to the college age - than any other reputable chikU'en's periodicals in the world.

The year that followed the launching of Wide Azca/ce in ISTo was the year for a removal of the establishment, for Mr. Lathrop, finding the Cornhill store too small for the demands of his increasing business, secured other quarters and the large building on the corner of Franklin and Hawley streets bec£ime the home of D. Lothrop & Co. Here the business interests of the concern found opportunity for growth and extension.

In 1SS7 Air. Luthrup determined to perpetuate the name he had made in the business world and to develop his company into a corporation. This was accordinsjly done, new blood was added to his own indomitable energy, and in March, 1887, the D. Lothrop Company was organized with Daniel Lothrop as president. In 1889 the company removed its business offices and salesrooms to 3(!4 and 360 Washington street, and occupied this same year with its large manufacturing and wholesale departments at 118 and 120 Purchase street. Here the bu.siness has developed and grown along the lines laid down by its founder, and the house of D. Lathrop Company occupies a foremost and distinguished position among the best book publishing establishments of America.

The home life of Daniel Lothrop was characteristic and delightful. In 1881 he married Miss Harriett Miilford Stone of New Haven, known , to hundreds of thousands of American readers under her pen name of Margaret Sidney. In 1883 he purchased an historic estate in Concord, Mass., known as the Wayside, the home of Hawthorne and the Alcotts. Here he dispensed a charming and unfailing hospitality and gave to an already famous spot new and delightful associations.

All too early in his life of achievement and influence, the end came. After a brief illness, and while occupying his winter quarters in Boston, Daniel Lothrop died on the eighteenth of March, 1892, and thus at the age of sixty years, when it was supposed and hoped that he still had rnany years of usefulness and achievement before him, he laid .down the life-work with which for forty-six years he had been so closely identified, and entered into rest.

Daniel Lothrop combined in himself the elements of probity, perseverance, purpose and devotion to a high ideal. It was these acting in and through him that held him steady to his plan of work and action, that brought him recognition, advancement and success, and that have given him a position and a name in the world of American letters and business activity, or, in every sense of the word, the typical American publisher.

Henry L. Pierce

in the ciylith generation, from John Pierce, who came from En«;-land in l(i37, and was admitted a freeman in Watertown, Mass., in March, 1(;;!S.

Col. Jesse Pierce, the father of Henry, was born in Stoughton, November 7, 1788. He was a man of high character and of more than ordinary ability. He began to teach school while yet a minor, and pursued that vocation for twenty years, first in the public schools of Norfolk county, and later as the head of highly successful private schools in Milton and vStoughton. He took an active part in town affairs, serv^ed in the militia in all capacities from ensign to colonel, and represented his town during six terms in the State Legislature. Altnough originally a member of the Democratic party, he was among the first to make a stand against the aggressions of the slave power, and became identified with the party which supported Birney for the presidency in 1844. He married in 1824 Eliza S. Lillie, daughter of Captain John Lillie, who served with distinction in the war of the Revolution as an artillery officer and as aid to Major-General Knox, and who, some- years after the war, was appointed chief officer at the West Point Military Academy.

Henry L., the subject of this .sketch, received a good English education at the public school in his native town, at the academy in Milton, and also at the acadeiny and State Normal School at Bridgewater. In 1850 he became connected with the chocolate manufactory of Walter Baker & Co. , at Dorchester, to which place the family had moved the previous year. In 1854 he took charge of the entire business, and from that time to the present has been the sole manager. At an early age he took a lively interest in public aflfairs, and while a school-boy he contributed articles to some of the country papers. Until 1848 he sympathized with and supported the Democratic party. In that year he joined with enthusiasm in the organization of the Free Soil party, and in promulgating the principles set forth by Martin Van Buren in his acceptance of their nomination for the presidency. From that time until the purpose for which the party was organized had been triumphantly established, he stood by it through good report and through evil report, aiding it by his voice, his pen, and his money. In 18()() he was elected to the Legislature, and was instrumental in getting a bill passed by both branches striking out the word " white " wherever it occurred in the laws authorizing the organization of the militia. But the act was defeated by the governor's veto, and it was not until four years had passed that success attended the efforts of those who wished to have the obnoxious discrimination on account of race removed from the statute book. On being re-elected for the following year, Mr. Pierce inaugurated the movement, in which he was sustained b)' a majority of the House, for instructing our senators, and recommending our representatives in Congress, to favor such a change in the national laws as would authorize the enlistment of colored men in the United States army. In the session of 18G3, to which he was re-elected, Mr. Pierce was appointed chairman of the Committee on Finance, and in that capacity reported and carried through the House two measures of great importance, namely : The act providing for the payment of the State bonds in gold (this was after the Legal Tender Act had been passed by Congress), and the act taxing savings banks and insurance companies. At the end of his third term, Mr. Pierce withdrew from the House, but was chosen again in 1866, and appears in the journals of the day as taking a leading part in the business of the session.

On the annexation of Dorchester to the cit}^ of Boston, in 186'J. he was elected to represent that section of the city in the Board of Aldermen. After serving two years (1870-1871) he declined a re-election. In the latter part of the following year he was elected mayor of Boston, being the choice of the citizens without regard to party. His address at the organization of the new government was calculated to inspire confidence in his abilities as an executive officer. To improve the efficiency of the government, radical changes were needed in some of the departments, and such changes he not only recommended, but proceeded resolutely to carry out. Against very strong opposition he reorganized the Health and Fire Departments, and freed them from the partisan influences to which they had long been subject.

In October of that year he received the nomination of the Republicans for representative in Congress from the Third Massachusetts District, to fill the vacancy in the Forty-third Congress occasioned by the death of Honorable William Whiting. The success of his municipal administration is shown in the fact that the Democrats failed to nominate any candidate to oppose him, and his election was substantially unanimous. Having been for many years on terms of personal friendship with Charles Sumner, and having a large acquaintance with the public men of the day, he was from the start in a position to exert a strong influence upon the councils of the government. Imbued witli the same spirit which led Sumner, and Andrew, and Wilson, to favor a conciliatory policy towards the South in the legislation which followed the war, he threw his influence against the harsh and unconstitutional measures by which a portion of the leaders in the party to which he belonged sought to perpetuate their political ascendancy over the States lately in rebellion. He was thtis placed in the unpleasant position of being obliged to oppose many of the measures which were favored by President Grant's administration. But it is evident that his course was in accordance with the sentiments of the people of Massachusetts, from the fact that in the elections to the Forty-fourth Congress, which occurred in the autumn of 1874, he was re-elected by a large majority, while in six out of the other ten districts in the State, the regular Republican candidates were defeated for the first time since the beginning of the war. Near the close of the second session of the Forty- third Congress (February, 1875), the Force Bill, so called, giving the president extraordinary powers to interfere in the internal affairs of the States, and in his discretion to- suspend the privileges of the writ of habeas corpus, was introduced into the House and an attempt made by the administration leaders to force it through without giving sufficient opportunity for discussion. The Republicans had control of the House by a large majority, and as a political measure, intended, as many of them avowed, to give their party an advantage in the presidential election to occur in the following year, they were substantially unanimous in its support. On the 37th of February Mr. Pierce made a short speech in opposition to the bill, which was highh- commended by all the leading newspapers throughout the country.

During the session of tiie Forty-fourth Congress, Mr. Pierce was at the head of the Republican members of the Committee on Commerce. He made an elaborate report on the subject of relieving vessels engaged in the coasting trade from the unjust and discriminating legislation of some of the States with regard to pilotage fees. He also made speeches on the proposition to amend the Constitution so as to limit the term of office of the president; on reciprocity with Canada, and on counting the electoral vote of Louisiana. On the last named question, Mr. Pierce and Prof. Seelye (the representative from the Tenth Massachusetts District) stood alone among the Republicans in opposing the counting of the vote of Louisiana for either candidate, on the ground of fraud in making up the returns. The London Times published Mr. Pierce's speech at length, and referred to it as a " very able " one.

Some time previous to the elections of the Forty-fifth Coni^ress, Mr. Pierce announced to the electors of the Third District, through the public press, his determination to retire from public life at the expiration of the term for which he then held ofificc. This decision was made after due deliberation, and with the firm resolve of adhering to it. It was with extreme reluctance, therefore, that he consented, in the autumn of 1877, to allow his name to be used as a citizens' candidate for the office of mayor of Boston. The call for his services was signed by twentj'-five hundred tax-paying citizens, representing all classes and all parties. The administration then in power was charged with extreme partisanship and with being inefficient. The contest which followed was in many respects the most remarkable in the annals of the city. The number of votes cast was largely in excess of those at any other previous election - municipal. State or national - and resulted in the election of Mr. Pierce by about 2,300 majority.

In his inaugural address Mr. Pierce dwelt at some length upon the powers and purposes of municipal corporations, taking the ground that " they are created and exist for the public advantage, and not for the benefit of their officers or of particular individuals or classes. " He also considered some of the schemes which had been devised for improving our local governments, and denied the propriety or expediency' of attempting to raise the standard by a limitation of the suffrage, or by giving up to the State powers which, from time immemorial, have been exercised by the towns and cities. His clear and business-like exposition of the true theory upon which local governments were founded and maintained in this country was highly commended by the representatives of all parties.

Having satisfied himself from a general survey of the field of his labors that the department of the government most in need of reform was that which had charge of the police, he entered upon the work of reorganizing it with that courage and persistency which have never yet failed to achieve their purpose. Against an opposition which was at times factious and violent, he carried through his plan of reorganization by which that important department of the city government was placed beyond the reach of personal and partisan influences, and a more equitable and intelligent enforcement of the laws secured. The work for which his services were demanded by the citizens having been satisfactorily accomplished, Mr. Pierce declined a re-election for another term.

Althimgh urged on many occasions since then to allow the use of his name as a candidate for important positions, he has felt constrained to decline on account of the increasing demands made upon his time by his great manufacturing interests. He has continued, however, to take an active part in the discussion of the leading political questions of the day, and especially the question of reforming the tariff on imports. He has been president of the New England Tariff Reform League for a number of years, and has .served on many conimittees and boards for the furtherance of reforms in the civil service and the ballot, and for the maintenance of a sound currency. In the presidential contest of 1884 he found himself unable to support the Republican nominee, and although he did not then, and has not since, become identified with the Democratic party, he has generally given his hearty support to their nominees for the leading offices, and to the reform principles for which they stand. He has visited Europe many times during the past twenty-five years, and has acquired a great fund of interesting information concerning the people and their political institutions.

It may not be out of place, in a work of this kind, to give some account of the great business which Mr. Pierce has built up and still carries on. The manufacturing establishment of Walter Baker & Co., of which he has for some years been the sole owner, dates back to the period of the American Revolution. It is stated in the history of the town of Dorchester that the chocolate mill erected on the Neponset River, in 17(j5, by one John Hannan, an Irish immigrant, who had learned the business of chocolate making in England, was the first mill of that kind established in the British Provinces of North America. It was a ver)- small concern, being connected with a saw mill operated by water-power. On the death of Hannan, in 1780, the plant came into the possession of Dr. James Baker, who was succeeded later by his grandson, Walter Baker, in whose name the business has since been conducted. The establishment, to which extensive additions have been made from time to time during the last fifty years, now comprises five large mills, having a floor space of about 315,000 square feet (over seven acres), equipped with all the latest and most improved machinery for the manufacture of cocoa and chocolate in a variety of forms and by the most improved methods. A large number of workmen are employed, and the total annual output reaches a very high figure.

In a recent work on the industries of Boston it is pointed out as " an extremely interesting fact, and one with scarcely a parallel, perhaps, in our industrial annals, that on the very spot where, more than a century and a quarter ago, the business "of chocolate making was first begun in this country, there has grown up one of the largest establish, ments of that kind in the world - an establishment which competes successfull)' for prizes in all the great industrial exhibitions in Europe and America, whose influence is felt in the great commercial centers, and whose prosperity promotes the welfare of men who labor tmder a tropical sun in the cultivation of one of the choicest fruits of the earth.''

Thomas Norton Hart, son of Daniel and Margaret (Norton) Hart, was born in North Reading, Mass., January 20, lft"-i9. His ancestors settled in Lynnfield, and his mother's father. Major John Norton of Royalston, fought in the Revolution. Mr. Hart was educated in the schools of his native town, and when a lad (.)f thirteen found employment in the dry goods store of Wheelock, Pratt & Co., of Boston, and two years later in a hat store. Industrious and energetic, he made steady progress, and in course of time became a partner in the firm of Philip A. Locke & Co. In 18(10 Mr. Hart assumed control and soon after founded the well-known house of Hart, Taylor & Co. A highly successful business was done, and in 1879 Mr. Hart retired witli a competency. Soon after he assumed the presidency of the Mount Vernon National Bank, of which he is still the head.

Mr. Hart is an earnest Republican, and fiir many 3'ears has been an active factor in political life, not only in Boston, but in the vState. He was a member of the Boston Common Council in 1879, 1880, and 1881, and of the Board of Aldermen in 1883, 1885, and 188G. In 1889 he was elected mayor of the city, and such was the favor in which his administration was held that he was renominated and elected for another term in 1890 by 132,713 votes, being the largest vote ever received by a Republican candidate for mayor. In 1891 Mr. Hart was appointed by President Harrison postmaster of Boston, which po.sition he held until his resignation upon the inauguration of the Democratic administration. His administration of the duties of postmaster received the cordial endorsement of the citizens of Boston irrespective of party lines. A man of excellent business attainments and possessing a high order of executive ability, he conducted tlie duties of the office admirably. An ardent supporter of the civil service laws, he loyally applied them during his term, and at the same time inaugurated many reforms in the conduct of the office which were conducive to a more efficient service. Mr. Hart is identified with a number of societies and organizations; is treasurer of the American Unitarian Association, an officer of the Church of the Unity, and a member of the Algonquin, the Boston Art, and the Hull Yacht Clubs. He was married in 1850, in Boston, to Miss Elizabeth Snow, of Bowdoin, Me. They have one child, a daughter (now Mrs. C. AV. Ernst). Mr. Hart's city home is on Commonwealth Avenue, and his summer home at Cialloupe's Point, Swampscott.

Charles W. Galluupe

Ch.aki.ks Wii.li.\.m G.\Li.ouPK, the son of Isaac and Annis (Allen) (Jidloupe, was born in Beverly, Mass., on the 5th of September, 18'.J5, and married, April lo, 1848, Sarah Augusta Kittredge, eldest daughter of Dr. Ingalls and Augusta Kittredge, a descendant of Roger Conant. He is a direct descendant of the first settlers of Massachusetts Bay upon his father's and mother's side, and, what can now rareh- be said, in his line of descent no intermarriages have taken place with other than the descendants of the original Puritan emigrants.

His paternal ancestor was John Gallop, for whom the Island in Boston Harbor was named, who came over (with his four children: John, Samuel, Nathaniel and Joan) in the ship Mary and John, which arrived at Natascott (now Hull), the iioth of May, lOoO.

His maternal ancestor was William Allen, who was born in Manchester, England, in 1002, and came over with Roger Conant about MVl'i ; he accompanied Conant to Cape Ann in l()-25, afterwards to Salem in the fall of 1(120, where he remained until in 1640, when he, in company with others from Salem, obtained leave to found a town at " Jeffries Creek," which they named Manchester, in honor of the place from which he came.

John Gallop is one of the famous characters of our early colonial history. He was the descendant of John Gallop, who "came out of the North in 1405," and settled in County Dorset, England, where his descendants still reside upon the estate (Strode), which is now, and has been, owned and occupied by the family for more than four centuries.

Ai'i'iviiiij before AVinthrop, John (lallop settled for the time beinj;' at Natascott upon Gallop's Hill (still known by that name), and remained with the Dorchester Colony, occupying temporarily the island until the arri\-al of the new governor, whom he accompanied to Boston, where he settled permanently. He built a house upon the ''Sea bancke," now North street, and in lOIiG it was "ordered that John Gallop shall remove his payles at his yard ende within fourteen days for the preserving of the way upon the Sea Bancke," and, at the same date, " a layne to go up from the water side, by John Gallop's, a pole breadth unto the next great cross street;" (Hanover street) was laid out, and is now called Richmond street. The whole point from the "creek" (now Blackstone street) to the Chelsea Ferry, was called "Gallop's Point." The location of his house is numbered 34 upon the map in the Book of Possessions, Boston Records, from 1634 to 16G0.

He constructed and commanded one of the earliest built vessels on record, which, in 1632, was chartered by Governor Winthrop, Gallop being in command, to "jDursue and capture the notorious Pirate, Dixey Bull."

In 1633 he brought into the harbor the ship Griffin, of which Winthrop, in his diar)% says: " vSept. 4, 1633. The Griffin, a ship of 300 tons, arrived (having been eight weeks from the Downs), this ship was brought in by John Gallop a new way by Lovell's Island, at low water, now called Griffin's Gap. She brought about two hundred passengers." Gallop's wife was undoubtedly upon the ship, and, for his skillful management of this, one of the largest vessels that had crossed the (;cean, he obtained the reputation of a pilot, but he was a pilot no farther than sailing of his own vessels in and out of the harbor.

In 1636 he had an encounter with the Indians in Narragansett Bay, which Fenimore Cooper, in his " Naval History of the United States," calls "the first naval battle fought in America." An account of the fight, written for the Rev. Increase Mather in 1677, is exceedingly interesting.

Charles W. Elliott, in his New England History, says, "there are few instances in bush or border warfare equal to it: fourteen men were opposed to two, and twelve of the fourteen were destroyed."

He joined the church in 1633, took the freeman's oath in 1634, and died December, 1649; his will, as well as that of Crestabel, his wife, are among the earliest on record.