V v*V ^ *W • 1 ^L% *> J .Vv v-»'/ V'^w^v* V^ ; *^ • j?'V -i ■p. 4 v ►• • V-^v V^V V*™V V 'k*°* /*<&&.% <*s&k>« /*mi>>- One Thousand Men by Dorman B. E. Kent January 1, 1914 Copyrighted by The Vermont Historical Society 1915 One Thousand Men '? y C by Dorman B. E. Kent January 1, 1914 Copyrighted by The Vermont Historical Society 1915 < <^-J%3 4 One Thousand Men The pride taken by a man in his own achievements is a natural one. When overdone it is conceit, when well done it is a strong factor in the attainment of success and when underdone it is sometimes a contributing cause to a complete lack of ambition or confidence. The kind of pride a man takes or enjoys in his own success is felt also, per- haps at times in a slightly modified manner, in the success of his offspring, his brother or of any member of his im- mediate family. Carried still further the pride arising from the knowl- edge that one's locality, one's town, one's city, one's county, or one's state, has done well its part in producing men of attainments and all around solidity is a worthy one and must be shared by all normally minded individuals every- where. It has long been said and said truthfully that the men who came from Vermont have ever shown an exceeding desire to let the fact be well heralded and have pointed al- ways with pride to the "men from home" who either there or elsewhere have made names for themselves of state wide or national importance Nearly every state in the land has, scattered within its borders, state societies whose membership is composed solely of men or women, or both, who were born in some other particular commonwealth. Few of these are gener- ally more alive than Vermont societies and the latter's mem- bers are and always have been soundly loyal to each other as well as to the land of their nativity. It has long been said also that few states have produced as many prominent men in proportion to their population as has Vermont. 4 ONE THOUSAND MEN Men of distinction are met everywhere every day whose early home and training are found to have been in the little Commonwealth of Vermont, away up next to Canada in the far northeastern part of the country, ranking forty- third in area with its sister states and with now, as it has always had, a very small number of men and women in its confines, any one of fifteen cities in the United States today exceeding, in fact, the total population of Vermont. But who all these men have been or are, just what they have done, what towns in Vermont they went from, their proportion to the other less well known natives of their home state and their state's percentage as compared with other states in its gifts to the world, have never to the author's knowledge been chronicled to any extent. The book first published by the Vermont Bureau of Publicity in 1913 under the name of "Vermont, the Land of the Green Mountains" and written by Walter Hill Crockett, in dealing with each town gives in many instances a few of the men of that town who were or are well known else- where. The author of the work which follows had long had such an idea in mind on a larger scale and taking the former book as a nucleus there has been prepared the material which appears in these pages. To accumulate the facts I have consulted page by page, Appleton's Encyclopedia of American Biography, the National Encyclopedia of American Biography, Nelson's Encyclopedia, the Encyclopedia Americana, the 1906 and 1913 editions of Who's Who in America, the 1909 edition of Who's Who in New England, Gilman's Bibliography of Vermont and some half dozen books dealing largely with prominent Vermonters who have remained in the State. In addition to the above mentioned works some thirty-five Vermont town histories, the File of the Vermonter, Hemen- ONE THOUSAND MEN 6 way's Gazetteer, Child's Gazetteer and numerous other sources have given up, now here, now there, other names to swell the fold. Women have not been included in this work for while Vermont has indeed produced a few women who have made names of state-wide and in a few rare cases of national importance, most lines of work which lend strong distinc- tion having in the past been more or less closed to women, there have appeared here at least, few names to have been employed in a work such as this. Neither have there been included by any means all the names of native Vermonters met with in encyclopedias and other high authorities usually discriminating, but the author eliminated instead as was thought best, being determined that the completed result should show only, either men all men have heard of, or men one could easily find to have stood high in their chosen vocations and communities. One thousand men have been found of whom about eighty-two percent left Vermont to perform their life work. It is not claimed by any manner of means that the name of every man born in Vermont who has attained high prominence can be found in these pages. The author early found from experience that they were indeed an elusive lot, many of both the earlier and later ones of whom every man knows by reputation having been "caught" when the list was supposed to have been completed. The writer well knows there are scores of Vermonters of solidity and high prominence not only in their adopted cities but states as well who combine with their ability a certain shrinking from publicity as far as possible, which tendency prevents their family history or birthplace appear- ing in the public print except on rare occasions and it is such men as these, generally men who have succeeded in 6 ONE THOUSAND MEN business rather than in the professions whose names will be found lacking in this work. But considering the long and high list of authorities consulted together with the extreme care taken, one can be reasonably certain that a very large share of all of Ver- mont's most prominent sons is set forth in this treatise. The most perplexing part of the whole problem was to determine just who of the thousands of our able sons fell short of measuring up to the full standard of "the most prominent Vermonters." Not being paid in cold, hard money by any aspirant for a niche in the Hall of Fame, a copy of the work and a few extra steel engravings thrown in, the dividing line has all along been hard to determine and it can be assured that no two minds would select exactly the same thousand men but after long consultation with men whose opinions are sound and solid the writer has been led to believe that the dividing line has been as sensibly drawn as most men would desire. In selecting the Vermont men who have stood high in their own State there have been considered with some few excep- tions only men who have held prominent State positions such as Governors, Lieutenant-Governors, United States Congressmen, United States Senators, Secretaries of State, State Treasurers, Speakers of the House of Representa- tives, or men who have managed the few large businesses or corporations which have been carried on in Vermont and the list closes as of Jan. 1, 1914. The one thousand men first began to see the light of day in 1768 and one birth in 1879 completes the list bridging a span of one hundred and twelve years. The dates of birth are known of nine hundred and thirty-nine, of whom three hundred and forty-nine were born in the first half and five hundred and ninety in the last half of the period. Eighty- five were born prior to 1800 and the year of all years which ONE THOUSAND MEN 7 gave birth to the greatest number was 1843 with twenty-six. The first man ever born in Vermont who reached a position of sufficient importance to admit his name to any encyclo- pedia of biography was Jonathan Hatch Hubbard, born in Windsor in 1768 who became a United States congressman from Vermont and a Judge of her Supreme Court and it is a peculiar fact that the third man born in this State, who attained prominence was a full blooded negro named Prince Saunders, born in Thetford in 1775, a man who became an author, a lawyer and attorney-general of Hayti. Vermont, always extremely small in colored population, has produced no other man of ability from that race. Ver- mont stands to-day forty-third in area and forty-third in population among her sister states. Her population in 1910 was 355,956 and for half a century it has remained com- paratively stationary. When she was admitted to the Union she was the fourteenth state and the twelfth in population. During the last one hundred and twenty years she has ever been one of the least populated states and during all that time she has been sending her sons by tens and scores and hundreds out into the world to take high places in other communities and win for themselves names of honor else- where. It has been thought best to publish here a short synopsis of some of the more prominent facts to be gleaned from the pages which follow, while from the entire work the idea is easily established and the fact sustained that the greatest men in the land are very often reared in rural communities and that an early environment possessing limited advantages has never prevented ability from as- serting itself and finding its true place in the work of the world. Vermont has then produced twenty-five chief jus- tices for sixteen states and territories, nine for herself, two for Illinois and one each for North Dakota, Washington, Michigan, New Hampshire, Iowa, Minnesota, Alabama, In- 8 ONE THOUSAND MEN diana, the District of Columbia, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Ne- vada, Massachusetts and California. Not counting the above she has furnished fifty asso- ciate justices of the supreme court for seventeen states and territories, twenty-four for herself, four for New York, three each for New Hampshire and Massachusetts, two each for California, the District of Columbia and Ohio, and one each for Idaho, New Mexico, Dakota, Illinois, Minnesota, Arizona, Maryland, Maine, North Dakota and the Philip- pines. She has given to the nation twenty-four United States senators from fourteen states, ten from Vermont, two from Wisconsin and one each from Nebraska, Louisiana, Maine, Utah, Michigan, Minnesota, Arkansas, Illinois, Colorado, North Dakota, New Hampshire and Indiana. In her borders have been born one hundred and thirty- one United States congressmen for twenty-eight states of whom thirty-two went from Vermont, twenty-three from New York, twelve from Michigan, eight from Ohio, seven each from Wisconsin, Massachusetts and New Hampshire, five each from Minnesota and Pennsylvania, four from Iowa, two each from Indiana, Kansas and Illinois, and one each from Idaho, Missouri, Arizona, Dakota, Rhode Island, Vir- ginia, New Jersey, Tennessee, North Dakota, South Dakota, Louisiana, Washington, Maryland, California and Connecti- cut. She has given forty-six governors to sixteen states and territories, twenty-seven to herself, three to New Hampshire, two each to Indiana and Iowa and one each to Nevada, Alaska, Ohio, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Michigan, Utah, New York, Colorado, Dakota, South Dakota and Louisiana. She has given to the church six bishops and one archbishop. In her confines have been born sixty-three editors of news- papers or magazines, who outside of Vermont have pre- sided over periodicals all of which possessed more than ONE THOUSAND MEN 9 their state-wide prominence. Two hundred and ninety-two of her sons have been authors of from one to sixty sub- stantial volumes each, all of which have taken their place with the good literature of the world. She has furnished the nation with thirty-three brigadier-generals and eleven major-generals in the army and to the navy she has given one captain, one commodore and nine rear-admirals and one admiral. Forty-nine presidents of colleges and universi- ties have been born in Vermont as well as twelve artists, seven musical composers, three architects and four sculptors, all of unusual ability. Eight district judges for seven states and territories were born here, two for Vermont and one each for Iowa, Hawaii, Missouri, Michigan, Minnesota, and Florida. One hundred and one capitalists using the word in its broadest definition were born within these boundaries, nearly half of whom became millionaires and here were born also forty railroad presidents. Vermont has given to the nation three fathers of a President of the United States, two unsuccessful candi- dates for President, one President, one Vice-President, two chaplains of the United States Senate, one chaplain of the House of Congress, three secretaries of war, two of the in- terior, and one of the treasury, one postmaster-general, one attorney-general, an assistant secretary of war, and one also of the navy, the interior and the treasury, two registrars of the treasury, one chief examiner of the bureau of pen- sions, one commissioner-general of immigration, a chairman of the Interstate Commerce Commission, three commission- ers of patents and one secretary to the President. Here have been born United States ministers and am- bassadors to Spain, England, Switzerland, Venezuela, Aus- tria, Germany, Siam, Argentina, Panama, Colombia, Chili. Turkey, Uraguay and Paraguay, Italy, France and Russia. 10 ONE THOUSAND MEN Vermont has furnished one United States commissioner to Samoa, one chief justice of Samoa, a governor-general of the Philippines, an insular governor of the Philippines, two mayors of New York City, a president of the New York Produce Exchange, of the New York Stock Exchange and of the New York Clearing House, an attorney-general of Hayti, a United States consul-general at London and the director^general of the Pan-American Union. Here too were born the founder of the Mormon church, the translator for the founder of the discovered book, a Mormon bishop and two presidents of the Mormon church, a president of the Postal Telegraph Company, the founder and father of civil service reform in this country, a presi- dent of the New York Life Insurance Company, two of the National Life, and one of the Home Life, a legal adviser to the Emperor of Japan, a president-general of the Sons of the American Revolution, the founder of the Adams Ex- press Company, the originator of the "patent insides" news- paper, the builder of the "Monitor," the first man to make Bessemer steel in America, a preacher of Lincoln's funeral sermon, the inventor of the time-lock, the saw for sawing marble, the saw for sawing granite, the cook stove, electric motor, gimlet pointed screw, refrigerator car and the car- penter's square, the builder of the first elevated railroad in New York and the founder of the New York World. The list might be long continued but enough appears above to give some idea of the standing and records of the sons of Vermont while a careful reading of the pages which follow cannot but convince that the State in proportion to its population ranks, in its gifts of ability, the first in the land. It has now been some years since an encyclopedia pure- ly of American biography has been struck from the press and in its stead to some considerable degree, have appeared ONE THOUSAND MEN 11 from time to time succeeding editions of a work called "Who's Who in America." The publishers of this work aim to and do give as well as it can be done, the majority of the names and records of all the living men and women in this country who have in their professions or chosen vocations attained to positions in advance of their fellows. Employing, then, the 1913 edition we discover that all the states of the United States have produced sixteen thousand four hundred and sixteen of the living men and women mentioned in the work. Using these figures as a basis we find that Vermont with an output of three hundred and fifty-nine stands four- teenth in total relative production of children of ability and yet in 1860, in population her place was the twenty-eighth in the then thirty-three states, and today she ranks forty- second in population and forty-third in area. Always one of the very smallest of the commonwealths in both population and area, the percentage to her present population of her living sons and daughters mentioned to- day in "Who's Who in America" is exceeded by no state or territory in the whole land. It may, however, be truthfully said that the men found in "Who's Who in America" were not all born in the year 1910, in any other one year, one decade or indeed in the same half century. Granting this it can be safely assumed that out of thousands who have attained prominence, while there may be many exceptions, an average age of forty-three years would certainly see the vast majority of these people at a point in their life work where their names would have be- come widely known. Counting back then forty-three years from 1913 to 1870, the year in which they could have been born and now have been included in this work, we find that Vermont 12 ONE THOUSAND MEN has produced one man or woman of high prominence to every nine hundred and twenty of her population in the latter year, being exceeded in the United States on that basis, only by the District of Columbia with one to each eight hundred and seventy-two and by the State of Massa- chusetts with one to seven hundred and ninety-nine. But cannot we explain the lead enjoyed over all others by the District of Columbia and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts? The District of Columbia has for a century been inhabited by a large class of men standing high in the nation and representative in ability, men whose sons, by heredity, by environment and by good fortune have been assisted together with their ability, early and easily to positions of prominence and solidity. And while there could be found few men who would not thrill with satisfac- tion in the record of Massachusetts, the mother of New England whose good blood for three centuries has filled the entire Nation, West, East, North and South, one fact must be borne in mind. While she does not lead all the states in proportion to her present population as does Vermont, in the produc- tion of eminent sons, she does lead in proportion to her population in 1870 and the following may explain the cause. For decade after decade Massachusetts had then been and has been since, a center of literature, of art, of educa- tion, of refinement, of prosperity and of advance in every good motive. Her schools long the leaders, have never been second to any in this country and she has ever well given every advantage that could be discovered to her young and to her adult citizens. In all this she has done nobly a duty and the number of splendid men who have been born and reared within her confines attests well the fact. But what of her neighbor, the State of Vermont? Far, far smaller in population, with ONE THOUSAND MEN 13 absolutely no large centers of culture and advantage, as have been scattered thickly through Massachusetts, sorely lacking in wealth, her population largely rural and well separated, with little incentive to a life beyond the narrow valleys in which they were hemmed, the little red or white or brown schoolhouse being until recent times the only source of education for the great majority — with all these disadvantages the little State of Vermont has sent forth a tremendous array of able men. We find that since 1790, Vermont has produced over nine hundred men of the very highest prominence. The mean of her population over that period has been about two hundred and twenty thousand and the mean of the population of the entire country over the same century and a quarter has been forty-seven millions. Had, then, all the United States reared ability in the same proportion as has Vermont about twenty-three thousand men and women born in this country since 1790, should appear in the American encyclopedia of biography today and "Who's Who in America" mentions but some sixteen thousand five hundred and in Appleton's Encyclopedia of Biography published some few years since, we find less than eleven thousand native born Americans. The early days of this Commonwealth were rife with the strife for liberty. Denied an independent existence our fathers shouldered their muskets, met in convention and then and there and all along by every word and deed in- sisted that they must be heard, they must be recognized, they must be independent. No other state in the Union was born in such bitter- ness or nourished with such contention, and through it all our ancestors acted like men. It can absolutely be proven that the old Commonwealth of Vermont, always one of the smallest in population ranks 14 ONE THOUSAND MEN according to her strength first and foremost in her gifts to the world. At no time down through the late decades can but one state lead her in proportion to her population in illustrious sons and Massachusetts has all along held closely her own, while over eighty-two percent, of the prominent men born in Vermont have gone out from her borders to win fame and fortune in other lands. Other states have claimed the fruit of their labors and other states have adopted them but the fact must ever re- main that on these rock ribbed hills and in these narrow valleys their fathers toiled and lived and here their fathers lie. Here the sons were born and received their early train- ing and almost without an exception these sons have ever looked back and pointed back with a pride well justified to the scenes of their nativity and youth. To have been born in the State of Vermont is a credit to any man. That there must be errors in dates in the list which follows, the author is absolutely aware. Any compilation as large and drawn from so many sources is liable in in- stances to mistake and I can only state that my own part has been done as carefully as possible. The errors of others I cannot answer for, my own I will assume without further comment. ONE THOUSAND MEN 15 THE STANDING OF VERMONT IN 1913 AS COM- PARED IN EACH INSTANCE TO TWENTY- ONE STATES The twenty-two leading states from "Who's Who in America" for 1913 and from the census of 1910. c c °Soc H (o £ c c PCPC g h 1 Vermont 359 2 New Hampshire 318 3 Maine 523 4 Massachusetts 1,823 5 Connecticut 556 6 District of Columbia . . 151 7 Delaware 78 8 Rhode Island 185 9 New York 2,956 10 Ohio 1,411 11 Maryland 369 12 Virginia 502 13 Indiana 562 14 Pennsylvania 1,586 15 New Jersey 440 16 Wisconsin 382 17 Illinois 845 18 Michigan 409 19 Kentucky 331 20 Iowa 320 21 South Carolina 184 22 Missouri 354 c o do ftlH O i- bid J- s« 355,956 991 430,572 1,354 742,371 1,419 3,366,416 1,846 1,114,756 2,004 331,069 2,192 202,322 2,593 542,610 2,933 9,113,614 3,083 4,767,121 3,378 1,295,346 3,510 2,061,612 4,106 2,700,876 4,805 7,665,111 4,832 2,537,167 5,766 2,333,860 6,108 5,638,591 6,672 2,810,173 6,871 2,289,905 6,918 2,224,771 6,954 1,515,400 8,235 3,293,335 9,303 16 ONE THOUSAND MEN The twenty-two leading states from "Who's Who in America" for 1913 and from the census of 1870. u 2 ® WE »asa $ * 5 5 2 s W w fc.a £ a 1 Massachusetts 1,823 2 District of Columbia . . 151 3 Vermont 359 4 Connecticut 556 5 New Hampshire 318 6 Maine 523 7 New York 2,956 8 Delaware 78 9 Rhode Island 185 10 Ohio 1,411 11 Oregon 30 12 New Jersey 440 13 Maryland 369 14 Pennsylvania 1,586 15 Virginia 502 16 Wisconsin 382 17 Michigan 409 18 Indiana 562 19 Illinois 845 20 California 170 21 Washington 7 22 Utah 24 a O '■3 . cjo — I 1- 3oo QH O - fciS .£ " 'So u ^ e ^-\ /.'J^^ w0> *bv u ^ v*o^ ^ -'Ste- ****** -'^fe*- ^ : % '*-*°o **..£&.%. 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