The Club's historic membership roster, part II: Members joining 1870-1876

This is the second post in a series on the historic membership roster of the Club. These posts may be updated as additional biographical information on the members is uncovered. Research by Martin C. Langeveld, incorporating research by Harold L. Hutchins for a paper given to the Club in 1993.



The following became members of the Club from 1870 through 1876:



1870



James Madison Barker — (see image) 1839-1905; graduated from Williams College in 1856 and from Harvard Law School in 1863; lawyer, became a partner of fellow Club member Thomas B. Pingree in 1865; member of the Massachusetts House of Representatives 1872-1873; Superior Court judge 1882-1891; justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Court 1891-1905; served as director and later vice-president of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, director of the Pittsfield National Bank, and director of the Pontoosuc Woolen Company, president of the Berkshire Athenaeum 1903-1905, trustee of Williams College 1882-1905; author of "Shire Town Stories" and other unpublished historical and biographical narratives; member of the Massachusets Historical Society. (Additional information here.)



Thaddeus Clapp Jr. — 1821-1890; born in Pittsfield; discontinued his schooling in order to begin work at the Pontoosuc Woolen Mill where his father, Thaddeus Clapp, was manager; became president of the company in 1882 succeeding Ensign H. Kellogg, fellow member of the Club; married in 1845 Lucy Goodrich; died in Pittsfield 1890.



Edward Boltwood — 1839-1878; graduate of Yale College, 1860; born Amherst, Mass.; studied law at Harvard and admitted to the bar in Boston; practiced in Detroit beginning 1863; married in 1865 to Sarah E. Plunkett, daughter of Thomas F. Plunkett; returned to Berkshire County in 1871 to become treasurer of Berkshire Life Insurance Company; became president of the company in 1876 (succeeding fellow Club member Thomas F. Plunkett upon his death); died of tuberculosis (consumption) in Cairo, Egypt in 1878 at the age of 39 after various travels to mitigate the disease; father of Edward Boltwood Jr., who wrote the "History of Pittsfield 1876-1916."



1871



Robert W. Adam — 1825-1911; born in Canaan, Conn.; graduated from Williams College in 1845; admitted to the bar in Pittsfield, 1849; practiced law in Pittsfield until 1865; elected treasurer of Berkshire County Savings Bank in 1865, an office he held until his death in Pittsfield in 1911; served as director of the Pittsfield Coal Gas Company at its organization in 1853; was elected to the city council for the first two years of city government beginning in 1891, serving as president of the council the second year; married in 1852 Sarah P. Brewster; their one son, William L. Adam, a member of the Club, succeeded him as treasurer of the Berkshire County Savings Bank.





Daniel Day — born 1815; married 1840 Jane Eliza Smedley of Williamstown; graduated from Williams College in 1848; principal of the Academy at Lanesborough.



Morris Schaff — 1838-1929; graduate of West Point Military Academy in 1862; Brevet Captain of Ordnance in the Civil War; fought in the Battle of the Wilderness; author of "The Battle of the Wilderness," 1910; employed by the Page Harding glass company of Lanesborough.



1872



Henry Walbridge Taft — 1818-1904; born in Sunderland, Mass.; editor of the Berkshire County Eagle 1838-1839 and part of 1849; admitted to the bar in 1841; became clerk of the courts for Berkshire County in 1856 and held this office until 1897; served as president of the Stockbridge and Pittsfield Railroad Company, president of the Third National Bank of Pittsfield, vice-president of the Berkshire Life Insurance Company, and director of the Housatonic National Bank; member of the American Antiquarian Society and the Massachusetts Historical Society; deacon of the First Church of Christ.



1873



Joseph Tucker — 1832-1907; born in Lenox, Mass.; graduated from Williams College in 1851; studied law at Harvard and with Judge Julius Rockwell; established a practice of law in Great Barrington, Mass. in 1859; served in the Civil War as a private in the 49th Massachusetts Volunteers, 1862-1863; state representative in 1865; state senator 1866 and 1867; U.S. register in bankruptcy 1867-1869; lieutenant governor of Massachusetts 1869-1873; judge of the Central District Court of Berkshire County beginning 1873; chairman of Pittsfield's school committee 1893-1904; served as president of the Pittsfield Street Railway Company and president of Berkshire County Savings Bank succeeding Judge Rockwell; moderator of the last town meeting of Pittsfield prior to incorporation as a city; presided at the inauguration of Charles E. Hibbard as Pittsfield's first mayor in 1892; died in Pittsfield, resided at 105 E. Housatonic St.



Rev. Edward Otis Bartlett — 1835-1909; born in Utica, N. Y.; graduated from Union College, Albany in 1859, president of his class; served in the Civil War as chaplain of the 150th New York Volunteer Infantry 1863-1865; pastor of the Congregational Church of South Deerfield, Mass., 1867-1868; pastor of the Richmond Street (or Free Evangelical) Congregational Church in Providence, R. I., 1868-1873; installed as pastor of First Church of Christ in 1873 succeeding Dr. John Todd (at a salary of $3,000 plus hous rent). A church history notes that his departure was "for reasons undisclosed — although doubtless because in either his mind or that or the parish, he did not measure up. His name was never removed from the membership list, so this could have been his last pastorate." However, he subsequently served as pastor of Centre Congregational Church, Lynnfield, Mass. from 1877 to 1879 and as pastor of the Academy Congregational Church in Providence from 1887 to 1894. He received an honorary Doctor of Divinity from Union College in 1889.



Charles Bailey Redfield — 1818-1876 -born Cromwell, Conn.; married Mary Ann Wallace in 1847; treasurer of the Treadwell Stove Manufacturing Co.; his  son William C. Redfield was U.S. secretary of commerce 1913-1919.



Rev. Charles H. Spalding — 1837-1921(?); pastor of the Baptist Church in Pittsfield, resigned 1875.



Rev. Thomas Crowther — pastor of South Congregational Church 1872-1875; later pastor of First (or Memorial) Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.; died in Brooklyn 1877 (of diphtheria); buried in Greenwood Cemetery, Brooklyn.



Frank E. Kernochan — graduated from Yale College about 1864; admitted to the bar in New York State; treasurer of the Pittsfield Woolen Company and of its successor, the Bel Air Manufacturing Company; died in Pittsfield (shot himself accidentally while looking for burglars in September, 1884).



1874



John A. Kernochan — Pittsfield financier and mill owner; purchased Oliver Wendell Holmes's summer residence at Canoe Meadows and altered it for a permanent residence; died about 1887.



Benjamin Colman Blodgett — 1838-1925; musician and composer; organist at the Eliot Church in Newton, Mass.; Essex Street Church and Park Street Church, Boston; taught at the Maplewood Institute in Pittsfield in 1865-1878; then opened his own school of music which he moved to Northampton in 1881; began teaching at Smith College; later was organist at Memorial Church at Stanford University, Calif.; retired to Seattle. Works: The Prodigal Son, a scriptural cantata; A Representation of the Book of Job.



1875



Walter Cutting — 1841-1907; born in Westchester County, N. Y.; graduated from Columbia College, Class of 1862; mustered into the 13th New York Volunteers as ensign in 1862; advanced through the ranks and ultimately attained the rank of major; moved to Massachusetts in 1868 and became senior aide-de-camp to Governor William F. Russell; launched a paper manufacturing firm with fellow Club member William F. Bartlett in Dalton in 1868 named Bartlett & Cutting, which was dissolved in 1875 after a fire destroyed the mill (the ruins were purchased by Byron Weston, who joined the Club in 1883, who established his own paper company on the site); at his farm (Meadow Farm on Holmes Road, now Miss Hall's School) became a breeder of "fast steppers" and Guernsey cattle; was a candidate for lieutenant governor; married M. C. Pomeroy in 1869. (Died in Pittsfield, July 23, 1907. His son, Walter L. Cutting, committed suicide several months later in September.)



Rev. William McGlathery — rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church beginning in 1875; previously served a rector of Christ Church, Towanda, Penn., from 1870 to 1873 and the Church of the Ascension in Fall River, Mass. from 1873 to 1875; served as rector of Grace Episcopal Church, Middletown, N. Y. from 1886 to 1980.



1876



Rev. William Carruthers — graduate of Bowdoin College; pastor of South Congregational Church beginning in 1876, succeeding Club member Thomas Crowther who moved on to First Presbyterian Church, Brooklyn, N. Y.; previously pastor of North Avenue (or Third) Congregational Church, Cambridge, Mass. from 1857 to 1866; at Calais, Maine in 1870; later pastor at Fair Haven, Mass. and Richmond Hill, Long Island, N. Y.



James Wells Hull — (1842-1911); born in New Lebanon, N.Y., where he worked for some years as a farmer; worked at Pittsfield National Bank 1865-1872; joined Berkshire Life Insurance Company as secretary in 1872; elected treasurer as well in 1878 and served in these capacities until 1903 when he became president of the company (succeeding Club member William R. Plunkett who died in that year), serving until 1911 when he stepped down to the vice-presidency due to ill health; member of the Massachusetts State Board of Health; active in the Young Men's Association; died in Pittsfield.