1808-1881 Dr. Charles Osgood
Charles Osgood was born in Lebanon, CT., in February 1808. Following his graduation from Plainfield Academy, he continued to pursue an interest in medicine, which was undoubtedly influenced by his father, Dr. Erastus Osgood, a successful physician who practiced for nearly half a century. Charles graduated with a medical degree from Yale and began practicing in Providence, RI. However, he soon relocated to Monroe, Michigan, where he joined an extensive and thriving medical practice. In 1840, Charles returned to Norwich and, in the following year, established his drug business, which subsequently made his name familiar in the business circles of the East.
He set up his first laboratory and drug store on Shetucket Street in the same building later used by the Henry Bill Publishing Company A later, much larger building was located at 45-47 Commerce Street, which sold drugs, patent medicines, white lead, painters’ supplies, kerosene oil, chimneys and burners, Masury’s railroad colors, and Osgood’s steamboat oil (a water-white illuminating oil with a 150-degree test). His business grew and prospered, and soon Charles Osgood was ranked among Connecticut’s most notable millionaires.
In addition to the pharmaceutical business, Osgood was connected with many prominent manufacturing and corporate institutions, including: the Boston Rubber Shoe Co. in Malden, MA; the Brown Cotton-Gin Co. at New London; the Norwich City Gas Co. He was founder of the Shetucket Bank, and president until 1853, and Vice President of the Norwich Savings Society. He was director of the New London Fire Insurance Co. and in the Norwich Water Power Co. He was president of the New London Junction Railroad.
With a mind toward civil responsibility, Charles Osgood was a founder and incorporator of Norwich Free Academy. He served as mayor of Norwich, but had to resign halfway through his term due to failing health.
He died in March 1881, leaving a wife and two sons: Charles H. and F. L. Osgood, and a daughter (wife of A.C.Tyler of New London).
1808-1900 Moses Pierce
Moses Pierce was born in Pawtucket, RI (then known as North Providence) in July 1808, the eldest son of eight children of Benjamin B. and Susan (Walker) Pierce, a tanner and later a cotton manufacturer. Moses received his literary training in local schools. At the age of twelve, he began working as a chore boy in a factory store, earning seventy-five cents a week. At fourteen, he became the bookkeeper, and until he was twenty, he held this role and a variety of other jobs, which provided him with a thorough understanding of the cotton manufacturing business.
In 1828, he relocated to Willimantic, where he served as superintendent of one of the newly established mills. Pierce later joined with several investors to build and superintend mills in Massachusetts and Rhode Island. In 1839, Pierce was invited to visit Norwich, CT, to assess opportunities in the rapidly developing bleaching business. In September 1840, the Norwich Bleaching, Dyeing & Printing Co. capitalized at $200,000, began operations with Moses Pierce at the head, where he remained for the next forty-eight years.
The company grew to become one of the largest establishments of its kind in the United States, with an annual output of 60 million yards of finished cloth. In 1863, Moses united with approximately twenty investors to form the Occum Company, whose goal was to acquire land and water rights, thereby enabling them to control the Shetucket River from the tail race of the Baltic mill to the upper end of the Greeneville Pond. Three years later, Taftville began its career. The company was capitalized at $1.5 million, an unheard-of sum at the time. Pierce became director of the company and held that position until 1887, when he sold his controlling stock.
Other business ventures included the Ashland Cotton Co. in Jewett City, where he served as president for thirty-five years, and the Aspinhook Co., also located in Jewett City. Moses built the dam located nearby across the Quinebaug River and later opened a bleaching & calendaring company below the dam. The business prominently associated with Moses Pierce employed approximately 2,000 people, with an annual payroll of at least $1 million. The Norwich Board of Trade listed his yearly income at $11,126 in 1865.
In politics, Pierce was a strong supporter of the temperance movement and an Abolitionist. In 1854, he represented his district in the state legislature. He was a member of Norwichtown’s First Congregational Church for many years, later transferring to Park Congregational Church in his later life. Pierce demonstrated his support for his community through many charitable gifts. In 1878, he donated a large house on the Norwichtown Green to the United Workers, known as the Rock Nook Children’s Home.
In 1858, Mr. Pierce was elected director of the Norwich & Worcester Railroad. He served as President of the Norwich & New York Steamboat Company for eleven years and was a board member of the Second National Bank and the Chelsea Savings Bank. He was the VP for an investor group that met at the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. He was a member of the Metropolitan Museum in New York and a fellow at the American Geographical Society, also in New York. In his many travels, for business or pleasure, Moses Pierce crossed the Atlantic eight times.
1809-1874 Charles Coffey Alger
Charles Alger was born in Monroe, New York, and married Sarah Palmer in Manhattan, New York, in 1831. Charles Alger became wealthy in the pig iron business first at Stockbridge, Massachusetts, and later at Hudson, New York. He held at least two patents for blast furnaces. Around 1850, Charles went to Hudson, New York, and started the Hudson Iron Company. He had about $25,000 of the $75,000 start-up capital needed for the business. He soon acquired partners to make up the rest of the team.
Charles personally designed the iron works, which began operation in 1851. The iron works returned about 40% per year and was considered the third most profitable iron works in the country at that time. Charles Alger was the general manager at the Hudson Iron Company until 1864, when he retired. In the 1850 census, Charles Alger had a net worth of approximately $25,000. Ten years later, in 1860, his worth was listed at $250,000.
Charles had a skilled manager who took over the day-to-day operations of the works, which allowed Charles to come and go as he pleased. In 1861, his first marriage failed, and after 37 years, Charles and Sarah divorced in New Haven, CT. In the late 1860s, C.C. Alger formed a partnership to establish an ironworks in Cold Spring, New York.
When the operation was up and running, his partners made him president of the Cold Spring Iron Company. In 1869, we find C. C. Alger is traveling in Paris and is married to Marie Louise Molt. They had a daughter, Lucile Alger, born October 10, 1870, at Norwich, CT. Charles died in New London in 1874, and his wife and daughter inherited all of his considerable wealth, including his valuable art collection and the jewelry C.C. Alger had purchased for his second wife.
Following her mother’s death, Lucile eventually settled in Great Neck, Long Island, where she hired an architect to build an estate house on a large parcel of land. In 1910, the estate was known as the estate of Miss Alger and Miss Grace. Miss Grace, being Louise Nathalie Grace, daughter of William Russell Grace, famous financier, and two-time mayor of New York City. Lucile died on Christmas Eve in 1936 and left her wealth to Miss Grace. Miss Grace died in 1954.
1809-1888 Capt. John Adams Robinson
Capt. John A. Robinson owned a steamship line that sailed from Norwich. The company built the ships “Water Lily” and “Tiger Lily,” on which he served as captain.
1810-1849 David Ruggles
David Ruggles was born on the family homestead on Bean Hill area of Norwich, CT in 1810. He was the oldest of seven children of Nancy and David Ruggles, Sr., a local blacksmith. The family attended a nearby Methodist church. David received his education through a local charity school. At seventeen, David moved to New York City, where in 1828, he started his grocery business, which later evolved into a bookstore, thus becoming the owner of the first African American bookstore in New York City.
Showing great courage in the face of violent opposition, David soon became an active participant in the country’s antislavery movement, publishing numerous pamphlets and books, and writing articles for antislavery magazines and newspapers that promoted abolitionist values. As co-founder, Ruggles served as secretary for the New York Vigilance Society.
David Ruggles actively sought out runaways in barns, the houses of Southern plantation owners, and the holds of cargo ships in New York Harbor, helping them escape and leading them to safe houses. He often defended free blacks who were being abducted into slavery through an unfair trial. It has been estimated that David helped over 600 enslaved people, including Frederick Douglass, to freedom through the Underground Railroad.
Proslavery supporters, angered by David’s activities, often turned to violence, and he suffered beatings and threats of kidnapping. An angry mob burned his bookstore. With his health failing, David left New York and headed for Northampton, Massachusetts, where he underwent hydrotherapy (the water cure). This method achieved some healing for David, who went on to study hydrotherapy and opened a small practice while continuing to be active in the abolitionist movement.
David died in 1849 in Florence, Massachusetts, at the young age of thirty-eight. His remains were returned to Norwich for burial in the Ruggles family plot at Yantic Cemetery.