The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1888-05-12
SAMUEL DENNIS WARREN.
Death of Successful Manufacture
er and Philanthropic Citizen.


er and Philanthropic Citizen.
The death of Samuel Dennis Warren,
which occurred in Boston yesterday after
noon, is an event of melancholy interest to a
great number of people in this vicinity.
Though a native of Massachusetts, and Tor
mostlof his life resident of Boston, lhis busi-
ness interests in this State have been so large
and successful that Maine may we'll claim a
share of his memory. Cumberland Mills,
than which no village of its size in Maine is
more prosperous, more busy or more attrac-
tive, is a substantial and, it is to be hoped,
enduring monument to S. ID. Warren.
Mr.. Warren was seventy years of age. He
was born in the old Massachusetts hill town
of Grafton, then peopled by race of farm
ers of sturdy New England ancestry, and not
until recent years the seat of any manufac-
turing industry. Mr.. Warren's father was
farmer, and the boy was brought up on the
fare of farmers son and with the education
that could be obtained in the country school
At the age of seventeen he was equipped
with enough of the teachings of his Puritan
New England school, to begin the career
which he followed out so successfully.
With these equipments and none other he
went to Boston and obtained situation with
the firm of Grant, Daniels d Co., dealers in
paper and paper stock. He was poor and
without influential friends, but he was capa-
Bile, industrious and honest. He soon be-
came indispensable to the firm; and then he
was taken in as partner. When Mr. Dam
iels retired the firm became Grant, Warren q
Co., and in 1867, after the death of Mr..
Grant, the firm becming S. ID. Warren, alone
Later Mr.. Fairchild was associated with
him. the firm became S. d. Warren & Co., its
present style, though Mr.. Fairchild has been
succeeded by Mr. M. B. Mason, of Boston.
But it is not the firm of S. d. Warren &
Co., which does large business in paper
and paper stock, that has been engaged in
Maine, but S. ID. Warren personally. MI
Warren first began business in Maine in
S54, when he bought the small paper mill
running at what was then called Congin, an
abbreviation of the old Indian name Am
moncongin, which was given to the falls of
the Presumpstot at the place where now is
Cumberland Mills. In those days the mill
employed less than hundred hands, and
turned out book paper and newspaper stock
There was no village of Cumberland Mills
the few scattering dwellings hardly meriting
the name of village. Mr.. Warren applied to
the management of the mill the industry, the
enterprise and the cool Judgment that had
given him his position in the Boston firm,
and with notable results. In 1875 these
mills were much enlarged and Mr.. Warren
was employing about three hundred opera
tives; now eight hundred employees are on
II,
most extensive of their kind in the country
and probably larger than any other single
paper mill in the world. About them has
grown up beautiful village inhabited al
most exclusively by the employees of this
great manufactory-in its houses and its
people model village. The people are
largely native Americans, brought in from
the surrounding towns There are a few
foreigners, Danes, Scotch, Irish and Cana
dian French, but only few.
OF Mr.. Warren's character as a man and an
employer there could be no greater praise
than the silent testimony of the comfort that
reigns among the operatives at Cumberland
Mills. Mr. Warren has managed his mill as
every successful business is managed, with
an eye to its financial success. But in the
wages that he has paid it may be said that
he has endeayored to make them as high as
he could afford to rather than to crowd them
down to the lowest point at which the labor
ers could work. The one hundred tene-
ments which are such a prominent and at
tractive feature of the village of Cumberland
Mills were built and owned by Mr.. Warren
and let to his operatives at merely nominal
price. If Mr. Warren treated his employees
well. 1t may be said also that he was rarely
hnan fxAA in hos hn nh1 Il fcA -
ed agents. The men who are the overseers
and f0remeD OF the great mills today are gen.
orally men who have grown up in MIR. War
ren's employ. A worthy young man has not
tailed to ind advancement in the Cumber-
land paper mills.
The spirit of justice and benevolence that
has characterized Mr.. Warren's management
of his business was but development of the
Christian character of the man. Early in
life he became member of the Congrega-
tional church, and at the time of his death he
was member of the Mount Vernon street
church in Boston. In the support of religious
and charitable institutions he has been very
active and very generous. As member of
the American Board of Commissioners of
Foreign Missions he bore prominent part
in this work; and in the recent discussion of
the Andover theory was enc of those who in
clned to the liberal side. AT Cumberland
Mills his munifcence for religious and chart
table institutions will be long remembered.
In politics Mr.. Warren was for most of his
life a Republican; and he was regarded as
one of the solid men" of Boston. While
not active in politics, he was public spirited
citizen as well as a benevolent one
Personally Mr.. Warren was genial, cheer
full man, with an almost exhaustless fund of
humor and keen appreciation of wit He
was man that others were always glad to
meet and this was so, even in the last years
of his life, when broken health might have
been expected to have depressing effect on
his spirits. The other qualities which were
most noticeable in MI. Warren, and which
contributed to his success in life, were his
great industry, his keen insight into the
characters ana capacities of the men about
him, his foresight and his careful conserya-
tism. He was in no sense speculative man;
he thought well before he moved, and so no
move that he ever made was disastrous.
For the last two years Mr. Warren has
been in very precarious health. and for the
last month ne has been confined to his house.
His death was not at all unexpected.
Mr.. Warren leaves wife, Susan Clark,
daughter of the late DR.. Dorus Clark,
Congregational minister of considerable
note in Massachusetts, in the olden times,
and four sons and daughter. The oldest
| son, S. ID. Warren, Jr., is a lawyer in Boston
| and married, his wife being the daughter of
| Secretary of State Bayard. Edward is stu
dent in the University of Oxford. England;
| Fisk is in the paper business and Henry and
his sister Miss Cornelia, live at home, No.
81 Mount Vernon street, Boston. All four
of the SONS are graduates of Harvard.
Mr.. Warren leaves a large estate, how
large is not known. 1t is probably in the
millions. Besides the business in Boston
and the great Cumberland Mills, he owned a
paper mill at Gardiner, Me-, and paper mill
at Yarmouth.
AS REGARDED AT CUMBERLAND MILLS.
among the citizens Of the town of West
brook" said an inhabitant of that town,
ssocnao;aIIv of tha uilla no of herland Mile