Wooster Ferdinand Dodge (1841-1914)

                                                      Portrait from "The Leominster Book: Illustrated", 1901.

   A two-term member of the Massachusetts General Court during the early 20th century, Wooster Ferdinand Dodge was a lifelong resident of Leominster, Massachusetts. A descendant of an old established Massachusetts family, Wooster F. Dodge was born on March 28, 1841, a son of Stephen (1808-1855) and Elvira Foster Dodge (1811-1900). A student in the common schools of Leominster, Dodge was an enlistee in the First Massachusetts Infantry Band in May 1861 and served until his discharge in August 1862.  Dodge would later reenlist as a member of Co. H. of the 4th Massachusetts Heavy Artillery and served with this regiment until the close of the hostilities. He married first in 1867 to Emma Renew Brown (1847-1874), who died several years after their marriage. Two children would be born to their union, Flora Elvira (1868-1946) and Fred Lyman (1870-1872). A decade later Dodge would wed Sibelle Eunice Carter (1846-1931), who would survive her husband upon his death in 1914.

   Upon his return home to Leominster Wooster Dodge became employed by the Jewett Allen Piano Case Company. He would continue in this line of work in Andover, Massachusetts, and would return to Leominster sometime later to go into business for himself, being the proprietor of a steam laundry in the early 1870s. Sometime later Dodge would sell this business and join as a partner in his family's paper box manufacturing business (the E.F. Dodge and Co.) in 1874. He is recorded as having "enlarged the capacity of the box factory and has succeeded admirably in business" and continued to be connected with the company through the remainder of his life.

  An active Mason in Leominster, Wooster Dodge was also affiliated with a number of other fraternal groups in the city, including the local chapter of the G.A.R., the Odd Fellows lodge, the Wachusett Tribe of Red Men and the Columbia Lodge of the Knights of Pythias. Dodge entered city politics in the 189os when he was elected as a member of the Board of Selectman for Leominster, serving in that capacity from 1895-1900. He would serve the board as a clerk for three years and in his last year in office held the board chairmanship. 

                                             Portrait from the 1902 Souvenir of Massachusetts Legislators.

    In November 1901 the citizens of Leominster elected Wooster F. Dodge to be their representative in the Massachusetts General Court. A Republican, Dodge defeated Democratic nominee F. I. Pierson by a vote of 884 to 565 took his seat at the beginning of the 1902 session. He would serve on the house committees on Railroads during this term and was reelected to the house the following year, holding a seat on the committees on Liquor Laws and Railroads. 
  Dodge's second term concluded in 1903 and he died in Leominster on December 23, 1914, at age 73. He was survived by both his daughter Flora and his second wife. Both Dodge and his family were interred at the Evergreen Cemetery in Leominster.

From the 1903 Souvenir of Massachusetts Legislators.

Telesphore LeBoeuf (1881-1946)

 From "The Souvenir of the Massachusetts Constitutional Convention".

  Hailing from the city of Webster in Massachusetts, Telesphore LeBoeuf's political claim to fame rests on his service as a delegate to the Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention of 1917-19. A lifelong resident of Massachusetts, LeBoeuf was born in Webster on August 18, 1881 (or 1880, according to some sources), a son of Melchoir (1854-1942) and Noemi Cabana LeBoeuf (1854-1946), who were both natives of Canada. He attended schools local to the Webster area and as a young adult enrolled at the Boston University Law School, where he earned his bachelor of laws degree in 1907.

   Establishing a law practice in Worcester County, LeBoeuf later married Demerise Dufour (1879-1921) and had the following children: Norman T. (1910-1984), Joseph (died in infancy in 1911), Lucille (born 1912) and Jeannette (born 1914). Laboeuf would continue to practice law in Webster for many decades and in 1917 was elected to represent Webster at the Massachusetts State Constitutional Convention, being held at Boston. During his time at the convention, Leboeuf took an active part in debate proceedings and served on the committee on Military Affairs.

   Following his service as a delegate, LeBoeuf continued to serve his community of Webster in a number of different areas, holding the offices of town counsel, water commissioner and Secretary of the Webster-Dudley, Massachusetts chapter of the Red Cross. He maintained memberships in the Worcester County Bar Association and the Massachusetts Republican Club and served as the Vice President of the South Worcester County Bar Association for a time. As a man of French Canadian descent, LeBoeuf was active in groups devoted to French-American heritage, including serving as the vice president of the Franco-American Club and the Franco-American Foresters.

   In 1923 Telesphore LeBoeuf became a special assistant U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts, serving under Emerson W. Baker, who had recently been elected as U.S. District Attorney for Massachusetts. After many years of plying his trade in the field of law, Leboeuf made the jump into national politics, announcing his candidacy for the U.S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts' 3rd district in mid-1938. In a Fitchburg Sentinel article on his candidacy, Leboeuf noted that he would dedicate himself "to legislation that will contribute to the greater welfare of our workers, to the acceleration of our industries, and to the progress of our farmers."

   Running against two other Republicans in that year's primary, Leboeuf and fellow candidate William P. Constantino were defeated by one J. Walton Tuttle, who went on to become the Republican congressional nominee that November. Tuttle was later defeated for Congress by incumbent Democrat Joseph E. Casey (1898-1980), who served in the U.S. House until 1942

From the Acton Concord Enterprise, September 7, 1938.

  Eight years following his defeat for a seat in Congress, Telesphore Lebeouf died at age 65 on April 18, 1946, while attending a meeting of the directors of the Webster National Bank. Notice is given as to his being nominated for bank president at the meeting, but due to his death never was able to serve in that post. Following his death, he was interred at the Sacred Heart Cemetery in Webster.

Wickliffe Hayes Waterhouse (1857-1930), Wickliffe Campbell Lingle (1847-1927), Wickliffe Bond Dashiell (1835-1910), Wickliffe Buren Stratton (1869-1936)

   Endowed with a rather ostentatious sounding name, Westminster, Massachusetts resident Wickliffe Hayes Waterhouse represented the county of Worcester in the Massachusetts General Court from 1910-1911. He was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts on April 3, 1857, a son of Joseph and Lydia Perkins Waterhouse. W.H. Waterhouse married on April 30, 1880, to Nellie Cook (1854-1916), and the couple would later have three children, Marcus (1880-1936), Clara M. (1883-), and Bertha (1888-). Waterhouse spent a good majority of his life farming and is listed by sources of the time as being a successful breeder of American Devon cattle and Shropshire sheep. In addition to farming, Waterhouse also participated in Westminster's 150th-anniversary celebration on August 25, 1909, marching in the celebratory parade as an aide to Chief Marshal (and then-incumbent state representative) Frank W. Fenno. 

   Active in Westminster public life, Waterhouse was elected as a selectman for that city in 1909 and had earlier served as a member of the board of assessors. In 1909 he was elected as a Republican to the Massachusetts State House of Representatives and served during the 1910-1911 session, holding a seat on the committee on agriculture during his brief tenure. 

   Following his legislative service, Waterhouse remained a leading light in Westminster, holding memberships in the local Odd Fellows lodge as well as the Grange. Little else could be found on his life, except mention of his death on August 12, 1930, at age 73. The portrait of him shown above was found in the 1910 edition of  A Souvenir of Massachusetts Legislators, which features portraits and brief biographies of all senators and legislators who served in the General Court during that year's session. Also found here was Savillion W. Longley, a one-term representative from Middlesex County profiled here back in January 2012.

Portrait courtesy of www.legis.state.pa.us.

   One-term Pennsylvania state assemblyman Wickliffe Campbell Lingle was a native of Centre County, being born there on December 19, 1847, the son of Joseph and Elizabeth (Harvey) Lingle. A student in the public schools of that county, Lingle would for the majority of his life being engaged in his state's mining industry, being at various times a mine boss, superintendent, and operator. 

  In the late 1890s, Lingle served as superintendent of the Lingle and Magee Mine Co. in Cambria County and in 1898 was elected as one of two Cambria County representatives to the Pennsylvania General Assembly, polling 6,379 votes on election day. During the 1899-1901 session, he was a member of the committees on Accounts, the Bureau of Statistics, Federal Relations, Mines and Mining, and was defeated for reelection in November 1900.

  Little else is known of Lingle's life following his service, except mention of his death in Philipsburg, Pennsylvania on September 7, 1927, aged 79. He was survived by his wife Permelia Howe Lingle (1851-1939) and daughter Virginia (1880-1958) and was interred at the Union Cemetery in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania.

Portrait from the Texas Legislative Reference Library webpage.

    Another "Wickliffe" who made his name known politically was Wickliffe Bond Dashiell of Kaufman County, Texas. A one-term representative to the Texas State Assembly from that county, Wickliffe B. Dashiell was born on January 9, 1835, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the son of Alfred and Ann Dashiell. His family moved to Shelbyville, Tennessee during his childhood and he returned to Pennsylvania during his adolescence to study at the University of Pennsylvania. He earned a medical degree from that institution in 1856 and in the following year married in Shelbyville to Catherine Greer, a daughter of John Alexander Greer (1802-1855), a former Lieutenant Governor of Texas.

   In the same year as his marriage, Dashiell and his wife removed to Kaufman County, Texas. Here he would farm and practice medicine and at the dawn of the Civil War aligned with the Confederacy, serving as a surgeon with the Nineteenth Texas Cavalry Regiment. He resigned from that post in 1864 out of health concerns and two years later was elected to represent Kaufman County in the Texas State House of Representatives. His one term (extending from 1866 to 1870) saw him chair the house committee on education and after leaving office returned to his farming and business interests.

   Wickliffe B. Dashiell relocated to Terrell, Texas in 1881 to accept the post of representative for the Houston and Texas Central Railway Company. He remarried here in 1883 (his first wife having died in 1867) and later had two children, including Amos Jones Dashiell, who died in infancy in 1882. Dashiell died in Terrell on August 14, 1910, at age 75 and was later interred at the Oakland Memorial Park in that city.

Portrait courtesy of www.atg.wa.gov.

   Wickliffe Buren Stratton was a Wisconsin native who made his mark, politically speaking, in Washington, where he would be elected as prosecuting attorney of Pacific County and in 1900 won election as state Attorney General. Born in Polk County, Wisconsin on July 31, 1869, Wickliffe Buren Stratton was the son of John Buren and Anna (Anderson) Stratton. His early education occurred at the Shell Lake High School, and following graduation was employed as a telegraph operator, law office clerk, and, later, a department clerk in the offices of the Washburn County circuit court.

  In 1887 Stratton enrolled at the University of Wisconsin and turned his attention to the study of law. He graduated from that university's law school in 1890 and shortly thereafter relocated to South Bend, Washington to begin his practice. He married in April 1894 to Georgina Irving Rodd (1872-1940) and had at least one son, Irving Rodd Stratton (1899-1970).

   Following his settlement in South Bend Stratton would win election as city attorney on four occasions and in the late 1890s was elected as prosecuting attorney for Pacific County, serving a two-year term. In 1900 he won the Republication nomination for state attorney general and in November of that year went on to defeat Democratic nominee Thomas Vance by a vote of 54, 841 to 45, 307.  

  Stratton's four-year term saw him especially devoted to "preserving and promoting the power of the state to collect taxes" and saw to it that even the mighty Northern Pacific Railroad paid its fair share of property taxes. Stratton wasn't a candidate for reelection in November 1904 and following his term formed a law partnership in Seattle with Henry McBride, who had served as Washington's governor at the same time Stratton was attorney general. Wickliffe B. Stratton died in Seattle on December 13, 1936, at age 66. He was survived by his wife and son and later was interred at the Acacia Memorial Park in that city.