History of Chicopee Falls, (Hampden County) Massachusetts United States of America

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Biographies:

Edward Bellamy, reformer, was born at Chicopee Falls, Mass., March 26, 1850; son of the Rev. Rufus K. and Maria L. (Putnam) Bellamy. He studied at Union college, N.Y., and in Germany, and was admitted to the bar in Springfield, Mass. Preferring journalism he attached himself to the Springfield Union as an editorial writer and later filled a like place on the New York Evening Post. Returning to Springfield he established the Nears with his brother Charles. He visited the Sandwich Islands, in 1877. In 1878 he published "Six to One ; A Nantucket Idyll," and in 1888 "Looking Backward; 2000-1887." This book was enthusiastically received, four hundred thousand copies being sold in the United States alone, during the first three years of its publication. The work was translated into the German, French, Danish, Swedish, Dutch, Russian, Polish, Hungarian, Italian and other tongues, and the sales in Great Britain and Germany were nearly as large as in the United States. Mr. Bellamy became very prominent in a political movement favoring the nationalization of commerce and of all industries for the equal benefit of the people. The movement also favored an enlargement of the functions of the municipalities, to include compulsory education, the lighting and heating of houses, and the control of all systems of public transit. He also favored a plan whereby the manufacture and sale of intoxicants should be made a public monopoly, conducted without profit by agents having fixed salaries independent of sales. In 1891 he established and edited The New Nation, and The Nationalist. His books include: "Dr. Heidenhoff's Process" (1880); "Miss Ludington's Sister: A Romance of Immortality" (1884);" How to Employ the Unemployed in Mutual Maintenance" (1893); "The Progress of the Nationalist" (1894); and "Equality" (1897). He died in Chicopee Falls, Mass., May 22, 1898.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor

William Foster Peirce, educator, was born at Chicopee Falls, Mass., Feb. 3, 1868; son of Levi Merriam and Mary Hobbs (Foster) Peirce; grandson of Levi and Polly (Merriam) Peirce of West Boylston, Mass., and of William and Calista (Ward) Foster of Norway, Maine, and a descendant of John Peirce, Watertown, Mass., 1637. He was graduated at Amherst college, A.B., 1888, A.M., 1892, and was a graduate student at Cornell university in philosophy and economics, 1889-90. He was a teacher in a boys' boarding school at Mount Hermon, Mass., 1890-92, and substitute professor of psychology and pedagogy in Ohio university at Athens in the spring of 1892. He was elected Spencer and Wolfe professor of moral and mental philosophy at Kenyon college, Gambier, Ohio, in September, 1892, acting also as professor of history, 1892-96. In 1896 he was elected president of Kenyon college to succeed D. Theodore Sterling. In the same year Hobart college conferred upon him the honorary degree of L.H.D. In 1894 he was ordained to the diaconate in the Episcopal church, and was advanced to the priesthood in 1901. He was secretary and treasurer of the Ohio Society for Psychological and Pedagogical Inquiry and a member of the Knox County and Ohio State Teachers' associations, and of the Ohio College association. He was married, June 18, 1891, to Louise Stephens, daughter of Ansel Fagan of Hackettstown, N.J., a graduate of Vassar college, 1888.

From: Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Johnson, Rossiter, editor