Walter Abbott Wood, Jr.

Walter Abbott Wood, Jr.

Find A Grave Memorial ID # 71702884

Walter Abbott Wood, PhB. 1892
Born June 2, 1871 at Hoosick Falls, New York.
Died October 8, 1915 at Hoosick Falls, New York.

Walter Abbott Wood was born June 2, 1871 at Hoosick Falls, New York, the son of Walter Abbott and Elizabeth (Nichols) Wood. His father's parents were Aaron and Rebecca (Wright) Wood, and his mother was the daughter of George Huntington and Julia (Phelps) Nichols. He entered the Sheffield Scientific School from St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and took the course in mechanical engineering.

After graduation, he became connected with the Wood Mower & Reaper Company, of which his father was the founder and in which he was made a director. He was one of the founders of the Noble & Wood Machine Company at Hoosick Falls, and since 1896 he had also been a director of the First National Bank In late years, he had been much interested in farming, and operated on his farm a modern dairy that attracted much attention, while his herd of blooded cattle was one of the largest in the state.

Mr. Wood had always taken an active part in local and state affairs. In 1893, He was made a second lieutenant in the Thirty-second Separate Company of the State Militia, and served for several months in the Spanish-American War, and he afterwards became an officer in the National Guard of New York. He was a vestryman of St. Mark's Protestant Episcopal Church of Hoosick Falls. He served as a village trustee in 1893-94 and again m 1900-01, and in 1902 was elected supervisor of the town of Hoosick, and served two terms, being made chairman of the board in 1905.

He received election to the State Senate from the Rensselaer County district in November, 1914, on the Republican ticket. His period of service was terminated by illness, just before the adjournment of the Legislature that winter, and from that time his health gradually failed, his death occurring at his home at Hoosick Falls on October 8, 1915. He was buried in the family plot in Maple Grove Cemetery, Hoosick Falls.

He was married in Radnor, Pennsylvania, October 6, 1906, to Dorothy Leib, daughter of Charles Custis Harrison, a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania in 1862 and until 1912 provost of the University, who was honored with the degree of LLD by Yale University in 1901, having previously received it at Columbia and Princeton, and Ellen Nixon (Wain) Harrison. She survives him with two sons, Walter Abbott, 3d, and Harrison.

Yale University Obituary Record, 1889-1893, Pages 178-179
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Walter Abbott (2), only son of Walter Abbott (1) and Lizzie Warren (Nicholls) Wood, was born at Hoosick Falls, New York, January 2, 1871. He prepared for college at St. Paul's School, Concord, New Hampshire, and entered Yale University where he was graduated Ph.B., 1892. He traveled in Europe for a year before entering Yale, and after graduation entered his father's business at Hoosick Falls, where he continued four years. For several years thereafter, until 1907, he was not engaged in business. This interval was spent in travel at home and abroad, and in various phases of public political life. He is a director of the Walter A. Wood Company; vice-president of the First National Bank of Hoosick Falls, director of Noble & Wood Machine Company, of which he was one of the founders, and has other and varied business interests. He enlisted in the New York National Guard, was promoted December, 1893, second lieutenant of the Thirty-second Separate Company. and served until 1898. He enlisted for the Spanish-American war as first lieutenant of Company M, Second Regiment, New York Volunteers, and served during the war, was mustered out 1899; was elected captain of the same company, serving until February, 1908, when he resigned. He is an active Republican; served as trustee of the Village Corporation of Hoosick Falls three terms; was supervisor 1904-08, and chairman of the county board, 1907-08. He is a frequent delegate to county and state conventions of his party, and prominent in party councils. He is a member of the Episcopal church and vestrvman of St. Mark's. He has attained the thirty-second degree in Scottish Rite Masonry, and is now (1910) serving his second term as master of Van Rensselaer Lodge, Free and Accepted Masons, of Hoosick Falls. He is a member of the Berzelius Society of Yale, and of the Hoosick Club, the Troy Club of Troy, the Graduate of New Haven, and.the University of New York City. He is interested in all that pertains to the welfare of his town; is public-spirited, charitable and a good citizen.

He married, October 6, 1906, Dorothy Leib Harrison, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, daughter of Charles Custis, and Ellen Nixon (Waln) Harrison. Charles Custis Harrison, LL.D., was born in Philadelphia, May 3, 1844, son of George Leib Harrison, LL.D., and Sarah Ann (Waples) Harrison. George Leib Harrison was an honorary graduate of Harvard, where he received his A.M., 1878; was the founder of the Franklin Sugar Refinery; President of Pennsylvania State Board of Charities, trustee of the Protestant Episcopal Divinity School, Philadelphia, and author of works on sociology and philanthropy. Charles Custis Harrison was graduated at University of Pennsylvania, Greek salutatorian, A.B., 1862; A.M., 1865. He was senior partner of Harrison Frazer & Company until the dissolution of that firm. He was elected a trustee of the University of Pennsylvania, 1876; chairman of the committee on ways and means, 1885; acting provost, 1894; provost of the University, 1895, to present time. He was manager of the Protestant Episcopal Hospital; member of American Academy of Political and Social Science; Pennsylvania Historical Society; American Philosophical Society; Numismatic and Antiquarian Society. He endowed the "George Leib Memorial Foundation," of the University of Pennsylvania by a gift of $500,000, and later, in connection with Mrs. Harrison, gave another $250,000 to the general purposes of the University. In 1895 Columbia University conferred LL.D., and Princeton the same, in 1896.

He married, in 1870, Ellen Nixon, daughter of Edward Waln, of Philadelphia, and great-granddaughter of Robert Morris.

Hudson-Mohawk Genealogical and Family Memoirs: Wood
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From his extensive obituary in the Troy Times of October 12, 1915:

Senator Wood married Miss Dorothy Leib Harrison, daughter of former Provost Charles Curtis Harrison of the University of Pennsylvania and Mrs. Harrison, of Philadelphia.

The ceremony was performed in Old St. David's Church, Radnor, at noon Saturday, October 6, 1906, by Bishop Doane of Albany and Bishop Whittaker of Pennsylvania. Mr. Wood's homecoming with his bride was the occasion of one of the biggest demonstrations ever witnessed in Hoosick Falls, nearly every citizen taking part in the celebration.

He is survived by his widow, Dorothy Harrison Wood; two sons, Walter Abbott Wood III, and Harrison Wood; a sister, Mrs. Hugh Pomeroy Blackinton: two uncles, George Huntington Nicholls, Jr., and William S. Nicholls, and an aunt, Mrs. Charles W. Barnum.