The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/Adams, Charles Francis (2d)

ADAMS, Charles Francis (2d), American publicist, son of above: b. Boston, 27 May 1835; d. Washington, D. C., 20 March 1915. He was graduated at Harvard in 1856, and served as a cavalry officer through the Civil War, rising from first lieutenant to colonel, and being brevetted brigadier-general at its close. Shortly becoming noted for ability in discussion of economic, political and social questions, he was appointed railroad commissioner of Massachusetts in 1869; wrote ‘Chapters of Erie’ (1871) in collaboration with his brother Henry, a series of papers on railroad accidents and on ‘The State and the Railroads’ (1875-76) for the Atlantic Monthly; ‘Railroads, the Origin and Problems’ (1878); ‘Notes on Railway Accidents’ (1879), etc.; and 1884-90 was president of the Union Pacific Railroad Company. In 1892 he published ‘Three Episodes of Massachusetts History,’ on the settlement of Boston Bay, the Antonomian controversy and early town and church government, and in 1893 ‘Massachusetts; Its Historians and Its History.’ In 1895 he was chosen president of the Massachusetts Historical Society, and in 1901 president of the American Historical Association. He has also written lives of Richard Henry Dana (1891) and of his father (1900, American Statesmen Series), ‘Lee at Appomattox,’ etc. (1902), and much miscellaneous work. As chairman of the State Park Commission, 1893-95, he contributed materially toward planning out and establishing the great Metropolitan Park System of Massachusetts.