File:William Coombs Codman c. 1913.jpg

Identifier: biographicalhist091913elio (find matches)
Title: Biographical history of Massachusetts : biographies and autobiographies of the leading men in the state
Year: 1913 (1910s)
Authors: Eliot, Samuel A. (Samuel Atkins), 1862-1950
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Publisher: Boston, Mass. : Massachusetts Biographical Society
Contributing Library: Boston Public Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Boston Public Library

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Massachusetts. Its meadows and groves answer to themoods of his mind, and a walk through his favorite haunts is ameans of diversion from the arduous duties of business life butnevertheless he insists that it shall be a producing farm or hewould have no right to hold it. As a boy, he voluntarily took upmanual labor, and learned the value of honest endeavor, persever-ance, and industry. Receiving his early training in the public schools of Boston, sup-plemented by a course in Mr. Nobles School, he entered PhilhpsExeter Academy, from which he graduated in 1879. Owing to hisfathers temporary financial reverses, and to his desire that hisyounger brothers, John Codman and Ernest Amory Codman, mightcontinue their studies, he was obliged to give up college just at thetime of his entering. He has said that his reading of Abbots Na-poleon, Kanes Arctic Exploration, Wallaces Fair God,and the works of Dickens, Thackeray, Dumas and Victor Hugowere all helpful factors fitting him for his fife work.
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WILLIAM COOMBS CODMAN At the age of eighteen, he began his active work in hfe as a clerkfor Henry W. Peabody and Company, exporters. Three yearslater, at the age of twenty-one, he started in business on his ownaccount as an importer of Mediterranean and East Indian mer-chandise, continuing in same for over 30 years. In 1900 he assumed the real estate business of his father, whoretired on his eighty-first birthday, the firm being Wm. C. Codman& Son and later changing to Codman & Street. He is bestknown for his work in the improvement of the Beacon Hill district,the widening of Charles and other streets in the old part of Boston,and the promotion of certain prominent buildings and as trustee ofReal Estate. These improvements were undertaken largely frompubhc spirit and love for the old city, but they have also provedfinancially successful. PoUtically, Mr. Codman is an Independent Democrat, and al-though never interested in politics as a profession, he reahzes andexercises the du

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