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OUR COUNTY AND ITS PEOPLE
A
DESCRIPTIVE AND BIOGRAPHICAL RECORD OF
BRISTOL COUNTY
MASSACHUSETTS
PREPARED AND PUBLISHED UNDER THE AUSPICES OF
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THE
FALL RIVER NEWS
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AND
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THE
TAUNTON GAZETTE
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WITH THE ASSISTANCE OF
HON. ALANSON BORDEN
OF NEW BEDFORD
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THE BOSTON HISTORY COMPANY, PUBLISHERS
1899
PART II
BIOGRAPHICAL.
Nathaniel Jarvis Wyeth Fish
NATHANIEL J. W. FISH, mayor of the city of Taunton, was born in that city, the second
son of Capt. Frederick L. and Mary J. (Perry) Fish His father was a master mariner, a native of Rochester, Mass.,
but sailed from New Bedford and Fairhaven for many years in the days when whalers from these ports were to be found
in every quarter of the globe. When Captain Fish retired from the sea he settled in Taunton where be resided until
his death. He was an honest, upright man and attached many friends. As a whaling captain he was highly successful
and made a number of voyages which stand on record as among the most profitable of the period.
Mayor Fish was well grounded in the schools of Taunton and after completing their prescribed courses prepared for
the profession of civil engineering. Having a fondness for adventure and travel and a desire to see something of
the western country, in 1878 he went to Texas with the intention of engaging in stock raising, which at that time
was proving very profitable. After serving for a time as a Texas cowboy, he, in company with others, crossed the
plains from Dallas, Texas, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The trip was made through what was then a wild country and
consumed two months. After a few months in New Mexico he entered the employ of the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy
Railroad as a civil engineer, and was stationed at Orleans and other points in Nebraska during the construction
of the lines which did so much towards opening up for settlement the plains of the Great West. He remained in this
capacity nearly two years and then returned to the East, his health shattered by malarial fever. He now made an
extended tour of the Western Islands (Azores), and upon his return was engaged on surveys at the headwaters of
the Cumberland River in Kentucky. Later Mayor Fish was employed by the Chicago, Rock Island and Pacific, and the
Grand Island and Wyoming Central Railroads (Black Hills extension). He returned to Taunton in 1890.
A man broadened by travel and contact with all classes and conditions of men, of wide and honorable fraternal connection,
and of the most pleasing social qualities, Mayor Fish was well adapted to enter the political arena. He became
a candidate for alderman from Ward 4, 1894, and was elected by a surprising majority. He was re elected in 1895,
and in both terms served as chairman of the board, giving sub. stantial evidence in this position of marked executive
ability and true judgment, which led to a nomination for the mayoralty and which has characterized his administration
of that office. The municipal campaign of 1896 was based on several important issues, one being the question of
municipal ownership of electric lights. Mayor Fish received the nomination of his party and was elected with practically
no opposition. He was again nominated and re elected in 1897, and also in 1898. In all of these terms an unusual
number of important questions have been publicly agitated, causing much responsibility to rest upon the executive
head of the city government, but his administration has been generally recognized by all—both opponents and coadherents—as
able, clean and effective. Mayor Fish has a wide fraternal connection; he is past master of Ionic Lodge of Free
and Accepted Masons, past high priest of St. Mark’s Royal Arch Chapter, and a member of St. John’s Cornmandery,
Knights Templar. He is also past grand of Sabbatia Lodge of Odd Fellows, and deputy grand master of the Massachusetts
Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows. Mayor Fish is unmarried and resides with his mother at 97 Ingell street, Taunton.
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