Charles H. Eames

Charles H. Eames (1875-1949), for nearly thirty-seven years Billerica's moderator and for almost four decades the head of the Lowell Textile School, was born in Andover, Massachusetts, in 1875. He attended the Punchard Free School in Andover and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he took the degree of Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering in 1897. He then worked as an engineer with the Light, Heat and Power Company of Lowell and with Stone and Webster, electrical engineers, of Boston. On November 18, 1901, while still living in Andover, he married Mary Wood Richardson of Billerica, and the couple made their home at Billerica Centre. Their son, Harold Richardson Eames, was born and died on June 23, 1906. The town's marriage record names him Charles Homer Eames, while its death record and memorial give his middle name as Holmes.

His working life was spent at the Lowell Textile School, which had opened in 1897. He joined it as instructor in electrical engineering and mathematics and secretary of the school, and in September 1906 he was appointed its principal. By 1920 the title had become president, and he led the school, later the Lowell Textile Institute, until he retired at the end of the spring term of 1945, when Kenneth R. Fox succeeded him. He also served as clerk of its board of trustees. The student yearbooks show him welcoming each entering class, addressing the freshmen every year and handing out diplomas at commencement. He was a member of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers and the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers, and a 32nd degree Mason of the Scottish Rite bodies of Lowell. On April 26, 1947, the alumni presented the Institute with his portrait as President Emeritus, and the Institute's second dormitory, opened about 1950, was named Eames Hall.

At the annual election of March 23, 1912, Billerica chose Eames as moderator over De Lacy Corkum, 277 votes to 216, and re-elected him every year for the rest of his life. He presided over the annual and special town meetings from 1912 until his death, and the town clerk's records note again and again a rising vote of thanks for his impartial conduct of the meeting. From 1912 to 1919 he was also one of the town hall sinking fund commissioners. In 1915 he was chairman of the committee that planned and built the new Howe High School on Main Street, south of Bennett Hall, with Thomas T. Clark, Dr. Maurice A. Buck, Burton O. Sanford and Nathaniel R. Jones. The corner-stone was laid on November 22, 1915, classes began in the building on October 16, 1916, and at the dedication on December 8, 1916, Eames presented the keys on behalf of the building committee.

He remained the town's adviser on school buildings. In 1930 he chaired a committee that recommended a new six-room school for the Pinehurst section on the Boston Road, and in 1931, as chairman of its building committee, he handed the moderator's chair to John P. McBride so that he could present the majority report to town meeting himself. In 1946 he read the report of the Schoolhouse Survey Committee, which he chaired, and he served on the town's Building Committee for Schools. He was treasurer of the First Parish (Unitarian) in 1912 and president of the Bennett Public Library Association in 1946. His wife Mary, an officer of the Nineteen Hundred Club and the parish Alliance and for many years trustee of the town's Elliot Fund for aged women, died on September 12, 1942, leaving a bequest to the library's permanent funds.

Charles Holmes Eames died on January 29, 1949, aged 73. When the annual town meeting opened on February 12, 1949, the moderator appointed Rev. J. Harold Dale, Rev. Robert C. Withington and Neil Mahoney to draw up resolutions on his passing, and the voters stood in their places for two minutes in recognition of his long service to the town. The resolutions were read and unanimously adopted at the town meeting of May 9, 1949, and the town report for that year printed an In Memoriam notice for "Charles Holmes Eames, Moderator."

References

1. Town report 1902, Marriages in Billerica during 1901 (Charles Homer Eames of Andover and Mary Wood Richardson, Nov. 18)
2. Town report 1913, election of March 23, 1912 (Moderator: Charles H. Eames 277, De Lacy Corkum 216)
3. Town report 1916, dedication of the new Howe High School, Dec. 8, 1916 (Eames, chairman of the building committee, presents the keys)
4. Town report 1931, annual town meeting, Article 56 (Eames as chairman of the Pinehurst school building committee)
5. Town report 1949, In Memoriam: Charles Holmes Eames, Moderator, died January 29, 1949, aged 73
6. Pickout 1907 (Lowell Textile School yearbook): Charles H. Eames, S.B., Principal of the School
7. Pickout 1921 (Lowell Textile School yearbook): portrait and career of Charles H. Eames, President of the School
8. Pickout 1949 (Lowell Textile Institute yearbook): In Memoriam, President Emeritus Charles H. Eames