This father-son duo gave Endicott its name, along with an an MIT conference center

I am taking a little thunder away from my colleague Roger Luther. He creates the wonderful "100 Years Ago Today" pieces for Fox 40 WICZ news each week.

However, for this story, I am taking the liberty of talking about something that happened 101 years ago. On Jan. 15, 1923, an article appeared in the "Binghamton Press" with the headline “H. Wendell Endicott Takes Boston Offices.”

H. Wendell Endicott was the son of Endicott Johnson founder Henry Bradford Endicott. Endicott was a shoe manufacturer who had heavily invested in the Lester Brothers Shoe Company. When that company went into default in the early 1890s, Endicott took over operation of the business and sold the remaining stock off.

As this writer has written many times, his decision of keeping George F. Johnson on as a supervisor, and then as his partner, transformed the company into what could only be termed a behemoth of an industry.

H. B. Endicott never wanted to live in this area, as his major investments were in the Boston area.  While he acted as president of the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company, he had an associate, Eliott Spaulding, as the company’s treasurer, and his son, H. Wendell Endicott, as its vice president. H. B. Endicott died in 1920, and his death set in motion a number of changes.

First, it made George F. Johnson head of the company. He would remain in that position for the next two decades.

Second, Elliott Spaulding would leave the area to run the Endicott interests in the Boston area. This would leave Spaulding’s massive brick home on the hill outside Endicott empty to become the Kalurah Country Club, and then the IBM Homestead.

In 1923, H. Wendell Endicott left his position as vice president of the company to work with Spaulding to deal with his father’s estate interests.

In order to do so, Endicott had divested most of his holdings in the Endicott Johnson firm by Jan. 2, 1923. He left the area and opened offices in Boston to operate as a trustee in several companies located in Boston and in New York City. This effectively removed the Endicott family’s connection to the firm the father had begun.

If you are wondering why they would leave their interests in this area — a later article in the local newspaper may answer that question.

Twelve years after the death of H.B. Endicott, an article appeared on Jan. 6, 1932 titled “6 Million Bond is Required by Probate Court.”

The article details that the settlement of the estate of H. B. Endicott was beginning, 12 years after the senior Endicott’s death. The probate court required such a huge bond since the estate was valued at $5.7 million. If that amount is converted into today’s dollars, the Endicott estate would be worth over $131 million.

H. Wendell Endicott remained in the Boston area for the rest of his life. He served on several major boards including Dow Jones & Co., the Sears, Roebuck Company, president of the Boston Opera Company, the board of the Metropolitan Opera Company, and he was affiliated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

He purchased Rockweld, the home of Civil War General Stephen Weld in 1928. Endicott had that home demolished to make way for the construction of a massive brick mansion he called Rockwood.

Most people in the Dedham (about 10 miles south of Boston) area referred to the mansion as the Endicott House. The house was designed by Charles Adams Platt.

Upon Endicott’s death in 1954, the house was donated by his children to MIT to be used as that university’s conference center. It remains a part of MIT’s operations.

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While H. Wendell Endicott has long left the area and his interest in the Endicott Johnson Shoe Company, there are two remaining connections to his life.

The first is the hamlet of Endwell in the Town of Union and its name which was a variation of Wendell Endicott’s moniker.

The second was the settlement of West Endicott, also located in the Town of Union. Newspaper accounts from that time say the area was also named after H. Wendell Endicott.

Endicott — father and son, both, had major impacts on our community.

This article originally appeared on Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin: How MIT's Endicott House fits into Broome County NY history