No. 3112 James McKellar Bugbee
From Men of Progress. Biographical Sketches and Portraits of Leaders in Business and Professional Life in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. (Boston, 1894), 462.
James McKellar Bugbee, of Boston, advertising manager of Walter Baker & Co., is a native of Maine, born in the town of Perry, December 17, 1837, son of William and Deborah (Hanscom) Bugbee. He is a direct descendant in the sixth generation from Edward Bugbee, who came from Ipswich, England, in 1634, and settled in Roxbury, Mass. His education was received in the public schools in Perry, Me., and Melrose, Mass. At the age of seventeen he became entry clerk in a French importing house in Boston. Four years later (in 1858) he was employed as reporter on the Boston Courier, then a morning and evening daily. In 1860 he became city editor of the paper. In 1862 he was appointed mayor’s clerk, which position he held until 1866, when he was elected clerk of committees to the City Council. In 1875 he resigned that office, to accompany the Hon. Henry L. Pierce to Washington as his private secretary. In 1878 he was appointed on the first Police Commission for the city of Boston. He was elected a representative to the General Court from the Ninth Suffolk District for 1880¬81. He served as chairman of the committee on engrossed bills, as a member of the committee on the liquor law, and as a member and some time secretary of the special committee (which sat during the recess) on the revision of the public statutes. As a member of the committee on the liquor law, he made an elaborate minority report on the regulation of the liquor traffic (House Document 149, 1881), opposing the views of the majority of the committee, which favored prohibitory legislation ; and subsequently he reported and secured the adoption of the law requiring the publication of the names of applicants for licenses and preventing the granting of licenses to objectionable persons, or to be exercised in places where the owners of adjoining real estate refused their consent. From 1881 to 1884 he was in business as a law book publisher. In 1884 he was appointed by the governor on the first Civil Service Commission, and served as chairman for two years. He was also appointed at the same time by the mayor on the commission to revise the City Charter of Boston. In 1887-88 he was treasurer of the Boston Post Publishing Company. Shortly after he became connected with the house of Walter Baker & Co. as advertising manager, which position he now holds. Mr. Bugbee has been much engaged in literary and historical work since the beginning of his connection with the press.
He has been a contributor to the Atlantic Monthly, the North American Review, and many other magazines and newspapers. He edited the Revised Ordinances of Boston, 1876 (pp. 1023), and the Memorials of the Massachusetts Society of the Cincinnati, 1890 (pp. 573). He delivered an address on the “Origin and Development of Local Self-government in England and the United States ” before the American Social Science Association in 1880 ; contributed the chapter on ” Boston under the Mayors ” to the Memorial History of Boston ; and wrote the essay on the ” City Government of Boston ” for the Johns Hopkins University Studies. He is a member of the Union Club, Boston ; of the Exchange Club, Boston ; of the Reform Club, New York ; of the Massachusetts Historical Society ; of the American Historical Association ; and was one of the founders and the first secretary of the St. Botolph Club, Boston. In politics he was a member of the Republican party until the nomination of Blaine in 1884. He has acted independently since.
Note: The Boston Evening Transcript reported in Bubee’s obituary that he lived in Wiunchester. Boston Evening Transcript, February 8, 1913