[16] The sentiment of Norcross' spirit was reflectively shared upon his death: He brought to our service the sterling qualities which marked his whole character and career.
He was a man of great intelligence, of remarkable firmness, and of the highest integrity, never weary in well-doing, and one whose counsel and co-operative, in all the concerns of this Association and of the community in which he lived, were as highly valued as they were cheerfully and generously afforded.It is with this in mind, that "[h]is failure to receive the customary re-election for a second-term was due, perhaps, to a certain stiffness of virtue, which in political life at least, seldom receives the reward it merits.
[19] In his civic life, Otis Norcross was one of the Boston Committee (1871) to relieve sufferers of the Great Chicago Fire.
His legacy includes serving as a member of the Water Board (1865) that helped to promote the construction of the Chestnut Hill Reservoir.
[20] Otis C. Norcross married Lucy Ann [Lane] (1816–1916), his first cousin, on 9 December 1835, at the Twelfth Congregational Church in Boston,[21] strict disciples of Unitarianism.
9 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, and is interred with his family at Mount Auburn Cemetery, in Cambridge, MA.
[25] The Norcross family is a succession of prominent New Englanders in America deriving from All Hallows Bread Street, London, Middlesex, England, whom upon arrival in the colonies (1638), first settled with fellow Puritans in Salem, Massachusetts, then resettling with the new community in Watertown, Massachusetts,[26] whose progenitor Jeremiah Norcross was a landowner within the town in 1642.
[32] During the American Revolution,[33] the Norcross family "served the cause," whereby [Private Sergeant] Daniel Norcross (1743–1805), grandfather of Otis Norcross, Jr., served in Captain Samuel Warren's Company of the Massachusetts Militia; and Colonel Joseph Reed's Regiment of Militia,[34] Lexington, Massachusetts[35] He married Abigail [Chapin], 3 October 1765, a descendant of notable New England families, including those of: Josiah Chapin (1634–1726), Jonathan Thayer (1658), and Henry Adams (ca.
1810), upon the death of his father Otis Norcross, Sr. and the subsequent retirement of fellow partner Eliphalet Jones (b.
1828, Boston, d. 20 May 1892); son of Eliphalet, and not a relative, at least known, to senior member Jerome Jones,;[50] renamed and shared in partnership Otis Norcross & Co - importers, dealers, wholesalers and retailers of fine European, Japanese and Chinese china, glassware, crockery, earthenware and pottery in Boston.
The company was sold upon Otis Norcross, Jr.’s retirement in 1867 when he assumed his mayoral duties, upon which time his partner Jerome Jones (apprentice, Jun.
[57] Since its inception, the company under, numerous iterations, amassed productive wealth and notoriety for all its partners as esteemed members of Brahmin society, whose many endowments exist within the City of Boston.
Proceeding the death of Eliphalet Jones, he became a member of the New England Genealogical and Historical Society, 11 Nov.
17 August 1826 – d. 1903), the younger brother of Otis Norcross, Jr., married Delia Augustus [Bruce],[59] a direct descendant of Pilgrim Henry Samson, Mayflower (1621).