John Mason Loomis. Few men in Chicago have had a more varied, picturesque and instructive history than Col. John Mason Loomis, who has been identified with the lumber industry of Chicago and the Northwest since 1846. Col. Loomis was a native of Connecticut, his English ancestor, Joseph Loomis, of Braintree, Essex County, England, being among the early pioneers of the country, having reached the port of Boston, July 17, 1638, and two years later becoming the purchaser of a large tract of land at or near Windsor, Conn., at the confluence of the Farmington with the Connecticut River, a property which has remained in the Loomis family to the present day. The father of John Mason Loomis was Col. James Loomis, of Windsor, who was, in the early part of this century, a prominent merchant, mill owner and farmer, with a decided taste for military tactics, being for several years colonel of the First Regiment of Connecticut State Militia, an organization which, under the State laws, demanded a military drill, at least once in each year, from every able bodied citizen between the ages of eighteen and forty-five. "Training Day" (the first Monday in May) was one of the most important in the calendar of the Nutmeg State, vicing in popularity with Independence Day. It was but natural that the son of the central military figure of the region, should become imbued with, and develop a remarkable military genius. The mother of John Mason Loomis was Abigal Sherwood Chaffee, of Greenfield Hill, Fairfield County, Conn., from an old colonial family of high standing, noted for the large number of successful medical practitioners who had made the name honored throughout the State.
