USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > Biographical review, containing life sketches of leading citizens of Essex County, Massachusetts > Part 45
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In 1886 Dr. Leslie went to Europe to seek a much-needed rest. He travelled all through England, Scotland, Ireland, and Wales, and made a visit to Paris, being gone six months. During the winter of 1894 he took a trip to Mexico, and went also to Phoenix, Ariz., where he remained for six weeks. Dr. Leslie assisted in the preparation of Merrill's His- tory of England. He has written a number of interesting articles for the papers, and has made addresses on various occasions. He is a clear and forcible speaker, and as a writer is master of a pleasing style. He has found time, despite the pressure of his professional duties, to express his interest in public affairs, and to keep himself informed on cur- rent topics.
He has been twice in the legislature, being elected on the Democratic ticket, and was during his first term a member of the Com- mittee of Public Health, and during the sec- ond a member of the Committee on Insurance, this last being in the year in which the en- dowment companies were broken up. The Doctor received his nomination from the Board of Trade, of which he was at the time vice- president, that body desiring to send a man who could represent it properly in some de- sired legislation concerning bridges. Dr.
Leslie had the pleasure of seeing every meas- ure that was advocated by him a success. He was on the Board of Trade for five or six years, and was the first Democrat elected in thirty years. He has also been a member of the School Board for fourteen years, and has been president of the Natural History Society and of the Village Improvement Society. He is connected with the local Physicians' Club, is a member of the Northern Essex Medical Association and of the Massachusetts Medi- cal Society, is consulting physician of the Danvers Insane Asylum, consulting surgeon of Anna Jacques Hospital, and has for eight years been councillor of the North Essex As- sociation. Fraternally, the Doctor is a mem- ber of Riverside Lodge, K. of H .; of Warren Lodge, Trinity Royal Arch Chapter; Ames- bury Council and of Newburyport Command- ery; also of the Scottish Clan Frazer, which was chartered in 1888, and of which he has been Chief for two years and clan physician since its organization.
Dr. Leslie married Helen M. Glines, of Northfield, N. H., and is the father of two children. The elder, Grace, is the wife of Robert Drummond, Jr., of Amesbury. The younger is Herbert G. Leslie, M.D., a gradu- ate of Harvard Medical School, in the class of 1897.
1 SAAC N. STORY, a Civil War veteran and formerly Representative to the legislature from Gloucester, was born in this city, November 30, 1834, son of Isaac and Lucy (Elwell) Story. The Story family of Essex County are descendants of William Story, who was born in Norwich, Norfolk County, England, in 1616 (probably a son of Andrew), and arrived in New England in 1639. He was a carpenter by occupation.
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His son Seth served in King Philip's War. John Story, son of Seth and great-grandfather of the subject of this sketch, responded to the Lexington alarm in 1775, although an old man at the time. The maiden name of his wife was Hannah Perkins. The grandfather of the subject of this sketch was Amos Story.
Isaac N. Story acquired a common-school education in his native town. Having learned the printer's trade in the office of the Gloucester News, he worked subsequently as a journeyman on the Fitchburg Reveille for five years. Returning to Gloucester in 1858, he was in charge of a printing-office here for a short time, but went back to Fitchburg, where he remained about a year, engaged in business for himself. He then accepted an offer from the Procter Brothers to superintend their printing-office in Gloucester, and, with the exception of the time spent in the army dur- ing the Civil War, he has since occupied that responsible position. In September, 1862, he enlisted in Company G, Eighth Massachu- setts Volunteers, under Captain David W. Lowe, and was appointed Sergcant. At New- bern his company was detailed to do guard duty at Fort Totten, where they were in- structed daily in infantry tactics and the use of artillery, and Sergeant Story was appointed Sergeant-major of the fort. He was dis- charged August 7, 1863. Re-enlisting in the same regiment, he served as Sergeant until promoted to the rank of Lieutenant, and was subsequently stationed on the castern shore of Maryland until mustered out.
Mr. Story has been three times married. His first wife was in maidenhood Lucy A. Wheeler, of Fitchburg; his second was Susan M. Parsons, daughter of Frederic Parsons; his present wife was before marriage Eunice Hodgkins. Mr. Story was a member of the Common Council one year, served as Aldcr-
man four years (a greater part of which time he was president of the board), and as a mem- ber of the House of Representatives in 1890, in which he was assigned to the Committee on Printing. He is treasurer of the Royal Society of Good Fellows, and a comrade of Colonel Allen Post, No. 15, G. A. R.
DMUND BUXTON JOHNSON, thc Town Treasurer of Nahant, is a native of this rock-girthed headland, than which is none bolder and none comelier on the beautiful North Shore of Massachusetts
Bay. Son of Joseph and Betsy (Graves) Johnson, born July 13, 1832, he is a repre- sentative of the third generation of Nahant Johnsons, descendants of Jonathan, second, who, it appears, was the first of the family to cross the long beach from Lynn to make his home in this breezy purlieu almost out at sea.
From the interesting chapter on Nahant in the History of Essex County, published by Lewis & Co. in 1888 - written for that work by Edward Jonathan Johnson, nephew of the subject of our sketch - we gather a fcw further particulars concerning the paternal an- cestry. Jonathan Johnson, first, father of Jonathan, second, was born . at Rehoboth, Mass., in February, 1682-83, and came to Lynn in 1706. He was a son of John John- son, who, as the records show, was living at Rehoboth as early as 1673, when a daughter, Elizabeth, was born to him. Jonathan, first, married in 1710 Sarah Mansfield. They had two sons - Edward and Jonathan -- and four daughters.
Jonathan, second, was born in 1723. When a young man, he belonged to a troop of cavalry, under Major Graves, which fought in the French and Indian Wars. He was after-
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ward known as "trooper." He was thrice married. His third wife, whose maiden name was Ann Alley, was the widow of Thomas Williams, and was a daughter of Benjamin and Rebecca (Hood) Alley: Her father was a grandson of Hugh Alley, an early settler of Lynn, whose wife, it is thought, was a daugh- ter of Thomas Graves, of Lynn, who has been spoken of as "the first known inhabitant of Nahant." In 1658 Jonathan Johnson, sec- ond, bought the Nahant property of Jeremiah Gray, and later with his wife Ann here took up his residence, the original homestead being that afterward successively occupied by his son Caleb and his grandson Hervey. It has now passed out of the family; and the old house, so long a prominent landmark, has given place to a new one. Jonathan and Ann (Alley) Johnson had three sons, all born at Nahant; namely, Benjamin, Joseph, and Caleb.
Joseph, the second son, born February 12, 1776, was a lifelong resident of Nahant. A farmer, a seafaring man (captain of a fishing schooner), and for many years the keeper of a public house of excellent reputation and well patronized, known as Johnson's Hotel, he led a life of useful industry. Of a cheerful, sunny nature, generous and kindly, beloved by old and young, he was widely known and universally respected as a man of stanch in- tegrity and firm moral standing, an influen- tial, public-spirited citizen, a leader in the community in advancing the cause of educa- tion, of religion and morality. He belonged to the First Methodist Church in Lynn until the organization of the Methodist church at Nahant, of which he was one of the founders, and was a trustee and Deacon. He was first married in 1797 to Mary Cox, daughter of Francis Cox. She died in 1818, leaving eight children - Joseph, Jonathan, Francis,
Eliza, Pamelia, Washington, Dolly M., and Walter, all now deceased. Pamelia lived single. The others married, and, dying well advanced in years, were survived by children and grandchildren.
Joseph Johnson was again married, June I, 1819, to Betsy Graves, daughter of Captain Daniel and Mary (Buxton) Graves, of Read- ing, North Parish, now North Reading. She was born November 18, 1789, and was the fourth in a family of eight children, her brothers and sisters being: Mary, Nathaniel, Sally, Nancy, Daniel, Abigail, and Ebenezer. Her father was a son of Daniel and Sarah (Upton) Graves, of Reading, and was sixth in lineal descent from Samuel Graves, one of the first settlers of Lynn. Captain Graves was a soldier of the Revolution, serving first as a private and later as Corporal. He after- ward commanded a company in the State mili- tia. He was for two years Representative to the General Court. His wife was a de- scendant of early settlers in Essex and Mid- dlesex Counties bearing the names of Buxton, Damon, Flint, and Putnam.
By his second marriage Joseph Johnson was the father of six children - Alfred Daniel, Edward Kirk, Frederic Henry, Franklin Everett, Mary Graves, and Edmund Buxton. Alfred D., the eldest, born April 26, 1820, married in 1842 Emily Barton. She died November 20, 1882. He died October 14, 1890. Their first child, Austin E., died in infancy; and a daughter, Ada E., wife of Ernest Wilband, died April 19, 1880. The surviving children are: Daniel Graves, of Lynn; Fletcher Willis, of Nahant; Legrand Atwood, of Lynn - all married; Charlotte Maria; and Annette Gertrude, wife of David N. Lander, of Lynn. E. Kirk, born Novem- ber 22, 1822, died at Nahant, April 28, 1891, unmarried.
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F. Henry, born April 30, 1825, married November 25, 1847, Serena T. Gurney. He died in December, 1876. She died July 24, 1891. They had five children, namely: Caro- line, now the wife of James B. Small, of Lynn; Harriet W., wife of T. Dexter John- son; Josephine, wife of John Grouse; Edna, who died a widow in Africa, October 16, 1895, her husband, the Rev. Benjamin Lus- comb, a missionary, having died there, April 1, 1895; and Frederic Henry, Jr., who is mar- ried, and is in business in Boston.
Franklin Everett, born November 4, 1827, married first in 1857 Harriet Whitney, who died August 22, 1871, leaving four children : Clarence A., who is married and lives in Col- orado; Winslow N., who was killed by an explosion in a mine at Ouray, Col., February 20, 1888, in the twenty-eighth year of his age; Bessie Louise, a graduate of the Salem Normal School, now wife of Charles E. Lane, of Winchester, Mass .; and Mabel, who mar- ried Charles U. Fohn, of Nahant, and died April 30, 1895. Franklin E. Johnson mar- ried for his second wife Almira J. Smith, of Goffstown, N. H. She died September 21, 1885. He now lives with Mr. and Mrs. Lane.
Joseph Johnson died on June 8, 1854. Betsy Graves Johnson died March 25, 1872. Mrs. Johnson taught school at Nahant before her marriage, and made the acquaintance of her future husband while boarding in his fam- ily. A devout Methodist, like himself, she, too, was an exemplary and practical Christian, faithful in life's daily duties, and given to hospitality.
Edmund B. Johnson, the subject of this sketch, was named for his mother's uncle, Dr. Edmund Buxton, formerly a well-known and esteemed physician of Warren, Me. He was educated at the Nahant School; the Lynn
High School, which he entered the first year that it was opened, its principal being the famous master, Jacob Batchelder; and at Newbury, Vt., Academy, which he attended during the winter of 1853-54. His brothers, - Alfred, Kirk, and Franklin - it may be mentioned, early sought their fortunes in California, all three, however, eventually re- turning to Nahant. His father dying shortly after the close of the term at Newbury, Ed- mund now remained at home, succeeding him as keeper of the summer hotel and boarding- house. Later the house was rented to Boston families for the summer. On September 17, 1862, in the second year of the Civil War, Mr. Johnson enlisted in Company F, Forty- fifth Regiment (known as the Cadet Regi- ment), Massachusetts Volunteers, under Colo- nel C. R. Codman and Captain E. F. Daland. He was in the battles of Kingston, Whitehall, and Goldsboro, N.C. Honorably discharged July 7, 1863, he returned home in feeble health caused by the exposure and hardships of army life. A severe illness ensued, from which he recovered but slowly. For some years afterward he was engaged in business with his brother Alfred, conducting Johnson's Nahant and Boston Express.
He was married October 31, 1867, to Mary C. F. Taylor, of Copenhagen, N.Y. She was born September 7, 1838, daughter of Thomas and Cheney (Shepard) Taylor. Mr. and Mrs. Johnson were early bereft of their eldest child, Mary Esther, born May 12, 1872, with whom they were called to part June 19, 1877. Their second is Alice Cheney, born Decem- ber 3, 1874; and the third and youngest is Bertha Louise, born November 18, 1878, both graduates of the Nahant High School.
At the polls Mr. Johnson votes the Repub- lican ticket. He takes an intelligent interest in public affairs, but is not an active politi-
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EBENEZER B. CURRIER.
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cian. He was elected to his present respon- sible position of Town Treasurer and Collector in March, IS80, and has been re-elected each succeeding year. For eighteen years he was a member of the School Board, and whether in office or not he has ever been an efficient promoter of the cause of education and of all the higher interests of Nahant. He is a member of the Methodist church of Nahant, and an unwearied supporter of its activities, for a number of years being superintendent of the Sunday-school. He belongs to the Forty- fifth Regimental Association. The cottage in which Mr. Johnson makes his home and the two-story dwelling which he rents to sum- mer occupants both stand, if we mistake not, on what was once a part of the paternal estate. Here his years have mostly been spent. Probably few Nahant residents, if any, sur- pass him in knowledge of local history and traditions, and in personal recollection of famous sojourners of bygone times - names eminent in the professions, in literature, in science and philanthropy.
BENEZER BAILEY CURRIER, a re- tired octogenarian, living at 146 East Haverhill Street, Lawrence, was for a long period, beginning in the forties of the century, one of the most active and influential residents of this city. Born in Amcsbury, Mass., May 3, 1812, he is now in his eighty- seventh year.
Seth Currier, his father, was a son of Seth, Sr .; and both were natives of Amesbury, which had been the home of the family from the time of Richard Currier, the emigrant, who was born about 1616 or 1617, whether in England or in Scotland is not known. Rich- ard Currier came to America about the year 1640; and at the time of his death, February
2, 1689, his home was in Amesbury. Hc had two children - Hannah and Thomas.
The latter, born in March, 1646, died Sep- tember 27, 1712. His wife, whose maiden name was Mary Osgood, bore him twelve chil- dren, nine sons and three daughters, their births occurring between the years 1670 and 1693. All of the twelve lived to marry. Joseph, the ninth child and sixth son, born about 1686, lived to be sixty-three. He mar- ried Sarah Brown on December 9, 1708, and became the father of four sons and five daughters.
The eldest child, who was also the next lineal representative of this particular branch, was Nathan, born in 1710, who marricd in 1733 Mehitable Silver. He died in 1782, leaving four sons and three daughters, a son, John, his eldest child, having died previously. Nathan, the youngest child, was executor of his will.
Seth, Sr., the second child, born March IO, 1735, married Ellis, daughter of Peter Sar- gent. He died in March, 1792, and she on February 13, 1829. Two of his sons - Chris- topher and Joseph - werc joint executors of his will. There werc eight children ; namely, Anna, Ellis, Joseph, Seth, Peter, John, Sarah, and Christopher. Anna, born March 22, 1766, married Robert Hoyt, of Amesbury. Ellis, born February 9, 1768, married in 1788 Moses Rowell. Joseph, born August 13, 1770, married August 16, 1792, Betsey Kendrick, of Amesbury. Peter, the third son, born September 16, 1781, married on March 18, 1806, Abigail Pecker. John, born September 16, 1783, married on August 14, 1806, Rachel Pecker. Sarah, born Septem- ber 23, 1787, married on October 15, 1809, Aaron Sawyer, of Amesbury. The father of these children followed farming throughout his life.
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Seth Currier, second son of Seth, Sr., and father of Ebenezer Bailey Currier, of this sketch, was born September 16, 1775, and was married on February 26, 1800, to Tabitha Goodwin, of Amesbury. He learned and fol- lowed the trade of a carpenter. He died on April 30, 1815, while on a visit to his brother-in-law in Halestown, N.H., now in- corporated as the town of Weare. Two of his six children died in infancy ; and four - Seth, Mary, Sargent, and Ebenezer Bailcy - were living at the time of his death. The mother, Mrs. Tabitha G. Currier, died November 26, 1829, aged fifty-eight. Seth Currier, third, the eldest child, born in Amesbury, April II, 1801, died there May 2, 1832, of cholera. He was not married. His sister, Mary, born December 9, 1803, married Thomas Sargent, of Amesbury, and had ten children, five sons and five daughters. She died August 28, 1865, survived by her husband, who lived a number of years after. Sargent Currier, born July 7, 1805, married Sarah, daughter of Jo- siah Fitts. He died in Candia, N.H., June 19, 1875. His son, Monroe S., born in Candia, N.H., May 19, 1840, married Emily Jane Towle, of Candia, on July 4, 1861, and has one son, Carl C. Currier, born in Candia, March 9, 1873, who is the youngest male de- scendant in this branch of the family. He is a bright, active young man, engaged in the shoe business. Monroe S. also has a daughter, Addic F. Currier, born March 17, 1867.
Ebenczer Bailey Currier was but three years old when his father died. He received a good district schooling, attending school from seven to eight months in a year. When he reached the age of sixteen he became an apprentice at the carriage trimmer's trade in Amesbury. He served five years at twenty- five dollars per year; but by overwork he carned extra pay, so that at twenty-one he had
saved two hundred dollars besides clothing himself. His ambition excelled his strength, however, and he was obliged to give up the business. He subsequently became a sales- man in a furniture warehouse in Lowell, where he was employed three years; and later he was a carpet salesman two years. He next set up in the shoe business in Lowell; and in September, 1847, he started a similar store here in Lawrence, where he was in trade up to 1852, when he sold out. For two years, 1853-54, he held the office of Assessor; and in 1855 he was elected County Commissioner, in which capacity he served until 1861, when the war broke out. On account of his age he was unable to go to the front. From that time on until his final retirement from the activities of life Mr. Currier was principally interested in the insurance and real estate business. He, however, found time for pub- lic service during that time, and was ap- pointed inspector of the Tewksbury Alms- house, a State institution. In 1852 he was a member of the State legislature, and it was largely through his endeavors that the courts were removed from Ipswich, and the present court-house built.
On June 2, 1840, Mr. Currier was married to Abigail O. Emerson, of Lowell, Mass. She died September 19, 1841, aged twenty, without issue. He afterward married Mary W. Hcald, who was born in Carlisle, Mass., September 4, 1814, daughter of John Heald and a descendant of Revolutionary stock. One daughter has blessed this union, Francettc Elizabeth, born August 24, 1845, who mar- ricd on September 12, 1872, John S. Gile, of Lawrence. She has no children. In 1855 Mr. Currier purchased for eight hundred and forty dollars an acre and three-quarters on Prospect Hill, where there were then only a few old, small houses. Eight years later, in
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1863, he erected the fine large dwelling which is his present home. It sets well back from the street, and is reached by a circular driveway. In front is a beautiful evergreen grove. The grounds are further beautified by the fruit and ornamental trees which he planted before building his house. Mr. Currier cast his first Presidential vote for William Henry Harrison, and has been a Re- publican from the organization of the party. When living in Lowell he became a charter member of a new lodge of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, and was one of its most generous supporters as long as he remained there. Though his strong frame is somewhat bowed by his eighty-five years, Mr. Currier still retains his mental faculties remarkably.
AMUEL AUGUSTUS FLETCHER, Town Clerk and Treasurer of Mid- dleton, Mass,, was born in the ad- joining town of Peabody, formerly Danvers, on July 13, 1836. His parents were Amos and Sally (Gould) Fletcher, both of old Colo- nial families.
The father was a lineal descendant in the seventh generation of Robert Fletcher, who came over in 1630, and settled at Concord, Mass. His son William was at the time about eight years old. In 1645 he married Lydia Bates; and in 1653 he settled at Chelmsford, where he was one of the earliest inhabitants, and was the first Selectman. His eldest son, Joshua, was the father of Joshua, Jr., who married Dorothy Hale, a na- tive of Scotland, and lived in that part of Chelmsford which in 1729 was set off as a town by the name of Westford. Joshua Fletcher, Jr., was the first Town Clerk of Westford, and was a Deacon of the church.
The next in this line was his son, Gershom Fletcher, who married Lydia Townsend.
The Rev. Joshua Fletcher, son of Gershom and grandfather of Mr. Samuel A. Fletcher, was born September 24, 1756, at Westford, Mass, He served in the Revolutionary army near the close of the war, and later became a Congregational minister, and was engaged in preaching twenty years. For some time he owned and carried on a farm in Plymouth, N.H. Removing to Bridgewater, N.H., he died there, August 15, 1829. His wife, Sarah Brown, survived him till 1854, attain- ing the age of ninety-seven years. They had nine children; namely, Joshua, Joseph, Gershom, Nathan, Samuel, William Asa, Amos, Daniel H., and a daughter, Sarah.
Samuel Fletcher, the fifth son, graduated at Dartmouth College in 1810. He served as principal of an academy, and subsequently practised law at Concord, N. H., from 1815 till 1841. He was then appointed treasurer of the Theological Seminary at Andover. This position he held till 1850, when he returned to Concord, where he died in 1858. William Asa Fletcher died in 1852 at Ann Arbor, Mich., where he had held for many years the office of Chief Justice of the Superior Court.
Amos Fletcher, seventh son of the Rev. Joshua, was born at Plymouth, N. H., July 13, 1790. His first wife, Abigail Gale, died in 1829; and he married in 1830, at Danvers, Sally Gould, daughter of Samuel and Ruth (Towne) Gould. Her father removed from Boxford to Middleton, Mass. He had been a soldier in the Revolution. He was a son of Daniel Gould, of Topsfield, and his second wife, Lucy Tarbox, and was of the fifth gen- eration in descent from Zaccheus Gould, who came over from England in 1638, and finally settled at Topsfield, then included in Ips- wich.
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Amos Fletcher rearcd five children - by his first wife thrce; namely, Abigail, Amos, Jr., and Joseph; and by his second: Sarah J .; and Samuel A., subject of this sketch. Amos Fletcher settled about 1841 in Middleton on the farm of J. J. H. Gregory. He died April 4, 1861. Mrs. Sally Fletcher survived her husband twenty years, attaining the age of eighty-one. Her daughter, Sarah J., married John B. Putney, of Middleton, and died in 1879.
Samucl A. is the only one of the family now living. His education was acquired in the district school. When fifteen years old he began to work at shoemaking; and since 1865 he has been employed as a shoe cutter, much of the time in Middleton, where at onc period four shoe factories werc in successful operation. All have now passed out of exist- ence, and Mr. Fletcher is in a factory at Danvers.
In politics Mr. Fletcher is an active Re- publican. He has often served as a delegate to conventions, and for a number of years has been on the Town Committec. Hc was a member of the House of Representatives in the State legislature in 1893, and was on the Committee on Public Health and Public Ser- vice. He has been Justice of the Pcacc since 1893, the only onc in the town. He is libra- rian of the Flint Public Library of Middleton, founded by a native of the town, the late Charles L. Flint, former secretary of the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture, who at his death in 1875 bequcathed ten thousand dollars for the library building and five thou- sand dollars for a book fund, the income only to be used annually. Mr. Flint had while living given five hundred dollars for the pur- chase of books. Another son of Middleton, B. F. Emerson, of the Copper Falls Mining Company of Michigan, willed to the library
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