Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 125

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924

USA > Massachusetts > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 125

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

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poem, "My Book," appeared in the New York Ledger, in December, 1890. He died in Cam- bridge, August 12, 1891. He was married, in 1844, to Maria White, of Watertown, Massa- chusetts, who died in 1853. In 1857 he was married to Frances Dunlap, a niece of Gov- ernor Robert P. Dunlap, of Maine. His life work is commemorated in "James Russell Lowell : a Biography," by Horace E. Scudder, two volumes, 1901. In 1898 a part of his estate-Elmwood -- was purchased by the Lowell Memorial Park Fund, nearly forty thousand dollars of the purchase price being obtained by popular subscription.

HOLMES Oliver Wendell Holmes, splen- didly equipped as a medical practitioner and instructor, is

best known and most highly esteemed for his literary accomplishments. As "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," and "The Professor," he is more enjoyed than he was a half-century ago. He was born in Cambridge, Massachu- setts. August 29, 1809, son of Rev. Abiel and Sarah ( Wendell ) Holmes. He was a descend- ant of John Holmes, who settled at Woodstock, Connecticut, in 1686, and of Evert Jansen Wendell, who emigrated from Emden, East Friesland, Holland, and settled at Albany, New York, about 1640. His paternal grandfather, Dr. David Holmes, was a captain in the colo- nial army in the French and Indian war, and subsequently served as surgeon in the revolu- tionary army.

Rev. Abiel Holmes, father of Oliver Wen- cell Holmes, born in Woodstock, Connecticut, December 24, 1763, was graduated from Yale College in 1783; was a tutor there, 1786-87. while pursuing theological studies ; he received the honorary degrees of A. M. from Harvard, 1792 ; D. D. from Edinburgh University, 1805 : and LL. D. from Allegheny ( Pennsylvania) College, 1822. He was pastor of the Congre- gational church at Midway, Georgia, 1787-91, and of the First Parish, Cambridge, 1792-1832. Ile was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the Mass- achusetts Historical Society and the American Philosophical Society. He wrote various works: "Stephen Pannenius;" "The Mohegan Indians ;" "John Lathrop : a Biography ;" "Life of President Stiles;" "Annals of America," two volumes ; a volume of poems, and various contributions to the "Collections of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society." He died at Cam- bridge, Massachusetts, June 4, 1837. He mar- ried, in 1790, Mary Stiles, daughter of Presi-

dent Ezra Stiles, of Yale College ; and (sec- ond ), March 26, 1801, Sarah, daughter of Hon. Oliver Wendell, of Boston. Their son,

Oliver Wendell Holmes, began his educa- tion in private schools, and in his fifteenth year had as classmates Richard Henry Dana, Mar- garet Fuller, and Alfred Lee, who was after- ward Bishop of Delaware. He was sent to Phillips Academy, in the hope that he would incline to a ministerial life, but the reverse was the case, and he cherished decided Unitarian sentiments-a marked contrast to the stern Calvinism of his father. While a student in the Academy he gave the first evidence of his literary temperament, producing a translation of Virgil's "Aeneid." Entering Harvard Col- lege, he was graduated therefrom in 1829, in the same class with William H. Channing, Pro- fessor Benjamin Pierce, JamesFreeman Clarke, the Rev. S. F. Smith, and Benjamin R. Curtis, and having as fellow students, though not in the same class, Wendell Phillips, Charles Sum- ner and John Lothrop Motley. He was a fre- quent contributor to college publications, wrote and delivered the commencement poem, and was one among sixteen of his class whose scholarship admitted them to the Phi Beta Kappa fraternity. For one year he attended the Dane Law School, and during this period wrote the famous apostrophe to "Old Iron- sides"-the frigate "Constitution," then threat- ened with breaking-up by the navy department, and which his stirring verse saved from an ignominious end.

Disinclined to law, after one year's study he began preparation for a medical career, in Dr. James Jackson's private medical school, and in 1833 visited England and France, observing hospital practice. Returning to Cambridge in 1835, he received his degree from the Harvard Medical School the next year, and at once entered upon practice, having received three of the Boylston prizes for medical dissertations. He was professor of anatomy and physiology at Dartmouth College, 1838-40, and the follow- ing year located in Boston. In 1843 he published his essay on "The Contagiousness of Puerpural Fever"-the announcement of his own original and valuable discovery, which, while now ac- cepted by the entire profession, then aroused bitter controversy. In 1847 he became Park- man professor of anatomy and physiology at Harvard Medical School, besides occasionally giving instruction in microscopy, psychology and kindred subjects ; and in the year indicated he retired from practice and became dean of the medical school, which position he occupied

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until 1853. As a class room lecturer he was a great favorite, and was able to hold the close attention of his auditors even after they were well nigh exhausted by previous study and attendance upon lectures. He resigned his professorship in 1882, and was retired as pro- fessor emeritus-a unique distinction from Harvard. He gave to his profession several works of permanent value; "Lectures on Homeopathy and its Kindred Delusions." 1842; "Report on Medical Literature." 1848; "Currents and Countercurrents in Medical Science," 1861 ; "Borderland in Some Pro- vinces of Medical Science," 1862 ; and with Dr. Jacob Bigelow he prepared Marshall Hall's "Theory and Practice of Medicine." 1839.

Ranking high as a medical practitioner and teacher. Dr. Holmes' great fame and his strong hold upon the American heart, down to the present time, rests upon his work as an essayist and poet. In the first year of his medical career he gave out his first volume, comprising forty-five miscellaneous poems. In 1852 he delivered in several cities a course of lectures on "The English Poets of the Nineteenth Cen- tury." In 1857 he became one of the founders of The Atlantic Monthly, he giving it that name, and beginning in it his delightful con- versational papers, "The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table," and in which were embodied some of his best poems. This was so favorably received that it was followed by "The Pro- fessor at the Breakfast Table," 1859; and in 1872 by "The Poet at the Breakfast Table." He contributed to The Atlantic Monthly the serial novels: "Elsie Venner," 1861; "The Guardian Angel." 1867: "A Mortal "Antip- athy," 1885 ; besides, "Our Hundred Days in Europe," 1887 ; and "Over the Teacups," 1890. He was longer connected with that periodical than was any other writer. On December 3, 1879, the editor gave him a breakfast in honor of his seventieth birthday, on which occasion he read a poem written therefor, "The Iron Gate." In addition to those before mentioned his published works included, "Soundings from the Atlantic," 1864; "Mechanism in Thought and Morals," 1871 : "Memoir of John Lothrop Motley," 1870; "Memoir of Ralph Waldo Em- erson," 1884: "Before the Curfew," 1888; verse : "Uriana," 1846; "Astrea," 1850; "Songs in Many Keys," 1861 ; "Songs of Many Seasons," 1875: "The Iron Gate, and Other Poems," 1880. His poeins were afterward collected into three volumes under the title of "Complete Poetical Works of Oliver Wendell Holmes," by John Torrey Morse, Jr., 1896;

and Emma E. Brown wrote a "Life of Holmes.'

Dr. Holmes died in Boston, October 7, 1894, and he was buried at Mount Auburn. Hc married, June 15, 1840, Amelia Lee, daughter of Associate Justice Charles Jackson, of Bos- ton, of the supreme judicial court. They set- tled in Boston, and their three children were born at their home in Montgomery place, after- ward Bosworth street: Oliver Wendell, born March 8, 1841, of whom further ; Amelia Lee, died in 1889; and Edward Jackson, died in 1884. Mrs. Holmes died in 1888.

Oliver Wendell Holmes, son of Dr. Oliver Wendell and Amelia Lee (Jackson) Holmes, referred to above, was educated in Boston schools and Harvard University, from which he was graduated in 1861, (being class poet), when twenty years of age. When he was graduated he was a member of the Fourth Battalion of Infantry, at Fort Independence, in the first year of the civil war. He was com- missioned second lieutenant in the Twentieth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers, and par- ticipated in the engagements at Balls Bluff, Virginia ; Antietam, Maryland; and Marye's Heights, Virginia, being severely wounded in the first named action. He was commissioned lieutenant-colonel in 1863, but the regiment being depleted below the minimum, he could not be mustered into service as of that rank. From January 29, 1864, to July 17, following, he served as aide-de-camp with the rank of captain on the staff of General Horatio G. Wright. He was graduated from Harvard Law School in 1866, and the following year was admitted to the bar and entered upon prac- tice in Boston. He was instructor in consti- tutional law in Harvard Law School, 1870-71 ; edited The American Law Review, 1870-73: lectured on common law before the Lowell Institute, 1880: was professor of law at Har- vard Law School, 1882-83: justice of the su- preme court of Massachusetts, 1882-99, and in August of the latter year succeeded the de- ceased Chief Justice Walbridge A. Field. He edited "Kent's Commentaries," 1873; and is author of "The Common Law," 1881 ; and "Speeches," 1891, 1896; and has contributed to various professional journals. He received the honorary degree of LL. D. from Yale Col- lege in 1886, and from Harvard College in 1895 ; and was elected a member of the Massa- chusetts Historical Society, and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was married, June 17, 1872, to Fanny Dix- well, daughter of Epes S. Dixwell, of Boston.

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BUTLER Nicholas Butler, immigrant an-

cestor, of Eastwell, England, a yeoman, according to his state- ment when coming to America, with his wife Joyce, three children and five servants, came from Sandwich, England, before June 9. 1637, and settled in Dorchester, Massachusetts. He was a proprietor before September 10, 1637. Their names appear on the passenger list of the ship "Hercules." sailing June, 1637. He was admitted a freeman March 4. 1638-9, and is called "gentleman" on the records, a posi- tion one might suppose belonged to him from the number of servants. He was a town officer and leading citizen in Dorchester. He re- moved to Martha's Vineyard in 1651. when he gave a power of attorney to his son John for sale of lands, etc. He sold land in Roxbury in 1652. He died at Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, August 13. 1671. The will of Joyce, his widow. mentions her grandchildren John and Thomas Butler, Mary Athearn, and Han- nah Chadduck and son Henry. Children: I. Rev. Henry, schoolmaster of Dorchester in 1652, proposed for minister at Uncatie, Eng- land, 1656; settled at Seoul, Somerset, until August 24. 1662, later at Williamfray, five miles from Frome ; persecuted by authorities. 2. John. mentioned below. 3. Lydia, married May 19, 1647, John Minot, of Dorchester.

( II) Captain John Butler, son of Nicholas Butler. was born in England, and he or an infant son John was baptized September 22. 1645. In 1658 he was constable at Edgartown, whither he removed with his father's family. The records show that his brother Henry owed him certain moneys. He was captain of the military company in 1654-5. He married Mary

He died in 1658.

(III) John (2). son of John (1) Bulter, was born in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, in 1653. He made his will November 10, 1733, at the age of eighty. He was a constable in 1692. He married Priscilla Norton, daughter of Nicholas and Elizabeth Norton. They re- sidled at Martha's Vineyard. Children : I. Henry. married Sarah 2. John, Jr., married December 16, 1708, Elizabeth Dag- gett, daughter of Captain Thomas Daggett. 3. Thomas. born about 1680 ; married September 18. 1702, Anne Torrey, of Weymouth; who lied October 1. 1735, aged about fifty-one. 4. Nicholas, born at Martha's Vineyard : married September 5. 1726, Sarah Ripley : second, Thankful Marchant. 5. Samuel, married, after 1712, Elizabeth (Clay ) Stanbridge, widow of

Samuel .Stanbridge ; died December 23. 1768; he died February 24, 1765. 5. Joyce, married November 20, 1705, Joseph Newcomb. 6. Onesimus. 7. Simeon, married, 1712, Hannalı Cheney. 8. Zephaniah, died September 15, 1721 ; married Thankful Daggett. 9. Malachi, mentioned below. 10. Priscilla, married; in 1748 was widow of Thomas Snow. II. Gam- aliel ; married Sarah Chase ; he died February 24, 1765, aged seventy-four.

(IV) Malachi, son of John (2) Butler, was born about 1700, at Martha's Vineyard. He bought a lot of his father, or was given a tract adjoining the place of his brother John, March 24, 1721-2, about the time of his marriage. After 1733 and before 1745 he removed to Windham, Connecticut, and in the latter year, then being of Windham, deeded to his nephew Shubael Butler half the pew he owned with his brother Gamaliel. In 1758 he was settled in Woodbury, Connecticut, and that year deed- ed his property in Martha's Vineyard to John Pease. These deeds were recently discovered in a search since General B. F. Butler died, and were published by his daughter, Mrs. Adel- bert Ames. General Butler and all the other descendants had confused Malachi with an Irish family of Butler in the vicinity, many of whom have been distinguished, especially in New York State. In 1757 Malachi Butler had a guardian appointed, being ill and "partly insane." His son Benjamin graduated at Har- vard in 1752, and settled in Nottingham. New Hampshire, while Zephaniah was in the Con- necticut troops in the French war in 1757 and 1758. Malachi married Jemima Daggett, daugh- ter of Thomas and Elizabeth (Hawes) Dag- gett, of Yarmouth. Thomas, who died Au- gust 25, 1726, was son of Thomas Daggett and Hannah ( Mayhew ) Daggett ; Hannah May- hew, born April 15, 1635, was daughter of Governor Thomas Mayhew. Thomas was the son of Thomas and Bathsheba Daggett, the pioneers. Children of Malachi and Jemima Butler : 1. Thankful, baptized at Edgartown, January 20, 1723. 2. Susanna, baptized De- cember 20, 1724. 3. Zephaniah, baptized at Edgartown, January 15, 1727-8; mentioned below. 4. Rev. Benjamin, born April 9, 1729 : baptized May 4. 1729 : died December 29. 1804 : married, May, 1753, Dorcas Abbott, who was born May II. 1729, and died April 19. 1789: his farm is still owned by lineal descendants at Nottingham, New Hampshire. 5. Margery, baptized July 18, 1731. 6. Silas. baptized at Edgartown, November II. 1733: settled in

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New York. 7. Solomon, removed to New York, thence to South Carolina, where he left issue. 8. Lydia. 9. Mary.

(V) Captain Zephaniah, son of Malachi Butler, was born in January. 1728; baptized in Edgartown, Martha's Vineyard, January 15, 1827-8. He went with his father to Windham, thence to Woodbury. He went to Quebec in the army of General Wolfe in the French and Indian war, and General B. F. Butler's family has the powder horn he carried. engraved with his name, and the date April 22. 1758. He was at the battles of Louisburg and Quebec. He was also a soldier in the revolution, a pri- vate in Captain Nathan Sanborn's company, in the regiment of Colonel Thomas Tash, raised to reinforce the Continental army in New York. September, 1776; also in Captain Amos Morrill's company. Colonel John Stark's regi- ment, in 1777. Both he and his son Benjamin, who was afterward on the staff of his uncle. Colonel Joseph Cilley, where in Captain Na- than Sanborn's company at the battle of Bunker Hill, as was also the second son. Enoch. After the war he was a captain of militia. Zephaniah Butler was a school teacher and farmer. He settled near his brother Benjamin, the minister, and was called the "school-master." He mar- ried Abigail Cilley, daughter of General Joseph Cilley. She was born in 1740. died in 1824. He died in 1800. Children: 1. Benjamin. 2. Enoch. 3. John, mentioned below.

(VI) Captain John (3). son of Captain Zephaniah Butler; born at Nottingham, New Hampshire, May 17, 1782; died March, 1819. For the war of 1812 he raised a company of light dragoons, was commissioned captain, July 23. 1812, and served on the northern frontier. Ile married first. June 5. 1853. Sarah Batch- elder, of Deerfield. New Hampshire ; second. July 21, 1811. Charlotte Ellison, who was born February 4. 1792, died October 4, 1870. Chil- dren of John and Sarah Butler : 1. Polly True, born June 8, 1804. 2. Sally, born March 11, 1806. 3. Betsey Merrill, born January 9, 1808: married Daniel B. Stevens, March 2. 1827: she died at Nottingham, September 22, 1904 : children : i. Elizabeth B. Stevens, widow of Colonel John B. Batchelder, artist and his- torian : ii. Thomas Stevens ; iii. Amanda Ste- vens : iv. Charlotte B. Stevens : resides at Wash- ington, D. C. ; v. Walter D. Stevens, of Derry. New Hampshire. Children of John and Char- lotte Butler: 4. Charlotte, born May 13, 1812: died August, 1839. 5. Andrew Jackson, born February 13. 1815: died February 11. 1864: efficient aide and assistant of his brother in

the civil war. 6. Benjamin Franklin, mention- ed below.

(VII) General Benjamin Franklin Butler, son of Captain John Butler, was born Novem- ber 5. 1818, at Deerfield, New Hampshire ; died January 11, 1893. He was rather a puny child, and quiet. gentle, and eager to learn, at , the age of four was taught his letters by his mother. In the summer he was sent away to a school in Nottingham Square, quite two miles from his home. He attended that school for six weeks and learned to read with little diffi- culty. Ile remained at hime during the autumn, and in the following winter his mother and uncle provided a home for him in Deerfield with "Aunt Polly" Dame, and he went to school there. In the winter of his sixth year he walk- ed from home every morning to Nottingham Square to school, and proved a bright pupil. In the course of time he was virtually adopted by his grandmother, and attended a private school and academy at Deerfield until eight years of age. under James Hersey, afterward postmaster of Manchester, New Hampshire. He was then sent to Phillips Exeter Academy to be fitted for college. A clergyman, who had befriended his widowed mother, built a house for her to occupy in Lowell, and in 1828, at the close of the winter term. Butler went to his mother's house and studied Latin at home dur- ing the spring and summer following, having the kindly assistance of Seth Ames, then a lawyer, afterward a justice of the supreme court. Later in the year it became necessary for him to earn some money, and his mother procured him a place at Meecham & Mathew- son's, the Franklin bookstore, the only estab- lishment of its kind in the town. He remained in this clerkshin until December 18, 1830, when the Lowell high school was established through the exertions of Rev. Theodore Edson, rector of St. Anne's Church. He finished his fitting for college, to which he went unwillingly. He wished to go to West Point Military Academy and. when his appointment seemed assured, his mother's clergyman, a good Baptist, advised her to send the boy to the Baptist College at Waterville, Maine, in the labor department. where he could do something toward his own support. He was religiously brought up and inclined, giving his good mother the hope that he would study for the ministry. His college career was a disappointment to him, having set his heart on the more virile and practical course at West Point. He became interested in chen- istry and physics, outside of his prescribed work, and loved experimental research, and

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Bay 7 Brithz

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became laboratory assistant to Professor Holmes. He taught school during the long winter vacations at college. At the time of his graduation, Butler was so reduced by a severc cough that he weighed only ninety-seven pounds, and he seemed in danger of consump- tion. But a sea voyage restored him to health which even during the privation and exposure of the rebellion never deserted him until his last illness. On his return to Lowell he began the study of law in the office of William Smith, in the early autumn of 1838, and not many months later before he was admitted to the bar secured much valuable experience in the Lowell police court. In the autumn of 1839 he accepted the position of teacher in a Dracut school, but declined a reappointment, and de- voted all his attention to studying law and practicing in the police court. At the September term of the court of common pleas in 1840, he was admitted by Justice Charles Henry War- ren.

He became interested in politics when quite young. he learned by heart the Constitution of the United States, and studied the founda- mental principles that divided the parties, as well as the public questions then agitating the public mind. The characteristic pugnacity and disregard of his future interests were shown in his first struggle. He took advantage of a coalition made by the Democrats and the new Free Soil party in 1851, made to defcat the Whigs, and secured candidates from Lowell pledged to the ten-hour movement. He was a Democrat. It was impossible to carry through this radical reform in the legislature, but great strides were made in the right direction, and after nnsuccessful efforts in several legislatures a compromise bill was enacted. fixing the hours of labor at eleven and a quarter. In 1852 he was elected to the general court, and again he espoused a very unpopular cause, the reim- bursement of the Order of St. Ursula for the destruction in 1834 of their convent in Charles- town by an anti-Catholic mob. In the consti- tntional convention of 1852 he was a delegate from Lowell, and served as chairman of the committee to which was assigned the revision of Chapter Six of the old constitution. The defeat of this constitution at the polls by the Roman Catholics brought the triumph of the Know-nothing party in 1855 and the downfall of the Whigs in Massachusetts. Ile attended every Democratic national convention from 1848 to 1860 inclusive : and was frequently a candidate for congress, but his party in Lowell was in a hopeless minority. In 1858 he was

elected to the state senate from Lowell, the only Democrat on the ticket. He drew the act reforming the judiciary of the state and the superior court established in place of the old court of common pleas. Most of the provisions of that act are still the law of the state. In 1860 he accepted the nomination for governor of Massachusetts from the Breckinridge wing of the Democratic party, and received only about six thousand votes while as the Demo- cratic candidate for governor in 1859 he had had more than 35,000. He was a member of the national committee of that wing of his party. But when the war broke out, he stood by the Republican governor of Massachusetts an 1 the Republican president, and became the most conspicuous volunteer general of the be- ginning of the war, on account of his former political affiliations making his example of in- calculable value to other Democrats who were brought to enlist and fight for the Union, and on account of his promptness in getting his troops to Baltimore and his success in action.

He came of a race of fighters. In 1839 he enlisted in the Lowell City Guard and served three years as a private. Step by step he was promoted until he became colonel of the regi- ment in which he first enlisted. During the Know-nothing furore. Governor Gardner re- organized the militia of the state for the ex- press purpose of disbanding companies of Roman Catholic soldiers, and as a consequence Colonel Butler lost his command, it being assigned to another district in which he did not live. Not long afterward, however, he was elected brigadier-general by the field officers of the brigade, and received his commission from the same Know-nothing governor. He encamped with his brigade in 1857. 1858. 1859 and 1860. In 1860 Governor Banks called to- gether the whole volunteer militia, six thous- and men, at Concord, so that when he went into service he had seen together for discipline. instruction and military movement, a larger body of troops than even General Scott. the commander-in-chief himself. With foresight and persistent effort, General Butler caused the Massachusetts volunteer militia to be made ready so that they were the first organized armed force marched into Washington for its defence. As early as January 19, 1861, the Sixth Regiment under Colonel Edward F. Jones, of Lowell, was prepared and tendered its services to the government. When the call came it found General Butler trying an import- ant case in Boston. He stopped short, asked the judge for adjourmment, and in fact, Butler

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Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I, Part 125

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848- Publication date: 1910 Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company Number of Pages: 924

Author: Cutter, William Richard, 1847-1918, ed; Adams, William Frederick, 1848-
Publication date: 1910
Publisher: New York, Lewis historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 924