USA > Massachusetts > Genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of the state of Massachusetts, Volume I > Part 127
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was twice married. 2. Jonathan, born January 6, 1707 (twin brother of John) ; graduated at Harvard College 1740; was an officer in the provincial service during the war of 1744 to 1763 ; in 1755 he went as a major to Fort Ed- ward. the next year was a lieutenant-colonel in Nova Scotia, and an aide to Major-General Winslow at Crown Point ; after the peace of 1763 he went to England and was appointed governor of Newfoundland and neighboring provinces, but unfortunately died on his pass- age thither. aged fifty-two years. 3. Daniel, entered Harvard College 1730, but did not graduate : married Rebecca Brooks, November 2. 1743, and removed to Westminster, where he died, leaving two sons and two daughters. 4. Lucy, married John Brooks. 5. Elizabeth, married a Mr. Whittemore, of West Cam- bridge. 6. Mary, married Zachariah Whitte- more.
(\') John (2) Hoar, born January 6, 1707 ; married, in Lexington. June 13. 1734, Esther Pierce, by whom he had two children. She died, and he married, August 21, 1740, in Watertown. Elizabeth Coolidge. He died in Lincoln, Massachusetts, May 16, 1786, and his widow died March 20, 1791. He lived succes- sively in Lexington. Watertown, and again in Lexington and Lincoln. It is not quite clear when he first came to Lexington. He was taxed for a personal and realty in 1729, and had a seat assigned him in the meeting house in 1731, when they reseated the house. He was a member of the school committee in 1743. He subsequently filled the offices of constable, assessor and selectman. His home was in that part of Lexington set off to Lincoln in 1754. His children were: I. Rebecca, born in Lex- ington, July 1, 1735 : married, May 6, 1755, Joseph Cutler. 2. Esther, born in Watertown, January 28, 1739 : married Edmond Bowman, 1760. 3. John, born in Lexington, July 14, 1741 ; died young. 4. Samuel, born in Lex- ington, August 23, 1743. 5. Elizabeth, born in Lexington. October 14, 1746. 6. Mary, born in Lexington, October 5, 1750; died young. 7. Sarah, born in Lincoln, June 9, 1755 ; married Nehemiah Abbot. 8. Leonard, born in Lin- coln. June 29, 1758; was twice married. 9. Rebecca. born in Lincoln. October 18, 1761 ; married Joseph White Lancaster. 10. Mary, born June 17, 1764 ; married Thomas Wheeler, March 27. 1788. II. Joseph, born July 30, 1767.
(VI) Samuel Hoar, son of John (2) Hoar, born in Lexington, Massachusetts, August 23, 1743; was an important man in Lincoln ; he
frequently represented his town in the house of representatives, and was a state senator from Middlesex county, Massachusetts, from 1813 to 1816. He married Susanna Pierce, by whom he had ten children-five of each sex.
(VII) Samuel (2) Hoar, eldest son of Sam- tel (I) Hoar, born May 18, 1778; graduated at Harvard College, 1802, received the degree of LL. D. 1838. He taught school in Virginia two years, and was admitted to the Massachu- setts bar in 1805. He was an eminent lawyer, contemporary with Choate, Mason and Daniel Webster. He frequently represented the town of Lincoln in the Massachusetts legislature, was a senator from the county of Middlesex, from 1813 to 1816, and was elected to congress for the years 1835-37-44. The legislature of Massachusetts sent him to South Carolina to test the constitutionality of certain acts author- izing the imprisonment of free colored persons held as prisoners in that state. By order of the governor of South Carolina he was forcibly ejected from the state, and compelled to leave before fulfilling his mission, but acquitted him- self manfully throughout the entire case. He was a man of marked character and standing. He died at Concord, Massachusetts, November 2. 1856. He married Sarah, youngest daugh- ter of Roger Sherman, of Connecticut, who was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, one of the framers of the United States Constitution, judge, and later United States senator, and mayor of New Haven until his death. Children of Samuel and Sarah (Sherman ) Hoar were: I. Elizabeth, born July 14, 1814. 2. Ebenezer Rockwood, Febru- ary 21, 1816. 3. Sarah Sherman, November 9, 1817. 4. Samuel Johnson, February 4, 1820 ; died 1821. 5. Edward Sherman, December 22, 1823; graduate of Harvard College 1844. 6. George Frisbie, August 29, 1826.
(VIII) Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar, eldest son of Samuel ( 2) and Sarah ( Sherman ) Hoar. born February 21, 1816; graduate at Harvard College 1835. In 1839 he began the practice of law in Concord. Massachusetts, and aside from representing his native county in the state senate, was in 1849 made judge of the court of common pleas. In 1859 he was ap- pointed a justice of the supreme court of Mass- achusetts, and in General U. S. Grant's admin- istration was appointed attorney general of the United States in March, 1869. In 1871 he was high commissioner of the Washington treaty, and a member of congress from Massa- chusetts, from 1873 to 1875.
(VIII) George Frisbie Hoar, son of Samuel
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(2) and Sarah (Sherman ) Hoar, was born in Concord, Massachusetts, August 29, 1826. The scenes of his boyhood were cast in pleasant places, 'midst fine influences, all calculated to unfold the germ of the true life to be enacted. After his common school days at Concord he entered Harvard College, graduating in 1846. He chose the honorable profession of law for his calling in life. fitting himself in Harvard Law School and in the law office of Judge Thomas in Worcester. He was admitted to the bar in 1849, and at once began the practice of his profession in Worcester, which city has ever since claimed him as one of her most hon- ored citizens. Among his legal associates were Hon. Emery Washburn, and later Hon. Charles Devens and J. Henry Hill, Esq. Mr. Hoar very rapidly rose to a very eminent rank in his profession. By native genius of his mind, well disciplined by a thorough educational train- ing, and augmented by an uncommon energy, he steadily moved forward and became a recog- nized leader. In 1869, when he entered con- gress, after twenty years at the bar, his legal practice was the largest of any west of Middle- sex county and the most valuable in a financial point of view.
It was in 1849 when George F. Hoar first entered the political arena as the chairman of the Free-soil party for Worcester county, where the party was the best organized of any county in the United States. When he was twenty- five years of age, in 1851. he was eleced as a representative to the general court of Massachusetts. He was its youngest mem- ber, but became the leader in law matters, and to him was given the task of draw- ing resolutions protesting against the com- promise measures of the National govern- ment in 1850. He had so far advanced in poli- tical life that he could have succeeded Hon. Charles Allen in congress, but he would not listen to the call made by his friends to enter congress, as it would be to put politics ahead of law-his chosen profession. Had he at that time entered the congressional field he would no doubt have been among the foremost in civil war and reconstruction periods. He would not go to congress, but did not refuse to serve in the state legislature, which was pressed upon him. In 1857 he was a member of the senate and chairman of the judiciary committee. In that body he made a masterly report. He was always ready to make campaign speeches, and but few advanced more thorough, extended and logical arguments.
In 1868 Mr. Hoar was elected a representa-
tive in congress (Republican) as the successor of the late Hon. John D. Baldwin. In this, the forty-first congress, he was a member of the committee on education and labor, and his chief work was the preparation and advocacy of the bill for national education. The bill did not pass in that session, and Mr. Hoar reported it in the next, and finally in the forty-third con- gress it was passed by the house, but failed in the senate. In the same congress he vindicated General Howard, and supported Sumner in his opposition to General Evarts' scheme of annex- ation of Santo Domingo. As a member of the election committee in the forty-second congress he drew the bill and had much to do along this line. In the following congress he made his famous eulogy on Senator Sumner. He was instrumental in passing the Eads jetty bill, and thus was opened up the New Orleans ocean commerce line. But perhaps of more import- ance than all, was his connection with the elec- toral commission bill, he being associated with General Garfield, Judge Abbott, of Massachu- setts, and Payne, of Ohio. In 1872 and again in 1874 Mr. Hoar had made known his desire to retire to private life, but each time felt his duty was in serving, because his state demand- ed it.
In 1876 his resolve to not be a candidate again for re-election was announced as final, and the people elected his successor : but the next Massachusetts legislature chose Mr. Hoar to succeed Mr. Boutwell as United States sen- ator, and he took his seat March 4, 1877, at the beginning of President Hayes' administra- tion. Here he rapidly rose in the scale and dignity of a true American diplomat and states- man. He became chairman of many important committees, including that of privileges and claims and on judiciary. He was author of the bill for distributing the balance of the Geneva Award ; the Lawell bankruptcy bill ; the presi- dential succession bill; tenure of office act : bureau of labor statistics, and many others. The most of his time in the house and the United States senate was spent in working for bills, laws and measures of large scope and wide range, leaving others less competent than himself to discharge their duties in matters of not so much real importance to the great and growing nation.
In 1883 and 1889 he was re-elected to his seat in the senate. To have been elected to the legislature so many times by a unanimous vote of its members was a new record for Massa- chusetts, and only bespoke of merit for him whom this brief memoir is compiled, giving
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him a rank along with Charles Sumner and Daniel Webster, who were in the same office, and as a contemporary with Samuel Hoar, his father. His voice had been heard in the national halls of legislation for thirty-five years, and he served as United States senator twenty-seven years at this period, his service being as long, if not longer than any American of our time.
Mr. Hoar had four times served as the chair- man of the Massachusetts Republican state convention. In 1880 he was president of the national convention of Chicago, by which Gen- eral Garfield was made presidential nominee. In his deliberations upon that occasion he proved his masterly fitness as a leader of great bodies of great men in exciting. eventful history-mak- ing times. In 1898 President Mckinley ten- dered him the ambassadorship to London, but on account of his extreme age and desiring to further serve in the senate he respectfully de- clined. He enjoyed travel especially in Europe. From his first visit to England in 1860, he had made trips as follows: 1860-68-71-92-96-99. He was a member of the Worcester Fire Society for fifty years. This society was formed in 1793, and was limited to a membership of thirty persons : it has come to be a social and historical body of much interest. In 1903 Sen- ator Hoar wrote and had published what is known by its title, "Autobiography of Seventy Years." It is a neat and well written detailed account of his own life. It embraces two vol- umes and is dedicated to his wife and children -"a record of a life which they made happy." he says in its dedication. One paragraph in the introduction of this work reads: "The lesson which I have learned in life which is impressed more deeply as I grow old, is the lesson of Good Will and Good Hope. I be- lieve that to-day is better than yesterday, and that to-morrow will be better than to-day. I believe that in spite of so many errors and wrongs, and even crimes, my good countrymen of all classes desire what is good and not what is evil."
While much of his time for more than one- third of a century had been in Washington, yet Worcester felt the touch of his influence and life. He was the prime mover in establishing a free public library in the city. He materially aided in placing the Polytechnic Institute on solid foundation. He was a great friend and help to Clark University. He was trustee of the Leicester Academy, and first president of St. Wulstan Society at Worcester. He also was instrumental in founding the Worcester Art Society and Worcester Club. He was an
honorary member of the Worcester Mechanics' Association. He was the oldest member at the time of his decease of any save two of the American Antiquarian Society, and was an honorary member of the Worcester Society of Antiquity, as well as active in the Massachu- setts Historical Society. He was chairman of the public preservation committee of Massa- chusetts, and helped to mark permanently the old revolutionary landmarks by proper stones, tablets, etc. He bought the old house in which had lived General Rufus Putnam, at Rutland. and made it a permanently preserved historic relic of revolutionary times.
That the effect of his noble impulses and the care and consideration he always gave to tlie helpless and oppressed be not lost sight of. it should be here given as an illustration of this marked trait of his character, what relates to the early abolition days when he, a young lawyer practicing in Worcester, helped to de- fend a person from mob violence. It was the case wherein a slave "kidnapper" during the "fifties" was arrested and tried in Wor- cester. but finally allowed to depart, with the promise of never returning. Many colored people here and many more radical abolitionists felt justice had not been meted out to him, and had it not been for young George F. Hoar, and his associates, he would have been violently mobbed. While Mr. Hoar was a life-long friend and helper of the colored race, he did not be- lieve in the mob law. He ever took deep inter- est in the freedom of the south and gave liber- ally toward its educational institutions, be- lieving, as he did, that education would sooner or later solve the race problem.
One more recent act of his great kindness was seen in securing the charge of two small Assyrian girls, who accompanied their mother to this country from Assyria in 1901 to be with the head of the family who had been here sev- eral years, and declared his intention of becom- ing a citizen in Worcester. Before landing at Boston Harbor, the officers discovered that one of the little girls was afflicted with a disorder of the eye known as trachoma, and considered incurable in adults and contagious. They, under the law, were ordered not to land on our shores, but to return at once to their native country. The family was poor, and the father a hard- working citizen of Worcester, and the mother was to be thus ruthlessly torn from the idols of her heart. The various officials tried in vain to evade the existing law, but were thwarted. The steamer which was to take the little girls back was to sail the next day. but through the inter-
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position of Senator Hoar, whose son Rockwood made the facts known to him, finally through a touching telegram to President Roosevelt, secured a peremptory order of release of the children, and they were brought to Worcester, cared for and soon cured. When the kind- hearted President visited Worcester a few months later, he wished to see them, and he met them at Senator Hoar's residence, where all parties were pathetically touched by the scene. It is small deeds that introduce us to great characters and tender hearts, such as was that of both Senator Hoar and President Roose- velt. Soon thereafter Senator Hoar had the law so amended that such a proposed hardship could not again exist in this country through "red tape."
While he of whom we write had his political enemies (and within his own party ) perhaps no other man had been in public life so many years and made so few enemies, and even those who opposed his position were at all times personally his friends. In the part he took in opposing the action of the present Republican administration policy regarding the Philippine Islands questions-one where he crossed swords politically with many of our brainiest states- men-all, even President Mckinley, himself, knew of and respected his manly independent stand as against popular opinion. Mr. Mc- Kinley was of a different opinion regarding a vexed question, but personally was one of Sen- ator Hoar's warmest friends. In Mr. Hoar's "Autobiography," he says: "It has been my ill fortune to differ with my party many times." One such occasion was when he bluntly said to Mr. McKinley, "You cannot maintain a Des- potism in Asia and a Republic in America." The man with no opposers has accomplished little and has made but few friends, but he who in the pride and spirit of his manhood adyo- cates the right, as he sees the right, and not from policy, is sure to accomplish what is de- manded of a well rounded character, whether in politics, social or private life. Senator Hoar was broad minded, scholarly and patriotic in all he said and sought to accomplish.
Of his domestic relations, it may be stated that in 1853 he married Mary Louisa Spurr. daughter of Samuel D. Spurr, who conducted a dry goods house in Worcester, kept in a large two-story brick block on the north corner of Main and Central streets. Near it stood a large two-story frame house, which was the residence of Mr. Spurr. Mrs. Hoar, at her death, left two children-a daughter Mary, and a son Rockwood, who graduated from Harvard
College in 1876, and was elected district at- torney for Worcester county in 1899, serving until January 1, 1905. In the autumn of 1904 he was elected to a seat in congress as the nomi- nee of the Republican party for his district. For his second wife Senator Hoar married Ruth Ann, daughter of the late Henry W. Miller, of Worcester. She died about a year in advance of her husband. Finally the end came, and he who had been styled "The Grand Old Man" was claimed by the death messenger, and the spirit took its flight at his home in Worcester, September 30, 1904. He was a firm believer in the Unitarian faith, and was identified with that church many years. His funeral was attended by one of the largest concourse of people ever seen in the common- wealth on such a sad occasion. His remains now repose in Sleepy Hollow cemetery, at the place of his birth.
A most remarkable testimony to the popular- ity and worth of the Senator was furnished by the people of Worcester shortly after his death. A representative committee of citizens was formed to take charge of funds for a suitable memorial, and in a few months the fund was ample for the purpose, contributed by some thirty thousand different persons, representing nearly every family in the city and many in other parts of the state and nation. The memo- rial took the form of a bronze statue executed by the famous sculptor, Daniel Chester French, and it was located in perhaps the most con- spicuous spot in the city, near the city hall, at the corner of Main and Front streets. The Senator is represented as seated in a massive bronze chair, with manuscript in one hand, his overcoat thrown over the left arm of the chair, and a bag of legal papers beneath the chair. The pedestal is a great monolith of granite bearing bronze tablets containing the inscrip- tions.
The statue was dedicated with appropriate ceremony June 26, 1908, in the presence of a vast gathering of people. Mayor James Logan presided. Rev. Dr. Edward Everett Hale. chaplain of the United States Senate, a life- long friend of the Senator, offered prayer and pronounced the benediction. Music was fur- nished by Battery B Band of Worcester. The speakers were Mr. Logan, Governor Curtis Guild. Jr., and Hon. William H. Moody, jus- tice of the Supreme Court of the United States. "And so we have erected this monument," said Mayor Logan, "paid for by the free-will offer- ings of over thirty thousand people, 2648 sub- scriptions of one cent, 22,820 from one cent to
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twenty-five cents, 3139 from twenty-five cents to one dollar, fifteen subscriptions of over one hundred dollars, and the subscriptions of one hundred and twenty-eight societies. And this has been done as a reminder to the youth of coming generations of the life he lived, and of the service which he rendered, that they may be inspired with the true grandeur of American citizenship as exemplified in the life of this patriotic public servant, useful citizen, faithful friend, charming companion, the mem- ory of whose life and service will be to this community an abiding possession. * The *
occasion is great because of the purpose for which we have come together, because of the character and fame of him whom we thus honor -our friend and neighbor-George Frisbie Hoar-a man whose whole life was character- ized by unselfish public spirit, of unremitting, intelligent, well-directed effort for the welfare of his country and his fellow men."
Governor Guild paid an eloquent tribute to the life and character of the Senator, and ren- dered a glowing appreciation of his service to the commonwealth of Massachusetts. He said : "We shall remember him, indeed, in future years, as the last of the Puritans ; not because he was austere-he exulted in the joy of living ; not because he was prejudiced-he was a very crusader for the rescue of free thought in a free land ; but because in public as in private life, he lived uncompromisingly according to conviction, and preferred defeat to equivoca- tion. A seeker for the ideal, he had in marked degree the saving grace of common sense, and in him honest independence never degenerated into mere fantastic opposition. A wit, a scholar, a jurist, a statesman, a Christian American gentleman, we may well be proud that when posterity in the days to come names George Frisbie Hoar, it will be forced to add 'of Mass- achusetts.'
Judge Moody spoke for an hour without notes, but giving ample evidence of thorough mastery of his subject. In closing he said : "It seems almost an intrusion here today, to his kindred, neighbors and friends, to speak of the beauties of his private life, his insensibility to the allurements of wealth, his indifference to the constant decay of his fortune, his devotion to the civic duties of this community, his love of city, home and family, his gentle Christian life and belief. The time of his departure was well chosen. We cannot but rejoice that he was spared the sorrow of the untimely death of his son, to whom he would have gladly yielded the few years of public life which re-
mained to him. Fortunate it was that with hope undimmed, happy in the love of those dear to him, covered with honors which came because he had labored and spared not, sustain- ed by faith in God and faith in man, he lay down for the eternal rest which we fondly trust is but another name for the life everlast- ing."
STORER The family of which this narra- tive is intended to treat is of English origin, and is said by
various reliable authorities to be one of great antiquity, and throughout many generations and in all of them to have been distinguished by reason of the eminent qualities and high character of those who have borne its honor- able patronymic. The immediate ancestor of the particular family here written bore the title and wore the vestments of the ecclesiastic, and fulfilled the duties of his office with dignity, becoming the spiritual leader of the parish church. Out of his family there came two into New England in the first half of the seven- teenth century, the one a son, whose calling was that of husbandman and planter, but him- self the founder of a family which in point of character and attainments is second to none other in the continent of North America. In the English records we find the name of this family variously written Storr, Storee, Stoors, Storah and Story, as well as Storer, the latter being the accepted form during the last almost three centuries by those who claim descent from the vicar of the parish church of Bilsby, England.
(I) Rev. Thomas Storer, vicar of Bilsby, had a son Augustine and a daughter Mary, both of whom came to New England in 1637. Mary Storer became wife of Rev. John Wheel- wright, founder of Exeter, New Hampshire, and founder and builder up of a strong church congregation. But it is of the son Augustine and his descendants that this narrative has particularly to treat.
(II) Augustine Storer, son of Rev. Thomas Storer, was born in Bilsby, Lincolnshire, Eng- land, came to New England in July, 1637, landed at Boston, and in 1638 was of Exeter, New Hampshire, where he and his wife Sus- annah joined the combination established by Wheelwright. In January, 1640, he was one of the ruling elders of the church in Exeter, and upon him and his colleagues fell the duties of the office of selectmen. On the first division of lands there he was allotted twenty acres and one hundred poles of upland and two and three-
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