Genealogy and history of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 10

Author: Hurd, Charles Edwin, 1833-1910
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston, New England historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 850

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For over twenty years he has lived at Man- chester, Mass., in summer and in Boston in winter. He was one of the founders of the Essex County Club at Manchester and for sev- eral years its secretary and treasurer.

He was married in Boston on October 30, 1889, to Miss Mary May Hayward, only daugh- ter of Isaac Davenport Hayward, of Milton and Boston, and his second wife, Mary Bartlett Vose, daughter of Elijah Vose, of Boston.

Henry W. Cunningham is a descendant in the seventh generation from Andrew Cunning- ham, a Scotchman who came to Boston about 1680, and lived on the present Washington Street, near the corner of Essex Street, where in later years stood the Globe Theatre. This and some adjoining estates have remained in possession of his descendants to the present time.

Andrew Cunningham held some minor town offices, and was a prominent member of the Scots Charitable Society.

He married about 1685 Sarah, the daughter of William Gibson, another Scotchman, who had come to Boston some thirty years before. They had ten children, of whom William and Andrew, Jr., left many descendants, though the surname has become extinct among the posterity of the latter son.

William2 Cunningham, of the second genera- tion, married Elizabeth, daughter of William Wheeler, of Boston, and had ten children, the

eldest of those who lived to mature years being James, who was born in 1721.

James3 Cunningham was a prominent citizen of Boston, taking part in the patriotic actions of the half-century before the Revolution, but in his later life became a resident of Dedham, where he died in 1795. He married in 1742 Elizabeth, daughter of Peter Boylston, a mem- ber of that well-known family from which so many New England people are. descended. They had eight children, the eldest, William, being a Selectman of Boston in 1785 and 1786, but later removing to Lunenburg, Mass.

The youngest son, Andrew,4 was born in 1760, and died in 1829. He was a merchant in Boston and for thirty years secretary of the Massachusetts Mutual Fire Insurance Company. Both his father and he were commanders of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. He married in 1783 Polly, daughter of Joseph Lewis, of Dedham, by whom he had ten chil- dren ; and after her death he married Abigail Leonard, widow of David West.

His second son, Andrew,5 born in 1786, was one of the old Boston merchants and ship owners, forming with his brother Charles the firm of A. & C. Cunningham, and carrying on an extensive foreign trade, principally with the Mediterranean countries. He was a man of sterling character and an energetic and honored merchant. In later life he took two of his sons into business with him, the firm becoming A. Cunningham & Sons. He married in 1816 Abigail Leonard, only daughter of David West, the book publisher, of Boston, and had eleven children, six of whom lived to mature years.

The third son of Andrews was James Henry,6 born in 1825, who was partner with his father in the foreign shipping business. After the decline of this industry, during the Civil War, he became interested in the Continental Sugar Refinery of Boston, and in later years was the treasurer of this corporation. He married in 1854 Lucinda S., daughter of Stephen Win- chester, and had one daughter, who died in in- fancy, and one son, Henry Winchester, the subject of this sketch. He died in 1891.

The members of this branch of the Cunning- ham family have almost all been merchants, bearing honorable names, but never seeking or

GEORGE A. MARDEN.

GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

entering public life. In their religious faith they have for several generations been Unita- rians, and attended the West Church on Cam- bridge Street under the ministries of the Rev. Dr. Charles Lowell and the Rev. Dr. C. A. Bar- tol; and in later years some of them have wor- shipped at the Arlington Street Church. Sev- eral are graduates of Harvard University.

Henry W. Cunningham's maternal grand- father, Stephen Winchester, was the sixth in descent from John Winchester, who came to this country in 1635, living for a time at Hingham, then moving to Muddy River, now better known as Brookline, and occupying a large farm at the base of the present Corey Hill. He and his descendants took a prominent part in the affairs of this rural community, John Winchester, Jr., being the first Representative to the General Court from this town. Stephen, the grandson of the first settler, moved further into the wil- derness, and bought a farm in Newton, near the upper falls in the Charles River. Edmund, the grandson of this Stephen, was born in 1772. In early life he went to Boston, and started the business which developed into the well-known firm of E., A. & W. Winchester, associating with him his brother Amasa and later his sons William and Stephen. He was an honored and successful merchant, and held many positions of trust in the community. He died in 1839, leav- ing sons - William P., Stephen, and Edmund -- all merchants in Boston. The town of Winches- ter was named in honor of William P., who was generally called Colonel William P. Winchester, because he commanded the First Corps of Cadets. (See brief Genealogical Record of John Winchester and one of his lines. By George R. Presson. 1897.)

ON. GEORGE AUGUSTUS MAR- DEN, of Lowell, the Assistant Treasurer of the United States at Boston, has been more or less prom- inent in Massachusetts since his first election to the State Legislature for 1873. First chosen Clerk of the House in 1874, an event chiefly due to the friendliness with which he had inspired his fellow-members of the preced- ing year, he was regularly elected to that office

afterward to 1883. Then he decided to seek election to the House again, with the purpose of becoming a candidate for the Speakership. Having obtained both desires, he was first elected Speaker for 1883. He was again elected Representative and the Speaker for 1884. Although new to the gavel in 1883, when the session was the longest held before or since then, mainly owing to Governor But- ler's frequent intervention in legislative af- fairs, he made an exceptionally creditable rec- ord in the chair. In 1885 he was a member of the State Senate. After being defeated in his candidacy for the Senate of the following year, he was appointed by Governor Ames a trustee of the Agricultural College at Amherst. Be- ginning in 1888, he was annually elected Treasurer and Receiver-general of the Com- monwealth for five consecutive years, thereby exhausting the period for which the office can be constitutionally held by the same individual uninterruptedly, and winning general commen- dation by his administration of the State's finances. In company with George S. Bout- well, ex-Secretary of the United States Treas- ury, he represented the Seventh Congressional District in the National Republican Conven- tion of 1880, held in Chicago, where both ar- dently supported the nomination of General Grant, thereby earning their right to member- ship in the "Old Guard, " and to their "306- medals," which they have treasured to this day. He has filled his present office since April, 1899, when he was appointed thereto for four years by President Mckinley.

Born August 9, 1839, in the little hill town of Mont Vernon, N. H., Mr. Marden is a son of Benjamin Franklin and Betsey (Buss) Mar- den. On the father's side he is descended from Richard Marden, who took the oath of fidelity at New Haven, Conn., in 1646, and who is supposed to have come from England, where the name is said to have been originally "Maes-y-dwr-din" (old British, signifying "Field of the Water Camp"), and by con- traction to have been superseded by "Mar- wardin " and "Marden." Mr. Marden's pa- ternal great-great-grandfather, David Marden, who was b. in Rye, N. H., d. in Bradford, Mass. David's second son, Lemuel, the pa-

NEW ENGLAND LIBRARY OF

ternal great-grandfather, b. in Bradford, Au- gust 30, 1745, in 1769 m. Hannah Green- ough, of Bradford (whose immigrant ancestor, Robert Greenough, was in Rowley in 1685), and removed to New Boston, N. H., in 1785. Nathan Marden, of New Boston, the grand- father of George A., m. Susanna Stevens, a daughter of Calvin Stevens, and a descendant of Colonel Thomas Stevens, of Devonshire, England, who was a signer of instructions to Governor Endicott, contributed fifty pounds to the Massachusetts Company, and sent three sons and one daughter to the Massa- chusetts Bay Colony. The Stevens family with its affiliations by marriage includes several of the original founders and proprietors of this colony, namely : Major Simon Willard, of Con- cord; Edmund Rice, of Sudbury; Gregory Stone, of Cambridge; Richard Hildreth, Rob- ert Proctor, and Thomas Chamberlin, of Chelmsford; William Chamberlin, of Billerica, who was one of the "Shawshin Petitioners" of 1654; and William Nichols and Bray Wilkins, of Salem. Calvin Stevens's wife, Esther, daughter of Timothy Wilkins, Jr., and grand- daughter of Timothy Wilkins, Sr., was a de- scendant of Bray Wilkins. Both her father and grandfather were members of Committees of Safety in the Revolutionary period, and per- formed active service in the war. Her hus- band, Calvin Stevens, fought at Concord and Bunker Hill. He enlisted April 23, 1775, as a private in Captain Abisha Brown's Company, Colonel John Nixon's Regiment, and served until August of the same year. Subsequently he served as a Sergeant in Captain Adam Wheeler's Company, Colonel Thomas Nixon's Regiment, from September 1, 1776, to March, 1777. Nathan and Susanna Marden had a son, Benjamin Franklin Marden, above mentioned as the father of the subject of this sketch.

The mother of George A. Marden was a daughter of Stephen Buss, who was a grandson of John and Eunice Buss, of Lunenburg, Mass. Her mother, in maidenhood Sarah Abbot, was a descendant in the seventh generation from George Abbot, one of the first settlers and original proprietors of Andover, Mass., in 1643. From George the ancestral line comes through four successive John Abbots, of whom

the last was commissioned a Captain in the French and Indian War; was chosen a member of the Committee of Safety of Andover, No- vember 14, 1774; and held a Captain's com- mission over an "alarm " company in the pe- riod immediately preceding the Revolutionary War. Other ancestral lines of Mr. Marden, formed by persons bearing the names Barker, Lovejoy, Livermore, Keyes, Chandler, and Harndin, go back to other early colonists.

Mr. Marden's preparatory education was obtained at the Appleton Academy in Mont Vernon, now the McCollom Institute, of whose trustees he is the president. In this period he was also taught the shoemaker's trade by his father, who was both a tanner and shoemaker; and he worked thereat after attaining the age of twelve, in intervals occurring while he was fitting for college, and subsequently during some of the college vacations. Having en- tered Dartmouth College in the fall of 1857, he was graduated in July, 1861, being the eleventh member in rank in a class of fifty- eight. In 1875 he was the Commencement poet of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, and in 1877 he delivered the Commencement poem before the Dartmouth Associated Alumni. Of each of these societies he was the president for two years. Among his classmates in Dart- mouth was the Rev. William J. Tucker, who is now the president of the college.

With his patriotism deeply stirred by the outbreak of the Rebellion, Mr. Marden en- listed as a private in Company G, Second Regi- ment Berdan's United States Sharpshooters, in November, 1861 ; and at the organization of the company on December 12, 1861, he was mus- tered into the United States service, receiving a warrant as Second Sergeant. Transferred to the First Regiment of Sharpshooters in April, 1862, he was with it during the Peninsular Campaign under McClellan, from Yorktown to Harrison's Landing. On July 10 of the same year he was made First Lieutenant and Regi- mental Quartermaster, and subsequently served in that capacity until January 1, 1863, when he was ordered on staff duty as Acting Assist- ant Adjutant-general of the Third Brigade, Third Division, Third Corps. After serving in this position until the fall of 1863, having

GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

been in the battles of Chancellorsville, Gettys- burg, and Wapping Heights, he was ordered to Riker's Island, N. Y., on detached service. Soon after, at his own request, he was sent back to his regiment, with which he remained until he was mustered out in September, 1864.

Having returned to New Hampshire, Mr. Marden entered the law office of Minot & Mugridge at Concord, N.H., where he en- gaged in the study of law and also wrote for the Concord Daily Monitor. In November, 1865, he removed to Charleston, Kanawha County, W. Va., and purchased a weekly paper, The Kanawha Republican. This he edited until April, 1866, when he disposed of it and returned to New Hampshire. Then he worked for Adjutant-general Natt Head, of New Hampshire, compiling and editing a history of each of the State's military organizations dur- ing the Civil War. In the mean time, still pursuing journalism, he wrote for the Concord Monitor, and was the Concord correspondent of the Boston Advertiser, having obtained this post in July, 1866. He accepted, January I, 1867, the position of assistant editor of the Boston Advertiser, and discharged its duties until the first of September following. Then, conjointly with his classmate, Major E. T. Rowell, he purchased the Lowell Daily Cou- rier and the Lowell Weekly Journal, both of which he has since conducted. On September I, 1892, the partnership of Messrs. Marden and Rowell, which had lasted just twenty-five years, was superseded by a stock corporation, styled the Lowell Courier Publishing Com- pany, the two proprietors retaining their re- spective interests in the enterprise. Since January 1, 1892, the Courier Company has been united with the Citizen Company under the name of the Courier-Citizen Company, the Citizen being made a one-cent morning paper, and Mr. Marden remaining in editorial charge of both papers.

Mr. Marden's first vote in a Presidential election was cast for Abraham Lincoln. Since 1867 there has been no election, State or na- tional, when he did not serve his party on the stump. The most notable of these was the Presidential campaign of 1896, when, in com- pany with Major-general O. O. Howard,

Major-general Daniel E. Sickles, General Russell A. Alger, General Thomas J. Stewart, Corporal James Tanner, Major J. W. Burst, and Colonel George H. Hopkins, he stumped the Middle West on a platform car, travelling over eight thousand miles in fifteen States and addressing more than a million people. As a speaker, he has also been in much request for Memorial Day and Jubilee anniversaries gener- ally. In April, 1893, he delivered a memora- ble address at the reunion of the "Old Guard," held in celebration of General Grant's birth- day. He also spoke at the banquets of the New England Society held in New York on Forefathers' Day of 1889 and 1892, the invita- tions to which he regards as the greatest honor of his life. July 4, 1891, he read the poem at the Annual Encampment of the Society of the Army of the Potomac at Buffalo.

Married at Nashua, N. H., on December Io, 1867, to Mary Porter Fiske, daughter of Dea- con David Fiske, of Nashua, he has two sons : Philip Sanford, born at Lowell, January 12, 1874, who was graduated at Dartmouth Col- lege in 1894 and at the Harvard Law School in 1898; and Robert Fiske, born at Lowell, June 14, 1876, who was graduated at Dart- mouth in 1898. He was the first commander of Benjamin F. Butler Post, No. 42, G. A. R .; and he is a companion of the Massachusetts Commandery of the Loyal Legion. Since Sep- tember, 1867, he has been a resident of Low- ell. The following facts as to Mrs. Marden's ancestry are gathered from the Fiske and Fisk Family Record, compiled by Frederick Clifton Pierce, and published in 1896.

Symond Fiske was lord of the manor of Stadnaugh, parish of Laxfield, County Suffolk, England, in the reigns of Henry IV. and VI. (1399-1422). Then follow lineally William ; Simon; Simon; Robert, "who fled for relig- ion's sake in the days of Queen Mary to Geneva "; William; John, who m. Anne Lantersee, and d. in England in 1633; and his son William, the first of this line in America. William Fiske, who was b. in England about 1613, sailed for New England with his mother in 1637. He m. at Salem in 1643 Bridget Muskett ; was made a freeman in 1642, and a member of the Salem church in 1641.

NEW ENGLAND LIBRARY OF

Soon after he removed to Wenham, where he was the first Town Clerk, Representative to the General Court by annual election from 1647 to 1652, and d. suddenly in 1654. His son, Deacon William Fiske, lived in Wenham, and was a Lieutenant. Deacon Ebenezer

Fiske, Deacon William's sixth son, m.

Elizabeth Fuller. He held various local offices, and was Deacon from 1739 to 1758. He d. September 30, 1771, at the age of ninety-three. His son William, who was b. in Wenham, November 30, 1726, in 1749 m. Susannah Batchelder, and in 1774 removed to Amherst, N. H., where he bought a tract of heavily timbered land and cleared a farm. William Fiske, of Amherst, d. in 1777 in his eighty-second year. David Fiske, Sr., his third son, b. in Wenham, June 25, 1757, en- listed in the War of the Revolution at the age of eighteen for one year. In 1786 he m. Edith Tay, of Chelsea, and settled in Merri- mack, N. H. In 1801 he removed to Amherst, N. H., where he d. at the age of eighty-six. His son, Deacon David Fiske, Jr., was b. September 20, 1792, and d. August 22, 1872, in Nashua, to which city he had removed from Amherst in 1859. He was Deacon of the Con- gregational church in Amherst from 1836 till he left the town. In January, 1823, he m. Abigail Nourse, a daughter of Deacon Benja- min Nourse, of Merrimack; and after her death he m. in 1828 her sister Harriet. One of the children of the second marriage was Mary Porter (Mrs. Marden). Her maternal ancestry is traced back to Francis Nurse, who was b. in England, and who was more or less prominent in Salem Village (now Danvers), the name being spelled "Nurse." The sev- eral lineal descendants down to Harriet, mother of Mary Porter Fiske, were Samuel, Samuel, Francis, Benjamin, and Benjamin. Francis Nurse's wife was the Rebecca Nurse who was hanged as a witch in the days of New England's shameful delusion.

A singular coincidence in the history of the ancestry of Mr. and Mrs. Marden is found in Upham's "Salem Witchcraft," Vol. I. p. 214. In a chapter devoted to the educational conditions of the time, Upham says: "Of course there was a great lack of elementary edu-

cation. For a considerable time it was re- duced to a very low point, and there were heads of families -men who had good farms and possessed the confidence and respect of their neighbors -- who appear not to have been able to write. It is difficult, however, to come to a definite conclusion on this subject, as the singular fact is discovered that some persons who could write occasionally preferred to 'make their mark.' Ann Putnam, in execut- ing her will, made her mark; but her confes- sion with her own proper written signature is spread out in the church book. Francis Nurse very frequently used his peculiar mark, repre- senting, perhaps, some implement of his origi- nal mechanical trade; but on other occasions he wrote out his name in a good round hand. The same was the case with Bray Wilkins."

Now Bray Wilkins, in a direct line, was the ancestor eight generations back of George A. Marden ; and Francis Nurse, seven generations back, was the lineal ancestor of Mary Porter Fiske. The two names thus meet in this one paragraph of Upham's history.

Another coincidence is that the foreman of the jury that tried Rebecca Nurse for witch- craft, and first aquitted, but afterwards, on instructions of the court, pronounced her guilty, was Thomas Fiske, a grandson of Rob- ert, who was one of the lineal ancestors of Mary Porter Fiske.

T HOMAS SMITH HOWLAND, of Cambridge, secretary of the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy Railroad, was born in Dartmouth, Mass., February 13, 1844. A son of the late William Howland, he be- longs to one of the oldest families in the country. The family was founded by Henry Howland, of whom the first mention in New England records, made in reference to an allot- ment of cattle to the different families in Plymouth, occurs under the year 1624, where he is represented as the owner of "the black COW."

Henry' Howland, according to the records, became a freeman in 1633. He was Surveyor of Highways in the town of Duxbury for sev- eral years. His wife, whose maiden name was

GENEALOGY AND PERSONAL HISTORY

Mary Newland, bore him eight children. He d. January 17, 1671 ; and her death occurred at the old Duxbury homestead on June 17, 1674. Their second child and second son was Zoar Howland, who, according to Friends' records at Newport, R. I., was m. in the tenth month of the year 1656. In the same records is the following entry of his death: "Zoar Howland was killed by Indians at Pocasset, the twenty-first day of the first month of 1676." In 1657, at Duxbury, he took the oath required from freemen. Five years after he removed to Dartmouth. He and his wife were the parents of nine children.

Nicholas3 Howland, the ninth child of Zoar Howland and his wife, Abigail, m., twenty- sixth day, tenth month, 1697, Hannah, daugh- ter of Lieutenant John Woodman, of Little Compton, R. I. He owned a good deal of real estate, and seems to have carried on a tannery. In the period 1702-1712 he served the town in a number of official capacities. His death occurred before the seventh day, fifth month, 1722, the date on which his will was probated. He was the father of eleven children. The will of his wife, under date ninth day, third month, 1734, names ten of the children, as follows : Samuel, Nicholas, Daniel, Job, Ben- jamin, Edith, Abigail Russell, Mary Tucker, Rebecca Sanford, and Hannah Wood. In this document the testatrix calls her deceased hus- band a farmer, while the inventory accompany- ing it valued her estate at "£1701."

Samuel4 Howland, the fourth child and first son of Nicholas and Hannah Howland, was b. in Dartmouth, February 20, 1704, and resided there throughout his life. The first of his two marriages was contracted September 11, 1723, with Sarah, daughter of William Sowle, of Dartmouth. She bore him eight children. His second wife, Ruth Davol, of Dartmouth, gave birth to five children. His first-born, Nicholas Howland, whose birth occurred first day, first month, 1725, m. Mary, daughter of Jonathan and Mary Sisson, of Westport, on April 11, 1751. Nicholas and his family lived in Westport, where he owned a farm, situated on the east bank of the Westport River, below the village. He was the father of eight chil- dren. William, his sixth child and third son,

also a native of Dartmouth, b. January 2, 1772, m. Diana Smith, of Dartmouth, in July, 1795. They became residents of Sara- toga, N. Y., where William subsequently car- ried on the business of hatter until his death, which happened in 1832. He had learned the trade in Westport, and had followed it for some time at Smith Mills, Dartmouth. He was the father of nine children.

William7 Howland, the fifth child and fourth son of William and Diana Howland, was the father of the subject of this sketch. Born Feb- ruary II, 1808, he passed his early days on his father's farm. From the age of twelve years to that of eighteen he attended the district school, being employed in his father's factory in the winter season, during which school did not keep. Afterward he attended an academy at White Creek, N. Y. Then he was a clerk for some time in Northumberland, Saratoga County, N. Y. In 1832 at Smith Mills, Dart- mouth, he became clerk for John Cummings. This position he left after a while for one in a South Dartmouth store. I. H. Bartlett, of New Bedford, in 1836 engaged him as super- cargo for a voyage to the Kennebec River in Maine; and it is stated that in the same year he commanded a coaster for a time. Having returned to Dartmouth in 1837, he re-entered the employment of Mr. Cummings. Five years later he became the partner of his em- ployer in a general merchandise business, which included dry-goods, groceries, hardware, and crockery. This connection had lasted twenty-five years when he retired, and settled on an estate then known as the William Pot- ter homestead, where he resided for several years. He then sold the farm, and removed to New Bedford, where he d. He was twice m. His first marriage was contracted July 15, 1840, with Louisa Packard, daughter of Ga- maliel and Susan (Joy) Packard, of Bridgewater, Mass. Born September 28, 1817, she d. Au- gust 4, 1845. The second marriage, which took place November 2, 1852, united him with Mary Ann Potter, daughter of William and Anna (Aiken) Potter, of Dartmouth. She was b. August 18, 1815, and her death oc- curred on April 6, 1883. Besides his son, Thomas Smith, whose personal history is

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Genealogy and history of representative citizens of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Part 10

Author: Hurd, Charles Edwin, 1833-1910 Publication date: 1902 Publisher: Boston, New England historical publishing company Number of Pages: 850

Author: Hurd, Charles Edwin, 1833-1910
Publication date: 1902
Publisher: Boston, New England historical publishing company
Number of Pages: 850