USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > Historic homes and places and genealogical and personal memoirs relating to the families of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 79
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(VIII) Henry Malcolm Ellison, son of Josiah Ellison (7), was born at Chester, Ver- mont, April 17, 1834. He received his educa- tion in the district schools of his native town, and during his youth assisted his father with the work of the farm. He left home at the age of seventeen, went to Mendon, Massachu- setts, and learned the trade of shoemaker. He worked at his trade in Mendon and in the ad- joining town of Uxbridge, where his ancestors settled. At the age of twenty-three he re- moved to Charlestown, New Hampshire, where he was employed for four years in the boot and shoe factory of Hanson & West. After his marriage in 1859 he went to Bel- mont, Massachusetts, in the employ of his wife's father, Tisdale Harlow, superintendent of the John Cushing farm, one of the finest in that locality, and when Mr. Harlow re- linquished his position Mr. Ellison was his successor. When Samuel Payson bought the estate of the Cushing heirs, Mr. Ellison con- tinued in the management. Mr. Payson be- came embarrassed financially and the property fell into the hands of a real estate company formed to develop it as building lots. About a year afterward Mr. Ellison retired, buying three acres of the estate and erecting his man- sion. He cultivated his land up to the time of his death, December 27, 1898, though not in active business. He was a man of strict integ- rity and sterling character, much loved for his many good qualities of mind and heart. He attended the Baptist church. He was trustee of the Waverley Co-operative Bank. In poli- tics he was a Republican.
He married, November 23, 1859, Harriet Harlow, born at Charlestown, New Hamp- shire, December 20, 1839, daughter of Tisdale and Mary Jane (Wiley) Harlow, of Charles- town. Her father was a farmer at Charles- town and at Belmont. Children: I. William
Henry, born at Belmont, August 30, 1860; married, September 29, 1886, Phebe Craw- ford, of St. John, New Brunswick, daughter of Henry and Mary Jane (Dunham) Craw- ford, of that place; no issue. 2. Frank Dex- ter, born December 19, 1866; married, April 15, 1896, Annie Corinne Colburn, of Stonghton ; no issue. 3. Bertrand Payson, born November 8, 1870; married, June 21, 1896, Lillian Corser ; child, Henry Corser, born February 28, 1899.
GLAZIER The. Glazier family settled early in Sudbury, Massachu- setts, and another branch be- fore the Revolution was located in northern New York province. Beamsley Glazier had a grant of land dated May 2, 1764, in the town- ship called later Hartford, in Washington county, New York, near the Vermont line. He was a provincial officer and a leading citizen among the pioneers.
(I) Norman L. Glazier was born at Hague, New York. He was a merchant for many years at Waltham, Massachusetts. He mar- ried Mary Ann (Vilas) Estabrook, who died in 1886. He died in 1890. Of their four chil- dren, three died in infancy.
(II) Dr. Frederick P. Glazier, son of Nor- man L. Glazier (I), was born at Waltham, Massachusetts, September 27, 1859. He was educated in the public and private schools of his native town, and studied his profession in the Boston . School of Medicine from which he was graduated with the degree of M. D. in 1883. In September following he opened an office for the practice of his profession in Hud- son, Massachusetts, and has continued there with marked success to the present time. He has a large practice in Hudson and vicinity. Dr. Glazier is a member of the American Institute of Homeopathy, Massachusetts Homeopathic Medical Society, Massachusetts Surgical and Gynecological Society and Wor- cester County Homeopathic Society.
Dr. Glazier is a prominent Free Mason, a member of Doric Lodge; Houghton Chapter, Royal Arch Masons; Hudson Chapter, Order of the Eastern Star. He is past noble grand of Hudson Lodge, No. 154, Odd Fellows ; member of the Grand Lodge of Odd Fellows 'of Massachusetts and of the Grand Encamp- ment. He is past chief patriarch of Re- bekah Lodge, and member and medical exam- iner of council, Royal Arcanum, No. 936. He is also the medical examiner of the Ancient Order of United Workmen; past master of
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Hudson Grange, No. 108, Patrons of Hus- bandry; associate member of Reno Post, Grand Army. Dr. Glazier is a member of the Hudson Methodist Church. He is an active and influential Republican, and for the past three years has been chairman of the Repub- lican town committee. He has been for nine years a member of the school committee of Hudson; was selectman three years; moder- ator of town meetings on various occasions, and has the confidence of political opponents as well as those of his own party.
Dr. Glazier married, 1883, Annie C. Jones, born in Nashua, New Hampshire, August 14, 1859, daughter of Philip Jones, of Waltham. Children : I. Philip Norman, born at Hudson, April 25, 1884, graduate of Clark College, Worcester, of the first class graduated from that institution, receiving his diploma from the hands of President Roosevelt; graduate also of the Bryant & Stratton Business College of Boston ; now a bookkeeper in the office of the American Woolen Company, at Boston. 2. Howard M., born at Hudson, April 1, 1887, graduate of the Hudson high school, now stu- dent in the Massachusetts Institute of Tech- nology, Boston, of the class of 1909.
BUTLER (I) Nicholas Butler, immigrant ancestor, 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 removed to Martha's Vineyard in 1651, when he gave a power of attorney to his son John for the 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 grand- children John and Thomas Butler, Mary Athearn, and Hannah Chadduck and son Henry. Children: I. Rev. Henry, school- master at Dorchester in 1652, proposed for minister at Uncatie, England. 1656; settled at Seoul, Somerset, until August 24, 1662, later at Williamfrary, five miles from Frome ; per-
secuted 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 Edgar- town, 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 Butler, son of John Butler (2), 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 I. resided at Martha's Vineyard. Children : Henry, married Sarah 2. John, Jr., married December 16, 1708, Elizabeth Dag- gett, daughter of Captain Thomas Daggett. 3. Thomas, born about 1680 ; married Septem- ber 18, 1702, Anne Torrey, of Weymouth, who died 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, Hannah 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. Gamaliel ; married Sarah Chase ; he died Feb- ruary 24, 1765, aged seventy-four.
(IV) Malachi Butler, son of John Butler (3), was born about 1700, at Martha's Vine- yard. 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 deeded his property in Martha's Vine- yard to John Pease. These deeds were recently discovered in a search since General B. F. But- ler died, and were published by his daughter, Mrs. Adelbert Ames. General Butler and all the other descendants had confused Malachi with an Irish family of Butler in the vicinity,
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many of whom have been distinguished, especially in New York State. In 1757 Mala- chi Butler had a guardian appointed, being ill and "partly insane." His son Benjamin graduated at Harvard in 1752, and settled in Nottingham, New Hampshire, while Zeph- aniah was in the Connecticut troops in the French war in 1757 and 1758. Malachi married Jemima Daggett, daughter of Thomas and Eliz- abeth ( Hawes ) Daggett, of Yarmouth. Thomas, who died August 25, 1726, was son of Thomas' Daggett and Hannah (Mayhew ) Daggett ; Han- nah Mayhew, born April 15, 1635, was daugh- . ter of Governor Thomas Mayhew. Thomas was the son of Thomas and Bathsheba Daggett, the pioneers. Children of Malachi and Jemima But- ler : I. Thankful, baptized at Edgartown, Jan- uary 20, 1723. 2. Susanna, baptized December 20, 1724. 3. Zephaniah, baptized at Edgar- town, 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, Novem- ber II, 1733 ; settled in New York. 7. Solomon, removed to New York, thence to South Caro- lina, where he left issue. 8. Lydia. 9. Mary.
(V) Captain Zephaniah Butler, son of Mal- achi Butler (4), 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. But- ler'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 Revolu- tion, a private 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 Cap- tain Amos Morrill's company, Colonel John Stark's regiment, in 1777. Both he and his son Benjamin, who was afterward on the staff of his uncle, Colonel Joseph Cilley, were in Cap- tain Nathan 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 Benja- min, the minister, and was called the "school- master." He married Abigail Cilley, daughter of General Joseph Cilley. She was born in 1740, died in 1824. He died in 1800. Children: I.
Benjamin. 2. Enoch. 3. John, mentioned below.
(VI) Captain John Butler, son of Captain Zephaniah Butler (5), born at Nottingham, N. H., 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. He married first, June 5, 1803, Sarah Batchelder, of Deer- field, New Hampshire; second, July 21, 18II, Charlotte Ellison, who was born February 4, 1792, died October 4, 1870. Children of John and Sarah Butler : I. Polly True, born June 8, 1804. 2. Sally, born March II, 1806. 3. Betsey Merrill, born January 9, 1808; married Daniel B. Stevens, March 2, 1827; she died at Not- tingham, September 22, 1904 ; children : i. Eliz- abeth B. Stevens, widow of Colonel John B. Batchelder, artist and historian; ii. Thomas Stevens ; iii. Amanda Stevens ; iv. Charlotte B. Stevens; resides at Washington, .D. C .; v. Walter D. Stevens, of Derry, New Hampshire. Children of John and Charlotte Butler : 4. Charlotte, born May 13, 1812; died August, 1839. 5. Andrew Jackson, born February 13, , 1815; died February II, 1864; efficient aide and assistant of his brother in the civil war. 6. Benjamin Franklin, mentioned below.
(VII) General Benjamin Franklin Butler, son of Captain John Butler (6), was born No- vember 5, 1818, at Deerfield, New Hampshire ; died January 1I, 1893. He was rather a punv child, and quiet, gentle, and eager to learn, et 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 difficulty. He remained at home during the autumn, when the family shoemaker gave him a copy of Rob- inson Crusoe. "The question was not whether I wanted to read it," he wrote in his autobiog- raphy, "but whether I could be kept from read- ing it, so as to do the little matters that I ought to do, and was able to do, called in the New Hampshire nomenclature 'chores.' My mother, laying aside her labors which were quite neces- sary for our support, taught and explained the book to me with great pains. But being a reli- . gious woman of the strictest sect of Calvin, she thought that I ought not to have so much secular reading without some Christian teach- ing ; so we struck a bargain that I should learn so many verses in the New Testament, if she would help me read so many pages of Robin- son Crusoe, she agreeing to explain both to me. My reading, thereupon, was almost con- tinuous, scarcely anything but eating and sleeping intervening." He had his chores to
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do, including driving the cows to and from pasture daily, giving him some enforced out- door exercise. 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 walked from home every morn- ing 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 Phil- lips Exeter Academy to be fitted for college. A clergyman, who had befriended his wid- owed 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 during the spring and summer following, having the kindly as- sistance of Seth Ames, then a lawyer, after- wards 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 & Mathewson's, the Franklin bookstore, the only establishment of its kind in the town. He remained in this clerkship until December 18, 1830, when the Lowell high school was established through the exertions of Rev. Theodore Edson, rector of St. Anne's Church. The school began with about forty pupils, in a one-story wooden building, Thomas N. Clark, teacher. He fin- ished 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 some- thing toward his own support. He was re- ligiously brought up and inclined, giving his good mother the hope that he would study for the ministry. His college career was a disap- pointment to him, having set his heart on the more virile and practical course at West Point. He became interested in chemistry and physics, outside of his prescribed work, and loved experimental research. He became lab- oratory assistant to Professor Holmes. He became liberal in his religious views before the conclusion of his college course, holding opin- ions common enough even in the Calvinistic churches to-day, but which in his youth were condemned as heresies. He taught school dur- ing the long winter vacations at college. At the time of his graduation, Butler was so re-
duced by a severe cough that he weighed only ninety-seven pounds, and he seemed in danger of consumption. 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 ad- mitted to the bar secured much valuable ex- perience in the Lowell police court. In the autumn of 1839 he accepted the position of teacher in a Dracut school, of peculiar diffi- culty, which tested thoroughly his powers as a disciplinarian as well as his physical strength in thrashing intractable youth. He declined a reappointment, and devoted 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 examined for the bar and admitted by Justice Charles Henry Warren. Except for the distractions of military and political life, thereafter he devoted himself to the practice of his profession with an earnest- ness, zeal and natural fitness that won him a foremost place as a trial lawyer, both in civil and criminal courts.
He became interested in politics when quite young ; he learned by heart the Constitution of the United States, and studied the fundamental principles that divided the parties, as well as the public questions then agitating the public mind. He began his career in politics at home. Coming to Lowell when he was but twelve years old, he grew up with the town from a humble manufacturing village. In 1836 it had become the second city of New England, and the largest city in the country entirely devoted to manufacturing. The mills were owned by corporations and managed by non- resident capital. All the people-men, women and children- mostly recruited from the farms of northern New England, all of good Yankee stock-were employed in the cotton mills, and the hours of labor then prevailing left them time for nothing else but sleep, ex- cept on Sunday. The hours of labor were thir- teen and a half daily. Butler made his first bitter political enemies by battling for shorter hours for the mill hands. Even among the workmen the movement was not popular, and those who hoped for a ten hour day ultimately were afraid to express their feelings. The characteristic pugnacity and disregard of his future interests were shown in this first strug- gle. He took advantage of a coalition made by the Democrats and the new Free Soil party in 1851, made to defeat the Whigs, and se-
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cured 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 un- successful efforts in several legislatures a com- promise bill was enacted, fixing the hours of labor at eleven and a quarter. After the civil war the ten hour law was adopted, and other legislation lifting the burden of the toiler and, to the amazement of the employers, not re- stricting either their prosperity or their output, under the new conditions wrought by the progress in mechanical skill. 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. Almost the en- tire Protestant clergy of the state made him the target of abusive sermons and unkind if not slanderous criticism. In the constitutional convention of 1852 he was a delegate from Lowell, and served as chairman of the commit- tee to which was assigned the revision of Chap- ter 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. Butler was extreme- ly opposed to the bigotry and narrowness of the Know-nothing party, and again the arrows of prejudice flew in his direction. He attend- ed every Democratic national convention from 1848 to 1860 inclusive; and was frequently a candidate for congress, but his party in Low- ell 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 and 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, believing that in the course of time he should be called into service, as his father and grandfather had been before him. Step by step he was pro- moted until he became colonel of the regi- ment in which he first enlisted. During the Know-nothing furore, Governor Gardner reorganized the militia of the state for the ex- press purpose of disbanding companies of Roman Catholic soldiers, and as a conse- quence 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-noth- ing governor. He encamped with his bri- gade in 1857, 1858, 1859 and 1860. In 1860 Governor Banks called together the whole volunteer militia, six thousand men, at Con- cord, 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 com- mander-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 important case in Boston. He stopped short, asked the judge for adjournment, and in fact, Butler tells us that the case has never been finished. He helped devise the means to raise money to transport the troops. The Sixth Regiment, strengthened with two companies from others, started for Washington on April 17. General Butler stayed behind to get his two other regiments in order, and to wait for the Eighth Regiment, which he took to the front April 18. He was in Philadelphia when his Sixth Regiment was attacked in Baltimore, with six men killed and thirty wounded. The Sixth finally reached the capital, and President Lincoln, as he shook the colonel's hand, said : "Thank God you have come; for if you had not, Washington would have been in the hands of the rebels before morning." With his com- mand General Butler proceeded to Annapolis and took possession of it against the protest of
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the mayor and of the governor of the state, of which it was one of the capitals. Thus he held open a way for the transportation of troops to Washington and insured its safety. The Sev- enth New York Regiment, under Colonel Lef- ferts, followed. The Eighth Regiment showed the country of what stuff it was made, when Charles Homans put a disabled and dismantled locomotive into commission and the men relaid the tracks on which their train proceeded to Washington. That incident was characteristic of the resourcefulness of General Butler, as well as his foresight influencing public opinion. The whole world has had a higher opinion of the Massachusetts soldiers since that dramatic railroad trip to Washington. General Butler occupied and held the Relay House, and so prevented an assault upon Washington from Harper's Ferry, which the rebels had captured and were occupying for that purpose. From thence he made a descent upon Baltimore and established it as a Union city, which it always remained. These movements effectually pre- vented the secession of Maryland, and held her loyal through the war.
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