History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 12

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 12

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Upon the change of dynasty consequent upon the death of Kamehameha V., Mr. Phillips returned in 1873 to the United States and established himself at San Francisco as Resident-Director and Solicitor of the Equitable Life Assurance Society of the United States. During eight years spent here in the practice of the law he was at times retained as the official coun-

HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

sel of the State Board of Railroad Commissioners, and the California State Reports show that lie appeared in important causes, of which Estate of Hinckley, 58 Cal., 457, dealing in a radical way with the State law of charities, is perhaps the most noteworthy. In 1881 he resumed the practice of his profession in the State of Massachusetts, residing in Danvers. He had previ- ously married, at Haverhill, Oct. 3, 1871, while on a temporary absence from Honolulu, Miss Margaret D., daughter of the Hon. James H. Duncan, of Haver- hill, a lady whose acquaintance he had made in the Hawaiian Islands.

It will be seen that, throughout a somewhat varied career, Mr. Phillips has only in a single instance been a candidate for office before the people, and in that instance the office was a professional one. Never slow to respond to the calls of good citizenship and good neighborhood; never hesitating to show his colors in any exigency where the public has a right to his opinions, he remains first, last and always a lawyer. Coming to the Essex bar, one of the ablest in the country, at a time when the rough habits of bluster and brow-beating were passing out of vogue, he made it his rule to appeal directly and with em- phasis to the intelligence and convictions of jurors, and to the sound, legal discrimination of the Court, and in all cases to treat persons whom chance placed in his power on the witness-stand with the considera- tion due to that most trying and unprotected of posi- tions. The thorough preparation which was insured to every cause entrusted to his hands left nothing to be decided by chance which could be foreseen and provided for, and the sagacity, energy, discretion and nerve which he displayed in his chosen calling were not slow in meeting their reward. It came to be a rare occurrence during his practice at the Essex bar to find a case of exceptional magnitude on trial from any part of the county in which Mr. Phillips did not appear on one side or the other. Among the most interest- ing of his cases may be noticed Boston and Lowell Railroad Corporation vs. Salem and Lowell Railroad Company, 2 Gray, 1; the famous Rockport liquor case, Brown vs. Perkins, et ux., 12 Gray, 89; and a case against the Sergeant-at-arms, upon writ of habeas corpus, Burnham vs. Morrissey, 14 Gray, 226, which settled the constitutional prerogative of the House of Representatives, in matters of contempt.

While Attorney-general of Massachusetts Mr. Phil- lips was called on to prepare papers for the removal, by process of address to the Governor, of the Hon. Edward Greeley Loring from the office of Judge of Probate for the county of Suffolk, a proceeding which excited the most intense political feeling at the time, for which the files of the office afforded no precedent, and which did more than any other single event to make of a comparatively unknown lawyer, John Albion Andrew, the great War Governor of Massachusetts. He was also called to Lynn by a threatening dem- onstration of unemployed workmen during the

feverish period which succeeded the financial dis- asters of 1857, and by his firm bearing and calm, persuasive address did much to avert the grave dis- orders which seemed to be impending. He was pres- ent, as a member of the Governor's staff, at the great Concord muster of the State Militia in October, 1860, and seconded in every way the efforts then making to put the Massachusetts contingent on a war footing. Not many months later he found an opportunity to present the sword there worn to a citizen of Marble- head, marching, in command of a company of his pa- triotie townsmen, the first company in the State to respond to the call of Governor Andrew, to the. relief of the capital beleaguered with rampant treason, and it received no stain in the hands of Captain Knott V. Martin.

Mr. Phillips was associated with ex-Governor Clif- ford as Commissioner of Massachusetts for the adjust- ment of a boundary question between this State and Rhode Island, which called for the intervention of the Attorney-General of the United States, and was in Washington on that errand in the closing days of Jan- uary, 1861. Brought, in this way, in daily contact with Mr. Stanton, at a time when Mr. Buchanan's Cabinet was in the last stages of disintegration, the Massachusetts Commissioners were not slow to divine the nature of the suspicions which distracted him, and reported confidentially to Governor Andrew, in the following letter :

WASHINGTON, Wednesday night, January 30, 1861.

DEAR SIR :- In an interview we had to night with the Attorney-gen- eral of the United States, we have been authorized to express to you, confidentially, his individual opinion that there is imminent, if not in- evitable peril of an attack upon the city of Washington between the 4th and the 15th of February-with a view to secure the symbols of govern- ment and the power and prestige of possession by the traitors who are plotting the dissolution of the Union.

We have but a moment before the closing of the mail to say to you, in this informal way, that no vigilance should be relaxed for Massachusetts te be ready at any moment, and upon a sudden emergency, to come to the succor of the Federal Government.

This may be an unnecessary precaution, but we feel that it is a simple discharge of a plain duty en our part to give you this intimation after what we have heard from a source of such high authority.

In great haste, we are very truly and respectfully yours,

JOHN II. CLIFFORD. STEPHEN H. PHILLIPS.

Gov. ANDREW.

Governor Claflin, in his address in Doric Hall, February 14, 1871, accepting in behalf of the Com- monwealth the Statue of Governor Andrew, says it was upon this letter that action was taken, February 5, 1861, to furnish two regiments with overcoats, not a company in the State being then ready for march- ing orders, and he attributes to this cause the ad- vanced state of preparation which enabled our troops, though remote, to reach Washington with the fore- most.

Bred among the Conscience Whigs, so called, Mr. Phillips became a Free Soiler from the start and acted with that party in the national campaigns of 1848 and 1852. In 1856 he represented his native

THE BENCH AND BAR.

district in the first national Republican Convention which sat at Philadelphia aud nominated Fremont. Subsequently he served as president of the local cam- paigu club, which met weekly at Lynde Hall, Salem, in support of that nomination, and iu 1864 he sat again iu the Republican Convention which named Lincoln for a second term. In 1884 he presided at a connty dem- onstration in Salem in support of Blaine and Logan. His religious affiliations have been with the Unitarian body, with such advanced leaders of thought as Chan- ning, Emerson and Parker. Mr. Phillips holds personal independence above sectariau and party allegiance.

NATHANIEL WARD was born in Haverhill, County of Suffolk, England, in 1570. He was the son of Rev. Jolin Ward, one of a long line in direct descent be- longing to the clerical profession. He graduated at Cambridge in 1603, studied law in the Temple and after extended travels on the continent, began his professional practice. He soon, however, abandoned the law, and studied divinity, finally settling as a clergyman in Standon, in Hertfordshire. As early as the year 1629 he seems to have become disaffected to- wards the English Church. The following is an ex- tract from the records of a meeting of the " Governor and Company of the Massachusetts Bay in New Eng- land," held in London, November 25, 1629 :

" Lastly, upon the mocon of Mr. Whyte, to the end that this business might bee pceeded in wth the first intencon, wch was cheifly the glory of God & to that purpose that their meetings might bee sanctyfied by the prayers of some faithfull ministers resident heere in London, whose advice would be likewise requisite upon many occasions, the Court thought fitt to admitt into the freedome of this company Mr. Jo : Archer & Mr. Phillip Nye, Ministers heere in London, who, be- ing heere psent, kindly accepted thereof: also Mr. Whyte did recomend unto them Mr. Nathaniel! Ward, of Standon."

On the 12th of December, 1631, he was ordered to appear before Bishop Laud and answer the charge of non-conformity. In 1633 he was forbidden to preach, and in April, 1634, sailed for New England, arriving in June. He was settled at once, as the first minister of Agawam (now Ipswich), with Rev. Thomas Parker, as the teacher or assistant. In 1636 he resigned, on account of ill health, and seems after that time, as long as he remained in New England, to have been engaged, more or less, in public affairs, for the de- tails of which his early education in the law had spe- cially fitted him. Winthrop's Journal, first printed in 1790, says that "on the 6th of the 3d month, May, 1635, the Deputies having conceived great danger to our State in regard that our magistrates, for want of positive laws in many cases, might proceed according to their discretion, it was agreed that some men shall be appointed to frame the body of gronnds of laws in resemblance to a Magna Charta, which, being allowed by some of the ministers and the General Court, should be received for fundamental laws."

The above extract does not appear in the records of the court, but the following entry is found iu the rec- ord of the proceedings of the above date :

" The Governor (John Haynes), Deputy-governor (Richard Bellingham), John Winthrop & Tho : Dud- ley, E-q., are deputed by the Court to make a draught of such lawes as they shall judge needfull for the well ordering of this plantation, & to present the same to the Court."

On the 25th of May, 1636, nothing having been yet accomplished iu the matter of the laws, the records state that "The Governor (Henry Vane), Deputy- governor (John Winthrop), Tho: Dudley, John Haynes, Rich : Bellingham, Esq., Mr. Cotton, Mr. Peters & Mr. Shepheard, are intreated to make a draught of lawes agreeable to the word of God, which may be the fundamentals of this commonwealth, & to present the same to the next Generall Court."

In September, 1636, Mr. Cotton reported a code of laws, but no action was taken on their adoption. Un- der the date of March 12, 1637-38, the following en- try appears in the records of the General Court :

" For the well ordering of these plantations, now in the beginning thereof it having been found by the little time of experience we have here had that the want of written laws have put the court into many doubts and much trouble in many particular cases, this Court hath therefore ordered that the freemen of every town (or some part thereof chosen by the rest) within this jurisdiction shall assemble together in their several towns & collect the heads of such neces- sary and fundamental laws as may be suitable to the times and places where God by his providence hath cast us, & the heads of such laws to deliver in writ- ing to the Governor for the time being before the 5th day of the 4th month, called June, next to the intent that the same Governor together with the rest of the standing counsell & Richard Bellingham, Esq., Mr. Bulkley, Mr. Phillips, Mr. Peters & Mr. Sheapard, elders of several churches, Mr. Nathaniel Ward, Mr. William Spencer & Mr. William Hawthorne, or the major part of them, may upon the survey of such heads of law make a compendious abridgement of the same by the General Court in autumn next, add- ing yet to the same or detracting therefrom what in their wisdom shall seem meet."

Winthrop's Journal states that in December, 1641, " The General Court continued three weeks and es- táblished one hundred laws, which were called the Body of Liberties, composed by Mr. Nathaniel Ward sometime past at Ipswich, who had been a minister in England, and formerly a student and practiser in the course of the Common Law." This was the first code of laws established in New England, and was so mingled in the subsequent codification of the laws with later statutes, that for a long period its precise provisions were unknown. In or about 1823, how- ever, Mr. Francis C. Gray, of Boston, found in the Boston Athenæum a manuscript of sixty pages which,

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

probably, belonged to Elisha Hutchinson, who died in 1717, at the age of seventy-seven years. This manuscript contained a copy of the colonial charter and a " Coppie of the Liberties of the Massachusetts Colony in New England." This " Coppie" contained one hundred distinct articles separated by black lines, the introductory and concluding paragraphs not he- ing numbered. Unlike the code, which Rev. Mr. Cotton prepared, and which was not accepted, it did not follow closely the laws of Moses, nor did it cite Scripture except relating to punishments. Cotton went so far in this respect as to add to the provision "that the Governor, and in his absence the Deputy Governor, shall have power to send out warrants for calling the General Court together," the Scripture anthority contained in the first verse of the twenty- fourth chapter of Joshua, " And Joshua gathered all the tribes of Israel to Shechem and called for the elders of Israel, and for their heads, and for their judges, and for their officers, and they presented themselves before God."

The Body of Liberties followed the Scriptures so far as to make no crimes capital, not made so by the Mosaic law, and some of these were omitted, such as heresy, profaning the Lord's Day, reviling magis- trates, etc. As the author of this code, Nathaniel Ward, a resident in Essex County, as long as he re- mained in New England, is entitled to a place in this narrative.

On the 13th of May, 1640, the General Court granted him six hundred acres of land at Pentucket (now Haverhill), which he sold November 26, 1646, to John Eaton. In 1641 he preached the election sermon. During the winter of 1646-47 he returned to England, and was settled at Shenfield, in the county of Essex, where he died in 1653. His son John, born in Haverhill, England, November 6, 1606, graduated at Cambridge in 1630, and was settled in Haverhill, Mass., in 1645, where he died December 27,1693.

Mr. Ward was an author of some notoriety, if not repute in other fields than that of law. In 1648 he published a humorous satirical address to the London tradesmen, turned preachers, entitled “ Mercurius Anti-Mechanicus on the Simple Coblers Boy," which was reprinted in Washington in 1844. On the 30th of June, 1647, he preached a sermou before the House of Commons, which was published, and in the same year published " A Religious Retreat sounded to a Religious Army." In 1648 he published " The ham- ble petitions, serious suggestions and dutiful expos- tulations of some freeholders of the Easterne Associ- ation to the high and low Parliament of England," and in 1650 " Discolliminium a Reply to Bounds and Bonds." But the work by which, next to the Body of Liberties, he is best known, is a quaint political tract satirizing the affairs and manners of the Massa- chusetts Colony and the fashionable ladies of the day, of which the following is a copy of the title-page :

" The simple Cobler of Aggawam in America Willing To help mond his native country lamentably tattered both in the upper Leather and Sole with all the houest stiches he can tako

And us willing uever to be paid for his work by old English woeted pay.

It is his trade to patch all the year long gratis. Therefore I pray gentlemen keep your purses. By Theodore de la Guard

In rebus arduis ac tonui spe, fortissima quaeque confilia tutissima

sunt. Cic.

In English.

When boots and shoes are torne up to the lefts Coblers must thrust their awles up to the hefts. This is no time to fear Apellis gramm : Ne sutor quidem ultra crepidam,

London.

Printed by J. D. & R. T. for Stephen Bowtell at the sigue of the Bible In Popes Head Alley 1647."

This work, though printed in England after the re- turn of Mr. Ward, was written in New England in 1645. A careful reprint was edited by David Pulsifer, of Boston, in 1847.

THOMAS BANCROFT NEWHALL .- Mr. Newhall was born in that part of Lynn which is now the town of Lynufield October 2, 1811. He is a lineal descendant from Thomas Newhall, the first white child born in Lynn, and a son of Asa T. Newhall, a prominent and successful farmer and magistrate.

Mr. Newhall was fitted for college at Andover and Lynn Academies, and graduated from Brown Univer- sity in 1832. He studied law in offices in Danvers and Boston and at the Harvard Law School, and was admitted to the bar at the March term of the Court of Common Pleas, 1837, and early in the following month established himself in business in Lynn. He soon acquired a very satisfactory practice, in which he has continued during the intervening fifty years, and with the discharge of the duties of various offices of a public and private character with which he has been honored, his life has been active, useful and hon- orable. In 1852 he married Miss Susan S. Putnam, of Salem, and he has two children surviving-James S Newhall, of Lynn, and Mrs. Caroline P. Heath, of Boston.

WILLIAM CROWNINSHIELD ENDICOTT is descended from John Endicott, who came to Salem in 1628 as Governor of the Colony, sent out by the Massachusetts Company. The family in his line has, during the two hundred and sixty years which have elapsed since that date, always lived in Salem and its vicinity, and most of the time on the farm which included the homestead of the Governor. John Endicott was born in Dorchester, Dorsetshire, England, in 1588, and married Anna Gouer, who came with him to New England. She died in 1629, leaving no children, and Governor Endicott married, August 17th, 1630, Eliza- beth Gibson, of Cambridge, England. He died March 15th, 1665, and his children were John, born abont 1632, and Zerubbabel, born in 1665. Zerubba- bel married a wife, Mary, who died in 1677, and he afterwards married Elizabeth, widow of Rev. Antipas

Eng 26, - H. Rusnie.

J. B. Munhall

при Зим сбо

Muft niles

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

Newman, and daughter of Governor John Winthrop. He was a physician, and lived in Salem. His chil- dren, all by the first wife, were John, born 1657; Samuel, 1659; Zerubbabel, 1664; Benjamin, 1665; Mary, 1667; Joseph, 1672; and Sarah, 1673. Of these children Samuel married Hannah Felton about 1694, and had John, born October 18, 1695; Samuel, August 30th, 1697; Ruth, 1699; and Hannah 1701. Of these Samuel, who was christened at South Dan- vers, September 30th, 1716, after he had reached manhood, married his cousin, Anna Endicott, Decem- ber 20th, 1711, and widow Margaret (Pratt) Foster, February 11, 1724. He died in 1766, and was buried in the family burial-ground at Danvers. His chil- dren by his first wife were John, born April 29th, 1713; Sarah, September 19th, 1715; Samuel, March 12, 1717; Sarah, 1719; and Robert, 1721. By his second wife he had Hannah and Ann, twins, born November, 1727; Elias, December, 1729; Joseph, February, 1731 ; Lydia, 1734; and Ruth, 1734. Of the children of Samuel, John was christened at South Danvers, June 9th, 1717, and owned and occupied the old Governor Endicott farm. He married Elizabeth Jacobs May 18th, 1738, and died in 1783. His children were Johu, born in 1739; Elizabeth, 1741; William, 1742; and Robert, 1756. Of these, John was chris- tened in the South Church, at Danvers, June 7th, 1741, and lived on the old Endicott estate. He mar- ried Martha, daughter of Samuel Putnam, and had the following children : Samuel, born in June, 1763; John, January 13th, 1765 ; Moses, March 19th, 1767 ; Ann, January, 1769; Elizabeth, August, 1771 ; Jacob, 1773; Martha and Nathan, twins, September, 1775; Sarah, September, 1778; Rebecca, May 20th, 1780 ; William, 1782; and Timothy, July 27, 1785. Of these, Samuel was christened in the South Church, at Dan- vers, November 1st, 1767, and was in early life a ship- master. He retired from the sea in 1805, and, mak- ing Salem his place of residence, entered actively into mercantile pursuits. The records of the town of Salem show that he was prominent in town affairs, serving both as selectman and Representative in the General Court. He married, in 1794, Elizabeth, daughter of William Putnam, of Sterling, Mass., and with his brothers, John and Moses, owned the old family estate. He died May 1st, 1828, and his chil- dren were Samuel, born March, 1795; Eliza, who married Augustus W. Perry ; Martha, who married Francis Peabody ; William Putnam, March 5th, 1803; and Clara, who married George Peabody. Of these, William Putnam, who was christened in the North Church, at Salem, March 13, 1803, graduated at Har- vard in 1822, and married, in February, 1826, Mary, daughter of Hon. Jacob Crowninshield. He married again in December, 1844, widow Harriet (French) Peabody. His children, all by the first wife, were William Crowninshield, born in Salem, November 19th, 1826 ; Mary Crowninshield, February 4th, 1830, who died February 16, 1833; George Frederick, Sep-

tember 11th, 1832, who died January 11th, 1833; and Sarah Rogers, March 3d, 1838, who married George Dexter, of Boston.

Of these children of William Putnam Endicott, the eldest, William Crowninshield Endicott, is the subject of this sketch. He was reared and educated in Salem, surrounded by families of wealth and cul- ture, and carrying in his veins a share of the best New England blood. Indeed, few places can boast of the careful training of youth for which Salem has al- ways been distinguished, and which has educated and developed that school of cultivated gentlemen of which Mr. Endicott is a marked example. He was fitted for College at the Salem Latin School, and graduated at Harvard in 1847. No man ever had better oppor- tunities for the study of his chosen profession, the law, than were afforded to him in the office of Nathaniel J. Lord, of Salem, who during many years stood in the front rank of the Essex Bar. In 1850 he was ad- mitted to practice at Salem, and in 1853 associated himself with J. W. Perry, who had been admitted to the bar in 1849. It was not long before his abilities as a lawyer were recognized, and these combined with a grace of deportment and dignity of character at- tracted and held a large and constantly increasing business.

So marked was his prominence, both as a lawyer and a man, that when a vacancy occurred on the Bench of the Supreme Judicial Court in 1873, Gov- ernor William B. Washburne unhesitatingly selected him from the political party opposed to his own for an appointment to the vacant seat. He continued on the bench until his resignation in 1882, leaving it after a service of nine years, to the regret of members of the bar and his associates, and carrying with him the affection and esteem of both.

In 1884 he was the candidate of the Democratic party of Massachusetts for Governor, and in 1885, after the inauguration of Grover Cleveland as Presi- dent of the United States, was appointed by him Sec- retary of War, a position which he still holds with honor to himself, his native State and to the nation.

Mr. Endicott married Ellen, daughter of George Peabody, of Salem, and has two children, a daughter Mary, and a son, William C. Endicott, Jr.

WILLIAM H. NILES was born in Orford, New Hampshire, December 22, 1839, and is the son of Samuel W. Niles and Eunice (Newell) Niles, of that town. At the age of five years he removed to South Reading (now Wakefield), and afterwards to North Bridgewater and East Bridgewater, in which last place he grew into manhood. He pursued the usual courses of study in the common schools and for two years was a private pupil under the care of Rev. R. W. Smith, of East Bridgewater, in whose family he lived. He then pursued a classical course in the Providence Conference Seminary, at East Greenwich, Rhode Island, and left that institution in 1861 to take the situation of principal of an academy in Georgia.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

He remained in the South until the latter part of 1865, when he came to Boston and there engaged in mercantile business. He not long after began the study of law under the direction of Caleb Blodget, now a judge of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, and at the March term of that court, at Lowell, in 1870, he was, on examination, admitted to the bar.

He at once opened an office in Lynn, where he has since pursued a successful career. In March, 1878, George J. Carr, who had for several years been a stu- dent in his office, was admitted to the bar and became his partner. The business of the firm, which has rap- idly increased in volume and importance, is a general one, embracing all branches of the law. Mr. Niles has neither held nor songht nor desired public office, bnt has coufined himself assiduously to the labors of his profession. He has rendered willing service on the School Board of Lynn, believing it to be one which every good citizen should render, if called upon, and one rather within the field of citizenship than that of public life. He married, on the 19th of September, 1865, Harriet A., daughter of L. D. Day, of Bristol, New Hampshire, and has three daughters, all under nineteen years of age.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 12

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1 Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1538

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed. n 85042884-1
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia : J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1538