History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 13

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 13

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CHARLES PERKINS THOMPSON is descended from John Thompson, who came to Plymouth iu the " Ann," or the "Little James," in 1623. He was born in Braintree, Mass., July 30, 1827, and was educated in the common schools of that town and in the Hol- lis Institute, which was established in Braintree in 1845 by John R. Hollis, and discontinued in 1865. He studied law with Benjamin F. Hallett, of Boston, and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in the spring of 1854. Mr. Hallett was United States District Attor- ney from 1853 to 1857, and Mr. Thompson, after his admission to the bar, was employed by him as his second assistant, his son, Henry L. Hallett, now United States Commissioner, acting as first assistant. In the spring of 1857 he removed to Gloncester, and has sinee continued to make that place his residence. In 1871 and 1872 he was a member of the State House of Representatives, and in 1874 was chosen a member of the Forty-fourth Congress. In 1885, on the appointment of William Sewall Gardner, then a justice of the Superior Court, to a seat on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, he was appointed by Governor George D. Robinson to fill the vacancy.

Judge Thompson has been for many years active in the interests of the Democratic party, and in 1881 was the candidate of that party for Governor. His warm friends are far from being confined, however, to that political organization, and the number is not small of those who were only restrained by the shackles of party from giving him their support, and would have been glad to welcome him as the chief executive of the State.

JOHN JAMES MARSH,1 of Haverhill, is descended

from an old family of that place, whose members are numerous and widely scattered.

The ancestor, George Marsh, came from England in 1635 to Charlestown, and settled in Hingham, Mass, His son, Onesiphorus, settled in Haverhill in 1672. He located at what was long known as " Marsh's Hill," a mile west of the village, in modern times Wingate's Hill.

In 1721, John Marsh, son of Onesiphorus, was chosen deacon of the first parish church.

David, son of John, was chosen deacon in 1737, continuing in that office till his death, Nov. 2, 1777. About 1728 he removed from Marsh's Hill to the village, to the site adjoining on the north, the Centre Church, still occupied by descendants. David Marsh had twelve children, who lived to a great age. The average of the twelve was eighty-three years, and the united age of all was one thousand. They were all noted for industry, temperance and frugality. Two of them, Lydia and Abigail Marsh, born in 1745 and 1747 respectively and unmarried, gave, in 1825, a lot of land on the north side of what is now Winter Street, for the Haverhill Academy.

Nathaniel Marsh, born 1739, was active in town and military affairs, commanded a relief company which marched from Haverhill to Stillwater in the Bur- goyne campaign, was chosen in 1787 to the State con- vention to deliberate on the Federal Constitution and voted yea upon the question of its adoption. He was also a representative in the Legislature in 1786, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1797 and 1798.

Moses, son of David, had twelve children, like his father. Two of his sons, David and John Marsh, were partners in business for nearly fifty years in a store in Merrimack Street, on the river side.

There they manufactured hand cards for carding wool, before machines for that purpose, driven by water, were introduced here. After their introduc- tion, and during the second war with England, they began to make the machines also and the cards with them. It is supposed that under the direction of Abraham Marland, an Englishman, who commenced woolen manufacturing in Andover as early as 1807, the brothers Marsh made the first carding machine used in this part of the conntry. Subsequently they sent many into New Hampshire and Maine. During their long career it has been said that the example of David and John Marsh was proverbial, not only for the fairness of their dealings and their promptness to meet all obligations, but also for the brotherly kind- ness which marked their intercourse with each other.

Samuel Marsh, the youngest of this long-lived and estimable family, was born in 1786 and died in 1872, in the city of New York, where he had resided many years and was largely engaged in important transac- tions. He was heavily interested in the Fox and Wisconsin Improvement Company, and was president of the New York and Erie Railroad Company, being snecceded in the latter position by his nephew,

1 By IIon. J. B. D. Cogswell.

Eng by M.H RU

Charle troyes

THE BENCH AND BAR.

Nathaniel Marsh, also a native of Haverhill. Marsh- field, now a thriving town in Wood County, Wiscon- sin, preserves the name and marks the foresight of Samuel Marsh.

John James Marsh, son of John Marsh, the partner of David, was born at Haverhill May 2, 1820. His early education was received in its schools and at the Haverhill Academy. He graduated at Dartmouth College in 1841. Of his seventy-six classmates, the largest number have deceased. Gardner Greene Hubbard, well-known to many through his early con- nection with the development of the telephone, Henry Elijah Parker, for many years professor of the Latin language and literature at Dartmouth, Edward Reed, sou of "Honest" John Reed, many years in Congress from Massachusetts, and Edward Webster, son of the great stateman, Daniel Webster, may be mentioned, the first three still surviving. Mr. Marsh's law studies were pursued in the offices of Alfred Kittredge, of Haverhill, and Slossons & Schell, of New York City, and at the Dane Law School, Har- vard University. In 1846, he commenced the prac- tice of the law in Haverhill, continuing in it till about 1872, when the pressure of private business caused him to relinquish the profession. Upon the change from a town to a city government in 1870, Mr. Marsh consented to act as city solicitor in that and the succeeding year. Otherwise he has never held public office. During the period of Mr. Marsh's active practice, he had many students, of whom may be mentioned John James Ingalls, United States Senator from Kansas, and Addison Brown, Judge of the Dis- trict Court of the United States for the Southern District of New York. He was always regarded as a sound, energetic lawyer and successful practitioner.

The Children's Aid Society of Haverhill, a most deserving charity, established some years since a home upon Kenoza Avenue, which was ill-adapted to its beneficent purposes. In 1883, Mr. Marsh and his sister, Mrs. Ames, erected upon the lot on Main Street, which had been previously donated to the society by them and their cousin, Mrs. Kelly, a sub- stantial aud commodious brick building, which, upon its completion, was, with simple ceremonies, trans- ferred to the society. Being in memory of their de- ceased sister it is known as the "Elizabeth Home."

"John Marsh," as he is known in Haverhill, is ac- tive in his habits and social in his temperament. Apparently in vigorous health, he bids fair to rival the remarkable longevity in the past, of the family whose most conspicnous representative he at present is. His residence is on Summer Street, and he is fre- quently to be seen driving out to his farm in the West Parish, on the shore of Crystal Lake, where he takes great satisfaction in the improvement of his acres, and the breeding and management of stock.

CHARLES JOHNSON NOYES is a lineal descendant of Rev. James Noyes (one of the colony which settled at Newbury in 1635), preacher and scholar, who

erected what is now known as the "old Noyes house," standing a short distance to the right of the upper green, not far from the Old Town Church in old Newbury. His paternal grandfather was Parker Noyes, who was born September 25, 1777, at Haver- hill, Mass., and died in 1848. Parker Noyes married Mary Fifield, who was born at Hopkinton, N. H., in 1780, and died in 1810. They lived for a time at Canaan, N. H., where Johnson Noyes, the father of the subject of this sketch was born, January 23, 1808. Johnson Noyes, while a young man, moved to Haver- hill, Mass., having learned the shoemaker's trade, and was married to Sally Brickett, daughter of John and Abigail Brickett, on the 10th of October, 1833. They settled at what was known as the North Parish, in Haverhill, where he carried on a country store and manufactured shoes to a limited extent. Here one of four children, Speaker Noyes, was born, August 7, 1841, and lived until about nine years of age, when his parents moved into the main village, tlien a thriv- ing town, now a city of twenty-four thousand people. John Brickett was born at Newbury, Mass, in 1762, and his wife at Haverhill, in 1763. The former died December 27, 1845, and the latter in the March previous, each at the ripe age of eighty-five years.

The other children of Johnson Noyes were Ann Augusta, who died when a mere infant; Sarah B., who was born December 10, 1834, and died May 29, 1862; and Elizabeth C., who was born December 23, 1845, and died May 5, 1870. After moving to the village Speaker Noyes attended the schools and passed through all the various grades, graduating at the Haverhill Academy in 1860, the valedictorian and president of his class. Aud when, afterward, an alumni association was formed, he became its first president and held the office five years, finally declin- ing a re-election. He was twice the class orator and chairman of its senior catalogue committee. He was admitted to the bar at Cambridge, Mass., and began practice simultaneously in Boston and Haverhill in 1864. The extent of his Essex practice soon necessi- tated the discontinuance of his Boston office. In the second Lincoln campaign, that of 1864, Mr. Noyes was made president of the Lincoln Club of Haver- hill, an organization composed of leading business men and citizens, and on the assassination of Presi- dent Lincoln he was selected to deliver the memorial oration before the city authorities. In the fall elec- tion of 1865 Mr. Noyes was elected a member of the House of Representatives of 1866, in which he served on the committee on the judiciary. Declining a re- electiou to the House, he accepted a nomination from the citizens of Haverhill as candidate for the Senate, and was elected in a triangular contest, in which George S. Merrill, of Lawrence, and Moses F. Stevens were competitors.

In the Senate Mr. Noyes served on the committee on education, library (being chairman), and on the joint special committee on amendments to the Con-

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

stitution. At the close of the session he declined further political honors and devoted himself to his profession. He again opened an office in Boston and carried on a successful practice in the two counties until the business in Boston required his whole time. In 1872 he located his family in South Boston, where he has since continued to reside.

In 1876 he again entered the field of politics by ac- cepting a nomination for Representative, and was elected, thus re-entering the House in 1877. He served that year as chairman of the committee on mercantile affairs and on the committee on Hoosac Tunnel and Troy and Greenfield Railroad. Re- elected in 1878, he served as chairman of the com- mittee on harbors and Hoosac Tunnel. In the House of 1879 Mr. Noyes was a prominent candidate for Speaker, but was defeated by Mr. Levi C. Wade, who received the caucus nomination and consequently an election. Mr. Noyes was made chairman of the committee on amendments to the Constitution, and as such took charge of and secured the adoption in the House of a number of important amendments. Re- turning to the House of 1880, Mr. Noyes was elected Speaker over a number of competitors on the fourth ballot, receiving one hundred and twenty-one votes. Chosen to the House again the following autumn, he was elected Speaker by a practically nnanimous vote. He was also again elected, and was Speaker in the House of 1882.

In the following summer, when it became known that Governor Long would decline a renomination, Mr. Noyes' name was at once taken up by the press as one in every way snitable for the head of the ticket, and friends from all parts of the State urged him to contest the nomination. After considering the matter some time he declined, however, to allow the use of his name in this connection. Had he gone into the convention as a candidate, the outcome would have been very different, with the probabilities largely in favor of the nomination coming to him. As it was, he received next to the largest vote for the Lieutenant-Governorship. In the campaign of 1883 he received the unanimous nomination for the Gov- ernor's Council from the Republican Convention of the Fonrth Council or District, and, although the dis- trict was Democratic, received a very large vote.

He now sought retirement from active politics, de- termining to devote himself to the labor of his pro- fession and the care of his growing private interests. He was soon after appointed as special justice of the Municipal Court of the City of Boston for the South Boston District, which position he has continued to hold. In 1886, however, he was again induced to be- come a candidate for the House, and though the dis- triet was more than doubtful, won the election. He at once began an active campaign for the Speakership, and, to the surprise of the other candidates and the consternation of their friends, won upon the first ballot.

Mr. Noyes is a member of the Order of Odd Fel- lows, and has long been active therein, having passed the chairs respectively of the subordinate lodge and the encampment. He is also an active member of the Masonic fraternity. He is a member of Adelphi Lodge, and one of its Past Masters ; a member of St. Matthew's Royal Arch Chapter; a member of St. Omer Commandery, Knights Templar, and one of its Past Commanders ; a member of Lafayette Lodge of Perfection ; a member of the Giles F. Yates Council, Princes of Jerusalem ; a member of Mount Olivet Chapter Rose Croix, and a member of Massachusetts Consistory. He has also taken the council degrees in Boston Council, but has never taken membership. He was also for a time a member of the National Lancers and of the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. Mr. Noyes is connected with the directory of a number of business corporations, in two of which he is president. In his religions affiliations Mr. Noyes is Unitarian, and has at times been quite ac- tive in church and Sunday-school work. In politics he has taken an active part on the stump during the last fifteen years in different parts of the country, and in the Garfield campaign of 1880 he spent six weeks speaking for the Republican cause throughout the States of North Carolina and Florida.

As a speaker, Mr. Noyes is fluent in utterance, easy and graceful in manner and remarkably apt in his choice of words. His memorial address at Wor- cester on Sunday evening, May 28, 1882, was a fin- ished production, and was listened to by an andience that packed Mechanics' Hall to its utmost capacity. It was published in the Worcester Gazette of the fol- lowing evening, and widely quoted by the press of the State. His off-hand efforts are always appro- priate to the occasion and exceedingly felicitons.

As a presiding officer, Mr. Noyes has few equals and no superiors. His fine presence and quiet dignity of manner awe and hold in check all turbulent dem- onstrations, while his unfailing courtesy is felt and acknowledged by all. Gifted with keenness of vision and a readiness of apprehension, any movement made by a member to get the floor is immediately recog- nized, while a motion coming from any part of the House is caught at once and clearly stated to that body. Added to these qualifications is a thorough knowledge of parliamentary law, which makes him at all times the master of the situation. No attempt at resorting to the most bewildering of parliamentary tactics can disturb his equanimity, or make him for a moment lose sight of the point in hand; bnt, through all the intricacies of motions and amendments and counter-motions, the debate is kept under rigid con- trol, and the final disposition of the question so clear and just that from the decisions of the chair there is no appeal.

To those who have come in contact with Mr. Noyes there is no difficulty in discerning the occasion of his popularity. He possesses in a high degree that

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strong personal magnetism that at once draws one to him, while there is a sincerity and cordiality mani- fested by him that makes the bonds of friendship enduring. Easily approachable, genial and sun- shiny by nature, he makes a most delightful com- panion, and his personal popularity is very great.

In 1864 Mr. Noyes was married to Miss Emily Wells, the only surviving daughter of Col. Jacob C. Wells, a well-known and successful merchant of Cin- cinnati, O. They have three children. The eldest, Miss Fannie C. Noyes, is a young lady of rare artistic talent, and is now studying in Paris as an animal painter ; the second, Mr. Harry R. Noyes, holds a fine position with a well-known firm of stock brokers; and the youngest, Miss Gracie L., is still in school.

MARCUS MORTON is the son of Marcus and Char- lotte (Hodges) Morton and was born in Taunton, Mass., April 8, 1819. His father was born in Freetown, Mass., in 1784, and graduated at Brown University in 1804. He received the degree of LL.D., from his alma mater in 1826, and from Harvard University in 1840. In 1825 he was appointed justice of the Supreme Judi- cial Court and continued on the bench until 1840, when he resigned to assume the duties of Governor of the commonwealth, which office he held during that year and again in 1843. He died in 1864. The father of Governor Morton was Nathaniel Morton, of Freetown, born in 1753, who married in 1782, Mary Cary, of Bridgewater. The father of Nathaniel was Nathan- iel, born in 1723, who married in 1749, Martha Tup- per. The father of the last Nathaniel was Nathaniel of Plymouth, born in 1695, who married, in 1720, Re- becca, widow of Mordecai Ellis, and daughter of Thomas Clark, of Plymouth. The father of the last Nathaniel was Eleazer, of Plymouth, who married in 1693, Rebecca Marshall, of Boston. The father of Eleazer was Ephraim, of Plymouth, born in 1623, who married, in 1644, Ann Cooper. The father of Ephraim was George, of Plymouth, who married in Leyden, in 1612, Julian, daughter of Alexander Car- penter, of Wrentham, England, and came to Plym- outh in the " Ann " in 1623. Another son of George Morton, and a brother of Ephraim, was Nathaniel Morton, the secretary for many years of the Plymouth colony and the author of "New England's Memo- rial."

Thomas Clark, whose daughter, Rebecca, married Mordecai Ellis and afterwards Nathaniel Morton above mentioned, married three wives, and Rebecca was the daughter of the third wife, born in 1698. The father of Thomas Clark was James, born in 1637, who married in 1657, Abigail, daughter of Rev. John Lathrop, of Barn- stable. The father of James was Thomas, of Plymouth, a passenger in the " Ann " in 1623, who married before 1634, Susanna, daughter of widow Mary Ring, and in 1664 widow Alice Nichols, of Boston, and daughter of Richard Hallet. It will thus be seen that this branch of the Morton family is descended from two of what are called the " First Comers " of Plymouth.

The gravestone of Thomas Clark, one of these, is still standing on Burial Hill, in Plymouth.

Marcus Morton, the subject of this sketch, fitted for college at the Bristol County Academy, in Taunton, then under the charge of Frederick Crafts, a graduate of Brown University, in 1816, and a recipient of the degree of Master of Arts from Harvard in 1820. He graduated at Brown University in 1838, and after having studied two years in Dane Law School, at Cambridge, received the degree of Bachelor of Laws from Harvard, in 1840. After studying another year in the law office of Sprague & Gray he was admitted to practice in Suffolk County in 1841. He practiced law in Boston until 1848, living in Boston until 1850, and then removing to Andover, in which place he has since held his residence. In 1853 he was a member of the Constitutional Convention from Andover, and in 1858, represented that town in the House of Represen- tatives. On the establishment of the Superior Court, in 1859, he was appointed by Governor Banks, one of its justices, with Charles Alleu, of Worcester, as chief justice, and Julius Rockwell, of Lenox; Otis Phillip Lord, of Salem ; Seth Ames, of Lowell; Ezra Wil - kinson, of Dedham; Henry Vose, of Springfield ; Thomas Russell and John Phelps Putnam, of Boston ; and Lincoln Flagg Brigham, of New Bedford, as his associates. In 1869 two vacancies occurred on the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court, in consequence of the resignation of Ebenezer Rockwood Hoar and Dwight Foster, which were filled by Governor Claflin by the appointment of Judge Ames, who had left the Supreme bench in 1867, and by the promotion of Judge Morton.

In 1882 Horace Gray, of Boston, who had occupied a seat as associate justice of the Supreme Court from 1864 to 1873, and since 1873 as chief justice; he re- signed the latter office on his appointment as one of the justices of the Supreme Court of the United States, and Judge Morton was appointed by Governor Long to fill the vacancy. In 1870 he received the de- gree of LL.D. from his alma mater, and in 1882 from Harvard.

Judge Morton still occupies his seat as chief justice and, in the performance of his duties, npholds and maintains the high character for which the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has always been dis- tinguished.

WILLIAM W. STORY, son of Joseph Story, was born in Salem, February 12, 1819, and graduated at Harvard in 1838. He also graduated from the Dane Law School at Cambridge, in 1840, but soon gave up the profession and devoted himself to sculpture, in which he has won an enviable distinction. Among his best known works are the statue of Edward Ever- ett, in the Boston Public Garden, and the statue of Chief Justice Marshall, at the west front of the Cap- itol in Washington.

EDGAR T. SHERMAN was born in Weathersfield, Vermont, November 28, 1834, and is descended from'

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

an carly New England settler, bearing that name. He was educated in the common schools of his native town, and in the Wesleyan Academy at Springfield, Vt. In his earliest manhood he taught four years in the Academy at Harwich, Mass., and in 1853 went to Law- rence, where, in the next year he began the study of law. In 1858 he was admitted to the bar of Essex Co., and soon after took the position of clerk of the police court of Lawrence, which, after two years, he resigned to be- come a partner of Daniel Saunders, of Lawrence, in the active practice of law. During his six years' connection with Mr. Saunders he enlisted in 1862 in the Forty-eighth Massachusetts Regiment, and after the battle of Port Hudson was breveted major, for bravery in the field. Having served out his time he again went to the front as captain in the Sixth Mas- sachusetts Regiment, and served until the end of the war. His active military career was supplemented after the war by his appointment as chief of the di- vision staff and assistant adjutant-general on the staff of General Benjamin F. Butler, with the rank of colonel in the State militia, and he held that position until 1876.

After the war he entered into a law partnership of short duration with John K. Tarbox, who had been admitted to the bar in 1860, and who had subsequently, as well as Colonel Sherman, seen service in the field. In 1865-66 he was a member of the House of Repre- sentatives, and in 1868 was chosen district attorney for the Eastern District, which included the towns of Essex County. To this office he was chosen for five successive terms, of three years each, and resigned in December, 1882, to assume the duties of Attorney- general, to which he had been chosen as the candidate of the Republican party at the November election.

He was rechosen Attorney-general in 1883, '84, '85, '86, '87, and was, on the 14th of September of the pre- sent year, nominated by Governor Ames to fill the vacancy on the bench of the Superior Court caused by the promotion of Marcus Perrin Knowlton to the bench of the Supreme Judicial Court to fill the va- caney caused by the resignation of William Sewall Gardner. Before the publication of this sketch the nomination of Colonel Sherman will be confirmed, and he will be in full possession of his judicial office. In 1884 he received from Dartmouth College an hon- orary degree of Master of Arts, but neither occupies nor seeks public positions outside of the professional field in which he has labored faithfully, and is now reaping his harvest.

LINCOLN FLAGG BRIGHAM, was born October 4, 1819, in that part of Cambridge called the " Port." He was the son of Lincoln Brigham and Lucy (Forbes) Brigham, the daughter of Elisha and Hannah (Flagg) Forbes, of Westboro, Massachusetts. The first American ancestor of the Brigham family was Thomas Brigham, who came to New England in 1635, and settled in Cambridge, where he died in 1653. The subject of this sketch, after leaving the public

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 13

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