History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 84

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 84

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He was married, January 8, 1831, to Margaret G. Hersey, of Roxbury, who was a superior woman, and did much to encourage and assist him in his plans, and was much beloved by all who knew her. From

1. B.Hanmaton

Caleb Foot?

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SALEM.

this union were four children, three of whom are now living.

Having no taste for political life, Mr. Harrington has never been prominent in politics, but has always been identified with the Whig and, later, the Repub- lican parties. In religious belief he is a Universalist, and contributes liberally for the support of public worship.

He is a man of benevolence, easily approached, of kindly instincts, and has always in later years been ready to assist those less fortunate than himself in their business difficulties by his wise counsel and good judgment.

Mr. Harrington has for many years been promi- nently connected with the financial institutions of Salem. He is president of the Asiatic National Bank and vice-president of Old Salem Savings Bank.

For twenty years he was engineer of the Fire De- partment, and by his energy and zeal did much to improve the old system ; but all this was prior to the advent of the modern steamer, and when the hand machine was made to do duty by " the boys breaking her down."

At the great age of eighty-four years Mr. Harrington is still able to attend to his large business, going to Boston nearly every day, and while having assigned much of the detail to other hands, still in the direct- ing power exercising his business tact and method to the advantage of those associated with him. Mr. Harrington's grandfather was a noted teacher of his day, and as " Master Harrington " was widely known.

Leonard Bond, a maternal uncle, was a soldier in the Revolutionary War.

CALEB FOOTE.1

Hon. Caleb Foote was born in Salem February 28, 1803, of a sea-faring stock. The first of his ancestors who came to this country, Pasco Foot, who settled in Salem before 1637, had a grant of land in that year, in connection with his fisheries, at Winter Harbor. The degree to which the dangers of the sea assisted in depopnlating the maritime towns of our sea-coast in the earlier days is forcibly illustrated in the family history of Mr. Foote. His great-grandfather, Cap- tain William Dedman, died of yellow-fever in a voy- age to Havana. His maternal grandfather, Samuel West, a member of the Salem Marine Society, died in a trading voyage to Virginia. His paternal grand- father, Caleb Foote, after serving in the Revolution- ary army at Cambridge, engaged in the privateering service, was captured by a British ship, and immured in Forton prison, near Portsmouth, England, from which he escaped to France, and, returning home, died early of disease brought on by the hardships and privations which he had endured in the cause of his country. His father, Caleb Foote, sailed in command

of a vessel from New London in 1810, and his vessel was never heard from afterward, while his wife, Martha, daughter of Samuel Massey West, had died four years before. Thus their son was left at the tender age of seven fatherless, motherless and portionless, wholly dependent on relatives, and began to earn his own living at ten years old, when he left the North Salem Public School to attend in the shop of an uncle in Salem, and later in Boston, returning to Salem again for employment in Mr. Samnel West's book- store. He was on the point of following the sea, and had shipped as cabin-boy for a sealing voyage in Arctic regions, when the captain who had engaged his services broke the agreement in order to take a larger and stronger boy, and diverted the current of his life. He found employment in the office of The Salem Gazette in 1817. Here Mr. Foote has ever since remained as apprentice, proprietor and editor, never long absent from its duties and only rarely en- gaged in services which called him elsewhere.

The Salem Gazette was one of the few newspapers whose commencement long antedates the present cen- tury. On the 1st of August, 1768, began the exist- ence of the Essex Gazette. There were for a time transfers to other places, suspensions and changes of name, but the apprenticeship of two proprietors con- nects without a break the first issue with that of one hundred and nineteen years later (in 1887). The founder of the line, when Massachusetts was a Brit- ish province, was the sturdy Whig rebel, Samuel Hall. The accomplished and amiable Thomas C. Cushing served his apprenticeship with Mr. Hall, and took his materials and revived the paper, after a broken period, in 1786. Mr. Cushing continued the publication of the Gazette until January 1, 1823, when, feeling the infirmities of age and disease press- ing on him, he transferred the establishment to one of his sons, Caleb Cushing, and a nephew, Ferdinand Andrews, retiring from business to die September 28, 1824. Mr. Cushing was a man of rare excellencies of character, combining faculties of the mind and qualities of the heart which secured in no common degree the respect and esteem of his fellow-citizens, and was a good master in those days of thorough business training.

The life of an apprentice was one of hard drudgery, but the printing-office is a school which gives en- couragement to a boy endowed with the love of read- ing, for the self-education which has to take the place of the opportunities of school and college ; moreover, as Mr. Foote grew up, he found kind and influential friends, who, when the opportunity arose, assisted him with a loan in establishing himself in the busi- ness by purchasing half the property in the paper. In 1825 he thus became associated with his former fellow-workman, Ferdinand Andrews, as publishers and joint owners of the Gazette. In 1826 Mr. William Brown succeeded Mr. Andrews, selling his interest in the paper also to Mr. Foote January 1, 1833, who

1 By Rev. Henry W. Foote.

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

thus became sole editor and proprietor until Janu- ary 1, 1854, when Nathaniel A. Horton, who had followed what were the traditions of this time-hon- ored newspaper for more than a century, in growing up as an apprentice under the training of his senior, was associated with him in publishing and editing the paper. This partnership has continued till the present time (1887). On June 8, 1831, Mr. Foote had also established a small weekly paper, to which he gave the name of The Salem Mercury, the original title of the Gazette. This was afterwards enlarged and its title changed to that of The Essex County Mercury, and it became an important addition to the influence of the office through the wide constituency which it gained throughout the county.

Meantime such public duties as the engrossing labors of an editor would permit came to Mr. Foote. He served on the school committee in 1830-31, and was a member of the Massachusetts House of Repre- sentatives in 1832 and 1833, declining a re-election. In January, 1838, having been for some years chair- man of the Whig County Committee, he was elected by the Legislature, on which the duty of choosing the Executive Council at that time devolved, a mem- ber of the Council under Governor Edward Everett, and was agaiu elected in 1839, declining a subsequent re-election.

On the accession of the Whig party to the control of the government, a change being necessary, uot for party reasons only, in the Salem post-office, Mr. Foote was appointed postmaster in May, 1841, soon after the death of President Harrison, and retained the position three years, administering the office on strict business principles, entirely aloof from political methods, making no change in, the subordinate ofli- cers, and keeping the business of his newspaper apart from his official duties. A pressure, however, being brought to bear by the administration to in- duce him to become a partisan of John Tyler and to employ the newspaper in furthering his schemes for election to the Presidency, on refusing to do so, Mr. Foote was dismissed from the post-office in April, 1844. The subsequent years and until the present time (1887), with the exception of seven months' ab- sence in Europe in 1867, were devoted exclusively to the business of the newspaper, in which active labors it was allotted to Mr. Foote to spend a longer period than the full term of life as named by the Psalmist.

A friend, Rev. E. B. Willson, adds the following :

" Mr. Footo's life affords a noteworthy instance-not a solitary one, to be sure-of the admirable substitute which the printing-office and editorial chair may be for the training-school and the college class- room to an npt student. Hie style as a writer has the better qualities of one college bred-simplicity, perspicuity and purity of diction, and the art of putting things with directness and effect. His knowledge of language and his literary taste and skill are those of the scholar well grounded ia English literature and versed in other languages, ancient and modern. Naturally, history, political economy and the affairs of trade und social progress come to be the studies of the conductor of an influential press, an important portion of whose readers are educated men and women. In these departments of journalism Mr. Foote's

accomplishments, at a period when such work was comparatively rare and when he was solo editor, secured for his editorial writing attention and habitual perusal and respect, which has continued during the more recent years, when the editorial responsibility has been shared with his associate. In his long career in the midst of a community character- ized by a high average of intelligence and a corresponding moral stan- dard, to have had so strong and enduring hold upon successive genera- tions and through so many and so great changes in manners and opio- ions, in politics and theology, in private and in social life, bespeaks a man of weight, candor and well-balanced judgment, and of an integrity and steadiness of purpose not often paralleled. His nativo modesty would never permit him to obtrude his conclusions at any time where their expression was not called for ; but those who have drawn from him his opinions upon topics of current interest, including such as were matters of controversy, have been pretty sure to find that he had ma- tured opinions of his own, and that he had not only the courage of his convictions, but that he had been a courageous thinker in arriving at his convictions.

" To those who know Mr. Foote only in the common intercourse of life, and who have only come ocar enough to observe his unfailing cour- tesy of hearing, the moral courage, poiss and self-reliance hidden behind these genial manners and never-ruffled tones would be likely to he a revelation wholly unsuspected. Not many a man would be able to carry himself calmly and with unshaken nerves through an interview with desperate fellows, who had, without doubt, plotted to rob him of things of value supposed to be on his person, in a retired apartment of their own selection, to which they had conducted him for this very pur- pose, and when he had come away unharmed from their lair would relato the affair as quietly as if it had been but a common incident. It would bring a genuine surprise to those accustomed to see one charac- terized by an uovarying serenity of features and urbanity of address in all situations for a lifetime, to find him capable on occasion of shielding a junior co-worker from almsive criticism by rising from the chair edi- torial and stepping to the front to assure a rich and influential citizen and friend in a firm and peremptory voice that, though not himself the writer, he assumed joiot responsibility with the writer for what had been written, and that the course of remark which he had interrupted minst coass then and there, or the visitor must leave the place. To be sure, we rec- ognize it as the natural and right combination when courage and kind- liness go together ; hut, unhappily, it isnot a conjunction so common as not to cause the surprise of delight when we witness it."

The publication and editing of a public journal in a community like that which inhabits Essex County is a self-denying and exigent task, requiring a man to become wholly merged in his work, especially where the newspaper has had an historic part for more than a hundred years in guiding opinion and helping to mould public development. The Gazette was founded by a patriot who had zealously espoused the American cause, and it continued the earnest supporter of the principles of Washington and Hamilton and of Fed- eral measures and men as long as the Federalist party continued to exist. To these principles it held faithfully through the later changes of the party- names to Whig and Republican, but without being an organ of any party or individual, and, on occasion, standing alone against an unworthy candidate for high office, and securing his defeat. If a journal of this character has fulfilled its opportunities of public teaching and public influence, in the constant inter- est of good morals, honest politics and the religion of good-will and charity, it is a fit memorial of the life which has been devoted to it.

Mr. Foote was married, October 21, 1835, to Mary Wilder, daughter of Hon. Daniel Appleton White judge of probate for Essex County. She died De- cember 24, 1857. Of their six children, three are surviving.

Nathaniel. B. Mansfield

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SALEM.

NATHANIEL B. MANSFIELD.

Nathaniel B. Mansfield was born in Salem, Octo- ber 20, 1796, three months after the death of his father. His mother was left with four children,- two daughters and two sons. Of the daughters, one married Captain Brookhouse, of Salem, and the other Joseph Eveleth, of Boston, for many years high sheriff. Of the sons, one died single, and the sub- ject of this sketch married the daughter of William Fabens, of Salem, who was one of the successful merchants of his time.

At an early age the subject of this sketch chose the profession of the sea. Having no one to put him forward, he commenced as a sailor in the fore- castle, and by his energy and perseverance soon be- came officer and then master of a ship. He was part owner of the "Statesman " and "Newburyport," and transacted business between Havana and Russia for many years. He left the sea as a profession at the age of forty-five, and from that time until his death was interested in shipping. He was connected in business at diverse times with Benjamin Howard, Glidden Williams, Samuel Stevens & Co., of Boston, and Captain John Bertram, of Salem. During the last years of his life he was interested in the ice business at Panama, and established, in connection with Samuel Stevens & Co., a line of packets to Aus- tralia. Mr. Mansfield was also a member of the Ma- rine Society of Salem.

He took great interest in politics, was an Old-Line Whig, and a member of the city government for many years aswell as of the State Legislature. His great speech at that time was in connection with the land damages to be assessed on the Essex Railroad. He refused at various times the office of collector of the port. He was unceasing in his endeavors to accom- plish a party victory.

He had the courage of a strong man with the ten- derness of a child, and was loved and respected by all who knew him. He died September 24, 1863.

He was a man of unflinching integrity, and died, as he had lived, one of Salem's most honored and esteemed citizens.

BENJAMIN WILLIAMS CROWNINSHIELD.

Benjamin Williams Crowninshield, son of George and Mary (Derby) Crowninshield, was born at Salem, December 27, 1772; descended from Dr. John Cas- per Richter von Cronenshilt, a German physician, who came from Leipsic to Boston about 1688, and died there in 1711; married Elizabeth, daughter of Jacob and Elizabeth (Clifford) Allen, of Salem ; owned lands near Lynn Mineral Spring Pond. Two of his sons, John and Clifford, came to Salem and were successful and enterprising merchants; John married Anstiss, daughter of John and Sarah (Man- ning) Williams, the father of George, above-named.

Mr. Crowninshield, like his ancestors, was largely engaged in commercial enterprises in connection

with his father and brothers, under the name of George Crowninshield & Sons. His brother, George Crowninshield, the owner of the famous pleasure yacht, the "Cleopatra's Barge," made an excursion to the ports in the Mediterranean, returning in Octo- ber, 1817. He built the large brick house on Derby Street, between Curtis aud Orange Streets, now occu- pied as the Old Women's Home. He was a member of the Massachusetts State Senate for several years, United States Secretary of Navy from December, 1814, to November, 1818, Representative in United States Congress 1823 to 1831, one of the first directors of the Merchants' Bank, Salem (incorporated June 26, 1811); married Mary Boardman, daughter of Francis and Mary (Hodges) Boardman, January 1, 1804. He removed to Boston in 1832, and died there February 8, 1851.

HENRY WHEATLAND.

Henry Wheatland, son of Richard and Martha (Goodhue) Wheatland, was born in Salem, January 11, 1812. He was graduated from Harvard College in 1832, and its Medical School in 1837. He never, however, actively engaged in the practice of medi- cine. At an early age he became interested in the study of natural history, and both in the neighbor- hood of his home and during voyages for his health to South America and Europe, he made extensive collections, which have enriched the cabinets of the scientific institutions in Salem. He was chosen su- perintendent of the museum of the East India Marine Society in 1837, and held that office until 1848, when, chiefly through his efforts, the Essex County Natural History Society and the Essex Historical Society- he being an active member of hoth societies-became united as the Essex Institute, to the building up of which he has since untiringly given the greater por- tion of his life, and of which society he is now the president. Leaving the field of scientific research to younger men and those who were becoming special- ists in its different branches, he later devoted himself to local history and genealogy, and is now admitted to be one of the leading antiquarians in the connty, from whose fund of knowledge constant draughts are being made by workers in this field.

Dr. Wheatland is one of the original trustees of the Peabody Academy of Science and its vice-presi- dent, a trustee of the Peabody Museum of American Archæology and Ethnology of Cambridge, and a member of the principal scientific and historical so- cieties of the country.

NATHANIEL SILSBEE.

Nathaniel Silsbee, son of Nathaniel and Sarah (Becket) Silsbee, was born at Salem January 14, 1773; descended from Henry Silsbee, of Salem, 1639, Ipswich, 1647, Lynn, 1658, died 1700, through Na- thaniel2, Nathaniel3, William4, Nathaniel5. He pur- sued his studies with Rev. Dr. Cutler, of Hamilton ;

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

died July 14, 1850; married, December 12, 1802, Mary, daughter of George and Mary (Derby) Crown- inshield, born September 24, 1778; died September 20, 1835. In early life he was a ship-master and supercargo, afterwards a successful and eminent mer- chant, a Representative and Senator in Massachusetts Legislature, for three years president of the latter body, Representative United States Congress 1817-21, Senator United States Congress 1826-35.

BENJAMIN PICKMAN.

Benjamin Pickman, son of Benjamin and Mary (Toppan) Pickman, was born at Salem September 30, 1763; descended from Nathaniel Pickman, who came from Bristol, England, with his family in 1661, and settled in Salem, through Benjamin2 (born in Bristol, 1645, married Elizabeth Hardy, died December, 1708), Captain Benjamin3, Colonel Benjamin * and Colonel Benjamin5; pursued his preparatory studies at Dummer Academy, then under the charge of the celebrated " Master Moody ;" graduated at Harvard College 1784; married, October 20, 1789, Anstiss, youngest daughter of Elias Hasket and Elizabeth (Crowninshield) Derby (born October 6, 1769, died June 1, 1836); studied law with Theophilus Parsons (Harvard College, 1769), then residing in Newbury- port, and afterwards chief-justice of Massachusetts Supreme Court; admitted to the bar; soon relin- quished the practice of the profession and engaged in commercial pursuits, in which he continued during the greater part of his life : a Representative and Sen- ator of Massachusetts Legislature; member of Massa- chusetts Constitutional Convention, 1820; member of the Executive Council of Massachusetts; Represent- ative United States Congress, 1809-11. He was president of the directors of the Theological School at Cambridge, and also president of the principal lit- erary and historical and other institutions of Salem and vicinity ; died at Salem August 16, 1843.

WILLIAM REED.

William Reed, son of Benjamin Tyler and Mary Appleton (Dodge) Reed, was baptized June 9, 1776; married, November 13, 1800, Hannah, daughter of Robert and Mary (Ingalls) Hooper, of Marblehead (born August, 1778; died May 16, 1855). The first ancestor was William, son of Richard Reed, of Whit- tlesey, in the county of Kent, who came to America about 1630, settled first at Weymouth, then removed to Boston ; Samuel2, Samuel3, of Marblehead, Sam- uel4, Samuel5, Benjamin Tyler6, above-named ; an eminent merchant in Marblehead, and highly esteemed for his benevolent and religious character ; Represent- ative United States Congress, 1811-15; president of Sabbath-school Union of Massachusetts, of American Tract Society ; an officer and member of many other educational and religious organizations. He was so deeply interested in the cause of temperance that

he was styled the "Apostle of Temperance." He died suddenly February 18, 1837. His widow, who survived several years, was always engaged in works of charity, and was regarded as a most accomplished lady and eminent Christian.

BENJAMIN GOODHUE.

Benjamin Goodhue, son of Benjamin and Martha (Hardy) Goodhue, was born at Salem, September 20, 1748; graduated at Harvard College 1766; married, January 6, 1778, Frances Richie, of Philadelphia (born June 27, 1751, died at Salem January 21, 1801); married, secondly, November 5, 1804, Ann Willard, a danghter of Abijah and Anna (Prentice) Willard, of Lancaster, Mass. (born Angust 20, 1763, died Au- gust 2, 1858); descended from William Goodhue, born in England in 1612, took the oath of freeman December, 1636, and probably came over in that year; settled in Ipswich and sustained the chief trusts of the town; was deacon of the First Church for many years, selectman, representative in General Court, etc .; died about 1699; through Joseph2, Wil- liam3, Benjamin4.

He early embarked in commerce with credit and success ; a Whig in the Revolution ; represented the county of Essex in the Senate of Massachusetts from 1784 to 1789, when he was elected a Representative to the first United States Congress under the new Con- stitution ; in 1796 elected to the United States Sen- ate, and in 1800 he resigned his seat and retired to private life. He died at Salem, July 28, 1814, leav- ing an irreproachable name to his then only sur- viving son, Jonathan Goodbue, of New York, a mer- chant who, in character and credit, stood second to none in that commercial emporium.

JOSEPH GILBERT WATERS.

Joseph Gilbert Waters was the son of Captain Jo- seph and Mary (Dean) Waters, of Salem, where he was born July 5, 1796, and a descendant in the sixth generation from Lawrence Waters, one of the first settlers of Watertown. He graduated at Harvard College in 1816, and studied law with John Picker- ing, of Salem. In the antumn of 1818 he went to Mississippi, and resided there some two or three years in the practice of his profession. Owing to ill health, he returned to Salem, and opened an office, where he resided during the remainder of his life. He was editor of the Salem Observer for several years from its commencement in 1823. He was appointed special justice of the Salem Police Court September 1, 1831, and standing justice February 23, 1842, and continued to discharge the duties of this latter office until the establishment of the First District Court in 1874. In 1835 he was a member of the Massachu- setts Senate. He also held other offices of honor and trust. HIe married, December 8, 1825, Eliza Green- leaf Townsend, daughter of Captain Penn Townsend. He died July 12, 1878.

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LYNN.

CHAPTER XIII.

LYNN.

BY JAMES R. NEWHALL.

THEN AND NOW.

Descriptive Passages-The Indians-The Settlers-Name of the Place -- Natural Features-Productions-Embarrassments and Successes-Civil History-Statistics.

" I hear the tread of pioneers Of nations yet to be, The first low wash of waves where soon Shall roll a human sea." -WHITTIER.

IF, upon the afternoon of some fair day, one should, from the summit of Bunker Hill Monument, through a clear glass, direct his eye northeasterly, he will see stretching in an irregular line of something more than three miles, and at a distance of eight or ten miles, a settlement presenting such features and hav- ing such surroundings as will be likely to secure his attention for many minutes. Between him and the settlement, far beyond the circle of busy life that lies at his feet, is a stretch of marsh land of rusty gold tinge, diversified by one or two stately groves, by inlets and by salt streams, and traversed by railroads over which locomotives are constantly puffing, and highways over which horse-drawn carriages of all descriptions are constantly moving.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 84

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