History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 9

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 9

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Nor is the Saltonstall pedigree the only ancient one to which the family of Mr. Saltonstall may lay claim. The family of Gurdons, one of whom, Muriel, daughter of Brampton Gurdon, married Richard Saltonstall, who came to New England with his father in 1630, has a recorded pedigree in the hands of Sir William Brampton Gurdon reaching back to Sir Adam Gurdon, who lived in the thirteenth century. The mother of Muriel Gurdon was Muriel Sedley, and the Sedley family, too, has a pedigree which is only lost in the reign of Edward the First. And still another family mingles its blood with that of the Saltonstalls. Sir Richard Saltonstall, who came to New England with his son in 1630 and returned to England in 1631, married for his first wife, from whom the Essex branch of the family sprang, Grace, daughter of Robert Kaye, of Woodsome, and the pedigree of the Kaye family, as takeu from the York- shire visitation, published by the Harleian Society, reaches through a plain channel back to the time of William the Conqueror. Thus it will be seen that Mr. Saltonstall, besides the blood of his own imme- diate family, carried in his veins not only that of the Winslows and Leveretts of New England, but that of some of the most ancient families in Great Britain.

Mr. Saltonstall pursued his preparatory studies at Phillips Academy, and graduated at Harvard in 1802. In 1838 he received from his alma mater the degree of LL.D., the degree of A.B., from Yale, in 1802, and of A.M. from Bowdoin in 1806.

He studied law with Ichabod Tucker, of Haverhill, and afterwards with William Prescott, and after a short term of practice in his native town, removed to Salem in 1806. At that time the Essex bar contained on its rolls the names of Nathan Dane, William Pres- cott, Samuel Putnam, Joseph Story, John Pickering and Daniel A. White. By the side of these eminent men, with whom he came constantly in competition, he grew step by step, until he became their profes- sional peer. Samuel Putnam was called to the bench of the Supreme Court in 1814, Joseph Story was appointed to the bench of the United States Supreme Court in 1811, Nathan Dane gradually relinquished ¡ ractice, Daniel A. White was made jndge of probate

and John Pickering finally removed to Boston. As these early rivals, one after another, left the field, Mr. Saltonstall attained the position, which he held for many years and until his death, of leader of the Essex bar. He possessed every qualification for a successful lawyer, especially in a county like Essex, made up of small towns with honest, plain, matter- of-fact people, among whom the character and life of a professional man were criticised and prized as much as his acumen and learning. The character and life of Mr. Saltonstall were singularly pure. Every man in Essex County knew it, and, when involved in diffi- culties, felt sure that his counsel would be wise and his services discreet and houest. For many years the Essex bar has had a reputation for fair and honorable dealings not possessed by that of every county in the State, and that reputation Mr. Saltonstall did much to establish and maintain. The confidence of his fellow-citizens of both the city of Salem and of the county was many times and in various ways mani- fested. By Hon, Stephen C. Phillips, who knew him well, it was said, that "at an early age he took his seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives, and in that body at different periods, even to the very close of his public life, he rendered perhaps his most valuable services, and was distinguished and honored heyond almost any of his cotemporaries. He was an effective debater and in the committee-room none could surpass him in the faithful, patient and intelli- gent performance of all his duties. He was a member of the Massachusetts Senate in two most important political junctures, and as a leader of the majority he assumed a full share of responsibility for its acts. As president of the Senate, too, he performed his dnties with admirable dignity and to universal accept- ance. In the political service of Massachusetts he felt himself at home, and the State never had a citi- zen who maintained her character with a nobler pride or labored for her welfare with a purer zeal." On the incorporation of Salem as a city, March 23, 1836, her citizens did him and themselves the honor of making him their first mayor, and in that capacity he served until 1838. In the latter year he was chosen Repre- sentative to Congress, and remained in office until 1843. In the discharge of his duties as Representa- tive he was singularly faithful, useful and earnest.

During the latter half of his Congressional life he was chairman of the Committee on Manufactures, and on his shoulders fell the burden of the investigation and inquiry, and of the preparation of the report and bill, which finally resulted in the passage of the tar- iff of 1842. He was an active and honorable member of the old Whig party, conscientiously devoted to its interests at a time when party policies were con- tinuously distinct; and sincerely believing that the success of the policy of that party would best promote the welfare of the country. He was not a partisan in the sense in which so many are partisans to-day, and would have indignantly refused to follow his party

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

into the support of new measures devised purely for party purposes, without reference to the public good. When he advocated a measure, therefore, he spoke with a conviction behind his words, with a heart pouring out its fullness from the tongue, and hence the impressive and convincing eloquence of which he was a naster.

Mr. Salstonstall was conspicnous in other than legislative and legal fields. He was president of the Bible Society, president of the Essex Agricultural Society and of the Essex Bar Association, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and of the board of overseers of Harvard University.

The relations of Mr. Saltonstall with his family were to the last degree confiding and tender. To say that he was beloved is only to repeat what may be said of nearly every husband and father. To say that he was worthy to be beloved is a better and a juster tribute. The affection which is merely incident to relationship fades with time. The tears of his children, though forty years have elapsed since his death, still start when they recall the virtues of their father, and exemplar, and friend.

Mr. Saltonstall married, March 7, 1811, Mary Elizabeth, daughter of Thomas Sanders, of Salem, and died in Salem May 8, 1845. On the 8th of May a meeting of the Essex bar was held at Ipswich, at which Benjamin Merrill was chosen president, and Ebenezer Shillaber secretary ; and resolutions offered by Joseph E. Sprague, and seconded by Nathaniel J. Lord, were passed as a tribute to his memory. On the same day, in the Supreme Court, Mr. Merrill presented the resolutions of the bar, and addressed the court. Judge Wilde replied, expressing "his sympathy with the feelings of the bar, and his regret at the loss of so useful and excellent a citizen as Mr. Saltonstall, whose worth and excellence he had known and highly esteemed for forty years."

On the 10th of May, at a special meeting of the City Council of Salem, Mr. Roberts submitted re solves concerning the loss sustained by the city in the death of Mr. Saltonstall, which were unanimously passed.

The Massachusetts Historical Society took appro- priate notice of his death by eulogies spoken by various members, and at a later day by a memoir in its published proceedings. On Sunday, the 18th of May, Rev. Dr. John Brazier delivered, in the North Church in Salem, a discourse on his life and charac- ter ; and a commemorative sermon was also preached in the East Church by Rev. Dr. Flint.

ISAAC RIDINGTON How, son of David How, was . born in Haverhill March 13, 1791, and graduated at Harvard in 1810. He studied law with William Prescott and continued through life in the practice of law in his native town, where he died January 15, 1860.

SAMUEL MERRILL was born in Plaistow, New

Hampshire, in 1776. His preparatory studies were pursued at Phillips Academy under the instruction of Joseph S. Buckminster, and with his brother, James Cushing Merrill, he graduated at Harvard in 1807. He studied law with John Varnum in Haverhill and began practice of the law in Andover in partnership with Samuel Farrar. He was at various times a member of both branches of the Legislature, and, aside from his law studies, was through life a diligent scholar, and especially proficient in Greek and Latin literature. He died in Andover December 24, 1869.

MICHAEL HODGE was born in Newburyport in 1780 and graduated at Harvard in 1799. He studied law in his native town and there followed his profes- sion. Samuel L. Knapp describes him in his per- sonal sketches as a man "who was never perfectly satisfied with his profession, for in his character was exhibited that moral enigma which has so often per- plexed the metaphysicians,-great personal intrepidity united to a painful and shrinking modesty ; a fear- lessness of all the forms of danger to a diffidence in the discharge of professional duties." He married, in 1814, Betsey Hayward, daughter of Dr. James Thacher, of Plymouth, Mass., and widow of Daniel Robert Elliott, of Savannah, Georgia, and had James Thatcher, a graduate of Harvard in 1836, who was lost on Lake Michigan with a career in the paths of science already brilliant, but yet full of hope and promise. Mr. Hodge died in Plymouth on the 6th of July, 1816.

JEDEDIAH FOSTER was born in Andover October 10, 1726, and graduated at Harvard in 1744. He finally established himself in Brookfield and married a daughter of Brigadier-General Joseph Dwight. He was appointed judge of the Superior Court of Judica- ture in 1776 and died October 17, 1779.

CHARLES AMBURGER ANDREW was born in Salem in 1805 and graduated from the Harvard Law School in 1832. He also studied in the office of Leverett Saltonstall and was admitted to the bar in 1831. He died at Salem June 17, 1843.

BENJAMIN LYNDE OLIVER was born in Salem in 1789 and studied law with Joseph Story and Samuel Putnam. He was admitted to the Essex bar in June, 1809. He died in Malden June 18, 1843.

EBENEZER MOSELY, son of Ebenezer and Martha (Strong) Mosely, was born in Windham, Conn., Nov. 21, 1781, and graduated at Yale College in 1802. He studied law with Judge Chauncey, of New Haven, Judge Clark, of Windham, and Judge Hinckley, of Northampton. In 1805 he settled in Newburyport, and at various times had as students in his office John Pierpont, afterwards a clergyman ; Governor Dunlap, of Maine; Robert Cross, Asa W. Wildes and Caleb Cushing. In 1813-14 he was the colonel of the Sixth Regiment, and, as chairman of the Board of Selectmen, welcomed Lafayette on the occasion of his visit to Newburyport. From 1816 to 1820 and from 1834 to 1836 he was a member of the House of Representa-

C Cushing

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

tives, and in 1821 and 1822 a member of the Senate. In 1832 he was a Presidential elector and threw his vote for Henry Clay. On the 17th of June, 1811, he married Mary Ann, danghter of Edward Oxnard, and died at Newburyport August 28, 1854.

LONSON NASH came to the bar in 1807 and settled in Gloucester, his native town. He was a Represen- tative in 1809 and Senator in 1812. He retired in 1860 aud died at Great Barrington February 1, 1863.

WILLIAM FABENS, son of William and Saralı (Brown) Fabens, was born in Salem April 14, 1810, and graduated at Harvard in 1832. He early settled in Marblehead and was engaged in law practice until his death, March 11, 1883. He was trial justice from 1860 to 1878, a State Senator in 1859, a trustee of the Nautical School during the entire period of its exis- tence, and for many years an active member of the School Board of Marblehead.

CALEB CUSHING .- Newburyport, from the first set- tlement of the country, has been greatly distinguished for the eminence attained by her sons, daughters and citizens, in letters and active life. She can point to a long list of statesmen, orators, poets, jurists, divines, inventors and merchants, who do her honor. One of the least of our cities in territory and population, she has made herself famous at home and abroad, in the States of the Union and the nations of the globe. Among the names of her jurists she counts Bradbury, Parsons, Jackson, Lowell, Greenleaf, Wilde and a host of others famous for their knowledge of common law and international law, as well as for their legal opinions and decisions uttered in our courts ; but no one of them in his varied acquirements and duties has done more credit to himself and the place of his birth or residence than Caleb Cushing. There have been in this century, or in this country, few to com- pare with him. It has been said that no man is great in everything or great at all times ; but as we look back on his career, from youth to old age, we discover no dimness, no weakness. As a polygon presents in its many sides and angles, in its roofs and towers, its lights and shadows, the evidence of its own strength and beauty and the skill and genius of its designer and builder, so he, in deeds and words, through a long life and under varied circumstances, in success and in defeat, stands as an illustrious ex- ample of what a man may be and may do, when he puts a human will and indomitable persistency in what he undertakes to accomplish. He was a scholar lofty in his attainments; an author and an orator equally expert with pen or voice; a lawyer attractive at the bar, profound on the bench and celebrated as minister of justice-attorney-general for the country, uttering opinions which nations were bound to re- spect. He was a statesman the compeer of Webster, John Quincy Adams and Charles Sumner, who were his friends and admirers, and no man has shown greater knowledge of the science of government-of the principles on which are based our own and for-

eign institutions. He was a diplomatist of high rank, negotiating treaties in South America, Spain, China, in pressing our claims before the extraordinary tri- bunal at Geneva, where sat the distinguished com- missioners from Germany, Italy, Spain, England and America, who listened to no other man more gladly.

It did not matter where he was placed, what duties he was to perform or with whom he was to act, he never failed in courage, capacity or power and perse- verance. He was equal to the occasion. The late Isaac O. Barnes, many years United States marshal for the district of Massachusetts, who knew Mr. Cushing intimately, and was himself a scholar and a wit, being one day in the Public Library of Boston, was approached by a young man, who inquired where he could find an encyclopædia. Mr. Cushing passing at the moment, Colonel Barnes, pointing to him, re- plied : "There is a living, self-moving cyclopedia, from whom you can obtain information upon every question that has interested any people in any age of the world." This seems almost a literal truth. He had made himself personally acquainted by his travels with all the continents of our globe, he had crossed the oceans and great seas, climbed the Rocky Mountains, the Alps and the Andes and sat on the foot-hills of the Himalayas; had conversed with the Russian at St. Petersburg, the German at Berlin, the Italian on the Bay of Naples, the Frenchman at Paris, the Spaniard at Madrid, the Tartar in Eastern Asia, each in his own tongue, and at the reception of foreign ministers by President Pierce, surprised them all in his facility of language. He studied religions with the preachers of Geneva, the priests of Rome and the Brahmins of India, and he had discussed pol- itics and international law with the highest minister of state in China. The schools had found him a most enthusiastic student, the forum an eloquent advocate, and to his reading of books there was no end. He was literally the devourer of books and the digester of their contents. He was the only man we ever knew who could read a dictionary and delight in the study of every word; and that did Caleb Cushing on the first appearance of Webster's Unabridged, containing one hundred and fourteen thousand words, and, more than that, unsolicited and without remuneration, like a proof-reader, he marked every error or mistake; so he could study a volume of abstract principles be- cause he could surround each statement with the children born from it, and thus evolve from naked truths passages of beauty. This single fact of his reading we may cite: " When called to the Supreme Bench he had long been out of the practice of law, and to prepare himself for duty, read fifty-seven volumes of the Massachusetts Reports-all up to that date-in nineteen days, or three full volumes per day, and so thoroughly did he the work that he was famil- iar with every decision they contained. This he conld do because he was untiring in labor and needed little sleep. He often read eighteen hours a day

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

through many successive days, and what he received into the mind he retained there. It was not a mere reading by the eye, but it was absorbed in the mind, -- transcribed upon the tablet of memory, and ever ready of use. He had a most remarkable power of abstracting himself from the material world in which he lived and concentrating all his force in the world of thought. This gave him seasons when he was uncommunicative, followed by others when he was the most affable of men.

Coming to the consideration of such a person, the details of his life will be not uninteresting. He was horn in Salisbury, a town at the month of the River Merrimac, January 17th, 1800, and removed with his family to Newburyport two years later. He was the eldest son of Captain John N. Cushing by his first wife, Lydia Dow, of Salisbury. It is not always clear how much one inherits from his ancestors, and how much he is of himself; therefore, we add that he was from an old colonial family, not previously unknown to fame, whose tendencies in professional life were to the pulpit and the bar. Among those bearing the same family-name was William Cushing, who suc- ceeded his father, John, as a justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts before the Revolution of 1776, whom President Washington raised to the Fed- eral Supreme Court on the organization of the gov- ernment in 1789. He was of Scituate, which may be termed the "home-nest " of the family, and thence came to Salisbury, Rev. Caleb Cushing accepting the pastorate of the first parish of that town, in whose line the subject of this sketch appears. His father, though at his death the largest ship-owner of the State and the most wealthy merchant of Newbury- port, at the birth of his son was a seaman, poor in estate and much absent on long voyages at sea. Ca- leb Cushing, therefore, in boyhood owed nothing to his surroundings save what he inherited from his father,-a love of labor and a desire to he self-sup- porting and independent. He was exceedingly for- tunate, however, in being a pupil at school of a dis- tinguished teacher and mathematician, Michael Walsh, who took pride in him and, admiring the robustness of the lad, who then had within him the man to be developed, Master Walsh shaped his course, inspired his ambition and prepared him for college. He graduated at Harvard at the early age of seventeen, third in a class of sixty-two, which included many others of future fame, and so did he excel in his rhetoric and oratory that he, one of the youngest, was selected to make the address to Presi- dent Monroe, when he visited the university in 1817. After that, for two years, in the same insti- tution, he was tutor of mathematics and natural philosophy.

Leaving college he studied law, first at the Harvard Law-school, and later at the office of the Hon. Ebenezer Moseley, at Newburyport. Admitted to the bar in 1822 he rose rapidly and soon acquired a

lucrative practice. At that time the Essex bar rivalled that of Boston, in the learning and skill of its members, and Caleb Cushing and Rufus Choate stood at its head, their friends often disputing which should be first. It was a generous rivalry, in which each held the other in the highest esteem ; Cushing thinking Choate unsurpassed in his magnetic elo- quence, and Choate declaring that in law he feared no opposing counsel so much as Cushing.

In 1823, Mr. Cushing married Miss Caroline, daugh- ter of Judge Wilde of the Supreme Court: a lady of rare intellectual endowments and much literary culture. She accompanied him on his two years tour of Europe, and after her return published a very popu- lar volume of letters on France and Spain. Her death, which occurred in 1832, was an irreparable loss, and he remained a widower and childless for nearly a half-century to his own decease. It was during his European travels-a tour of inspection and study of the institutions, laws, manners and monuments of the old world, that he formed a strong attachment to Spain-a love for its literature and people, that went with him through life. On his return he wrote his best hook, " Reminiscences of Spain," in two volumes. He was so interested that he became as familiar with its language as with his own, so that later, when in- troduced to the Court of Madrid, as American minis- ter, he surprised the King by the purity of the Span- ish tongue in which he addressed him. The same thing was noticeable in the trial of cases in the courts at Washington. At the commencement of President Pierce's administration, as Attorney General, he had to deal with Mexican claims where the documents were in Spanish, and the court-room would be crowded by ladies and gentlemen who understood not a word of the language, but gladly listened to the music of his clear, rich voice, as he pronounced the sonorous words ; the same may be said, however, of his exact and thorough training in all the languages used by him. He would never allow himself to mispronounce. After he was seventy years old, lie spent months in Paris to improve his pronunciation of French, pre- paratory to addressing the convention of Geneva, in which that was the common tongue. Indeed, if he could have given time to it, he would have ap- peared as one of the greatest philologists of the age.

In 1825, Caleb Cushing entered political life, being elected representative to the State legislature from Newburyport. He was then in the pride of his early manhood, fully equipped for the battle of life. He was well-formed, about the ordinary height, of com- manding presence, with black hair, bright eyes, and in cold weather wore a loose cloak, falling from the shoulders, after the fashion of the ancient toga, show- ing him the Roman he was. His appearance was impressive, and no one failed to perceive that he was no ordinary person. He was the most brilliant man in the house, and the next year passed to the Sentae. He was again a member of the legislature in 1833 and

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1834. Twelve years after, when war was pending with Mexico, and his services were needed, he was a fifth time elected, and subsequently in 1850 and in 1859. Indeed as often as other duties would permit, the people of Newburyport, who were proud of him, and never failed him in any emergency, sent him to represent them in the General Court. They al- ways rejoiced iu his success, and always welcomed him home with open arms. There was never an hour when he had not so the confidence and affection of neighbors and townsmen, that they would not have elected him to any office within their gift. It was said that Napoleon appeared greatest at a distance ; Mr. Cushing had it to his credit that he appeared greatest to those who knew him longest and best.

In 1834 he was elected to congress, from the district then called Essex North. For colleagues, he had the venerable ex-president, John Quincy Adams, who be- came much attached to him, and whom in some re- spects, especially in independent politics, he much resembled ; Robert C. Winthrop, who alone of the ten survives, Levi Lincoln, Leverett Saltonstall and others, making in the whole, the most distinguished delegation that Massachusetts or any other state ever sent to Washington. They were all opposed to Gen- eral Jackson, then president, though Mr. Cushing sur- prised some of his constituents who declared Jackson an ill-bred and vulgar frontiersman, by saying that he was one of the most polite and gentlemanly per- sons he had ever met at home or abroad.

In Congress Mr. Cushing immediately took high rank. He was appointed on the Committee of Foreign Affairs with John Quincy Adams, and they alternate- ly were the head of that committee, and probably no two men in Congress were so well versed in interna- tional law or in the history of our foreign relations. Daniel Webster said "that Mr. Cushing had not been six weeks in Congress, before he was acknow- edged to be the highest authority on what had been the legislation of congress on any given subject." He held his seat for eight years, and entered heartily and fearlessly into the discussions of that day. It was, in the era of duelling, the frequent habit of op- posing parties to badger new members, in hopes to break them down, but when it was attempted on Mr. Cushing, and he turned face to face with his oppo- nent, rough old Ben Hardee, of Kentucky, who was the terror of weak and diffident minds, Mr. Cush- ing spoke in the severest tones the rules of the House would permit, and closed by giving notice that he held himself responsible for his words there or any where else. The House rang with applause and the galleries so vociferated-the ladies waving their handkerchiefs and the men clapping their hands and shouting, that a motion was made to clear the galleries, but that was not necessary, for the people filled with admiration that this young member-it was his second speech -- had dared to beard the old lion in his den, that they retired of themselves, and it was the talk of Washing-

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 9

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