History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 263

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672

USA > Massachusetts > Essex County > History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II > Part 263

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Mr. Hale by will left a fund of fifty thousand dol- lars for the maintenance of the library, and a fund of equal amount, the interest of which is to be applied to the annual purchase of books.

These thoughtful donations, made with equal liber- ality and discretion, will cause the memory of Mr. Hale to be ever held in respect in the place where he was born and lived by all right-thinking people.

HON. STEPHEN MINOT.1

The ancestor of the American Minots was Elder George Minot, son of Thomas Minot, Esq., of Saffron Walden, Essex, England, who came to this country about 1630, and settled at Dorchester, Mass.

Ilis grandson, James Minot, graduated at Harvard College, studied divinity and physie, and settled in Concord, Mass., where his grandson, Jonas Minot, was born in 1735, and where he lived. A great part of the territory of Wilmot, N. H., was granted to him; he also owned other large tracts of land in New Hampshire, as well as in Vermont and Maine,- in all, some two hundred thousand acres. He had nine children. The eighth, Stephen, born September 28, 1776, is the subject of this sketch. His mother was Mary Hall, daughter of Rev. Willard and Abi- gail Hall, of Westford, Mass. He was prepared for college at Westford Academy, and graduated at Har- vard in 1801. He studied law with Hon. Samuel Dana, of Groton, and was admitted to the Middlesex bar in 1804. He practiced his profession eleven months in Gloucester and Minot (now Anburn), Maine, and then removed to Haverhill, engaging in practice there. He was judge of the Circuit Court of Common P'leas for Essex County from ISII to the repeal of the law creating it in 1820. During the years 1814 to 1816, inclusive, he lived in Methuen, where he owned and managed a manufactory. He was district attorney from 1824 to 1830. In 1825 he represented Haver- hill in the Legislature. He retired from the practice

1 By John B. D. Cogswell.

triphen Menot

Sur Smiley

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of the law in 1832, at the age of fifty-six. From 1818 to 1822, inclusive, he was a member of the school committee of the First District in Haverhill,-the centre village, where he resided. During the larger part of the time his associates were John Varnum and James H. Duncan, both afterward Represent- atives in Congress. The following extract from the records shows that at this period what was regarded as an important step in female education was taken : " 1819, Apl. 17th .- The Committee met at the office of John Varnum, Esq. Voted that in order to afford the females who attend the Grammar School a better opportunity of instruction than they have hitherto had, said school should, from the first day of May to the first day of September, be kept at the following hours, viz. : The Boys shall attend from eight o'clock, A.M. to twelve o'clock A.M., and from two to four o'clock in the afternoon. The females shall attend from four to six o'clock P.M."

Mr. Minot married Rebecca Trask, of Bradford, in 1809. She was the mother of his three children,- Charles, George and Harriet. She died in 1832. In 1841 he married Ellen P. Gardner, who outlived him. He died April 15, 1861.

In early life Stephen Minot was a Federalist and a Whig; later, he was a Free-Soiler and Republi- can.

He was prominent in the Unitarian Society at Haverhill. During the period of anti-slavery ex- citement in that town, when the meeting-houses and public buildings were closed against abolitionists through fear of violence, Judge Minot tendered the use of the basement of the First Parish (Unitarian) meeting-house for discussion upon slavery.

Charles Minot, Judge Minot's oldest son, graduated at Ilarvard in 1828. In 1829 he was organist of the instrument then set up in the First Parish meeting- house, the earliest in the town. In 1832 he was a lawyer in Haverhill, and was afterwards superintend- ent of the Boston and Maine Railroad. He was al- ways recognized as an able man.

George Minot, born at Haverhill, Jan. 5, 1817, was prepared at Haverhill and Exeter Academies, and graduated at Harvard in 1836. He received the de- gree of LL.B. at the Dane Law School at Cambridge, spent one year in the office of Rufus Choate, in Bos- ton, and was admitted to practice in that city, where he remained until his death. He was an industrious and learned lawyer, especially known by his editorial labors. He reported Judge Woodbury's United States Circuit Court decisions, edited the United States Statutes at large, and nine volumes of English Ad- mniralty Reports, and was the author of Minot's Di- gest, and the supplement thereto of the decisions of the State Supreme Judicial Court.

Harriet Minot (now Mrs. Pitman) of Cambridge, is well remembered in Haverhill as a leader of society there, and deeply interested in the anti-slavery cause, benevolent enterprises and the advancement of

women. Her husband is Mr. Isaac Pitman, formerly of Providence, Rhode Island.

Soon after his death, Mr. Chase, the historian of Haverhill, thus wrote of Judge Minot: " His mind was clear in its perception and logical in its conclu- sions. Firm in purpose, exact and punctual in methi- od and habits, of strict integrity, fearless in spirit, he was ever prompt to say or do whatever his judgment approved. Ile was a liberal supporter of the institu- tions of religion, whose ministrations he attended with great regularity, as long as his infirmities would admit. Of great regularity and temperance in his manner of life, in his private relations a true, affec- tionate, generous friend. In conversation, he was genial and rich in anecdote. During the latter part of his life, having withdrawn from professional labors, he spent much of his time in mathematical studies, in which he took great delight, and in reading the Latin classics."

He was not only an excellent mathematician, but a very respectable mechanic, was fond of music and familiar with early English literature. Ile was an excellent lawyer, and a shrewd, keen, clear-headed business man. His general capacity for affairs was always admitted. He was industrious, reliable and strictly truthful.

Perhaps the popular feeling in regard to him was, that he was a just, rather than a generous or a sym- pathetic man ; but one who knew him intimately writes : " He was very generous to objects of charity which commended themselves to his sympathy. His gifts were bestowed so unostentatiously that few ex- cept the recipients were aware of them. Many poor spinsters and widows were his periodical beneficiaries for many years.

" He was undemonstrative, but he was an affection- ate husband and a tender and devoted father and grandfather. He was a genuine lover of children."

Rev. Charles Wingate writes of Judge Minot : " I remember his personal appearance and that every one regarded him as a man of very sound judgment. He was always very calm and deliberate when giving his opinions."

The writer ventures upon the liberty of appending the following extract from a note written by John G. Whittier, dated Danvers, November 2, 1887 :

" Dear Friend : In answer to thy note, I would say that I knew Judge Minot very well, in my younger days, as one of the leading men in my nativo town. He was an able lawyer, a dignified and cultivated gentle- tuan of the old school. He was a man of remarkably sound judgment and strict integrity. I remember his largo acquaintance with the old English classics and his ready citation of them in conversation."

JAMES VARNUM SMILEY.

The record of a good man's life, while it soothes the affections of all who loved and survived him, has the higher merit of encouraging the struggles and sus- taining the virtues of those who, entering upon life with no other reliance than their own strong arms

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and resolute hearts and honest principles, are cheered on their way by the example of success achieved and high character established under like circumstances by others.

Such a record properly may be made of the subject of this sketch, whose ancestors, five in number, came to America from Scotland in 1747, and settled in various towns of New England. These men were for the most part farmers, honest and industrious, making good citizens,

John, the direct ancestor of this branch, settled in Haverhill, Massachusetts. But little is recorded of him beyond the fact that he married and reared a large family of children, one of whom, James, was born in 1758. He grew to manhood, and married Sarah McFarland, April 29, 1781, and they had six children-three boys and three girls. At the breaking out of the Revolutionary War he enlisted as a soldier and was in many engagements. He was taken a prisoner, and, with a neighbor, William Sawyer, was carried to England and confined in a military prison for a long time. While here he opened a little store or shop, where he was allowed to supply his fellow- prisoners with such articles as necessity or fancy prompted them to buy. After long waiting, an ar- rangement was made for an exchange of one hundred of these prisoners, the choice to be made by lot. Smi- ley and Sawyer, who, during long confinement, had become fast friends, agreed to stick together, and un- less both were drawn, neither would quit the prison. One after another the lucky names were announced, hope aud fear alternating in the patriotic breasts of these friends, until the ninety-ninth name called was Sawyer's, while in Smiley's breast hope died out and prison life only seemed to remain. The one hundredth name drawn was that of James Smiley, and with feelings more easily imagined than described, these friends returned to their homes and to freedom under the Stars and Stripes, and often in the years which followed, recounted the incidents of this memorable exchange to their families and friends. Smiley's wife, Sarah, died May 23, 1823, and he followed her April 15, 1824. His second son, James, was born June 28, 1789. His business was that of a mason. lle married Lydia Bradley November 25, 1813, and she bore him four children, two girls (both of whom died in infancy), and two boys-James Farnum, born April Ist, 1820, and Charles, born April 19, 1822. Charles, the only survivor of this family, is a mer- chant in Haverhill, and is unmarried. He places this portrait of his much-loved brother in the history of this city as a tribute to his memory and worth.

The boyhood of the subject of this sketch was spent in llaverhill, where in due time he attended school and became known to his teachers as a studious boy. Hle excelled in each of the branches of the common school, and desiring a more thorough edu- cation than could be obtained under existing circum-

stances, he went to the celebrated Pembroke Academy, in New Hampshire, for some time.

Returning to his native town, he was placed in charge of the Centre Grammer School as its teacher, where, for over twelve years, he remained, and where he be- came endeared to the whole community as a faithful teacher. Under the Buchanan administration Mr. Smiley was chosen postmaster at Haverhill, where he remained four years, when he went into business in company with A. B. Jaques, opening what has since for many years been known as the Haverhill book- store, where he successfully continued up to the time of his death, December 17, 1883. August 2, 1855 Mr. Smiley was married to Sarah N. Davis, who still survives him. They had no children. In religion Mr. Smiley was a Baptist. He was a Democrat in poli- tics, as were each generation of his ancestors. Mr. Smiley was very popular among the people of the town, and was elected to many positions of trust and honor, although belonging to the political party that was largely in the minority. He was assessor, chair- man of the School Board and also of the Board of Selectmen, president of the Haverhill Gas Company and trustee of the Haverhill Savings Bank.

In 1873 he was elected mayor of the city of Haver- hill and served for two terms, giving very general sat- isfaction. He was a prominent member of the Masonic fraternity, being connected with Merrimac Lodge, F.& A. M., Pentucket Chapter and Haverhill Commandery of K. T. He was successful in business, was liberal in response to the calls of benevolence, provided amply for those dependent upon him, was a good citizen, a faithful friend, and has left behind a memory of a life well spent.

JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER.1

In the town of Haverhill, near the boundary line of that part of Amesbury which was incorporated in 1876 as the town of Merrimac, stands an unpretend- ing farm-house, whose antiquity alone attracts the attention of the traveller. About three miles from the Merrimac River the highway runs nearly east and west, and leading from it at right angles a coun- try road stretches to the north. On the westerly side of this road, within sight from the highway, stands the house with its end to the road, facing south, with its barn and other out-houses standing on the other side of the road, forming with the house a cluster of buildings, through which the road must have been laid out at some period since their original erection. At the foot of the slope on which the house stands, a laughing brook winds its merry way to larger streams, which flow into the Merrimac, and thence to the sca. Undulating fields, green with summer harvests, or white with winter's snow, are broken here and there by patches of wood, which seem to have been de-

1 By William T. Davis.

And

the

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signed by nature's artistic hand to interrupt the monotony of the scene and lend it grace and har- mony.

The front of the house with its two stories remains as originally built, except the window frames and glass, and lesser accessories, which, like the clothing of the human body, have felt the hand of repair or the pressure of fashion without alteration or change of the structure they adorn. The rear, once one story high, as if jealous of its rival on the other side, has been at some time raised to the height of the front, and faces the bleak, north winds of winter as proudly as its rival courts the summer sun.

This house was built by Thomas Whittier about the year 1688. At the age of eighteen Mr. Whittier sailed from Southampton for Boston, in the ship " Confidence " of London, John Johson, master, on the 24th of April, 1638, and not long after the settle- ment of Salisbury in 1640, became a resident of that town. In 1645 or thereabouts he married Ruth Green, and after a short residence in Newbury, removed to Haverhill in 1648. He first built a log house, in which he lived until the erection of the house above described, about a half a mile to the westward and northward.

Notwithstanding the inferences of various biog- raphers of the subject of this sketch, there is not only no evidence tending to show that Mr. Whittier was a Quaker, but there is much to show that he was not. His social and official position all through the Quaker troubles is wholly irreconcilable with his be- lief in the Quaker ereed. As late as the year 1680, he was one of a church committee to select an associ- ate minister for the Haverhill Church, with which he was in full fellowship.

· Mr. Whittier died, November 28, 1696, his wife surviving him until 1710. Of ten children, Joseph the youngest, was born May 8, 1669, and was married May 24, 1694, to Mary, daughter of Joseph Peasley, whose house, built of brick, brought from England, is still standing near the Rocks Bridge. Mr. l'easley was a Quaker, and in the absence of any proof that other branches of the Whittier family were inclined to Quakerism, it may reasonably be presumed that Joseph and his descendants may trace their faith to Joseph Peasley, the father of Joseph Whittier's wife.

Joseph Whittier died December 23, 1739, leaving nine children, of whom another Joseph, the youngest, was born March 31, 1716, and married Sarah Green- leaf of Newbury. The last Joseph died October 10, 1796, having had eleven children, of whom John, the tenth child, was horn November 22, 1760, and married, October 3, 1804, Abigail, daughter of Samuel Hussey, of Somersworth, New Hampshire, and a descendant of Christopher Hussey, an early resident of Haverhill and afterwards of Hampton. At Hampton Mr. Hus- sey married a daughter of Rev. Stephen Batchelder, the first minister of that town. Mr. Batchelder was a man of remarkable personal appearance, with dark,

deep-set cyes, which developed in an intensified form into the wonderful eye and brow of Daniel Webster, a descendant of one branch of his family, and in a milder and more spiritual form into the gentle but firm and unyielding expression of Whittier the Poet. It is not impossible that in quality of mind, too, both Webster and Whittier may have inherited from their common ancestor that love of nature which charac- terized them, and that imaginative power which, while it made one a poet, enabled the other to entwine col- umnns of logic with wreaths of imagery, which, with- out the noble structure they served to ornament, would have found their fitting expression in verse, and stamped their author as the grandest poet of the age. There can be nothing more indicative of the poet's mind than that passage from the oration of Mr. Webster, when the corner-stone of Bunker Hill Mon- ument was laid on the 17th of June, 1825: "Let it rise till it meet the sun in his coming ; let the earliest light of the morning gild it, and parting day linger and play on its summit." Here he snatched the poet's pen and created a line which, if it had not been per- fect prose, would have been perfect poetry. And so in his speech on the Presidential protest, we find that grand flight of the imagination, which only a poet's mind could reach, expressing the uprising of America in the War of the Revolution. "On this question of principle, while actual danger and suffering were as yet afar off, she dared to raise her flag against a power to which, for purposes of foreign conquest and subju- gation, Rome in the height of her glory is not to be compared-a power which has dotted the surface of the whole earth with her possessions and military posts; whose morning drum-heat, following the sun and keeping company with the hours, circles the earth daily with one continuous and unbroken strain of the martial airs of England." Here, too, were it not for the column round which the wreath of in- agery clings, it would stand on its own merits as the richest bloom of a poet's fancy.

This digression may be excusable as showing that the appearance of such men as Whittier and Webster is not sporadic, and that their beauty aud grandeur are only culminations of a growth of generations and centurics. John Whittier was the father of the sub- ject of this sketch. le lived on the ancestral farm, and was as comfortable in circumstances as the best class of farmers of that day. Social position in his time was not confined to cities and other thickly- settled communities, as at the present day, and out- lying farms and estates dispensed generous hospitality and were the resorts of the most cultivated and best edu- cated. John Whittier was a public-spirited man, and as a citizen, performed his full share of public service. Besides the circle of ordinary friendship which was often represented at his house, no " Friend" from far or near came into the neighborhood without receiving from him the right hand of fellowship and a sincere welcome. He had four children,-Mary, born Sep-

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HISTORY OF ESSEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

tember 3, 1806 ; John Greenleaf, born December 17, 1807; Matthew Franklin, born July 18, 1812; and Elizabeth Hussey, born December 7, 1815.

John Greenleaf Whittier was born in the old an- cestral house, built by Thomas Whittier in 1688. He went at seven years of age to a school taught by Joshua Cottin of Newbury, situated on the country road, to which reference has been made, about a half a mile from the house. He was fond of reading, more es- pecially books of biography and travel, and books of poetry do not seem to have made any decisive impression on his youthful mind. His work on the farm began at an early age, and with keen natural powers of observation, it is probable that the scenes of beauty about him furnished as large a share of in- fluence on his future career, as his education in the public school. On the Sabbath his father and mother would, when it was possible, attend the nearest Friends' meeting-house at Amesbury, about eight miles away, and during their absence the incipient poet would wan- der in the woods and fields, satisfying his taste for the beauties of nature and making them all the stronger by indul- gence. Referring to this period of his life he says in the poem entitled " The Barefoot Boy ":

" I was rich in flowers and trees, Humming-birds and honey bees ; For my sport the squirrel played, Plied the snouted mole his spade ; For my taste the blackberry cone, Purpled over hedge and stone ; Laughed the brook for my delight, Through the day and through the night, Whispering at the garden wall, Talked with me from fall to fall ; Mine the sand-rimmed pickerel pond, Mine the walnut slopes beyond, Mino, on bending orchard trees, Apples of Hesperides."

At the age of fourteen he read a volume of Burns' poetry, which was perhaps the first poetry he had ever read, and like many a boy before and siuee, who has never become a poet, he began to make rhymes. Ilis first productious were in imitation of Burns, and served as mere steps to the portals of the holy of holics, which he was destined to enter. His verses soon proved to be more than rhyme, and as his imagination grew in brillianey and strength, they be- came more imbued with the poet's spirit. The story has been often told of the poem entitled "The Deity," which he sent anonymously in 1826, at eighteen years of age, to the Newburyport Free Press, of which Wm. Lloyd Garrison was editor, and of the joy and pride with which he first saw it in print. The story is further told of the visit of Garrison to his corres- pondent, and of his encouragement to the youth to train and develop his talents and secure a better edu-

eation than that with which his parents had seemed content. It is doubtful how much of this story may be true, and whether, as has been claimed, Whittier owed to any appreciable extent to Garrison the deei- sion which was finally reached in his family to send him to the Haverhill Academy.

The poem published in the Free Press has been often claimed as one of his very earliest productions. The writer of this sketeh however, has in his posses- sion a gift from Mr. Whittier, a leaf apparently torn from a blank book, containing a poem in three stanzas of eight lines each, entitled " The Deserted Fair One," another in five stanzas of eight lines each "To the Memory of William Penn," and the two closing verses of four lines each of a poem addressed to Ire- land. These two verses, written at the age of seven- teen, are dated 12th mo. 1825, and a fac simile of them is herewith presented :

Long long has the hals of glory surrounded The memory of Alfred the pride of the shore And her thy dim takes & will valleys har bounded; The heart touching strains of Carolan & Noone Osaon may the banners of freedom flash aus the. Green island of Even, may tebientys smiles To the lustre of primitive ages restore Thee Bright gem of the ocean four Emerald Iste 12th Abo, 1025

In April, 1827, in his twentieth year, he went to the Haverhill Academy, then taught by Oliver Carlton, . who died in Salem in 1882, and at the dedieation of the new building of that institution, then occupied for the first time, Whittier wrote the ode sung on the occasion. At the close of his first term at Haverhill, lie seeured a school at West Amesbury, now Merri- mac, which he taught during the winter of 1827, re- turning to the academy in the spring, where he re- mained six months. In 1828 he wrote for the Ameri- can Manufacturer, a protectionist paper in the inter- est of Henry Clay, and in 1829 returned home to aid in carrying on the farm, where he continued until July, 1830. During all this time he wrote much in both prose and verse, and some of his poems were published in the newspapers of the day and read with approval. Most of these poems failed to reach the standard which he had set up for himself, and have been excluded from his published collections. Indeed, he has never reached that standard, and when recently asked by the writer of this sketch which of his poems was most satisfactory to himself, he replied that " all of them are so unsatisfactory to me it is difficult to decide."

During the first six months of 1830 he edited the

Gas. H. Carleton

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Haverhill Gazette, writing articles at the same time for the New England Review of Hartford, of which he was afterwards for a year and a half the editor, as a substitute for George D. Prentice, who was tem- porarily absent from his post. During his editorship he published in the Review many of the poems, with which the world is familiar. Aside from his poetical labors he devoted time and labor to the support of Henry Clay and the "American system " and to the three great causes of Temperance, Freedom and Re- ligion, or rather, perhaps, religion, which included the other two. In January, 1832, Whittier gave up his position at Hartford and returned home, where he remained a year, during which time he published a pamphlet in condemnation of slavery, of which sub- sequently an edition of ten thousand copies was pub- lished by Lewis Tappan, of New York, for gratuitous distribution. In 1833 he was a member of a National Anti-Slavery Convention in Philadelphia and one of its secretaries. In 1835 he was a member of the State Legislature, and at that time witnessed the mob, from whose clutches Garrison was with difficulty res- cued. At this time he seems to have been in full sympathy with Garrison, and indeed there is some reason for believing that Garrison's early devotion to the anti-slavery canse was more or less inspired by Whittier himself. Until 1837 he remained at home engaged in the management of the farm, which after the death of his father in 1832, required careful atten- tion. In 1837 he was chosen one of the secretaries of the National Anti-Slavery Society, and went to New York, where for three months he was associated with Henry B. Stanton and Theodore D. Weld. He then went to Philadelphia, where he was engaged to write for the Pennsylvania Freeman, of which in 1838 he became an associate editor. In 1840 he resigned and went to Amesbury, where his mother had taken up her residence, having sold the farm about five years before. Since that time Amesbury has con- tinued to be his legal place of residence, though dur- ing the last few years since the death of his mother and the marriage of his niece, who was his devoted companion, he has spent most of his time at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, the residence of three sisters, his cousins, the grandchildren of one of his grandfather's brothers.

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History of Essex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. II, Part 263

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed Publication date: 1888 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1672

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) ed
Publication date: 1888
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1672