History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 17

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034

USA > Massachusetts > Middlesex County > History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 17

Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).

Middlesex bar, where he early accustomed himself to the legal blows which its members were in the habit of giving and receiving. He was especially distin- guished and successful before a jury, and some of his greatest triumphs, in criminal cases particularly, were due to the boldness, almost heroic at times, with which he presented his case. The acquittal of Leav- itt Alley, on trial in Boston ju 1873 for murder, will ever stand as a monument to his courage and shrewd- ness. The line of his defense was a hint, so shrewdly given that it rather criginated the suggestion in the minds of the jurymen themselves than passed his own lips, that the son of Mr. Alley was the real criminal. The prisoner's witnesses and the cross-examination of the witnesses for the Government were so handled as to necessarily convey, through unseen and nnex- pected channels, this hint to the jury, and the refusal to put the boy on the stand, though it was well known that he was conversant with many of the incidents of the affair, served to carry this hint home with a force that was sure to have au effect. The trial lasted ten or twelve days, and the strain upon nerve and brain was so severe that Mr. Somerby never fully recovered from the prostration which it induced.

GEORGE WASHINGTON WARREN was born in Charlestown October 1, 1813, and was the son of Isaac and Abigail (Fiske) Warren, of that town. He was descended from John Warren, who appeared in New England in 1630. He graduated at Harvard in 1830. He married, in 1835, Lucy Rogers, daughter of Dr. Jonathan Newell, of Stow, and had a son, Lucius Henry Warren, born in 1838, who graduated from Princeton in 1860, and from the Harvard Law School in 1862. His first wife died September 4, 1840, and he married, second, Georgianna, daughter of Jona- than and Susan Pratt Thompson, of Charlestown, by whom he had two sons and three daughters. Mr. Warren settled in the practice of law in his native town, and in 1838 was a representative to the General Court, and senator in 1853-54. After the incorpora- tion of Charlestown as a city, by an act passed Feb- ruary 22, 1847, and accepted March 10, 1847, Mr. Warren was chosen its first mayor, and continued in office three years. From 1837 to 1847 he was secre- tary of the Bunker Hill Monument Association, and from 1847 to 1875 its president. He also wrote a his- tory of the association. In 1861 he was appointed judge of the Municipal Court of the Charlestown Dis- trict, and remained on the bench until his death, which occurred at Boston May 13, 1883.

CHARLES COWLEY was born in Eastington, Eng- land, January 9, 1832. He came to New England with his father, who settled as a manufacturer in Lowell. With a common-school education, he read law in the office of Josiah G. Abbott, and was admit- ted to the Middlesex bar in 1856. He was in both the army and navy during the war. Mr. Cowley has, aside from his profession, devoted himself creditably to literary pursnits, and in politics has sought to pro-

Ixiv

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

mote the welfare of the laboring man. Lowell has always been his residence since he came to America.

JEREMIAH CROWLEY was born in Lowell, January 12, 1832, and is the son of Dennis Crowley, of that city. He was a member of the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment during its three months' campaign in 1861. He read law in the office of John F. McEvoy, of Lowell, and was admitted to the Middlesex bar in 1869. He has been a councilman and alderman of Lowell and a member of the State Senate. He is in the enjoyment of a lucrative practice in his native city.

BENJAMIN DEAN was born in Clithero, England, August 14, 1824, and was the son of Benjamin and Alice Dean. His father came to New England and settled in Lowell, where the subject of this sketch re- ceived his early education. After one year in Dart- mouth College, Benjamin, the son, entered, as a stud- ent, the law-office of Thomas Hopkinson, of Lowell, and was admitted to the bar in 1845. He practiced law in Lowell about seven years and then removed to Boston, where he has since resided. He has been a member of the State Senate three years, a member of the Boston Common Council four years and repre- sented the Third District in the Forty-fifth Congress. For a number of years he has been a member of the Boston Park Commission. He married, in 1848, Mary A., daughter of J. B. French, of Lowell.

PHILIP J. DOHERTY was born in Charlestown, January 27, 1856, and at the age of twenty graduated at the Boston University Law School. He was ad- mitted to the bar in 1877 and has since practiced his profession in Boston. He has been a member of the House of Representatives and a member of the Board of Aldermen of Boston. He married, Angust 16, 1878, Catharine A. Butler, of Charlestown.

GEORGE STEVENS, son of Daniel and Tabitha (Sawyer) Stevens, of Stoddard, New Hampshire, was born in that town October 23, 1824. He was de- scended from John Stevens, of Chelmsford, 1662, through John, Henry, Daniel and Daniel. He gradu- ated at Dartmouth in 1849, and read law with Ira A. Eastman, of Gilmanton, N. H., and with Moses N. Morris, of Pittsfield, Mass. After teaching school two or three years he was admitted to the bar in 1854, and settled in Lowell, where he established a lucra- tive practice and was city solicitor in 1867-68. He married, September 19, 1850, Elizabeth Rachel, daughter of James Kimball, of Littleton, by whom he had three children, one of whom, George Hunter Stevens, was his partner at the time of his death, which occurred at Lowell, June 6, 1884.

JOHN SULLIVAN LADD, son of John and Profenda (Robinson) Ladd, of Lee, New Hampshire, was born in that town July 3, 1810. He graduated at Dart- mouth in 1885, and read law with John P. Robinson. After teaching two years he settled in Cambridge in 1839, and married, in June, 1841, Ann, daughter of David Babson. September 5, 1847, he married Mary

Ann, daughter of Samuel Butler, of Bedford. He represented Cambridge in the General Court, was a member of the Constitutional Convention in 1853, a member of the Common Council and in 1851 its pres- ident. He was trial justice some years, and in 1854 was made judge of the Police Court in Cambridge, which position he held twenty-eight years. He died at Cambridge, September 5, 1886.

CHARLES R. TRAIN, son of Rev. Charles Train, of Framingham, was born in that town Oct. 18, 1817. His father had two wives-Elizabeth Harrington and Hepsibah Harrington, the latter of whom was the mother of the subject of this sketch. He was de- scended from John Train, of Watertown, an early settler. He attended the public schools of Framing- ham and the Framingham Academy, and graduated at Brown in 1837. He read law in Cambridge and was admitted to the bar in 1841. Hc settled in Framing- ham, representing that town in the General Court in 1847, and in the Constitutional Convention in 1853. He was district attorney from 1848 to 1855, a member of the Council in 1857-58, member of Congress from 1859 to 1863, again a member of the General Court in 1871 from Boston, and Attorney-General of Massachusetts from 1872 to 1879. He removed to Boston about 1866, and died at North Conway, New Hampshire, July 29, 1885.

GEORGE HENRY GORDON was born in Charles- town, July 19, 1825, and graduated at West Point in 1846. He entered the mounted rifles and served under General Scott in the Mexican War. He was severely wounded at Cerro Gordo and breveted first lieutenant for gallantry in the field. In 1853 he was made full first lieutenant, and resigned in 1854, en- tering the Cambridge Law School and being admitted to the Suffolk bar. In 1861 he raised the Second Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers, and as its colonel was made military governor of 'Harper's Ferry. In 1862 he commanded a brigade uuder General Banks and was made brigadier-general of vol- unteers June 9, 1862. He was at the second battle of Bull Run and at Antietam. He was also engaged in operations about Charleston Harbor in 1863-64, and against Mobile in August, 1864. He was breveted major- general of volunteers April 9, 1865, for meritorious services. After the war he was at one time United States collector of internal revenue, and practiced law in Boston until his death, about 1885 or '86.

THOMAS A. BEARD was born in Littleton, New Hampshire, and practiced law in Lowell from 1842 to 1856. He was appointed assistant treasurer by President Pierce and died November 6, 1862.

GEORGE FRANCIS RICHARDSON was born on Dec. 6, 1829, at Tyngsborough, Mass. He is the son of Daniel and Hannah (Adams) Richardson, his father having been an attorney-at-law and a prominent citizen of Tyngsborough. The ancestors of both his parents were honorably identified with the early history of New England. A more extended notice

Tras. K. Fram

Grange J. Richardom.

1xv

BENCH AND BAR.

of the ancestry aud family of Mr. Richardson is to be found in the sketch of the life of his older brother, Daniel S. Richardson, on another page of this work.

Having pursued his preparatory course of study in Phillips Academy, Exeter, Mr. Richardson en- tered Harvard College in 1846, at the age of sixteen years. Upon his graduation from college he en- tered the Dane Law School in Cambridge, from which, at the age of twenty-three years, be gradu- ated with honor, having received the first prize for an essay.

After being admitted to the bar and practicing law in Boston for two years, in 1858 he entered as partner the law-office of his brother, Daniel S., be- ing in that position the successor of his brother, William A. who had been appointed judge of Pro- bate and Insolvency for Middiesex County. The firm of Daniel S. and Geo. F. Richardson has now continued thirty-two years, holding at the bar of Middlesex County a very high reputation for legal learning and professional honors.

Though devoted to the practice of his profession, Mr. Richardson never forgets that he is a citizen of Lowell. He is always alive to all that pertains to the welfare and honor of the city. Especially when the War of the Rebellion made its first demand up- on the self-sacrifice and patriotism of the people, he stood forth as the trusted and accepted leader, and inspired his fellow-citizens with courage and hope. By his efforts a company was promptly raised and equipped in Lowell, wbich had the honor of being the first company of three-years' men formed in the State of Massachusetts. It was organized on the evening of the 19th of April, 1861, the day on which the Sixth Regiment marched through Balti- more. In his honor it received the name of the Richardson Light Infantry.

Mr. Richardson has been placed in very many po- sitions of trust and honor. In 1862 and 1863 he was a member of the Common Council, and occupied the same position, as president of that body, which his brothers, Daniel S. and William A., had filled before him. In 1864 he was in the Board of Alder- men. In 1867 and 1868 he was mayor of the city, having received his second election almost without a dis- senting vote. As mayor of the city he filled the position with great popular acceptance. His profes- sional practice had well equipped him for the per- formance of the ordinary duties of the office, and his intellectual culture and graceful address brought honor to the city on all public occasions. In 1868 he was a member of the Republican Convention at Chicago which nominated Gen. Grant for his first election. In 1871 and 1872 he was a member of the Massachusetts Senate. At the close of his service as Senator, Mr. Richardson was brought to the decision of a very important question in respect to his future career. On one hand was the alluring prospect of political advancement, for he had already made a

flattering record, and he possessed all the qualities of a successful political leader. On the other hand was his chosen profession. He could not hold both ; he must choose one and reject the other. He de- liberately chose his profession, and now for eighteeu years he has conscientiously and very successfully devoted himself to its arduous duties. Meantime he has filled such positions in social and civil life as came to him as a good citizen, having been city solicitor, member of the School Board, trustee of the City Library, president of Middlesex Mechanic Associa- tion, director of the Traders' and Mechanics' Insur- ance Company, a director of the Prescott National Bank, of the Stony Brook Railroad and of the Ver- mont & Massachusetts Railroad, and president of the Lowell Manufacturing Company. He has also been president of the Unitarian Club and of the Ministry-at-Large. As trustee of the Boston Water- Power, he has borne the important responsibility of the sale of land to the amount of about three mil- lion dollars.

Mr. Richardson is fond of literary pursuits. Heloves his library, which is especially rich in the old Eng- lish classics. Few literary men possess so large and so unique a collection of the various editions of the plays of Shakespeare. He is a connoisseur in Shakespearean literature, and his articles given to the press in defence of the claims of William Shakespeare as the veritable author of the plays so long attributed to him, exhibit a thorough mastery of his. subject and a wide range of literary attain- ments.

ISAAC O. BARNES was in the practice of law in Lowell from 1832 to 1835 inclusive. His name ap- pears in the first directory published in 1832 with an office on Central Street. It is possible that he may have been in Lowell before the directory was issued. In 1833 he was associated with Francis E. Bond, hav- ing an office in Railroad Bank Building and boarding at the Mansion House. In 1834 his office was in the same building and in 1835 he appears in the directory as associated with Tappan Wentworth in the same building. He probably removed to Boston in 1836 where he was at one time United States marshal. He died at the Bromfield House on Bromfield Street in that city, if the writer remembers correctly, where he made his home for many years.

EDWARD F. SHERMAN was born in Acton February 10, 1821, and went when a child to Lowell, where he remained until 1839. He graduated at Dartmouth in 1843 and before entering on the study of law was for a time principal of the academy at Canaan, New Hampshire, and of the academy at Pittsfield, Mass- achusetts. In 1846 he returned to Lowell, where he read law with Tappan Wentworth, whose partner he was for eight years. In 1855 he was chosen secre- tary of the Traders' and Mechanics' Insurance Con- pany, and held this office sixteen years. He was a director in the Prescott National Bank, trustee of the

Ixvi

HISTORY OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

Mechanics' Savings Bank, representative in 1861 and 1866, a member of the School Committee, in 1870 a member of the City Government, and in 1871 mayor. He died Febru ary 10, 1872.

WENDELL PHILLIS, son of John Phillips, the first mayor of Bosto. , was born in Boston, November 29, 1811, and gra'uated at Harvard in 1831. He at- tended the Harvard Law School and read law in the offices of Luther Lawrence and Thomas Hopkinson at Lowell. He was admitted to the Middlesex bar in 1834, but never practiced in Middlesex County.

CHESTER W. EATON was born in Wakefield Jan- uary 13, 1839. He graduated from the Scientific De- partment of Dartmouth College in 1859, and after reading law at the Dane Law School was admitted to the bar in 1864. After some years' practice in Wake- field and Boston he has devoted himself largely to lit- erary and business pursuits and has held various im- portant and responsible offices in his native town. He married, in 1868, Emma G., daughter of Rev. Giles Leach, of Rye, New Hampshire.

GEORGE MILLER HOBBS was born in Waltham April 11, 1827, and is the son of William and Maria (Miller) Hobbs, of that town. He graduated at Har- vard in 1850, and at the Dane Law School in 1857. He was admitted to the bar in Boston in 1858, and entered practice with Hon. Edward Avery, with whom he has ever since been associated. He has been a member of the House of Representatives and of the Roxbury and Boston School Boards. He married, October 26, 1859, Annie M., daughter of Dr. Samuel Morrell, of Boston.

CHARLES SUMNER LILLEY was born in Lowell December 13, 1851, and was the son of Charles and Cynthia (Huntley) Lilley, of that city. He read law in the office of Arthur P. Bonney, of Lowell, and was admitted to the bar in 1877. He has been a member of the Lowell Board of Aldermen, of the State Senate and the Executive Council.

CHARLES JOHN MCINTIRE was born in Cambridge March 26, 1842. He read law at the Dane Law School and was admitted to the Suffolk bar in 1865. During the pursuit of his law studies he served as a private in the Forty-fourth Massachusetts Regiment. He has been a member of the Cambridge Common Coun- cil, of the Board of Aldermen of that city and a mem- ber of the House of Representatives. For three years he was assistant district attorney for Middlesex County, and is now city solicitor of Cambridge. He married, in 1865, Marie Terese, daughter of George B. Linegan, of Charlestown.

JOHN H. MORRISON was born in Westford Decem- ber 23, 1856, and is the son of John and Bridget Mor- rison, of that town. After a term at Harvard short- ened by sickness, be read law in the office of William H. Anderson, of Lowell, and at the Dane Law School, from which institution he graduated in 1878. He was admitted to the bar in 1879 and has since prac- ticed in Lowell. He has been a member of the Lowell

School Board, of the House of Representatives and the State Senate. He married, in 1884, Margaret L., daughter of James Owen, of Lowell.

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN BUTLER is the grandson of Zephaniah Butler, of Woodbury, Connecticut, who served in the Continental Army in the War of the Revolution. The father of Benjamin was John But- ler, of Deerfield, New Hampshire, a captain of dragoons during the War of 1812, a follower in war and an admirer in peace of Andrew Jackson, for whom the eldest of his two sons was named. After the war John Butler engaged in trade with the West Indies and died in March, 1819, of yellow fever at one of the West India islands, leaving his widow, with two young children and only a scanty share of worldly goods, to make her way and theirs in the world. The younger child, Benjamin Franklin, the subject of this sketch, was born at Deerfield on the 5th of November, 1818, only four months before his father's death. He was a delicate child, and, like many a delicate child be- fore and since, possessed a precocious mind, which sought with avidity wherever it could be found that mental food on which it was destined to develop and mature. He attended the common schools of his native town, and the few books which came in his way he ea- gerly devoured. It was as true with him as with others that a few books thoroughly read gave an impulse to thought and nourished the intellectual powers more surely than that desultory reading which the bounti- ful library often leads to, and which ends in a scatter- ing mind without definiteness of action or a power of concentration. A single book, no matter what its title or contents may be, read carefully and reread sentence by sentence will in every word suggest a thought which, in ever-widening circles, finally covers ' and includes the whole field which the mind of man is able to survey. As concentrated food nourishes the system more than a bountiful but unassimilating supply, so the few plain, simple books to which young Butler had access met exactly the wants of mental digestion, exercising and nourishing it without dis- tracting and disordering it.

In 1828, Mrs Butler removed to Lowell, where, by taking a few boarders and carefully saving her gains she became able to give to her children a better edu- cation than she had ever dared to expect. Benjamin was sent to Phillips Academy at Exeter, and in 1834, at the age of sixteen, was sent to Waterville College in Maine. At that college there was a manual de- partment in which the students worked three hours in each day, thus earning a moderate amount of wages to help pay the cost of their education. Here young But- ler earned something, but still left college in 1838 somewhat in debt for his college expenses. During his college life those keen powers of argument and speech, which have since characterized him, mani- fested themselves, and his fellow-students recall many an arena in which he came off victorious.

After leaving college, oppressed by debt and with

Berg Bruthey

BENCH AND BAR.

lxvii

health impaired, he went with an uncle on a fishing voyage to the coast of Labrador, and, as he says him- self, " hove a line, ate the flesh and drank the oil of cod, came back after a four months' cruise in perfect health, and had not another sick day in twenty years." The discussions in which he often took part at Waterville, were either the result of a naturally controversial taste, or were the means of developing one, and in seeking a course of life to follow, he almost as a matter of course selected the profession of law. He entered the office of Wm. Smith, of Lowell, the father of Henry F. Smith, whose name was afterwards changed to Durant and who became distinguished at the Suffolk bar.

In 1841 he was admitted to the Middlesex bar. On his examination for admission by Judge Charles Henry Warren, then holding a session of the Court of Common Pleas, questions were put to him whose answers impressed the judge with his acquirements in the principles of law. It happened that on the day of the examination a case was on trial before the judge in which the question of admitting certain evi- dence had somewhat puzzled him. The case was Robert Reed against Jenness Batchelder, which was carried finally to the Supreme Court on exceptions, and is reported in the first of Metcalf, page 529. It was an action of assumpsit on a promissory note given by the defendant, when a minor, to Reed & Dudley, July 26, 1835, and payable to them as bearer. The defence of course was infancy. But in July, 1839, while the note was in the hands of the promissees, and after the defendant had come of age, he verbally renewed his promise to pay, to Henry Reed, one of the firm of Reed & Dudley, and the note was subse- quently endorsed to Robert Reed, the plaintiff. The plaintiff's offer to put the renewal of the promise in evidence was objected to by the defendant's counsel, and on the day of the examination above referred to, Judge Warren had sustained the objection. Mr. Butler had been present during the trial, and the general question was asked him by the judge, what effect such a renewal of promise would have, and what he thought of his ruling. The student replied that he thought the ruling wrong and the note good. "Why," asked the judge. " Because," said the student, " the note was not void but only voidable, and when the verbal promise was made the note became at once negotiable." The next day the judge reversed his rul- ing, exception was taken and the case carried up. Judge Warren afterwards complimented Mr. Butler on his ready and just application of the principles of law to the case in question, and acknowledged the influence it had on his mind. Judge Shaw, in the opinion of the Supreme Court, overruled the excep- tion, and decided that though the renewal of promise was made verbally to Henry Reed, one of the firm of Reed & Dudley, it at once became negotiable, and in the hands of Robert Reed, to whom it was passed, was good.

Mr. Butler settled in Lowell, and rose rapidly in his profession, as he could scarcely fail to do with his learning in the law, his infinite resource, his boldness and persistency in every case in which he was en- gaged. and his readiness, with or without fee, to re- lieve the suffering and oppressed. His practice soon extended beyond the limits of his own county, and in the courts of Suffolk he became a familiar object of interest. It is unnecessary to say that the son of a friend and admirer of Andrew Jackson, he was from childhood a Democrat, fully imbued with those principles, not always kept in view, for the support of which the Democratic party was created, and which will keep it alive through all mutations as long as our nation exists. He believed that a too great centrali- zation of power in the hands of the general govern- ment was a danger to be avoided, and that the rights of States, not to recede from the Union, but to main- tain and retain certain functions, were absolutely essential to our nation's permanent existence and wel- fare. A nation with all the strength and density of power at its central point, could be as weak as an army with depleted wings, which the slightest disorder would break and destroy.

As a Democrat, Mr. Butler early engaged in politi- cal activity, and almost from the date of his admission to the bar his voice has been heard in political con- ventions and on the stump. His earliest essay in the political line was at Lowell, in which he successfully advocated the ten-hour rule, in the factories of that town. He was a member of the House of Represen- tatives of Massachusetts in 1853, and in the same year a delegate to the convention for the revision of the State Constitution. While a member of the House, George Bliss, of Springfield, was the Speaker, and the Whig party was in the ascendant. Otis P. Lord, of Salem, was the Whig leader of the House, and, by his great abilities and unconquerable will, held the Speaker under his control, and always obe- dient to his wish. The altercations between Mr. Butler and the Speaker were numerous, and Mr. Bliss was only extricated from the perplexities into which he was repeatedly led by the ingenious devices of his Democratic opponent on the floor, by the help- ing hand of Mr. Lord. Practically, while Mr. Bliss was the chosen occupant of the chair, Mr. Lord was Speaker, and Mr. Bliss was only his mouth-piece. On one occasion, when the Speaker, at the behest of Mr. Lord, had added another to the long list of rulings which Mr. Butler's points of order had received, he said, " Mr. Speaker, I cannot complain of these rulings. They doubtless seem to the Speaker to be just. I perceive an anxiety on your part to be just to the minority and to me, by whom at this moment they are represented, for, like Saul on the road to Damas- cus, your constant anxiety seems to be, "Lord, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do.' "

Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.

History of Middlesex County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 17

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co Number of Pages: 1034

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton), ed
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Philadelphia, J. W. Lewis & co
Number of Pages: 1034