History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 8

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706

USA > Massachusetts > Plymouth County > History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men > Part 8

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The carly death of Ray Thomas was a sad afflic- tion to Mr. Webster, and one from which he did not easily rally. Though his business manager left be- hind him a trunk filled with important papers, an early examination of which was essential to the suc- cessful issue of enterprises in which Mr. Webster was engaged, it was six months before he could so far discipline himself to a forgetfulness of his friend, among associations which could not fail to recall his sorrow as to examine the contents of the trunk. This was one of the illustrations of that carelessness in money affairs of which the thrifty critic complains. But it illustrated something more, something as much higher than book-keeping and thrift as a tender, gen-

erous heart is nobler than one whose grief by the bedside of a dying parent can be assuaged by the thought of a coming legacy.

After the annual visits of Mr. Webster to Marsh- field for several years, Capt. Thomas became some- what embarrassed pecuniarily, and a proposition was made to him to buy the farm. He objected at first on the ground of poverty, but at last consented to buy with the express understanding, suggested and demanded by himself, that Capt. Thomas and his wife should live in the house and occupy the farm, and as long as they lived treat both as their own. That higher regard for money, which would have commended him to the meaner natures of his modern critics, or in other words a sordid spirit and a harder heart, would have driven a closer bargain than this. He never believed, however, that man, more especially such a man as he knew himself to be, with transcendent and ever outreaching powers, was made to count gold and cut coupons and accumulate money. Judged by such a standard the Indian with his wigwam filled with wampum was deserving of as much respect and honor as the millionaire with his trunks packed with what we only in a higher state of barbarism are pleased to call wealth. Money to him was the means not the end of life. The goal to be reached was the highest development of man's powers, the richest and rankest growth of the affections, the supremacy of man over the accidental and incidental circumstances which attach themselves to his worldly and bodily existence and comfort. This was the spirit which animated Mr. Webster in the arrangement made with Capt. Thomas, and during five or six years the captain and his wife remained occupants of their old homestead, and after that the widow divided her time between the Marshfield farm and the residence of her son Charles, in Duxbury. At this residence also Mr. Webster would occasionally stay during short visits to the Old Colony, while his own house was undergoing repairs. The site of the house of Mr. Thomas was fixed by Mr. Webster himself at the request of its owner. It is situated on a commanding eminence in the northerly part of the town, overlooking Plymouth Bay, the Gurnet Light, Barnstable Bay, and the north shore as far as Minot's Ledge. The view froul the chamber which he frequently occupied, he said, was the most beautiful he had ever scen, and there at half-past three on a summer's morning he might have been seen sitting in an arm-chair by tho window waiting for what he considered the most impressive spectacle in life, the break of day. He wondered that so many persons in the world should neglect the opportunity of witnessing the daily but sublime event.

THE COURTS AND BAR.

When he went to Duxbury at the request of Mr. Thomas to fix upon the precise location of the house, he alighted from his chaise and with stake in hand slowly backing up the hill, he at last drove the stake and said. " Let it be planted here." It was planted there, and if any reader of this reminiscence feels an interest in recalling the incident, and filling his eye with the scene of which Mr. Webster was an enthusi- astic admirer, the present hospitable owner and occu- pant of the house. Hon. Stephen N. Gifford, the re- spected clerk of the Massachusetts Senate, will doubt- less be glad of affording him an opportunity.

The earliest recorded deed of Marshfield land to Mr. Webster was from Peleg Thomas Ford, of thirty- seven acres, for a consideration of $825, and dated Sept. 7. 1831, though the agreement for the purchase of the John Thomas farm was made before that date. The deed of the latter was for one hundred and sixty and one-half acres. for a consideration of $3650, and dated April 23, 1832. This deed included the house and outbuildings, and tillage, pasturing, mowing, and woodland, and fresh and salt meadows on both sides of the main road. This deed was followed by others from Charles Henry Thomas of two and three-quarters acres and five rods, for $130, July 6, 1832; from Charles Henry Thomas, of one hundred and sixteen and one-quarter acres and thirty rods, for $2200, April 16, 1833; from Benjamin Lewis, of four and three-quarters acres and twenty rods, for $60.40, Dec. 30, 1833; from Ebenezer Taylor, for one acre and nine rods, for $42.25, March 3, 1834; from Charles P. Wright, of two acres and thirty-four rods, for $110.62, of the same date ; from Asa Hewitt, of seven acres and twenty-one rods, for $300, May 17, 1834 ; from Henry Soule, of eighty-five and one-half acres, for 8500, Oct. 20, 1834 ; from Charles H. Thomas, of three hundred and seventy-three acres bought of Seth Sprague, for $10,000, Aug. 16, 1836; from Eliza- beth Whitman, of eleven acres, for $319, of same date; from Charles P. Wright. two deeds of twelve and a quarter acres, for $652.31, Aug. 20 and 22, 1836; from Asa Hewitt, of eighty six rods, for $80.62, Aug. 22, 1836 ; from Charles Henry Thomas, of eight and three-quarters acres, for $300, Dec. 26, 1838; from Eleazer Harlow, of seventy acres, for $1800, Nov. 1, 1838 ; from Charles Henry Thomas, of eighty-seven acres, for $4000, March 19, 1840; from Eleazer Harlow, of seventy-two acres, for $2600, April 1, 1840; from Charles Baker, of seventeen acres and seventy-six rods, for $350, July 8, 1844 ; from Ebenezer Taylor, of twenty-seven and three- quarters acres and thirty-two rods, for $1084, of same date; from Elizabeth Whitman, of one acre, for $40, 2

Sept. 2, 1845; from Gershom B. Weston, of sixty- four acres and fifty-three rods, for $1600, April 9, 1851; from the Duxbury Manufacturing Company, of factory, privilege, dam, and land on South River, Marshfield, for $3000, April 12, 1851 ; from Joseph P. Cushman, of fifty-two and a quarter acres, for $1000, Sept. 30, 1852.

All these purchases covered about twelve hundred acres, costing the sum of $34,644.20 as the original outlay. The receipts from the farm were considerable, and, besides the ordinary cultivated crops, the tonnage of hay had been, under skillful management, brought up from forty to three hundred. It is estimated by those who had the best opportunity of knowing that above the receipts the annual expenditure of money for at least fifteen years was thirty-five hundred dol- lars, making the farm represent a cost, without inter- est, including the purchase money, of $87,144.20. It had been the ambition of Mr. Webster to gather into his hands the entire tract of twenty-seven hundred acres granted by the Colony Court to Edward Wins- low and William Thomas. It will be seen that he continued his purchases up to the year of his death, and it is probable that if he had lived a few years longer he would have approximately accomplished his object. The tracts actually bought included both Thomas and Winslow lands, a much smaller propor- tion of the latter, though the name of Carswell, adopted by him for his estate, was never in colonial times applied to anything more than a portion of the Wins- low lands, which were entirely distinct and separate from the Thomas lands on which his dwelling was situated.

Of the life of Mr. Webster as a public man it is not the intention of this narrative to speak. Of his life in Marshfield with his family, among his friends and neighbors, away from the shallowness and decep- tions and insincerities of politicians and society mem- bers, the world knows little. Whatever he may have been thought to be elsewhere, there he was a true, simple, transparent, affectionate, tender-hearted man. No man ever lived in Marshfield who could say that Mr. Webster ever deceived him by word or deed, ever withheld the wisest and always gratuitous coun- sel, ever tried to get the advantage in a trade, ever in- dulged in or countenanced evil reports, ever assumed or recognized any superiority in himself or inferiority in others, cver indulged in condescension in the treat- ment of the most humble, ever failed to treat every man in every station of life as his equal. In this latter respect, perhaps, no man of mark was ever more distinguished. There have been great men who were called many-sided, who had a point of contact for all,

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

of child's talk for the child, of philosophical reflections for the learned, of forced simplicity for the illiterate, of strained effort for the scholar, something for every man, but all distinet and separate, having no relation to each other, and nothing stamping the character of the man. Mr. Webster was the same to all, to Lord Ashburton and Seth Peterson, to Henry Clay and John Taylor, to Tom Benton and Unele Branch Pieree; dignified but simple, profound but elear, friendly but not familiar, easy but not vulgar, and in the same room with all those men together he would have been the diplomatist to one, the statesman to another, the fish- erman to a third, and a farmer or a hunter to the fourth and fifth. His speeches illustrate his charae- ter in this respect. No child needs a dietionary in reading them. He never descends to a low level of language and thought that he may be better under- stood. He knows that if the subject is clear to his own mind, he ean present it in the same language to all, as the artist in his noblest and most inspired efforts needs no special culture to be understood and admired. It was the common remark of his neigh- bors that he treated them precisely as he would have treated a brother senator or the President, and the senator and President could have said as truly that he treated them as if they had been his neighbors.

His humorous nature and generous treatment of neighbors are illustrated by the following ineident. On one occasion, after a return from Washington, a man presented a bill for payment. " Why, Mr. N.," said Mr. Webster, " it seems to me I have paid that bill." Mr. N. protested that it had not been paid, and Mr. Webster told him that he had then no money, but if he would eall in ten days he would settle with him. After he had gone Mr. Webster asked Fletcher to look over a mass of loose bills and receipts and see if he could find a receipted bill. To the surprise of both not only one but two receipts were found, and the bill had already been paid twice. " We will put these bills there," said Mr. Webster, placing them in a pigeon-hole in his desk, "and when Mr. N. calls again we will have some fun with him." In due time Mr. N. called, just at the dinner hour, and Mr. Webster said, " Come, Mr. N., let us go in and have some dinner first, and then we will talk business." To dinner they went, and a good one it was, and Mr. N. relished it keenly. After dinner they went out under the old elm, and Fletcher with them, and Mr. Webster soon began. " Mr. N.," said he, " do yon keep books ?" " No," said Mr. N. " I thought so," said Mr. Webster. "Now, I advise you to keep books. If you had kept books you would have known that I had this receipted bill" (showing him

one). Mr. N. was much surprised and considerably mortified to have been caught in such a mistake. " It is always a good plan to keep books," said Mr. Webster, showing him the second receipt. "Now, Mr. N., I will pay this bill just once more, but I promise you that I shall not pay it a fourth time." Knowing him to be an honest man, Mr. Webster, not wishing to annoy him, intimating that perhaps receipted bills had been presented but left really un- paid, made him take his money and a glass of wine, and pleasantly bade him good-afternoon.

Of the avocations of fishing and hunting no mau was more fond, and he was never happier than with Mr. Isaac L. and Mr. Thomas Hedge, in the Plymouth woods, on a deer stand, on some lonely road, or on the shore of one of Plymouth's countless ponds. He was not a skillful hunter or fisherman, but such an admirer of nature that with a rod or line or gun in his hand, he created many of those brilliant passages of oratory which wreathe and lend grace to his arguments and speeches. Too often for an accomplished and devoted sportsman his reveries allowed the game of the forest to escape him unobserved, and the fish of the sca to nibble away his bait, until the construction of some trope or metaphor was complete in all its beauty and grandeur. On a maple-tree, standing by the shore of Billington Sea, may be seen the initials of his name rudely ent, the thoughtless work of one of these reveries, in which no notice was taken of the coming deer until it leaped from the bank and ran knee-deep in the water along the pebbly beach. On this occasion, however, his game was at a disadvantage, remaining long enough within range for him to seize his gun, and secure the single trophy of his hunter's life. On one occasion, within the knowledge of the writer of these reminiseenees, on a November afternoon at sunset, after an unsuccessful hunt with the Messrs. Iledge and George Churchill and Unele Branch, nine miles from Plymouth and twenty miles from home, before mounting his wagon he struck his knife into a tree and said, " At this tree, gentlemen, we meet at sunrise to-morrow." After forty miles of travel and a part of a night's sleep, he was on the spot at the appointed hour with his companions of the day before. The day, however, coming on chilly and wet, Mr. Webster having something of a cold, thought it pru- dent to give up the hunt, and await at the house of Mr. Pierce the issue of the sport. On the return of the party, bearing a noble buck, they found him paeing the kitchen of Mrs. Pierce, repeating from memory some of the grand old lyric poems of Watts, while the old lady, with her breakfast-dishes still unwashed, was listening in reverential silence.

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THE COURTS AND BAR.

On another occasion. after his return to Marshfield from an unsuccessful hunt in the Plymouth woods. he told his son. Fletcher. to sit down and he would tell him about his hunt. " We reached Long Pond." said he. " at sunrise, aud Uncle Branch was ready for us with his two hounds. He fastened them to a tree and went in search of a track. He soon returned. and said he had found a noble track and perfectly fresh. . Now, Mr. Webster.' said Unele Branch, . I'm going to put you on the best stand in these here woods.' and Long Pond Hill was where he put me. . Now.' said he, ' Mr. Webster, you jest keep your eyes peeled and your ears skun. and don't you let no deer run past you without a shot. Don't you mind whether you hear the dogs or not, for the old fellow may come even when the dogs are out of hearth.' Well, he put the others on their stands, and then led the hounds to the track and put them on. It was a still morning; not a twig stirred. and I obered orders. Soon eight o'clock came, and then nine, and then I ventured to walk a few steps and baek. and soon ten o'clock came, and then eleven. I saw nothing and heard nothing. and twelve o'clock came. I repeated poetry and made speeches, and got hungry and ate a cra ker. and one o'clock came. and no deer and no Uncle Braneh. Two o'clock came, and three o'clock, and just then a song-sparrow perched on a tree near me, and I took off my hat and made a bow, and said, 'Madam, accept my profoundest regards ; you are the first living thing I have seen to-day.' Soon Uncle Branch came, and said the hunt was up. 'that the dogs went out of hearth at eight o'clock, and he hadn't heard 'em since. by golly.' and here I ani, Fletcher, as hungry as a cooper'- cow."

Mr. Webster was a man of deep religious feeling. If there was anything with which he was more familiar than with the Constitution of his country, it was the Bible. Few men studied it more carefully, or could repeat more of its passages with precision. I: taught him to believe with all his heart in the ex- ietence of God and in a future life. He had formu- lated no creed, and he subscribed to none formulated by othere. During the larger part of his life as a public man he attended the Unitarian Church, and the Unitarian faith was undoubtedly more than any other in accord with his feelings and sentiments. For Dr. George Putnam and Dr. Samuel K. Lothrop, the latter of whom was for many years his pastor, he entertained the sincerest affection and highest re- spect. His second wife was a member of the Epis- copal Church, and though in Washington it was his custom to accompany her to her place of worship, he did not believe that the doctrine of the trinity could

be sustained by the Scriptures. At home in Marsh- field he invariably attended the orthodox church once on the Sabbath, and whoever or how many might be his guests. his carriage was at the door each Sabbath morning to earry himself and such as might wish to aecompany him to the neighboring place of worship. In the early morning, too, of the Sabbath-day, his household, including guests, were summoned to his library. and there he spoke to them of the responsi- bilities and duties of life. One of the many portraits which have been engraved represents him thus sitting in profile, with his left hand hidden under his waist- coat, and his face wearing a more serious expression than that of his every-day life.

Ou the 1st of April, 1852, while on his way to Plymouth to join the Messrs. Hedge on a fishing ex- cursion to the trout-brooks in the woods, with Seth Peterson as his companion and driver, on descending the hill near Smelt Brook, in that part of Kingston called Rocky Nook, the linchpin of his carriage broke. and he was thrown to the ground. He was earried into the house of Capt. Melzar Whitten, near by, and in the course of the day conveyed to his home. The fall proved his death blow. Though he partially recovered, his elasticity and spirit had de- parted, and gradually failing health brought him by successive steps to his death-bed on the 24th of Oc- tober. The last scene of his life was impressive and solemn. Ile had often during his sickness spoken of a future existence as a continuation of this, and he was impressed with the possibility that on its thresh- old the departing spirit, while within the confines of earth, might look into the regions of the other world. As death came nearer to him, and he watched its ap- proach, in a moment of apparent doubt whether he had or had not reached the dividing line between time and eternity, and anxious to learn its precise indica- tion, he opened his eyes and said, " I still live-tell me the point." Dr. Jeffries. standing by his bed, not understanding the remark, repeated the words of the psalm, " Yea, though I walk through the shadow of death I will not fear." " No, doctor," said Mr. Web- ster, in a voice still strong and clear, "tell me the point-tell me the point." These were the last words he uttered. On that beautiful Indian summer day he died, and on another as beautiful his body, dressed in his favorite blue and buff, lay in its coffin under the noble elm which had so often sheltered him in life, and loving neighbors and distant friends bore him to his final rest.

JOHN ALBION ANDREW.1-Hingham has the

1 By Hon. John D. Long.

HISTORY OF PLYMOUTH COUNTY.

proud distinction of having been the home of John Albion Andrew, Governor of Massachusetts during the entire period of the Rebellion, and of now, in accordance with the wish he once expressed before the citizens of Hingham, tenderly cherishing in her soil his sacred ashes.

It is unnecessary, in the scope of the present work, to give more than the barest biographical outline of one whose life and services are already a part of the national literature, imprinted on its brightest pages. He was born, of worthy New England stock, at South Windham, in the State of Maine, May 31, 1818. The comfortable circumstances of his father procured him a good academical education and a collegiate course at Brunswick. He was a glad, wholesome, noble boy, with open face and curly head, and a brave, generous, and buoyant heart, fond of history, reading widely, with a taste for poetry and elegant literature, with no exalted rank as a plodding scholar, but with always a tendency towards broad views and humane sentiments. Even in those days the anti-slavery cause had touched his heart, and the faint whisper of the approaching storm was awakening his pulses to that love of freedom and respect for human rights which so signally found expression in his later life.

In 1837, Andrew entered the law-office of Henry H. Fuller, Esq., of Boston. He there pursued for twenty years the ordinary course of his profession, making now and then a stump-speech or a literary oration, and constantly rising in practice and reputa- tion. In December, 1848, he married Eliza Jones Hersey, of Hingham, whom he had met at an anti- slavery fair in Boston, and from that period, for a great part of the time, he made Hingham his home. Here children were born unto him, here he walked to church, and sang the familiar hymns and taught the Sunday-school. Here his rare and sweet social qualities surrounded him with friends who loved and admired him ; and here his generous nature, his fond- ness for natural scenery, his love of children, and his strong social attachments, brought him some of the happiest hours of his life.

While residing in Hingham, Andrew was nomi- nated for State senator, but defeated. He had as yet had no entrance into political service. Nevertheless, he was daily becoming better known as an intelligent advocate of progress, and for his strong anti-slavery sentiments. In 1854 he bravely defended the parties arrested for the rescue of Anthony Burns, and in 1857 was chosen to the General Court as representa- tive of the Sixth Ward of Boston. In this arena he rose at once to distinction. Brought into conflict with Caleb Cushing, one of the astutest and inost

powerful debaters and thinkers of the whole country, he carried off the victory in the bitter struggle over the removal of Judge Loring. In 1859 he unflinch- ingly presided at the stormy meeting in Tremont Temple for the relief of John Brown's suffering fam- ily, declaring that, whether Brown's enterprise at Harper's Ferry was right or wrong, "John Brown himself is right." In 1860 he was a delegate to the Chicago Presidential Convention, and contributed all his influence to the nomination of Abraham Lincoln ; and in 1861, having been elected by a sort of spon- taneous impulse of the heart of the commonwealth, as the one fit man for its magistracy, took his seat as Governor of the State. In April, the Rebellion already at its outburst, came the call for arms; and, as if Providence had raised him up for the place, Andrew responded to it with that electric promptness, that magnetic fervor, that soulful devotion, which, from that day forward till the end of the war, animated him under all circumstances, and imparted to the people at large the enthusiasm of his own ardent nature. His great heart breathed in that now historic telegram to the mayor of Baltimore, " I pray you to let the bodies of our Massachusetts soldiers, dead in Baltimore, be laid out, preserved in ice, and tenderly sent forward by express to me."

Unsuspected powers at once put forth in him ; his public addresses thrilled with loftier notes ; his execu- tive energies expanded to the widest limit of his countless duties and labors ; the quiet citizen and plodding lawyer budded in a day into the grandest measure of the statesman and leader ; and it seemed almost a dream that our good-humored neighbor was indeed the foremost Governor in the Union, the most chivalrous, if not the greatest, civilian of the war. At the assembling of loyal Governors at Altoona, Pa., Sept. 24, 1862, his was the leading spirit that urged new vigor in the prosecution of the campaign. When negro regiments began to be formed, he was among the first to organize them, prescient of their efficiency and gallantry in the field. In all that could stimulate the soul of the nation, in all that could wake its patri- otic fire, yet none the less in the most watchful care of the home interests of the State, of its institutions of charity and correction, he was always foremost ; and the activity of his life and labors was almost superhuman. Says the Rev. Dr. Clarke, " He worked like the great engine in the heart of a steamship."

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History of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Part 8

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1884 Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co. Number of Pages: 1706

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1884
Publisher: Philadelphia, J.W. Lewis & co.
Number of Pages: 1706