History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 15

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576

USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I > Part 15

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He made many political addresses, as varying occa- sions called for them, and was always ready with ser- vice in behalf of enterprises for the public welfare in his own city. He aided in the establishment of the Free Public Library and reading-room, was a member of the board of directors and oue of its early presi- dents. His counsels and efforts were of great value in the founding of the Worcester County Free Insti- tute of Industrial Science, now the Worcester Poly- technic Institute, whose usefulness as a pioneer in a new field and conceded eminence now are due to the wisdom with which its foundations were laid by that group of sagacious and public-spirited men of whom Mr. Hoar was one. His argument for technical edu- cation before a committee of the Legislature in 1869 was, if not the first, among the earliest adequate pub- lic statements of the claims of this branch of educa- tion. He was also an early advocate of woman suf- frage, having made an address on that subject in Worcester in 1868 and before a legislative committee in 1869. .

In 1868 Mr. Hoar was elected a Representative in Congress, as the successor of the late Hon. John D.

1 By J. Evarts Greene.

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

Baldwin. In this, the Forty-first Congress, he was a member of the Committee on Education and Labor, and his chief work was the preparation and advocacy of the bill for national education. The bill differed widely in its details from that now pending and known as the Blair Bill, but its purpose-to give national aid to education where illiteracy most pre- vails and where, through poverty or indifference, the State and local governments inadequately provide for public schools-was the same. The bill did not pass in that Congress, and Mr. Hoar reported it with some changes in the Forty-second and again in the Forty- third Congresses, when it was passed by the House, but failed in the Senate. In his first term in Congress Mr. Hoar, by a timely and convincing speech, saved the Bureau of Education when the Committee on Ap- propriations had reported it ought to be abolished. In this Congress, too, he vindicated General Howard from the charges preferred by Fernando Wood, sup- ported Sumner in his opposition to President Grant's scheme for the annexation of Santo Domingo, and be- came known as a formidable antagonist in debate by his prompt and severe treatment of Mr. D. W. Voor- hees and Mr. S. S. Cox, of New York, who ventured to "draw" the new member. His retort upon Mr. Cox was much relished by his associates. Mr. Cox, then the triumphant wit of the House, had been carp- ing at Massachusetts and daring Mr. Dawes, already a Congressional veteran, to come to her defence, assur- ing him that her stontest champion was needed. " Troy," said Mr. Cox, "was defended by Hector, yet Troy fell." Mr. Hoar's reply was quick and scathing. " Troy," said be, " did not need her Hector to repel an attack led by Thersites."

In the Forty-second Congress Mr. Haar, as a mem- ber of the Committee on Elections, drew the report in the case of Cessna against Myers. Many ques- tions of great interest were discussed and decided in this report, which has been an authority ever since, being frequently cited in election contests both here and in England. In this case the report assigned the seat to Myers, the Democrat. Mr. Hoar's dealing with election cases in this Congress and in the next was recognized by his associates of both parties as judicial and conscientious, and when the charge.of undue partisanship was afterwards brought against him, he was defended by Mr. Giddings, a Texas Democrat. In this Congress Mr. Hoar made an elo- quent appeal for the rebuilding, at the national ex- pense, of the College of William and Mary in Vir- ginia, which was destroyed by fire while national troops were encamped in its neighborhood during the Civil War.

In the Forty-third Congress Mr. Hoar, besides ob- taining the vote of the House for his Education Bill, reported and carried through the House a bill to es- tablish a Bureau of Labor Statistics, and was chair- man of a special committee to investigate the polit- ical disorders in Louisiana. The fairness of the in-

quiry and report of this committee was conceded even by the Democratic counsel employed in the case. In this Congress Mr. Hoar delivered his eulo- gy of Senator Sumner.

By the elections of 1874 the Republicans, who had held undisputed control of the House of Representa- tives for fifteen years, were outvoted in so many dis- tricts that in the Forty-fourth Congress the Demo- crats were a majority of the House. In this Congress Mr. Hoar made a number of notable speeches. At his suggestion the Eads' Jetty Bill, which was in danger of failure, was put into such form as to win favorable action from the committee and Congress, and thus, as Captain Eads himself testified, it was through Mr. Hoar's efforts that New Orleans was opened to ocean commerce. He was one of the man- agers of the impeachment of Secretary Belknap, and as such made an argument so convincing and pow- erful that it not only changed the opinions of several Senators on the question of jurisdiction, but it awoke the conscience of the people and gave the initial im- pulse to the wave of official and political reform, which has not yet spent its force. But Mr. Hoar's most distinguished service in this Congress was that with which it closed-his work for and as a member ot the Electoral Commission. He was a member of the special committee which prepared the bill establish- ing the commission, was its advocate in the House, and was chosen by the Honse a member of it, his associates being General Garfield, Judge Abbott, ot Massachusetts, General Hunton, of Virginia, and Mr. Payne, of Ohio. In 1872 and again in 1874 Mr. Hoar had given notice to his constituents of his wish to retire from public life, but had yielded to the gen- eral and imperative demand for his further service.

In 1876 his resolve not to be a candidate for re- election to the House was announced as final, and the people, accepting it, elected his successor. But in the winter following the Legislature chose him as Mr. Boutwell's successor in the other branch of Con- gress, and he took his seat in the Senate in March, 1877, at the opening of President Hayes' administra- tion, of which he was one of the few steadfast Sena- torial supporters. In the Senate Mr. Hoar has been a member, and for some years chairman of the Com- mittee on Privileges and Elections and a member of the Committee on Claims, on the Judiciary, on the Library, and others of less importance. Besides con- ducting many inquiries, preparing many reports, in- volving large pecuniary interests or deciding weighty questions of individual right or public policy, he is the author or was the leading advocate of several measures of first-rate importance. Among them are the bill for distributing the balance of the Geneva award, the Lowell Bankruptcy Bill, the bill for counting the electoral votes for President and Vice- President, the Presidential Succession Bill, the repeal of the Tenure of Office Act and the resolution for amending the Constitution so as to make the Presi-

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HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

dential term and the term of each Congress begin with the 30th day of April instead of the 4th day of March. All of these measures passed the Senate, and most of them became laws.

In general Mr. Hoar has occupied himself in Con- gress with matters of wide scope and of fundamental importance rather than with those measures of nar- rower range and temporary application, upon which most of the labor of Senators and Representatives is spent. His success in gaining for so many of these larger measures the attention and favorable action of a body somewhat dilatory, apt to be engrossed with the affairs of the moment, and seldom looking farther forward than to the next Presidential campaign, is proof of his powers of convincing and persuading and of the confidence of his associates in his wisdom and the purity of his motives.

Mr. Hoar was re-elected to the Senate by the Legislature in January, 1883, and again in 1889. His election for the third time by the unanimous vote of his party in the Legislature, withont a note of dissent or the public suggestion of any competi- tor, was a distinction not accorded to any man in Massachusetts for many years before, and proof that the people have learned to set a value npon his ser- vices not less than that which they assigned in ear- lier days to those of Webster and Sumner.

Mr. Hoar has four times been chosen to preside over Republican State Conventions. In 1880 he was president of the National Convention at Chicago by which General Garfield was made the Republican candidate for President of the United States. His dignity and courtesy, his prompt and impartial de- cisions, and the easy mastery by which he held the great convention to its work amid the enthusiasms for rival leaders and the disturbing hopes and fears and other strong excitements of the occasion, com- manded general applause, and gave to the public of the United States a better knowledge of his strength and breadth of character.

Besides his political, legislative and professional activity, which has been briefly outlined above, Mr. Hoar has been and is usefully busy in other ways. He has written valuable papers for the magazines; has delivered many addresses on other than political snbjects ; has been a member of the Board of Over- seers of Harvard College; an active member and for some years the president of the American Antiqua- rian Society ; a trustee of the Worcester Polytechnic Institute; a regent of the Smithsonian Institution, and was selected by Mr. Jonas G. Clark as one of the corporators of Clark University. He has re- ceived the degree of Doctor of Laws from William and Mary College, Amherst, Yale and Harvard.

P. EMORY ALDRICH,1 of Worcester, an associate justice of the Superior Court of Massachusetts, is a native of New Salem, Mass. His family is of the

early New England stock, he being a lineal descend- ant of George Aldrich, who emigated from England in 1635 and settled at first in Dorchester, but after- wards became one of the original founders of the town of Mendon. Members of this family in the seventh and eighth generations from the founder are now living in nearly every State of the Union; it has had its Representatives in both Houses of Cougress and in all the learned professions; several . of the lineage have been judges in the courts of different States. The family, in some of its branches, has been, and is, honorably known in literature and commerce ; but a great majority of the race have been farmers. As a race they are distinguished for longevity and vigor of physical constitution and an inflexible will in the pursuit of the objects of their choice.

The subject of this notice attended the district school in his native village until he was sixteen years old, and then became himself a teacher. He received an academical education, and thereafter taught in the schools of this State and Virginia; pursuing at the same time a course of studies, such as were at that day usually found in the curricula of New England colleges. While teaching in Virginia he began the study of law, which he continued at the Harvard Law School in 1843-44, and gradnated with the degree of LL.B.

After that, returning to Virginia and resuming there for a definite period his former vocation of teaching, he was admitted to the bar upou examina- tion by the judges of the Conrt of Appeals at Rich- mond in 1845. He did not, however, enter upon prac- tice there, but returned the same year to his native State, and after six months' study in the theu well- known office of Ashman, Chapman & Norton, of Springfield, he was admitted to the bar at the spring term of the old Common Pleas Court for Hampden County in 1846.

Subsequent to his admission he passed a few months in Petersham in the office of F. A. Brooks, Esq., who had been a fellow-student of his at Cambridge ; and in December, 1846, he began practice in the town of Barre, Worcester County, and continued there during the following seven years. For abont three years of the seven he was editor and publisher of the Barre Patriot. He represented the town of Barre in the Constitutional Convention of 1853. In May, 1853, he was appointed by Governor Clifford district attor- ney for the Middle District, which office he con- tinued to hold, with an interval of a few months in 1856, until 1865. In the spring of 1854 he removed to Worcester and opened an office in that city, and in January, 1855, he formed a law partnership with the Hon. P. C. Bacon, which partnership continued until he left the bar for the bench in October, 1873. He was mayor of Worcester for the year 1862.

Upon the organization of the State Board of Health, in 1870, Mr. Aldrich was appointed a member of the board by Governor Claflin, and remained a member

1 By the Editor.

P.Emory Alchich

10. 10. Hace

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

till his appointment to the bench of the Superior Court. While he was a member of the Board of Health he prepared an historical paper, relating to the use of and the legislative regulation of the sale of in- toxicating liquor, which was published in one of the annual reports of the board. He was one of the Representatives from Worcester in the State Legisla- ture in the years 1866 and 1867; he took an active part in the dehates and business of the House. In 1866 he was one of the minority dissenting from the decision of the Speaker of the House upon the question of the right of an interested member to vote. Mr. Aldrich prepared at that time an elaborate report upon the subject, which was published under the title of "The Right of Members to Vote on all Questions of Public Policy Vindicated." The principles of parliamentary law and practice contended for in that report were, at a later date, held to be correct, both in the Federal House of Representatives and in the British House of Commons. Judge Aldrich is a member of the American Antiquarian Society and one of the council of that venerable and learned body.

As a member of the society and council he has pre- pared several papers on historical, legal and literary subjects, which have been published with the proceed- ings of the society. He has written and delivered addresses before other societies and associations upon various aspects of social science and education, and upon the right of the State to provide not only for the elementary education of its children, but also for their higher education in high schools, etc. For the last few years he has given much time and study to the cause of technical education. He has long been one of the trustees of that admirable institution-the Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Since he left the bar he has written a work on " Equity Pleading and Practice," which was pub- lished in 1885. In 1886 he received the honorary degree of LL.D. from Amberst College. In 1850 he married Sarah, the eldest daughter of Harding P. Wood, Esq., late of Barre.

WILLIAM W. RICE,1 son of Rev. Benjamin Rice, a Congregational clergyman, was born in the historical old town of Deerfield, Mass., on the 7th of March, 1826. His collegiate education was acquired at Bowdoin, whence he graduated in 1846. And it may be mentioned, in passing, that his alma mater in 1886 conferred on him the degree of LL.D. After graduating he spent four years as preceptor of the far-famed Leicester Academy, and in 1851 com- menced the study of law in the office of Emory Wash- burn, then in full practice in Worcester. After the usual course of three years' study he was admitted to the bar; and from the first year of his professional life to the present time has been a prosperous and highly-esteemed practitioner. His courtesy of man-

ner, his fairness towards opposing parties and uniform deference to the court have marked him as a gentle- man as well as advocate.

The career of Mr. Rice as a lawyer, successful as it has been, by no means exhibits his whole character- perhaps not the most useful or conspicuous part. He has been almost constantly called by his fellow-citi- zens to fill positions of honor, trust and responsi- bility.

In the municipal administration of Worcester he has served in various capacities, particularly in those connected with the educational interests. In 1860 he was mayor, and administered the duties of that high office with efficiency and universal satisfaction. In the capacity of special justice of the Police Court and as occupant of the bench of the County Court of Insolvency his course met with marked approval.

The duties of the office of district attorney or pub- lic prosecutor for the Worcester District, to which he was elected in 1868 and which he held five years, he discharged with signal ability, with fidelity to the State and a manly regard for the rights of those whom it became his duty to prosecute. Few offices are beset by more difficulties and annoyances, the duties being always arduous, often disagreeable and sometimes of doubtful justice; and he who success- fully discharges them is worthy of the highest praise.

But perhaps it was as a member of Congress that Mr. Rice has become most widely known. He was for ten years a member of that august body, having been first elected in 1876. In the discussions there his speeches had much influence and his committee work was often of the greatest importance. There, as well as at the bar, he was courteous and forhearing, though never shrinking from the enforcement of his convictions with ardor and eloquence. By his fellow- members of all parties he was regarded with great respect, for every one recognized him as honest and patriotic. He was able in debate and not liable to be taken unawares on any current subject, was intelli- gent, earnest and persistent as a worker in the inter- est of his constituents, and exhibiting the same zeal that characterized his efforts for clients at the bar.

But it would savor a little of ostentation and at the same time add nothing to the reputation of Mr. Rice to further pursue this phase of his career.

Some men possess such magnetic power that they, without a particle of self-assertion, draw to them- selves the sympathy and confidence of all with whom they are brought in contact. And such have a controlling influence in the common affairs of life. There are others, on the contrary, who seem always surrounded by a chilling atmosphere, impene- trable to any brotherly feeling or confidential near- ness. Those who best know Mr. Rice will have no difficulty in which class to place him. Assuredly he does not belong to the latter.

Politically, Mr. Rice is a member of the Republi- can party, and ranks as the first Republican mayor of

1 By Hon. J. R. Newhall.

HISTORY OF WORCESTER COUNTY, MASSACHUSETTS.

the city. In the War of the Rebellion his voice gave no uncertain sound in urging upon every one the duty of doing their utmost to preserve the integrity of the Union ; and it was not by speech alone that he forti- fied his patriotic sentiments. In his religious senti- ments he is a Unitarian.

Mr. Rice was united in marriage November 21, 1855, with Miss Cornelia A. Moen, of Stamford, Conn., by whom he had two sons,-the eldest, William W. Rice, Jr., dying in childhood, and the youngest, Charles Moen Rice, a graduate of Harvard, is now a member of Mr. Rice's law firm. His first wife died June 16, 1862. Iu September, 1875, he married Miss Alice M. Miller, daughter of Henry W. Miller, Esq., of Worcester.

FRANK PALMER GOULDING.1-The subject of this sketch is descended from Peter Goulding, who lived in Boston in 1665, and afterwards in Worcester and Sudbury. Palmer Goulding, son of Peter, had a son John, who was born in Worcester, October 3, 1726, and inherited from his father the business of tanuing. He removed early in life to Grafton, and died November 22, 1791. His wife, Lucy Brooks, of Concord, died at the age of thirty-eight, the mother of ten children. Ephraim Goulding, one of the children, was born September 4, 1765, and married, March 6, 1792, Susannah, daughter of William and Sarah (Prentice) Brigham. He was a prominent man in the town, serving as moderator of annual town-meetings eleven years, as selectman six, as assessor one year and as member of the School Committee six years. He died January 14, 1838. Palmer Goulding, son of Ephraim, was born October 11, 1809, and died in Grafton, March 22, 1849. He married, first, Fanny W. May- nard, who died August 9, 1839, having had three children-John C., who was horn in 1832, and died in 1839; Susan E., born in 1835, and Frank P., the sub- ject of this sketch, who was born in Grafton, July 2, 1837. By a second wife, Ann Cutting, whom he married June 2, 1842, he had Fanny A., born May 4, 1843.

Frank Palmer Goulding while a boy lived in Graf- ton, Holden and Worcester, his father having at various times occupation in those places, but on the death of his father, in 1849, returned to Grafton, and at the age of twelve years was apprenticed to learn the business of making shoes. From 1853 to 1857 he worked at his trade in Worcester, and at the latter date, at the age of twenty, entered the academy at Thetford, Vt., and prepared for college. He graduated at Dart- mouth in 1863, and at once began the study of law in the office of Hon. George F. Hoar, in Worcester. A year at the Harvard Law School completed his pre- liminary law studies, and in 1866 he was admitted to the Worcester County bar. In the same year he became a partner with Hon. Francis Henshaw Dewey, then in full practice, and remained with him until Mr.

Dewey was appointed a justice of the Superior Court in 1869. Mr. Goulding then formed a partnership with Hon. Hamilton Barclay Staples, which con- tinued until Mr. Staples was appointed a Superior Court justice in 1881. Since that time he has been alone, enjoying a large and increasing practice, to which has been added the performance of the duties of city solicitor, which office since 1881 he has con- tinued to hold.

It is not difficult to form an estimate of the charac- ter and intellectual powers of a man who, with slen- der educational advantages in early life, has reached the professional position enjoyed by Mr. Goulding. At a bar excelled by none in the State beyond the limits of Suffolk County, he at an early day in his career secured a rank which he has not only sus- tained, but steadily advanced. His appointment as one of the trustees of the new Clark University at- tests both the confidence of the community in which he lives in his business methods and sound judg- ment and their respect for his mental attainments and culture.

There are other evidences of the regard in which he is held. He was one of the Presidential electors chosen on the Republican ticket at the last election ; he is also one of the trustees of the Worcester County Institution for Savings, a director in the First National Fire Insurance Company, and either a present or retired member of the Worcester School Board. With the pressure of professional business, his political aspirations have been satisfied by two years of service in the House of Representatives.

Mr. Goulding married, March 29, 1870, Abbie B. Miles, of Fitchburg, and has two children of fifteen and ten years of age.

HON. JOHN D. WASHBURN.2-John Davis Wash- burn is a native of Boston, where he was born March 27, 1833, being the eldest son of John Marshall Washburn, who married, in 1832, Harriet Webster, daughter of Rev. Daniel Kimball (Harvard Univer- sity, 1800).

His parents removed to the grand old town of Lan- caster, in Worcester County, when he was five years old, and his early youth was passed amid those beau- tiful surroundings.

At the age of twenty he graduated in 1853 from Harvard University, and entered the profession of law, studying first with Hon. Emory Washburn and George F. Hoar in 1854, and later receiving a diplo- ma from the Harvard Law School in 1856.

He practiced law in Worcester, in partnership with Hon. H. C. Rice, and, by a development of his pro- fessional business and inclinations, made a prominent place, first, as an insurance attorney, and lastly, suc- ceeding the late Hon. Alexander H. Bullock as gen- eral agent and attorney of the insurance companies, in 1866.

2 By the Editor.

1 By W. T. Davis.

JohnWarklum

Jaurs

Yaward Lo. Davis 1

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THE BENCH AND BAR.

By his friendship with Governor Bullock he became associated with his military family as the chief of his staff, from 1866 to 1869, receiving a colonel's com- mission.

During the period from 1871 to 1881 he was a trus- tee of the Worcester Lunatic Hospital, and from 1875 to 1885 filled the same relation to the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-minded. He was a member of the House of Representatives from 1876 to 1879, and a Senator from the city of Worcester in 1884, rendering the excellent public service to be expected from his knowledge of affairs and his general sympa- thies with all matters of care and concern in the Com- monwealth.

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History of Worcester County, Massachusetts : with biographical sketches of many of its pioneers and prominent men, Vol. I, Part 15

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton) Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co. Number of Pages: 1576

Author: Hurd, D. Hamilton (Duane Hamilton)
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Philadelphia : J.W. Lewis & Co.
Number of Pages: 1576