USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Franklin > History of the town of Franklin, Mass., from its settlement to the completion of its first century > Part 14
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He was a representative to the General Court of the Provincial government for many years, a member of the house of delegates at Salem, in 1775, where he was chosen one of the council of twenty-eight which acted as the executive during the opening Rev- olution, and of which were John and Samuel Adams, Robert Treat Paine, and John Hancock. He was considered the special watchman of the country part of Suffolk county, then including Franklin, and brought its forces into action. He was delegate to the Constitutional Convention of 1788. He declined to be on the famous Committee of Safety, on account of his distance from Boston, but when the Provincial Congress was summoned to Watertown in midwinter, he walked all the way from Franklin on his snow-shoes through the woods. He was also on the Gover- nor's Council from 1766 to 1772 and from 1776 to 1779, and in the Senate from 1780 to 1784, and again a Representative in 1786, 1798 and 1799. Being now 82 years old he withdrew from public affairs. But he continued to act as justice of the peace, to which he was first commissioned 8th November, 1775, until 1800; and officiated as deacon of the church from February, 1755, until he was unable to attend. He died 15th October, 1806, in his 89th year. A funeral sermon by Dr. Emmons (Works, vol. v., 496) ably sets forth his character and worth.
Deacon Fisher married, 5th March, 1740, Mary, daughter of John Adams, and had nine children.
LEWIS WHITING FISHER, Esq., was born in Franklin 29th De- cember, 1792, and was the son of Hon. Lewis and Abigail Fisher. He graduated at Brown University, 1816, and studied law with Hon. J. J. Fiske, of Wrentham. He afterwards opened an office in Wrentham, where he lived until his death in 1827, April 20.
Esquire Fisher married Nancy, daughter of Luther and Betsey Fisher, 4th January, 1820. She is still living in Wrentham. They had four children, Lewis Emmons and Henry Jones, now deceased ;
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Elizabeth E. and George Park, who graduated B. U. 1847, and is now Professor of Ecclesiastical History in Yale College, and widely known as author of "History of the Reformation," "Beginnings of Christianity," and other works.
Hon. MILTON METCALF FISHER was the eldest son of Willis and Caroline (Fairbanks) Fisher, and great grandson of Hon. Jabez Fisher. He was born in the south part of Franklin 30th Jan- uary, 1811. With a good common school education he began at 16 teaching distriet schools in Wrentham, Franklin, Medway, West- boro, Canton and Randolph. He prepared for college partly at Day's Academy, Wrentham, under Isaac Perkins, and at the Med- way Classical Institute, A. R. Baker, Principal ; entered Amherst College in 1832, but too close devotion to study, in a class con- taining Governor Bullock, Judge Kellogg of Vermont, and Hon. E. H. Kellogg of Pittsfield, compelled him to leave college and betake himself to journeying for recuperation, in which he was ultimately successful in a complete restoration. He then entered business in Westboro, where he filled several offices, but removed to Medway village in 1840, and there still resides. In Medway Mr. Fisher has held nearly every municipal office -he has been Justice of the Peace and Notary Public for Norfolk county, State Senator in 1859 and 1860, County Commissioner from 1863 to 1872, and dea- con of the village church since 1840. He has been a trader, a straw-goods manufacturer, and is now insurance agent for several companies. He received the degree of A. M. in 1865 from Am- herst College, and while the old chapel stands his name will be read on the inside clock-face that marks the tardy ones at prayers.
Mr. Fisher married, August 22, 1836, Eleanor B., eldest daugh- ter of Hon. Luther Metcalf of Medway, by whom he has had nine children, four of whom are now living. One son is associated with him in business, the other is a prominent physician in Boston. Of the two daughters one is married in Amherst, the other is a teacher.
Prof. AUSTIN BARCLAY FLETCHER is a native of Mendon, where he was born 13th March, 1852, but removed to Franklin in 1860. After leaving the public schools in town, he spent three years in Dean Academy. The year 1869 was spent in Bryant & Stratton's Commercial School, Boston. The next year he was at Wilbraham Academy. He then entered Tuft's College in 1872, graduating in
MM Fisher (
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1876. The two years following were passed in Boston University, in the schools of law and of oratory. Since the spring of the cur- rent year he has been instructing in oratory, both in the theologi- cal department of the Boston University and also at Brown Uni- versity, Providence. His intended profession is the law.
Mr. Fletcher is the son of Asa A. and Harriett E. (Durfee) Fletcher.
JAMES ROBERT GILMORE ("Edmund Kirke") was born in the south part of Franklin, called " under the hill," and was the son of Turner Gilmore, and grandson of William. In 1845 he entered the employ of Blanchard, Converse & Co., of Boston, and became their salesman in New York State for many years. At the same time he supported his mother in Boston, who had become insane. In 1856 he began business in New York city. This compelled him to often visit the South, and especially North Carolina, where he became so conversant with the people. He at this time origi- nated a village in New Jersey, and built a house there in which he lived. But further particulars of his life are now inaccessible.
Mr. Gilmore's special fame rests upon his authorship. Being a rapid penman and a vivacious composer, his travels giving him a wide acquaintance with men and abundant incidents, he began the Continental Magazine in 1865, editing and publishing it himself. In this magazine his book " Among the Pines " first appeared as a serial, with the nom de plume of " Edmund Kirke." It attracted wide interest. He also wrote "My Southern Friends" and " Down in Tennessee," in which he describes a visit to Jefferson Davis in Richmond. He was also a party in the famous Greeley Conference with the rebels to effect a peace. His magazine arti- cles have been numerous, and their fund of humor exhaustless. Of his family and present residence the writer knoweth not.
ELISHA HARDING, M. D., the son of Captain Asa and Comfort Harding, was born in Franklin 29th January, 1796. After fitting for college he graduated M. D. at Brown University, 1819. Im- mediately after his graduation he visited and finally settled in Maine. Dr. Harding married, 7th September, 1819, Amelia, daugh- ter of Moses Hawes, and removed to Union, Me., where he be- came prominent as physician, and was in various civic offices until 1842, when he removed to Thomaston, where he died in 1850,
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May 6th. He left one son, Nathaniel Miller Harding, of Rock- land, Me., still resident in that city.
Rev. WALTER HARRIS, D. D., a son-in-law of this town, was born in Lebanon, Conn., 8th June, 1761, and was son of Nathan- iel and Grace Harris. He graduated at Dartmouth College, 1787, and studied theology with Rev. Dr. Emmons, and was settled in Dumbarton, N. H., 26th August, 1789, where he died after forty years' successful service, 25th December, 1843. He married Jemima, daughter of Nathaniel Fisher of Franklin, and sister of Hon. Lewis Fisher, by whom he had seven children.
Dr. Harris was a remarkable man. Left an orphan at 16, he joined the Revolutionary army as fifer and served his three years. He next bought wild land near Dartmouth College and made himself a farm. Being converted by a sermon in town, he resolutely turned to the ministry, and by dint of evening study graduated with honors. Reading a sermon of Dr. Emmons', he determined to study theology with that man. He found him in Franklin, learned his theology, found a wife also in the congregation, and became one of the mighty men of the gospel in New Hampshire.
Rev. THOMAS HAVEN was the oldest living child of Rev. Elias Haven, the first minister of Franklin. He was born 28th August, 1744, and was gradnated at Cambridge, 1765. He was installed 7th November, 1770, the first pastor of the Third, or South, church in Reading. But like his father he fell an early victim to con- sumption, dying in office, 7th May, 1782, in the 39th year of his age. His grave-stone says his death was "a most sorrow- ful event to the people of his charge," and adds - " a genius un- fettered by bigotry, improved by study, ennobled by religion and by an evangelical temper, and enlarged by the most diffusive benevolence, has taken its flight to its native country."
Mr. Haven married Anna Bigelow, who died 10th June, 1776, aged 21.
Rev. ALFRED HAWES, a native of Holliston, married Clarissa Prentiss, daughter of Phineas and Abigail Partridge, of Franklin, and became a member of its list of sons. He fitted for college at the Franklin Academy and graduated at Brown University, 1841, and at Andover. He went West as a home missionary, and was soon settled in Marion, Ind., where he died in August, 1854. His wife soon followed him. Rev. H. W. Beecher, then in the same State,
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said of him : "If we had a hundred men like Hawes, Indiana would soon blossom as the rose." He left four children, of whom is George W. Hawes, Professor of Mineralogy in the Yale Scientific School.
PETER HAWES, Esq., son of Joseph and Hannah (Fisher) Hawes, was born in Franklin 6th June, 1766. He graduated at Brown University 1790, and afterwards became an eminent lawyer in New York city. He was a devoted Christian and an elder in the brick church, Rev. Dr. Spring's.
Esquire Hawes died in early life, leaving two daughters, Susan and Matilda, both unmarried, and a son of whom we know not even his name.
Rev. ISAAC ERWIN HEATON was born in Franklin 6th October, 1808, and was the oldest son of Nathan and Sarah (Boon) Heaton. He is descended from Nathaniel and Mary Heaton, original settlers in Wrentham. His great grandfather Isaac took a farm within the southern limits of Franklin which his grandfather Isaac and his father Nathan occupied. The first printing press in this re- gion was set up by his ancestral family, which issued many of the first editions of Dr. Emmons' sermons and other pamphlets. No relic of that old press is now known to exist.
Mr. Heaton fitted for college at Day's Academy and graduated B. U. 1832 ; studied theology with Rev. Dr. Ide, and was ordained as evangelist by the Mendon Association at North Wrentham 25th April, 1857. He went West as a home missionary to Wisconsin, where he was for a time the only Congregational minister in the State. He preached among the lead miners. He pioneered sev- eral churches into self-support. In 1856 he went to Fremont, Neb., where he still is. The church of seven members which he organized there now numbers forty-five with a good house of worship and a parsonage free of debt.
Mr. Heaton married Miranda N., daughter of Samuel Metcalf of Franklin, and has two daughters married.
Rev. ASA HIXON, who married Charlotte Baker, daughter of Capt. David Baker, was born in Medway 6th March, 1800, and was son of Asa and Polly (Turner) Hixon. He graduated at Brown Uni- versity 1825, and at Auburn Theological Seminary ; was ordained at Oakham 7th October, 1829, but was compelled to resign in 1832. After a long sickness he was able to remove to Franklin in 1845, 11
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where he lived in comparative comfort for twelve years. In 1857 he returned to his first home in Medway, where he died 16th No- vember, 1862, widely lamented as a clear thinker and conscien- tious Christian. He had but one child, David B. Hixon.
Rev. WILLIAM HOOPER, a native of Berwick, Me., born 1794, a missionary to the Choctaw Indians from 1820 to 1828, first at Mayhew, and then at Elliott stations, where he died 8th Septem- ber, 1828. He became connected with Franklin by his second wife, Eliza Fairbanks, whom he married 28th March, 1828. Miss Fairbanks was daughter of Levi Fairbanks, born 25th February, 1798. Her father dying a few months after her birth she was taken into the family of Abijah Allen. After a common educa- tion in the King street school she went to Bradford Academy. Catching the missionary spirit at this seminary, she offered her- self to the American Board as a teacher, in which vocation she had had some experience in Rhode Island. She started in Sep- tember, 1827, with ten others, for the Choctaw Mission in Missis- sippi, where she first met and afterwards married Mr. Hooper the March following. On the removal of the Choctaws beyond the Mississippi, in 1831, Mrs. Hooper was released and returned to Franklin. She became afterwards the wife of Asa Partridge until his death, surviving him for some years. There were no children to either marriage.
Rev. SANFORD JABEZ HORTON, D. D., was born in Franklin 24th September, 1817. His father, Jabez Horton, was son of Comfort Horton of Rehoboth. His mother, Martha Miller, was daughter of Philip Miller also of Rehoboth, and sister of Dr. Nathaniel Miller of Franklin.
. He prepared for college partly in Franklin Academy, and com- pleted in the Worcester High School, graduated at Trinity College, Hartford, Conn., in 1843, and studied theology at Alexandria, Va. He was ordained as deacon in the Protestant Episcopal church at Providence, R. I., August, 1845, and as priest in the same place in 1846. He became rector of the St. Andrews church, Providence, in the same year. From 1848 to 1852 was rector of Grace church, New Bedford, and for the ten years succeeding was rector of St. Paul's church in Windham, Conn. While in this position he was elected principal of the Episcopal Academy in Cheshire, New Haven county, Conn., which office he has held
l' Horton.
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since 1862. This is an old institution, founded in 1794, and has a wide patronage from the denomination who have it in charge.
Dr. Horton received the degree of D. D. from Trinity College in 1869. He married, 14th September, 1846, Annie E. Allen, daughter of Paschal Allen of Warren, R. I. She died 13th Sep- tember, 1850, leaving two children, Paschal and Nelson Leprelitte. He married as second wife, 20th April, 1852, Sarah S. Wickham, daughter of James S. Wickham, of Hartford, Conn., by whom he had two children - William Wickham, lately M. D. at New York University Medical College, and Mary Elizabeth, deceased. The son inherits the Miller talent for surgery.
Rev. SAMUEL HUNT was a son-in-law of Franklin, but for a full account see Ecclesiastical History, pastors of the Congregational church.
Rev. JACOB IDE, D. D., who married Mary, daughter of Rev. Dr. Emmons, was born in Attleboro in 1786, and was the son of Jacob and descendant of Nicholas Ide of Rehoboth, 1645. He was valedictorian of the class of 1809, Brown University, and also at Andover, 1812. Was ordained at West Medway 2d No- vember, 1814, where he was active pastor for over fifty years, and still lives in his ninety-third year. He married, 13th April, 1815, Mary, daughter of Rev. Dr. Emmons, and his wife is still with him in unusual vigor for her years. Of his five children only two survive - Rev. Jacob. Jr., graduated at Amherst College 1848, and now for twenty-two years pastor in Mansfield, and Rev. Alexis W., late pastor in Stafford Springs, Conn.
His daughter Mary married Rev. Charles T. Torrey, and their daughter Mary married Rev. Albert Briant, now of West Somer- ville.
Rev. THOMAS KIDDER was the son of Aaron and Elizabeth (Emerson) Kidder, and was born in New Ipswich, N. H., 15th April, 1801. While young his parents removed to Waterford, Vt., where his talents and piety enlisted aid to his entering upon a liberal education. He studied the classics at Bangor, Me., spent a year in Princeton, and completed the course at Andover, graduating in 1834. He staid two years longer as resident gradu- ate. He was settled as pastor at Windsor, Vt., 10th January, 1838, dismissed in April, 1842. and became chaplain of the State's prison for six years. IIe afterwards preached a year at a time in
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different towns about St. Johnsbury. In 1863 he enlisted as pri- vate in the Ninth Regiment at Newbern, N. C., but was detailed as nurse in the Eighteenth Corps in Virginia. He was seized by sickness in 1864 and died November 29th of that year, at Base Hospital, Point of Rocks, Va.
Mr. Kidder married, 21st October, 1837, Nancy, daughter of Caleb Fisher of Franklin, and sister of Prof. A. M. Fisher of Yale College. They had two children - Catharine Beecher and Helen Everett, wife of David A. Alden of Malden. The mother still lives in St. Johnsbury, Vt.
Rev. SAMUEL KINGSBURY was the son of James and Mary (Up- ton) Kingsbury, and a relative of Rev. Cyrus Kingsbury, D. D., missionary to the Choctaws, through his grandfather, Daniel. He was born in Franklin, 18th May, 1798, and lived in a small old house near Cress brook place, now in Norfolk. A feeble and odd child, he yet had a strong thirst for study, and, by the aid and encouragement of Dr. Emmons and others, he succeeded in graduating from Brown University in 1822. He preached accept- ably for a time in Tamworth, N. H., and was settled 14th January, 1829, over a new church in Andover, N. H. After a year, he was installed in Warwick, N. H., 6th November, 1833, and dismissed 30th June, 1835. His later history is not known.
Mr. Kingsbury married, 16th December, 1829, Mary, daughter of Josiah Badcock of Andover, N. H., and had seven children. His oldest living son, Rev. William Henry, we find settled in Corinth, Vt., 5th January, 1859, and was in Charlton, N. Y., in 1871.
Dr. SAMUEL ALLEN KINGSBURY was the youngest son of Stephen and Abigail ( Allen) Kingsbury, and was born in Franklin 9th November, 1793. He was graduated at Brown University, 1816, and studied medicine. But he had hardly opened an office for his profession in Foxboro, when he died in that town, 8th October, 1821, aged 27 years 11 months. He was regarded as a very prom- ising candidate in his vocation.
Rev. HARTFORD PARTRIDGE LEONARD, son of Captain Hartford and Elizabeth (Shaw) Leonard, was born in Foxboro 3d May, 1822, but removed with his parents to Franklin 1st April, 1829, and has since been claimed as a son of the latter town. He fitted for college in the old Franklin Academy, and entered Amherst College in 1840, but a sudden sickness in his sophomore year
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compelled him to abandon study and betake himself to some open air vocation. For some years he conducted business in Boston, where he did good service also in the establishing of the Edwards Congregational church. The great question of freedom in Kansas, then so fiercely threatened, aroused his sympathy, and he joined the first company of immigrants with Governor Robinson. He went through the John Brown war as a private, carrying a Sharp's rifle presented to liberty by a daughter of Rev. Dr. Dutton of New Haven, Conn. The spiritual needs of the settlers turned his thoughts again to the missionary work, and his wife dying he re- turned East to fit himself for the ministry. He spent some two years in studying theology with Rev. M. Blake in Taunton, and was ordained in Edgartown, M. V., 23d June. 1833. Having re- married he returned to Kansas, but the health of his wife com- pelled him to leave the West entirely. . Since his return he has preached in Bridgewater and Westport, and is now stated supply of the church in East Taunton.
Mr. Leonard married, first, Emily Whitaker of Franklin, who died in Kansas soon after ; second, Miss Lucy A. Chapman of Tewksbury. He has four children, the oldest of whom, Willie H., is preparing for admission to Amherst College the coming year.
Dr. FERDINAND LETIIBRIDGE was a native of Franklin, born 26th May, 1778, and eldest child of Samuel and Sarah Lethbridge. He studied medicine with Dr. Nathaniel Miller, and settled in South. Brimfield, now Wales, where he died, 25th March, 1811, aged 33 years. He was buried in Franklin.
Hon. HORACE MANN, L. L. D.,* was the son of Thomas and Mary (Stanley) Mann, and was born in Franklin 4th May, 1796. His father was a small farmer, and lived on what was called " The Plain." He died when Horace was but 13, leaving him little more than a virtnous example and a thirst for knowledge, a brother Stanley, and a sister, Lydia B., of sympathetic tastes, who still lives in Providence, R. I., the field of her life labors.
Horace inherited a tendency to consumption, with which he had to battle during his life, and which probably gave him his nervous . sensitiveness. His youth was spent as was that of others at that
* This sketch is mainly condensed from "The American Portrait Gallery," vol. iii, 179.
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time at farm work in its season, and in the district school in win- ter. The bitterness with which he speaks of those years, espec- ially of his religious surroundings, he probably did not taste until after years had given him a condition more agreeable to his aspi- rations. His picture of Dr. Emmons especially must have been painted in after years, and from a different position. He remained at home with his mother until 20. During this time an itinerant schoolmaster, Samuel (?) Barrett, opened a school in town. Barrett was an eccentric genius, full to overflowing with the classics, which he could quote by the page, but ignorant utterly of the mathematics. He would keep school for six months upon a most. abstemious diet, and then travel in a drunken frenzy for the rest of the year. * A singular grammar published by him in 1813 is his. only surviving monument. Young Mann attended this school, and in it first saw a Latin grammar. With the reluctant consent of his guardian, he began the study of Latin and Greek, and by assiduous industry at the end of six months entered as sophomore in Brown University September, 1816. But such a devotion con- tinued in college overthrew his health and compelled him to leave his class for a time. He was obliged, also, to gain the means of continuing in college by school-keeping in the winter. Yet, with all these drawbacks, he graduated in 1819 as the valedictorian of his class of twenty. After graduation he entered the law office of Hon. J. J. Fiske of Wrentham, but was soon after appointed tutor in his Alma Mater. He held this office two years, and then en- tered the Law School in Litchfield, Conn. After a year he com- pleted his legal course with Hon. James Richardson of Dedham, and was admitted to the bar December, 1823.
Mann's early devotion to study was continued in his legal prac- tice, so that it is said during his fourteen years of office life, or until he left his profession in 1837, he gained at least four-fifths of all cases committed to him. But this success was doubtless be- cause he had one inflexible rule - never to undertake a case which he did not believe to be right. In 1827 Mr. Mann was chosen as
* So says "The American Portrait Gallery." But John Barrett wrote the English grammar, of which we have a copy. He was of Hopkinton, the grand- son of the first minister, Rev. Samuel, born 1759, and died 4th April, 1821. He was eccentric and wayward, but hardly to the degree described above.
Horan Mann
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Representative of Dedham to the Legislature by the Whig party. He soon became a conspicuous member of that body, and was an- nually returned by increasing majorities of his townsmen while he resided in Dedham. His first speech was in opposition to close religious corporations, and his second in favor of railroads, sup- posed to be the first speech printed in any legislature on that now dominant interest. He earnestly advocated the suppression of in- temperance and lotteries, and the elevation of the public schools. He introduced, sustained and carried through the bill for establish- ing a State Lunatic Hospital, and was chairman of its first board of trustees. He was one of a committee for codifying the laws of the State.
In 1833 Mr. Mann removed to Boston and formed a law part- nership with Hon. Edward G. Loring. At the next election he was chosen State Senator for Suffolk county, which office he filled for four successive years. He was president of that body in 1836 and 1837. He was also chosen with his townsman Judge Theron Metcalf, to edit the Revised Statutes, for which he wrote the marginal notes and references and judicial decisions.
But Mr. Mann's great work was in the department of the public schools. These had held a prominent place in his studies and speeches, and when the Board of Education was created he was eleeted, 29th June, 1837, its first secretary, an office he held for eleven years. Of his work in this field and its results there is no need to speak. The children of our common schools have built a monument to his labors in bronze, in front of the Capitol of the Commonwealth. Of these labors he says in his " Supplementary Report" of 1848, " from the time when I accepted the secretary- ship in June, 1837, until May, 1848, when I tendered my resigna- tion, I labored in this cause on an average of not less than fifteen hours a day. From the beginning to the end of this period I never took a single day for relaxation, and months and months together passed without my withdrawing a single evening from working hours to call upon a friend."
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