USA > Massachusetts > Worcester County > Worcester county; a narrative history, Volume II > Part 44
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"He says: 'I expected never to be married; perhaps to earn twelve or fifteen hundred dollars a year, which would enable me to have a room of my own in some quiet house and to collect rare books which could be had without much cost.'
"It was at that early period that I first knew him and from that early period till he died, I may say that we were near friends. I have a certain right, therefore, to speak of the underlying tastes and principles which asserted themselves in the fifty-five years of life which followed on his entrance at the bar. I remember hearing someone laugh at the advice which he gives to young men who would prepare for public life. Some one had asked what was the best training for a public speaker, and quite unconsciously Mr. Hoar replied that if a young man wanted to be a public speaker he would do well to read the Greek orators in the original language. There is some- thing a little droll in the thought of such advice as given to what the public calls a 'rail splitter' or a 'bobbin boy.' But he said it perfectly unconsciously. I suppose he was thinking of his own young life and he knew very well that what Mr. Adams calls the Greek fetish is a fetish very easily conciliated. I remember him the first winter he was in Worcester, as preferring to read Plato in the original to going into the pleasant evening society of the town, so that it was with some little difficulty that we youngsters made him take his part in social entertainments. Almost to the day of his death he maintained such early studies, which were, indeed, no longer studies.
"By the kindness of Mr. Rockwood Hoar, I have here his unpublished translation of Thucydides. When of late years you called upon him of a sudden at his own home, you were as apt as not to find him standing at his desk and advancing that translation by a few lines, or revising it. Indeed, he reverenced the masters in whatever line of literature or life. You never met him but he surprised you by some apt quotation, perhaps from somebody you had never heard of, and it seems to me fair to say that the wide range of such reading is to be remembered at once as cause and effect in that sunny cheerfulness, confidence, and courage which everyone has noted who has attempted to give any analysis or discussion of his character.
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"As I have spoken of the translation of Thucydides, I ought to say that I do not believe he had any thought of publishing it. He did not mean to throw discredit in any way upon the translations which existed. But rather, he meant, if I may use the phrase, to bind himself to the determination that he would once more read Thucydides, and would read him carefully.
"His addresses at Plymouth on Forefather's Day, his Eulogy on Garfield, delivered in Worcester, his address on the Two Hundredth Anniversary of Worcester, his address at the dedication of the public library in Lincoln, Massachusetts, his address on Robert Burns, his address on Emerson, are to be spoken of as studies of permanent value. When in 1888 the State of Ohio celebrated its own centennial, Mr. Hoar was very properly requested by the authorities in Ohio to deliver the oration as representing the State of Massa- chusetts, whose Colony founded the city of Marietta. I had the pleasure of hearing that address. To this moment it is a great historical monument of a great occasion.
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"Every such word of his in education or in history, is an original study and he is sure to go to the foundations. One of the representatives of Massa- chusetts in speaking of him before the House of Representatives cites the modest phrase of Mr. Webster, who says that the only genius he was aware of was a genius for hard work, and he applies that phrase to Mr. Hoar. It is a happy statement and it ought to be added that Mr. Hoar's literary work always seems to be spontaneous, or to be amusement or play. In general, the same remark would apply to it all which I have made of his Thucydides. In truth, he loved what we call study, and though no man was more social or welcomed a visitor more cordially, yet from one end of the year to another he would have been happy if he were alone with his books.
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"And if I have a right to say it, I will say, that no man among us had a more careful knowledge of the Puritan leaders in the seventeenth century, or of the really devout scholars in the Church of England in the next century. In the very last interview I had with him, he recalled some verses of Dr. Watts which are omitted in most of our hymn books. This might have hap- pened with a superficial reader, but when with his own care he repeated the words, you could not but remember that from Milton to Montgomery he was familiar with all the sacred poets of English literature.
* "No one visits the ancient University of William and Mary at Williams- burg without observing the reverence and affection with which the gentlemen
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there speak of his friendship to their college. In the Civil War the Peninsula of Virginia, as John Smith calls it, was almost of course the scene of the most critical military operation. Rightly or wrongly, I do not pretend to know, the army of the North destroyed the principal building of the university. It was natural that after the return of peace, the friends of William and Mary College would think that they had a rightful claim on the government differ- ent from that of most of the sufferers by the rough hand of war. Who should present that claim before the country? The Philistines of whatever type would not have thought that this young anti-slavery member from Mas- sachusetts, whose public life had begun and continued because he hated the institution of slavery, whose own father and sister had been turned out of Charleston by the authorities by a genteel mob in that city, that he should have been the person to be the champion of William and Mary College, and should compel, so to speak, the government to restore to it the property which it had destroyed. But Mr. Hoar undertook that special service in face of the difficulties which seemed insoluble. Separate claims for separate losses in a struggle for four years were looked upon rightly with dissatisfaction, not to say intolerance. All the same he meant that this claim should be listened to and if I may use our vernacular, he 'put it through.' It was because it was just,-it must be acceded to.
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"When Mr. Hoar graduated at Cambridge his commencement part was a review of Daniel Boone's life. The subject itself showed the direction which his thought and study had already given to his life. And as one reviews the extraordinary range of his public writings, accurate as they are and profound at once, one understands the interest which the whole country took in him.
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"I am not sure, but I believe, that if we had asked him which enterprise of his long life gave him the most pleasure in recollection,-I do not mean for its intrinsic importance, but for the dramatic associations of the whole event,-he would have said it was the recovery of Bradford's manuscript by the State of Massachusetts from its hiding place in London, the diary of William Bradford, Governor of the Plymouth Colony. When he was talking with the Bishop of London about this precious document, the Bishop said that he had never understood what was the value which belonged to it.
"'Why,' said Mr. Hoar, 'if there were in existence in England a history of King Alfred's reign for thirty years, written by his own hand, it would not be more precious in the eyes of Englishmen than this manuscript is to us.'
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"After this appeal, which quite surprised Dr. Temple, the endless diffi- culties of English law and custom were all overcome successively ; and on an august occasion, the 26th of May, 1897, the General Court of Massachusetts received the precious volume at the hands of Mr. Bayard, the first American Ambassador in London, on his return from his duty there. Governor Wolcott received the book to become henceforth the property of the Commonwealth, and Mr. Hoar made one of his most interesting addresses as he followed along its history. The Commonwealth thus owes to him this most precious memorial of its birth, and, as I say, I think he would have said, that no act of his had given him more pleasure than the effort which was crowned that day. Indeed, the history and principles of the founders of New England and of their suc- cessors were woven in with all his life, nor have we ever had a scholar who devoted to them such unremitting interest or who had more reason to be proud of his personal connection with the fathers."
On the base of the bronze statue of Senator Hoar, which stands on the plaza of Worcester City Hall, are inscribed these lines from his pen, which may be accepted as his creed :
"I believe in God, the living God, in the American people, a free and brave people, who do not bow the neck or bend the knee to any other, and who desire no other to bow the neck or bend the knee to them. I believe that liberty, good government, free institutions, cannot be given by any other people to any other, but must be wrought out for each by itself, slowly, pain- fully, in the process of years or centuries, as the oak adds ring to ring. I believe that, whatever clouds may darken the horizon, the world is growing better, that today is better than yesterday, and tomorrow will be better than today."
Elias Howe, Jr., Inventor of the Sewing Machine, 1819-1867-Elias Howe, Jr., was born in Spencer, the son of a farmer and miller, so poor that he had difficulty in supporting his family. As a lad of six years Elias worked with his brothers earning a trifle by sticking wire teeth into cards used in the manufacture of cotton cloth, and later he helped on the farm and in the grist- mill. His schooling was obtained in the winter months. He was only eleven years old when he was bound to a farmer. But he learned that he could earn more in the cotton mills at Lowell, and made his way there, to labor until the mills were closed in the financial crash of 1837. Going to Cam- bridge, he found employment in a machine shop.
He was working in Ari Davis' shop on Cornhill, Boston, where nautical instruments were made and repaired, when, in 1839, chance put the idea into his head that was eventually to make him a famous inventor and a rich man. An inventor and a capitalist were trying to work out a practical knitting
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machine, and took the model to Davis, in the hope that he could make some- thing from it. Davis expressed his contempt for the machine, and asked why they did not make a sewing machine. Twenty-year-old Elias seized upon the idea, and from that time for years it was almost constantly in his mind. But for a long time the machine took only nebulous form. He was only twenty- one when he married, and the burden of a family rested heavily upon him, for his earning power was small.
In 1843 he began to make his model, but it was not until the following year that it was completed. In the meanwhile his father had moved to Cambridge, where he manufactured a machine of his own invention for cut- ting palmleaf into strips for the manufacture of hats, and there his son found employment. A friend and schoolmate, George Fisher gave him some finan- cial assistance. Howe worked at his invention all through the winters from 1843 to 1845.
In April of the latter year his long continued labor met with success. He sewed an entire seam by machinery. In July he sewed all the seams of two suits of woolen clothes, one for his friend Fisher, the other for himself, and it developed that the seams outlasted the cloth. One would have supposed quick adoption of the machine would have rewarded him. Instead he met with nothing but discouragement. A Boston tailor, after seeing the sewing machine in operation, condemned it, a public exhibition failed to exploit it properly. Finally, he decided to go to England, where he hoped to meet with greater measure of success. Yet there, too, nothing but discouragement greeted him. Finally, too poor to pay his passage home, he pawned his model, and returned to America. In New York he was met with the message that his wife was dying in Cambridge. There was but half a crown in his pocket, and he borrowed the money to pay his railroad fare home.
Howe found that during his two years' absence his patent had been infringed, and there followed nine years of litigation. The case was finally decided in his favor. Riches poured in on him. It was said that the machine which the world owed to him enabled the northern government to keep a million men in the field during the Civil War. In 1869, the year of his death, and of the expiration of the patent, it had brought him a fortune of two mil- lion dollars.
Levi Lincoln, Sr., Congressman, Jurist, Attorney-General of the United States, 1749-1820-Levi Lincoln, founder of the Lincoln family of Worcester, was born in Hingham, Massachusetts, son of a farmer. Apprenticed to a blacksmith, his tastes ran to literature, and he early became a student, devoting a portion of each night to Latin and Greek. His desire for learning increased, until he abandoned the forge, and in six months time
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prepared for Harvard University, where he graduated in 1772. He had planned to enter the ministry, but an accidental visit to the courts turned his mind to the law, and he commenced his preparation for the bar. In April of 1775 he marched with the Minutemen to the fight at Concord and Lexington and to Cambridge, but as the emergency had passed and the army had settled down in their entrenchments for a protracted siege, he returned to Northamp- ton, where he had been studying, and was admitted to practice at the bar.
He immediately settled himself in Worcester, where, to quote his son, William Lincoln, "a wide and clear field for the exertion of talent was pre- sented. The principal men of the county had espoused the cause of the royal government, and been driven from their homes, or deserted their country. Two lawyers only remained at the bar when the temples of justice were reopened in 1775, after having been closed by the tumult of arms for a year. Decision of character and energy of purpose, capacity to lead and popular address, soon gave him prominent station. Introduced into exten- sive business, he still devoted his talents to the cause of independence, and immediately became an active member of the committees of the Revolution. Animated appeals to patriotism in written addresses, and printed communi- cations in the newspaper of the town, attest the ardor of his devotion and the powerful expression of his pen."
Mr. Lincoln in succeeding years served as judge of probate, was espe- cially delegated, in 1779, to prosecute the claims of government in the large estates of the refugees, confiscated under the Absentee Act ; was representa- tive in the General Court, and later served in the State Senate. In the autumn of 1900, although his democratic principles were known to be opposed to those of the majority of the voters, he was elected to the Seventh Congress, and to fill the interim vacancy caused by the resignation of Dwight Foster.
Soon after taking his seat, however, he was selected by President Thomas Jefferson as a member of his cabinet, and on March 5, 1801, he was appointed Attorney-General of the United States, and served as provisional Secretary of State until the arrival of James Madison at the capital in the following May. After four years of service he tendered his resignation.
"I received last night," wrote President Jefferson, "your letter, proposing to resign your office ; and I received it with real affliction. It would have been my greatest happiness to have kept together to the end of my term our execu- tive family ; for our harmony and cordiality have really made us but as one family. Yet, I am a father, and have been a husband. I know the sacred duties which these relations impose; the feelings they inspire; and that they are not to be resisted by a warm heart. I yield, therefore, to your wishes. You carry with you my entire approbation of your official conduct, my
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thanks for your services, my regrets on losing them, and my affectionate friendship."
He was a member of the Governor's Council in 1806, and in 1807 was Lieutenant-Governor of the Commonwealth, and following the decease of Governor Sullivan in December, 1808, discharged the duties of Govornor for the remainder of the term. Nominated for Governor in 1809 he was defeated. He declined the nomination when a change in party ascendency seemed to assure election. But for two years he was again a councillor.
Levi Lincoln appeared at the bar as attorney in many important causes. In our chapter on "Slavery in Worcester County" we have told of the history-making part he played in the crucial case of the slave Quork Walker, as counsel for the black, and the credit which is accorded him in winning the court's decision which made Massachusetts the first State in the Union formally to abolish slavery. This is only one of his many cases in which great principles of law were involved, and upon the issues of which hung the tenure of large properties.
The great honor of appointment to the Supreme Court of the United States came to him in 1811. Wrote President Madison: "You will see by the commission which will be forwarded from the Department of State, that I have taken the liberty of nominating you to the Senate as successor to Judge Cushing, notwithstanding your remonstrance against a recall into the national service. I was induced to this step, not only by my personal wishes, but by those of others, between whom and yourself exist all the reciprocal respect that can hold weight to them, and particularly by their persuading themselves, that your patriotism would acquiesce in an appointment however contrary it might be to your previous inclinations. I venture to flatter myself that in this we may not be disappointed ; and that, in every event, you will regard the liberty I have taken in imposing the dilemma upon you, with the indulgence due to my motives, and to the great esteem and sincere friendship of which I pray you to accept my renewed assurance."
Thomas Jefferson wrote him: "Be assured your place is high among those whose remembrance I have brought with me into retirement and cherish with warmth. I was overjoyed when I heard you were appointed to the Supreme Bench of national justice, and as much mortified when I heard you had declined."
"Weakness of sight," wrote his historian son, "terminating in almost total blindness, rendered it necessary to decline even such solicitation, and to retire from public life. Partial restoration of vision enabled him to resume the cultivation of the farm and the classical studies, both objects of passionate attachment, and among the fields, and with the pages of his favorite Latin authors, to alleviate the infirmities of decaying health, and pressing age."
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Governor Levi Lincoln, Jr., for Nine Terms Chief Executive of Massachusetts, 1782-1868-Levi Lincoln, Jr., was born in Worcester, son of a highly distinguished father, graduated from Harvard College in the class of 1802. He studied law in the office of his father, then Attorney- General of the United States, was admitted to the bar in 1805, and com- menced practice in Worcester. In 1812 he was a member of the State Senate. In 1814 he was elected to the House of Representatives, and pre- pared and offered the minority protest against the act authorizing the famous Hartford Convention. He represented his town in the Lower House until 1824, excepting for three years when he declined to be a candidate. In 1820 he was a delegate to the convention which revised the State Constitution, and afterwards was one of the commissioners, under the act for the separation of Maine from Massachusetts, to make partition and apportionment of the public property. In 1822, although the majority of the house differed with him politically, he was elected Speaker. He was Lieutenant-Governor in 1823, and in 1824 was made an Associate Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court.
In April, 1825, he was nominated for Governor by both great parties, and of course, elected, and continued in the office through nine successive reëlec- tions, at the close of which service he declined renomination. In February of 1834 he was appointed to the National House of Representatives to fill the vacancy caused by the election of John Davis as Governor, and in the follow- ing November was elected to that office, as a member of the Twenty-fourth Congress. Governor Lincoln rounded out his public career as Collector of the Port of Boston, and in 1848 as the first mayor of the newly incorporated city of Worcester.
The rest of his long life Governor Lincoln passed in retirement, but not in inactivity. He built the mansion on Elm Street, which today is occupied by his descendants. He was deeply interested in agriculture, and in the Worces- ter Agricultural Society of which he was the first president. He was a mem- ber of the board of overseers of Harvard University, vice-president of the American Antiquarian Society, a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society and a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Hon- ors came to him. Harvard and Williams colleges conferred upon him the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws.
In all this period he emerged from private life but once, when in 1864, at eighty years of age, he was chosen an elector to the Republican National Con- vention, and cast his ballot for Abraham Lincoln for President. He was a great admirer of Lincoln, who had been his guest at the Elm Street mansion twenty years before.
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A sketch of the life of the senior Levi Lincoln is contained in the chapter on slavery, in the abolition of which in Massachusetts he played a leading rôle.
Enoch Lincoln, Governor of Maine, 1788-1829-Enoch Lincoln, one of the two Governor sons of Levi Lincoln, Sr., was born in Worcester. He entered the sophomore class of Harvard College in 1806. "One of those unhappy commotions," wrote his brother William, "which have disturbed the repose of the ancient seat of learning in Cambridge, occurred in 1808, and he voluntarily withdrew from the university during his senior year." So he took up the study of law with his brother Levi, was admitted to practice in 18II, commenced business in Salem and returned to Worcester and practiced for a year. He finally settled in Fryeburg, Maine. In 1819, when he was only thirty-one years old, he was elected to Congress, and removed to Paris, the capital of the Maine county. He continued his membership in the National House of Representatives until 1826. The following three years he was Governor of Maine, each time elected unopposed, an unanimity almost if not quite without precedent in those early days of feverish political excitement. He declined renomination, intending to devote himself in retirement, to liter- ary pursuits, in which already he had become known, but his death came in 1829, when he was but forty years old.
William Lincoln, Historian of Worcester, 1801-1843-William Lin- coln, son of Levi Lincoln, Sr., was born in Worcester, graduated from Har- vard College, studied law and was admitted to the bar. But his tastes were not those of a lawyer but of a scholar and particularly a historian. His History of Worcester, published in 1837 has remained through a century the standard, accepted authority on the early years of the community, and has been invaluable to historians who have followed after him.
Soon after becoming a lawyer, William Lincoln and Christopher Colum- bus Baldwin published for a time the Worcester Magazine, devoted to local history, and still valued by those who have occasion to make research into early periods of New England life. He represented his town in the General Court, but most of his time was devoted to literary and antiquarian research. His untimely death at the age of forty-three lost much to our present-day knowledge of old Worcester town. Governor Emory Washburn said of him : "He was profound and learned for his years, the diligent student, with his every-ready fancy and playful wit, the genial companion and the man of taste and letters."
General Nelson A. Miles, U. S. A., Soldier, 1839-1925-Lieutenant- General Nelson Appleton Miles, U. S. A., native of Westminster, was engaged in mercantile pursuits in Boston at the outbreak of the Civil War, and imme-
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diately enlisted in the volunteer army. Having had experience in the militia he was commissioned first lieutenant, and given the command of a company of the 22d Massachusetts Infantry. In 1862 he was made lieutenant-colonel of the 6Ist New York Volunteer Infantry, and a few months later became its colonel. He was commissioned brigadier-general in the volunteer army in 1864 and major-general in 1865, and mustered out of the volunteer army in I866.
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