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ALLEN COUNTY PUBLIC LIBRARY
GC 3 1833 06588 9658
974.1
r
B522A
BIOGRAPHICAL 7
ENCYCLOPAEDIA
OF
MAINE
QF
THE NINETEENTH CENTURY.
BOSTON : METROPOLITAN PUBLISHING AND ENGRAVING COMPANY. 1885.
COPYRIGHT, 1882, BY IL. CLAY WILLIAMS.
1455621
PREFACE.
BIOGRAPHY, or the history of human life, is always a favorite subject of study. The higher the degree of civilization, the more intense is the interest felt in this species of literary composition. The upward progress of the race is indicated by the number and character of its published memoirs. These in turn become marvellously influential on succeeding generations. They show in worthy instances how we may make our lives sub- lime ; and in unworthy ones, how we may avoid the dangers and injuries which mar and maim so many millions.
Biblical biography has been keenly defined to be " history teaching by example." The lives of Abraham, Moses, Solomon, and other worthies possess permanent fascination for readers, and often convert them from mere readers into philosophic students. Plu- tarch's Lives of forty-six of the most renowned Greeks and Romans holds, after the lapse of about two thousand years, an unquestioned front rank in literature. Diogenes Lacrtius, Eunapius, and Philostratus were scarcely less famous than Plutarch by reason of the popularity of their lives of the philosophers and sophists. The biographical memoirs of Suetonius and Cornelius Nepos are imperishable, because the need of them is rooted in the heart of humanity. History, if it be read with pleasure, must necessarily abound with tell- ing biographical details of its heroes.
Europe and America are enriched with boundless store of biographic literature ; and yet the mass increases, and must increase. The reasons for this are evident. It is both delightful and profitable to enjoy the society of distinguished men ; to understand the motives of their actions ; to accompany them through all their experiences ; to confront their difficulties and perils ; to witness their wisdom, tact, and courage, and the operation of those intelligent and inflexible resolves which made life fruitful of good works, and which clothed it with glory and honor.
The failings of those thus photographed to the life are warnings against their errors,
4
PREFACE.
and alarms of the presence of imminent perils. Their excellences incite to emulation ; their infirmities and disappointments deter from an unwise following of their example. Men are known by the books, as well as by the company, they keep. Noble lives never die. Caught and fixed on the pages of biographic volumes, their example gains force with advancing years, and grows weightier with posterity as time advances to its consummation.
All that we have said of biography is particularly true as regards the State of Maine. No Commonwealth, in proportion to its numbers, has produced a sturdier or more excel- lent yeomanry. Her family bead-roll of fame includes the names of profound statesmen, of gallant soldiers, and of daring sailors. Her reformers have infused their spirit into Chris- tendom, and now guide its struggles with social evils by their advice. Her preachers and theologians, her mechanics and merchants, her lawyers and judges, if not on the . same grand scale as that of single instances which might be selected from the lists of other lands, . are yet equal, if not superior, to them in average breadth, force, and culture.
This volume of contemporaneous biography is for all reasons well worth the esteem and study of all the children of Maine.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
ALLEN, ELISHA HUNT, .
239
AMES, BENJAMIN,
.
384
ANDERSON, HUGH JOHNSTON, 109
APPLETON, JOHN F.,
372
APPLETON, JOHN, LL.D.,
153
BAKER, HENRY K.,
359
BAKER, JOSEPH, .
-
436
BAKER, ORVILLE DEWEY,
440
BARKER, LEWIS,
260
BARROWS, WILLIAM GRISWOLD,
159
BLACK, GEORGE NIXON,
216
BLACK, COLONEL JOHN,
2II
BLAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE,
9
BODWELL, JOSEPH ROBINSON,
379
BOLSTER, WILLIAM WHEELER,
41I
BOUTELLE, CHARLES A., .
308
BRADBURY, BION, 329
BRADBURY, JAMES WARE,
63
BRADLEY, SAMUEL AVER,
399
BRIDGE, JAMES,
73
BROWN, JOHN BUNDY, .
206
BURGESS, THE RIGHT REV. GEORGE, D.D.,
188
CLEAVES, HENRY B.,
341
CLEAVES, NATHAN,
343
COBB, JOHN CLIFFORD,
344
COBURN, ABNER,
I37
COBURN, PHILANDER,
433
CONNER, SELDEN,
147
CONY, SAMUEL,
I27
CUTTING, JONAS, LL.D.,
.
374
DANFORTH, CHARLES,
162
DAVEIS, CHARLES STEWART,
354
DAVIS, GEORGE T.,
326
DEERING, NATHANIEL,
317
DENISON, ADNA CURTIS,
425
DICKERSON, JONATHAN GARLAND,
427
Dow, FREDERICK NEAL,
320
Dow, NEAL,
268
DRUMMOND, JOSIAH HAYDEN,
256
FESSENDEN, FRANCIS,
.
224
FESSENDEN, GENERAL JAMES D., 302
FESSENDEN, SAMUEL,
182
FESSENDEN, WILLIAM PITT,
21
Fox, EDWARD, .
169
GERRY, ELBRIDGE,
204
GILMAN, JOHN TAYLOR, M.D., 322
GODDARD, CHARLES W.,
352
GODFREY, JOHN E.,
395
GODFREY, JOHN,
375
HADLOCK, HARVEY DEMING,
408
HAMLIN, ELIJAH LIVERMORE,
383
HAMLIN, HANNIBAL,
33
HANSON, SAMUEL,
377
HARLOW, HENRY MILLS, M.D.,
419
HAYNES, J. MANCHESTER,
363
HOLMES, JOHN, .
252
HUBBARD, JOHN,
92
HUBBARD, JOHN BARRETT,
277
JOHNSON, GEORGE EDWIN,
371
JACKSON, GEORGE EDWIN BARTOL,
325
KENT, EDWARD,
84
KING, WILLIAM,
77
KNOX, HENRY,
229
LAMBARD, ALLEN,
197
TAGE
6
CONTENTS.
SAGE
PAGE
LITTLE, JOSIAH STORER, 342
LOCKE, JOSEPH ALVAH, 418
LONGFELLOW, STEPHEN, 201
STANLEY, GEORGE WASHINGTON, 429
STETSON, CHARLES, . 398
MANLEY, JOSEPHI HOMAN, 336
MELLEN, PRENTISS, . 312
MILLIKEN, DENNIS LIBBY, 366
MOOR, WYMAN BRADBURY SEAVEY, .
360
TITCOMB, SAMUEL, 402
MORRILL, LOT MYRICK,
39
VEAZIE, SAMUEL, . 403
NORTH, JAMES W.,
414
VIRGIN, WILLIAM WIRT, 161
PAINE, ALBERT WARE,
368
WASHBURN, ISRAEL, JR., 114
PAINE, HENRY WILLIAM,
251
WEBB, EDMUND FULLER, 296
PARRIS, ALBION KEITH,
81
WEBB, NATHAN, 391
PERHAM, SIDNEY, 143
PETERS, JOHN A., LL.D.,
158
WESTON, NATHAN, 339
WHITEHOUSE, WILLIAM PENN, . 165
WHITMAN, EZEKIEL, 347
RICE, RICHARD D., .. 167
WILLIAMS, JOSEPH HARTWELL, 134
RICH, HOSEA, M.D.,
310
ROBIE, FREDERICK, M. D., .
148
WOODS, LEONARD, JR., D. D., LL. D., 217
SEWALL, WILLIAM B., .
396
SHEPARD, GEORGE, D.D., .
263
SHEPLEY, ETHER, . 175
SMITH, WILLIAM ROBINSON, 422
MCCRILLIS, WILLIAM H., . 392
STROUT, ALMON AUGUSTUS, 387
SYMONDS, JOSEPH W., 164
TENNEY, JOHN SEARLE, 298
WEBSTER, MOSES, 416
PREBLE, WILLIAM PITT,
332
RAND, JOHN, 316
WILLIAMS, REUEL, 58
WOODS, NOAII,
393
AG Reaine
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA
OF
MAINE.
B LAINE, JAMES GILLESPIE, of Augusta, Maine. Born at West Brownsville, Washington County, Pennsylvania, on the 31st of January, 1830. His parents were Ephraim L. and Maria G. Blaine. The Blaine patronymic is of Highland-Scotch origin, and was anciently borne by resi- dents at or near Loch Lomond. Their clan colors were red and black, or red and blue plaid. After the abortive Jacobite risings of 1715 and 1745 large emigrations of the Scotch and Scotch-Irish to the American colonies followed. Pennsylvania gladly received many of them. The proprietary governors of that rising commonwealth, aware of their sterling character and highly appreciative of their fighting qualities, quartered them on the western frontier, to guard the non-militant Quakers against the incursions of the Indians.
James Blaine was the first of the family to settle in the Cumberland Valley of Penn- sylvania. Domiciling himself, in or about 1722-23, near the present town of Carlisle, he there energetically labored for the secular welfare of his family and neighbors; and, as a worthy member of the Presbyterian church, for their spiritual prosperity also. One of his sons, named Ephraim, first brought the family into prominence. He was born in 1740, took an active part in the Revolutionary War, and held the commission, at the personal request of General Washington, of Commissary-General of Purchases. His own wealth, and that of his wife's family, the Galbraiths, was patriotically offered to the Government to feed and clothe the army at Valley Forge. Ephraim Blaine died in 1804. His son James emigrated to Fayette County, opened a store at Brownsville, and officiated as justice of the peace. Successful in business, he left at his death seven children, of whom Ephraim L. was the first-born. The latter was intellectual, brilliant, educated, generous, but not distinguished by the characteristics which make up what is termed in common parlance a
IO
BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
thoroughly practical man. A graduate of Washington College, and attractive in manners and person, he met and married Maria Gillespie of Washington County, in 1820, when he himself was twenty-four years of age.
Maria Gillespie was the daughter of Ncal, and the grand-daughter of Neal Gillespie, Sr., who emigrated to her native county from the North of Ireland in 1771. The sturdy Seotch-Irish immigrant was a natural nobleman. Strain upon his character only developed additional strength. His fresh and charming grand-daughter was accounted an heiress when she gave her hand and lifc into the keeping of her handsome and dignified bridegroom.
Inaptitude for judicious management of affairs proved to be the bane of the young husband. Restless and extravagant, he soon thoughtlessly involved himself in pecuniary difficulties, and would have been involved much sooner but for his wife. Loving, modest, sweet, paticnt, careful, and religious, she could only be constrained to enter gay company by love for her husband. " All her inclinations were for a quict, affectionate home, and for hidden deeds of Christ-like charity."
Genius, it is said, has no pedigrec. Long ages are often seen to present their choicest produet in the person of a great man, who concentrates and intensifies within himself all the traits of character and elements of nature that lifted his progenitors in any respect above the ordinary level of society. Such an example is James G. Blaine. His boyhood was like that of his playfellows. Love of politieal reading was instilled and fostered by the newspapers, which he regularly went to the post-office to obtain, and which included the best county and State papers, and also the Washington National Intelligencer. His father was rigidly Presbyterian in thcory, but relegated the religious teaching of his children to his wife. Mrs. Blaine was a Roman Catholic, but not a bigot. With her, Christianity was wider than creed, and essence infinitely more than form. She was a sweet Christian mother, who taught her children to be honest, generous, self-sacrifieing, and kind, and willingly consented to their adoption of forms of faith different from her own.
The straitened eireumstanees of his father's family compelled much and elose medita- tion on the part of James G. Blaine. Intelligent resolution and self-reliance were born of it. Bad company he disliked, good books he loved, honesty he firmly illustrated, and truthfulness with him was guileless and constant. Between mother and son the most intimate moral sympathy existed.
In 1842 James G. Blaine spent twelve months in the family of the Hon. Thomas Ewing of Ohio, who was a distant relative of his mother, and while there prepared himself for matriculation at Washington College. The election of his father, Ephraim L. Blaine, to the office of Prothonotary led to the removal of that gentleman and his family to Washington, the county-seat. There James G. entered upon college life at the very carly age of thirtcen. The standard of admission was low, and the course
OF MAINE.
of study much less arduous than at present. The Rev. Dr. McConaughy was then president of the college. The Freshman class was composed of robust, intellectual boys, many of whom have since made proud record for themselves. Lank and awkward in figure, and not particularly precocious, the young aspirant to collegiate distinction kept very much to himself, and took but little part in athletic sports. In literary and debating clubs he delighted ; was an admirable writer; diligent, persistent, frank ; the leader of his class, but not of such traits as led any one to prophesy that his would be an uncommonly practical life-the incarnation of cautious and yet courageous states- manship. Sudden demands even then developed the wealth of his resources. He was always equal to any emergency. The natural habit of thoroughly mastering whatever he took in hand had especially endowed him with ability to grapple and overcome unexpected opposition. In 1847 he graduated near the head of his class. The honors were equally divided between himself and two other students.
Leaving college, the youthful graduate resolved to become a lawyer. But he had to earn his own livelihood, and provide the means wherewith to gratify his laudable ambition. He adopted temporarily the profession of a teacher, as the most remuner- ative and favorable to his ulterior aim. Securing the position of teacher in the Western Military Institute at Blue Lick Springs, Kentucky, he soon became the favorite in that establishment. During the three years of his tutorship there, he ex- hibited singular energy, strong repugnance to every kind of oppression, keen sense of justice, and almost unerring ability in the detection of deceit and shams. His know- ledge of the pupils, sympathy with them, and success in instructing them were unusual, and left most grateful memories in their minds.
In March, 1851, Mr. Blaine married at Pittsburg, Pennsylvania, and in 1852 went to Philadelphia in order to teach in the Pennsylvania Institution for the Instruction of the Blind. There he began the study of law with Theodore Cuyler, and spent his leisure hours in the acquisition of legal knowledge. William Chapin, Esq., who was then the principal of the institution, has since said that the qualities of James G. Blaine which impressed him most deeply "were his culture, the thoroughness of his educa- tion, and his unfailing self-possession. He was also a man of very decided will, and was very much disposed to argument. . . His memory was remarkable, and seemed to retain details which ordinary men would forget." Labor seemed to be a necessity to him. Unasked, he compiled the journal of the institution from official records, and from its foundation to the year 1854. His duties were those of a teacher of mathe- matics, in which he excelled, and particularly in the higher branches. .
In 1854 Mr. Blaine removed to Augusta, Maine, the former home of his wife, and there entered upon journalistic work as the partner of Joseph Baker, the pro- prietor and editor of the Kennebec Journal, a weekly newspaper issued at Augusta,
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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPEDIA
and of which tri-weekly editions were published during the sessions of the Maine Legis- lature. Baker and Blaine appeared at the head of its columns. The junior partner had now fairly entered upon the road to greatness and enduring fame. New am- bitions and new hopes sprang up within him. His latent powers of mind and charac- ter received astonishing development, and were quickly appreciated by multitudes of keen and cultured readers. An able thinker and a vigorous writer, he soon became a conspicuous power in that rugged and sturdy commonwealth. Speaking in 1855 of the Republican Party in Maine, he said : "Long may it live to protect our interests, develop our resources, and under all circumstances dare to do right, and trust the consequences to Infinite Wisdom !" He maintained that nations, in strict justice, should be measured by the same moral standard as that which determines the character of a man, and that "all arrows dipped in bad rum, or the poison of slander, will fall powerless at the moral man's feet." Convictions of this character have been needed since then for consolation when assailed by the meanest spite and malignity. Com- promises, where morals are concerned, he scathingly denounced. Slavery he stigma- tized as "an undisguised, open, hideous wrong." Plain facts, he insisted, should always be viewed separately "from all party and sectional influences." The filibustering ex- peditions intended to seize and occupy various States of Central America in the interests of slavery were castigated with unsparing severity. Dough-facery was treated with withering scorn. Compromise with slavery was, in his avowed opinion, but sacrifice of liberty, of which " in the past we have had enough, and more." The Republican Party he declared to be "the only true national party. Its platform is the only ground upon which the friends of the Union can stand." Squatter sover- eignty was a delusion, since this union of the people is a nation, and not a confedera- tion of States, held together by a rope of sand.
Mr. Blaine espoused the cause of Hannibal Hamlin in his candidacy for election to the Senate of the United States in 1857, and had the pleasure of seeing him triumphantly returned. The decision of the United States Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case evoked his sternest reprehension, and induced him to say, " Slavery has got to the farthest limits of its power and aggression. Henceforth it must lose in the great contest which it is waging against freedom." His zeal in the primitive organization of the Republican Party, and in the promotion of its interests, as the editor of the leading journal in the State, naturally drew attention to him. The Republican Legislature made his journal the official organ of the State, and the party cheerfully accepted its leadership. Nominations to office he persistently declined, but was at length persuaded to accept the place of delegate to the Republican National Convention of 1856, which nominated John C. Fremont for the Presidency and William L. Dayton for the Vice-Presidency of the United States of America.
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On the 9th of October, 1857, Mr. Blaine sold his interest in the Kennebec Journal, and took a more remunerative and influential position in connection with the Portland Daily Advertiser. Funds and friends were now accumulating. Moral, economical, indus- trious, and generous, he grappled and held his friends as with hooks of steel. One of the best tests of character is constant and unrestrained association with the people. James G. Blaine never appeared to better advantage than when in the glare of publicity-in the fierce light which beats upon the editorial sanctum.
In 1858 he first entered political life as representative of the citizens of Augusta in the Legislature. His fame as a debater began in that body. Newspaper writing had given him terseness of thought and condensation of utterance. He never made a speech too long to be read, nor one which the people were weary of hearing. Local interests were never lost sight of in devotion to national affairs. His masterly eloquence at a public meet- ing saved to the city of Augusta its controlling manufacturing interest. "Blaine always says something," was a frequent popular comment on his campaign speeches. He was most successful in planning, and in setting others to work-a faculty which has since grown im- mensely by exercise. On religious subjects he was perfectly at home, had profound knowl- edge and a sharply defined system of belief, and showed deep research into theological schemes and history. So general was his knowledge that he could touch men at the most susceptible points. His intimate acquaintance with the history of remarkable horses once captured a noted horse-dealer who called upon him, and won the support of the man from that day forward. His liberality in matters of public beneficence-churches, schools, libraries, etc .- was profuse, without ceasing to be discreet.
Twenty-seven years ago, in 1857, Mr. Blaine united with the Congregational Church, under the pastorate of the Rev. Dr. Webb, in Augusta. Broad and liberal in his views and affiliations, he is a firm believer in the doctrines and polity of the church he then espoused. " He has the heart and soul and life of an every-day practical Christian," writes one who knows him well. In the Sunday-school held in the " devil's half-acre" at Augusta he had a class of men and women who had scarcely ever entered a church, who were gathered in from the highways, and who came in en deshabille, some laying aside their pipes and tobacco, and some having about them the fumes of liquor. There was inspiration and power in his teaching. Many a poor outcast of the slums he led into the pure and bracing atmosphere of a higher life. Apprentices in the printing-office boarded at his house, and received from himself and Mrs. Blaine all the kindly ministries of faithful and judicious parents. In every relation of life he sought to fill out the full measure of duty, and that because he delighted in it, as well as because it was right.
In the fall of 1858 Mr. Blaine was elected to the lower house of the Maine Legisla- ture, and was re-elected for the three following terms. At the beginning of his third term he was elected Speaker of the House. All his constituents knew that they were efficiently
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BIOGRAPHICAL ENCYCLOPAEDIA
served, and gratefully acknowledged the fact. While Speaker, in the session of 1862, when the nation was suffering the calamities of civil war, he made a speech in Committee of the Whole, which has never been forgotten, and which surely presaged his victories in a wider arena of debate. It was in reply to Mr. Gould of Thomaston, on the Confiscation Reso- lution, in which he indorsed the dogma of John Quincy Adams, that " from the instant that your slaveholding States become the theatre of war, civil or foreign, from that instant the war powers of Congress extend to interference with the institution of slavery, in every way in which it can be interfered with-from a claim of indemnity for slaves taken or de- stroyed, to the cession of the State burdened with slavery to a foreign power." His an- tagonist was not merely routed-he was logically annihilated. Not less convincing were his arguments in favor of enlisting the negroes, one of whom had made the capture of Fort Donelson possible by revealing to Grant the failing strength of the rebel general Buckner. Both these speeches were, in point of ethical and political doctrine, wholly in harmony with - another scarcely less celebrated, in opposition to the purchase of Cuba, which he delivered in the Maine Legislature in February, 1859.
Appointed Prison Commissioner for the State of Maine in 1860, he investigated everything relating to the prisons, and also visited many prisons in other States. His recommendations, contained in the report he drew up with painstaking care, are often quoted as authoritative in distant commonwealths.
Mr. Blaine was a delegate to the National Republican Convention in 1860, and worked earnestly for the nomination of Abraham Lincoln. In 1862 he was elected to Congress from the Augusta district, in the place of Anson P. Morrill, who voluntarily retired. His constituency was one of the most intelligent in the nation, and also one of the most patriotic. On the 7th of December, 1863, he took his seat in the National House of Representatives, having for colleagues many of the ablest statesmen of the day. Modestly entering upon his duties, he did his work in committee and on the floor of the House carefully, thoroughly, and exhaustively. He not only served in Committee on the Militia and on Post-Offices, but was appointed with increasing frequency on special com- mittees. The work sought the man who was fitted to perform it. Trained in parliamen- tary tactics as Speaker of the Maine House of Representatives, he found himself wholly at home in the popular Hall of Congress. Motions, objections, and points of order were always timely, and won for him the reputation of a master-mind and a very shrewd parliamentarian.
National emergencies, disastrous defeats, glorious victories, necessitated measures for the enlistment of soldiers, the taking of slaves as contraband of war, negotiation with rebels, the nation's uncertain relations to England and Mexico, the treatment of traitors, the status of prisoners of war, the construction of a navy, the issue of paper money, the draft- ing of men into the army, contraction of the public debt, the construction of the Pacific
15
OF MAINE.
Railroad, and, above all, the emancipation of the slaves. On all these questions Mr. Blaine manifested thorough and profound statesmanship, and unhesitatingly voted as his convic- tions dictated. The nation approved his course, and took its cue from him and his politi- cal associates. True to his maxim, " Under all circumstances dare to do right, and leave the consequences to Infinite Wisdom," he courageously did his whole duty, and rested confident in the assurance of a beneficent issue.
In June, 1864, Mr. Blainc brilliantly distinguished himself as the champion of protec- tion to American industry. In the fall of the same year he was re-elected to Congress, with but little opposition. An ardent nationalist, the very thought of disunion was intoler- able to him. His perception of the calamities that would certainly ensue from such an event was too clear to admit of anything but stern and invincible antagonism. He was fully resolved to wage war to the last extremity in defence of the Union, the Constitution, and the laws. The Constitution would need future adaptation to changed social conditions ; the laws would require many and serious modifications and additions; but, in and through all changes, the Union must be preserved. In the Thirty-ninth Congress he was an . influential member of the Committee on Military Affairs. Nor was he less influential in the passage of measures on the floor of the House. His position that the South should be entitled to Representatives in Congress only in proportion to the number of its enfranchised citizens was that which, when adopted, compelled the South, in its own interest, to grant the right of suffrage to the negro population.
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