USA > Maine > Oxford County > Buckfield > A history of Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine, from the earliest explorations to the close of the year 1900 > Part 18
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At fourteen the boy broke down with a running sore on his leg, a part of the bone of which was removed. At fifteen he at- tempted to learn shoemaking and turned his leisure to study. He was soon convinced of the importance, whatever a man's position in life, of an education. He went to a woman's school in the sum- mer and to Hebron Academy for a few weeks in the fall. His board there was paid in shoemaking. Afterwards, in 1850, he wrote a rhyming letter to his son John, then at that Academy, describing his own very different experience there :-
"How I got up before 'twas light And snuffed my candle late at night, And toiled and studied to surpass The smartest scholar in my class ; Wrote composition like a sage, And spoke my pieces on the stage ; Five hundred lines in Virgil read In one day on a wager laid. How I was poor and lame and lean, Wore homespun clothes of bottle green, Your grandpa's wedding trousers lined, Turned inside out and patched behind, My brother Tom's waistcoat of blue Three summers after it was new, And how I traveled to recite A mile at morning and at night, Because I could not then afford To pay the price of nearer board, Or people nearer did not choose
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To take their pay in making shoes. This is not poetry, but better, The simple truth, John, every letter, Yet I was counted bright, you see, Jolin, When I attended school at Hebron."
In his diary he says: "Summer of 1816 attended Buckfield Grammar School under the tuition of Charles Mongride. Board- ed with Henry Farwell, whom I have reason to remember with gratitude for his assistance in my education. That winter taught school in the district where my father lived-a great undertaking for one in my circumstances, a mere boy obliged to walk on my lame leg. Succeeded however, and my school was commended by the committee as the best in town. Summer of 1817 unable to do anything. Attended school at Hebron a few weeks. Kept a private school in the fall at Buckfield. Summer and fall of 1818 instructed a private school in Buckfield six months, and in the winter taught school in the west part of the town. Had now nearly fitted myself to enter college and was ambitious to go, but sickness and poverty were insurmountable obstacles. Spring of 1819 let myself clerk in Stephen Phelps' store at Buckfield till I should be twenty-one years old at something more than $100 a year. About three months before the end of my term was at- tacked with another bone sore upon the leg which had till then been sound. Was carried to my father's and confined five months before any hope was had of my recovery. Had several surgical operations. The pain was excruciating and I was reduced to a living skeleton. I expected I should die and prepared to take leave of the world. The evidence of its being well with me after death was not so clear and satisfactory as I desired it to be. I lacked faith in the immortality of the soul. I wanted to raise the curtain between time and eternity that I might see more clearly the things beyond this life. This sickness was a sore disappoint- ment to me. I had arrived at that age when life's prospects are brightest. By rigid economy had saved from my earnings about $200. I was dreaming of honors and pleasures to come when the land of affliction waked me to the vanity of all earthly hopes. While in the store I devoted some leisure time to study and recited lessons in Greek to Mr. Moses Emery, preceptor of Buckfield Academy. There I first saw and became acquainted with Julia T. Davis, who attended school at Buckfield. She was then about thirteen years old."
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He was married to her August 31, 1824, at New Gloucester, which was her home. She was a direct descendant of Dolor Davis, who came from Kent, England, in 1634. He was the an- cestor of the numerous New England Davis family, among whom liave been three governors of Massachusetts; and his wife, Mar- garet, was a sister of Major Simon Willard, famous in colonial history. The correspondence of Zadoc with his sweetheart before marriage is copied in his journal and is marked by refined senti- ment, but is in the formal style of that time. Even then he had formed the habit of scholarly writing both in prose and poetry.
Meantime. to quote again from his journal, "in the fall of 1821 recovered my health in some measure. It required all the prop- erty I possessed to defray the expenses of my sickness. Infirm and moneyless, my chance in the world was not very fortunate, but my ambition was good. Was able to take charge of a school in the winter. In the spring of 1822 taught the district school. April, 1822, went into S. F. Brown's office with a view of study- ing law. Read Blackstone and quit it. September, 1822, com- menced trading in Buckfield in company with Nathan Atwood on capital of my own of $58. Found it difficult to buy goods on credit. The traders in the village would not recommend me on account of our inexperience. September 4, 1823, have dissolved partnership with Nathan Atwood, arranging to trade in company with Lucius Loring under the firm of Long & Loring. Our busi- ness has been more favorable than we expected. We have saved from it about $400 for each. February 6, 1825, dissolved part- nership with Lucius Loring, having taken the whole concern, store, potash, goods, debts and credits, upon my own shoulders."
From this time till 1838 he was engaged in trade in Buckfield, and then retired from active business. He had acquired a prop- erty of some $16,000. He lived immediately after his marriage in a house, afterward Sydenham Brigham's tavern, which stood where Benjamin Spaulding's store now stands, then in the house next east on the Turner road, and in August, 1834, he bought and repaired the old Dominicus Record homestead, which is to-day oc- cupied as a tavern, called Hotel Long, and for which with nine or ten acres of land he paid $1000.
He had four surviving children, two daughters and then two sons. He was devotedly attached to Buckfield, and never failed to sound its praises. He had a sincere love of nature and was
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devoted to his garden, his books, his correspondence and especial- ly his diary which consists of twelve large folio volumes, written in his peculiarly fair, legible hand and which is a true and interest- ing transcript of the doings and life of a country village in Maine in the first two-thirds of the last century. He was deeply inter- ested in the maintenance of good schools, giving each of his chil- dren the best education the time afforded. He helped support religious worship, being himself a liberal Unitarian.
He was a zealous Whig in political convictions, although that party was in a great minority in the State and especially in the town. To the village Lyceum and to the Portland newspapers he contributed articles on political and other subjects and many verses, some of which appear in the town history. He made speeches at Whig conventions and was nominated for Congress in 1838, but his competitor, Virgil D. Parris, a native of Buckfield and the democratic candidate, was elected.
In 1840, when the whole State went with a rush for Harrison for President, Mr. Long was elected a presidential elector. He was for many years a justice of the peace, acting as a trial jus- tice, and showed judicial quality in that office.
In person he was tall and spare with fine cut features and a gentle manner. His elevating influence attached to him those who met him and made a strong impression on many young men who in after years remembered him with sincere respect. Espe- pecially he impressed upon his children, by conversation and by his copious letters, the fruits of his own life experience and reading.
He was recognized as one of the most cultivated men in the State, and though not accustomed to public speaking had rare facility in conversation and a fine sense of humor, with great aptness for anecdote. He was fond of literature, and accumu- lated the largest library in town, making special purchases for his children in order to give them a good range of reading. It is especially fitting that the free public library in Buckfield. erected by his son in 1890, should bear the name of Zadoc Long engraved on its front and stand as a monument to his memory.
He was a conservative in literature as in politics. His favor- ite authors were Channing and Scott and Cooper, whose novels he read, but he never could join in the then rage for Dickens. He was a devoted follower of Webster and Clay, regarded the
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Federal Constitution and Union as sacred, and had in his ad- vanced years become so imbued with the spirit of preserving their integrity that he did not accept, as he would have done if younger, the splendid uprising of the Civil War with its risk of bringing both Constitution and Union to dissolution. Hence he remained throughout that period not quite in step with the radical and more progressive political spirit of the day. His journal at the time of the defeat of Henry Clay for the presidency is a despairing lament over what then seemed to him and many others the ap- proaching downfall of our democratic system. Happily the world moves on its onward and upward course in spite of con- vulsions that now and then make the philosopher anxious but soon give place again to order and progress.
Mr. Long's home in the center of the village, shaded by great clms and maples, most of which he had planted, and bordering on his garden and on the beautiful field which he loved and which had not yet been cut in twain by the unsightly railroad embank- ment, was the welcome resort of neighbors and friends. It was an idyllic home. Some can yet recall the great spice apple tree near it-now gone like himself-under which in summer days he sat with a son or a neighbor or guest keeping him company, and near which in winter lay twenty cords of hard wood waiting to be cut and fitted for the fire and then piled by his hand neatly in the neighboring shed, and the chips gathered for kindling. Ah, happy days !
His children, Julia Davis, Persis Seaver, Zadoc Junior, and John Davis, all left the paternal nest, the two daughters marrying and settling in Massachusetts, the two sons both seeking their for- tune in that State. His beloved wife died September 19, 1869. Then the fire on the old family hearth went out, and in his old age, his heart breaking with all its sad changes, he also went back to the State of his nativity, living a year with his son John in Hingham, Mass., and then with his daughter, Mrs. Nelson D. White, in Winchendon, Mass., till he died on February 3, 1873. He lies with his wife and his son Zadoc in the family lot in the Buckfield village burying ground.
Summer Home of Hon. John D. Long
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HON. JOHN DAVIS LONG
By Mrs. Mary E. Robbins.
John Davis Long, son of Zadoc Long and Julia Temple Davis, was born Oct. 27, 1838. He came of a line of Massachusetts ancestry which extends back to the "Mayflower" and the "Ann."
On his father's side, Mr. Long hails from Plymouth. His grandfather was a descendant of the Pilgrim Thomas Clark, who came over in the "Ann" in 1623, and his grandmother, Bathsheba Churchill's forbears were seven Mayflower passengers, the Brad- fords, Brewsters, Chiltons and Warrens. His mother's progeni- tor, Dolar Davis, came with the emigration of 1634 and settled first in Cambridge and died in Barnstable. His wife was Mar- gery Willard, the sister of Major Simon Willard of Concord, Mass.
From the strong stock which first occupied Massachusetts went forth into the Province of Maine a class of especially vig- orous settlers, whose descendants still return from time to time to the parent state, to administer its affairs and lead in its councils, with the freshness and force characteristic of the sturdy men of the Pine Tree State. Among these pioneers went in 1806, sail- ing by packet from Plymouth to Salem and thence overland in a pioneer's wagon, Thomas Long. the grandfather of John D. Long.
Zadoc Long, the latter's father, was then six years old, and often told him of the mile-long hill at their journey's end which they had to climb to reach the half-finished house and half- cleared farm which was to be their future home in Buckfield, Maine. The other men who settled Oxford county were a sturdy set, whose descendants are well-known to fame. They were poor, as everybody was poor in those parts, but shrewd, intelli- gent, thinking men. who read books and talked politics, kept alert minds, and gave their children the best education going.
Among these sturdy people, in a hill country, which always develops individuality, and in an atmosphere of home cultivation ( for Zadoc Long was a reading man and a writer of verse), little John grew up. In one of his speeches he feelingly alludes to the impression, never to be effaced, of snowy peaks, cool woods, and picturesque roads over hills and through valleys, upon his childish mind. Alluding to Oxford county he says :
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"Enlarging and educating as were its physical influences, 1 pay my tribute still more gratefully to the living influence of its people . . . . the solid democracy of a country such as Oxford county typifies-absolutely meeting the ideal of a free and equal people, and ignorant of such a thing as caste or class. Add to such a democracy the elements of the education of the common schools, the unfettered exercise of religious freedom, the popular political discussion of the street corner, the store, and the hay- field, the frequent vacancies of leisure, the common knowledge of men and things, the splendid ingrained inheritance of English common law ripened into the maxims, habits, converse and sys- tem of the people, the absence on the one hand of great accumula- tions of wealth, and on the other of any consciousness of the deprivations of extreme poverty, and especially that unconscious unreserve and inartificiality of intercourse which made the hewer of stone the free and easy, if not superior disputant as well as companion of the owner of the field-add all these, and you have an atmosphere of education out of which no boy could emerge and not have a fitting future life such as the metropolis with its schools, the university with its colleges, could not give, a homely famliarity with the popular mind, an inbred sympathy with the masses, not artificial nor assumed, but a part of the character it- self, and a helpful agency in public service, and in useful conduct in life. Its fruits you see to-day, and for years have seen, in the elements which from rural counties like Oxford have gone into the busy avenues of our national life, and given enterprise, growth, success to the business, the government, the literature, and the progress of the country."
This paragraph is quoted at length as the keynote of that pop- ularity, arising from his true humanity, which has made the career of the able ex-Secretary of the Navy a long progress from one honor to another. A life so wise, serene, and successful af- fords little light and shadow for writing a dramatic story full of sharp and interesting contrasts; but it is worth studying as a product of the truest Americanism, and we can see, though Buck- field was too small to long hold a man of his caliber, how his roots are there, how his heart ever fondly returns thither, while to it his happiest hours of leisure are still devoted on the old home farmı.
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One of Mr. Long's classmates at Hebron Academy, where he prepared for college, alluding to his early proficiency in com- position and declamation, says :
"We looked upon Johnny Long as if he were Daniel Webster himself." This must have been when he was quite a boy, for he entered Harvard at fourteen.
The youth was really too young to reap the advantages of college life, but he was a good student, with a fine memory and unusual abilities, so that though almost the youngest member in his class, being only eighteen when he was graduated in 1857, he stood second in it in the senior year and fourth for the whole course, and was assigned a commencement part.
He narrates his experiences in a way which must find an echo in the heart of many a solitary country boy struggling far from home for an education.
"I got no lift from college at all. Nobody noticed me. I had the knack of getting lessons easily. I was under age and out of sight." Again, in a speech, he tells how he walked from Boston to Cambridge, to take his entrance examinations, so that every inch of Main street is "blistered into his memory" and later, when his father left him there "sat crying for sheer homesickness on the western steps of Gore Hall," a record which may be a con- solation to some of the university's future LL. D.'s, now heart- sick from neglect and solitude in that cosmos.
He did not live in the college except in his senior year, and so did not get the benefit of its social life, but trudged back and forth four miles a day to his lodgings, working hard no doubt, and learning at least the valuable lessons of self-reliance and fortitude.
After leaving college he taught for two years at Westford Academy, which he alludes to as "an outburst into a larger life," and then settled down to the study of the law in the office of Mr. Sydney Bartlett, one of the famous lawyers of Boston. This contact he considered wasted, for his chief never spoke to him but once on any legal subject. "From him," he says, "I got nothing. I was in his office nearly a year, reading a book, and now and then copying a paper, but never talked with him five minutes. He took no interest in me and was otherwise occupied."
Afterwards the youth attended the Harvard Law School for a while, taught for a few months in the Boston Latin School, and
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was finally admitted to the Suffolk bar, and began the practice of the law in 1862 in Buekfield, Maine.
Fond as Mr. Long had ever been of the simple neighborhood in which his boyhood was spent, it was "a pent-up Utica" for mental powers like his, and very soon we find him drifting back to Boston, into the office of Mr. Stillman B. Allen, with whom he formed a partnership in 1867, in which they were afterwards jomed by Mr. Alfred Hemenway, who had been a neighbor and warm friend of Mr. Long from the beginning of the latter's life in Boston.
These years were not conscious periods of development for the young lawyer, but were undoubtedly spent in gaining knowl- edge of men and life and books, of which he was the eager and industrious reader, which was to be of service to him in his after career.
Later, he looked upon them as drifting, purposeless years, when he was without ambition, or any particular object except that of getting some kind of foothold so as to earn a living.
He worked at his profession when he got a chance, and in his leisure moments he wrote poetry by the cart load, and he even composed a play for Maggie Mitchell, then a popular actress, which was given several times at the Boston Theater. When he was afterwards speaker he published a well-known translation of Virgil's Aeneid in blank verse.
By an accident he drifted to Hingham, one of the earliest set- tlements on the south shore of Massachusetts bay, where a pleas- ant boarding place was offered for the summer. The quaint, picturesque old town suited him, and he chose it as his home. Born among mountains he had always dreamed of living by the blue waters, and as he walked to and from the steamboat land- ing, he often crossed the lot on which his dwelling now stands, and thought of it as one he would like to own, and occupy with his parents. His mother died before that dream came true, but when in 1870 he married Miss Mary Woodward Glover, daughter of George S. and Helen M. (Paul) Glover, he bought it and built his house upon it, and there his two daughters. Margaret and Helen, passed their childhood. In 1882, Mrs. Long died in Boston.
To his life in a country town Mr. Long owes his political preferment. Undoubtedly his ability would have won him a
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position as a lawyer in Boston, had he settled there; but as a recognized force in a small community he came very soon to the top.
His father was always an old-fashioned Whig, but the great tide of 1860 swept the son into the republican party, and he cast his vote in that momentous election, for Isarel Washburn, its can- didate for governor of Maine, and spoke for Lincoln on the stump. Before the November election he went to Boston, and there, having no vote, he lost the opportunity which he desired to vote for Abraham Lincoln for President. After that he seems to have had for a time no special interest in politics. and when his abilities first brought him to the attention of the Hingham people as a possible candidate for the Legislature, he was nominated in 1871 without previous notice to him by a democratic caucus, but in his reply to this action he wrote his desire to be regarded as "An independent candidate, free to do my duty in the im- probable event of my election, according to the best of my own judgment and intelligence, unpledged and unbiased, and consid- ered as the representative, not of party issues, but of the general interests of this district and of the Commonwealth."
This was not enough for Hingham, however, and he was de- feated. In 1872 he shared the dissatisfaction of Sumner and other republicans with Grant, and voted for Horace Greeley. In the fall of 1874 he was nominated and elected by the republicans and represented them in the General Court for four years. In the Legislature his readiness in debate, his geniality, and his fairness of mind were promptly recognized. The Speaker often called him to the chair, and in 1876 he was elected to occupy it, and remained for three years Speaker of the Massachusetts House of Representatives.
In 1878 he was elected Lieutenant Governor of the State, and upon the retirement of Governor Talbot. the following year, he was given the first place on the ticket. He was Governor of Massachusetts in 1880. 1881 and 1882, and distinguished him- self as an administrator, and by the excellence of his appoint- ments. His official public speeches were admirable for appro- priateness and eloquence.
Many vacancies in the courts occurred during his terms of office, and so rapid were the changes on the supreme bench, that at one time every judge there held his commission from him, in-
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cluding such distinguished men as Chief Justice Morton, Judges Devens, William and Charles Allen, Field, Holmes, Colburn, etc. Five of the eleven judges of the superior court also held their commissions from him.
His choice of men for important positions has always been marked by the clear insight and sound judgment for which he is distinguished. Those who know him best say that his intuitive perception of character is never at fault. His decisions are swift and sare, and always justified by results.
He made a steady and efficient chief magistrate, and one most popular with the people. His clear, prompt habits of mind, his perfect coolness, and his absolute faithfulness in the performance of every function, made executive duty easy for him, and as an administrator he has always excelled. His dignified and cordial manners, his memory of names and faces, combined with the happy humor and eloquence which made his official speeches models of their kind. endeared him to every one, and then, as Bow, he was always warmly and eagerly welcomed as a brilliant figure in any gathering.
At the close of his third term, Mr. Long was elected to the Forty-Eighth and afterwards to the Forty-Ninth and Fiftieth Congresses of the United States, distinguishing himself in these by attention to legislative business and by certain noticeable speeches : On the Whisky Tax ( March 25, 1884), on Interstate Commerce (December 3, 1884), on Silver Coinage (March 27, 1886), and on the French Spoliation Claims (August 4, 1888), all of which were logical, well-reasoned discourses of weight and interest.
Legislative duty proved, however, not altogether to his taste. He chafed at being everybody's errand boy, and the issues of that time did not call especially for his gifts of oratory, while his ad- ministrative ability was largely thrown away.
The necessity of looking after his private interests induced him to decline a re-nomination and he returned to his law practice in Boston at the close of third term in Congress. In 1886 he had made a second marriage with Miss Agnes Peirce, daughter of Rev. Joseph D. Peirce of North Attleboro, Mass., and his son, Peirce, was born in that town December 20, 1887.
As a jury lawyer Mr. Long was called one of the foremost in the state. His knowledge of the law, founded on long, intelli-
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gent study, became instinctive rather than the result of memory. He knew what the law ought to be, and announced it fearlessly, while the junior counsel looked up the authorities. His simple, direct statements, his genial humor, carried juries with him and insured a favorable verdict.
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