USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 23
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Fessenden brought to the bar a powerful intellect thoroughly disciplined by literary and legal study, a majestic person, a deep and musical voice, the highest principles of conduct, and a character remarkable for benevolence, firmness, and independence. He soon took the lead in the professional business of his town and neighborhood. With his ardent feelings and intense convictions he could not fail to take a deep interest in politics and in the questions which agitated the community. He was a profound student of the institu- tions of his country, and of the Constitution under which he lived. In politics he was a zealous Federalist, and regarded Jefferson and his doctrines with aversion. On the 4th of July, 1810, he delivered before the Federalists of the town an oration which was a vigorous denunciation of the Administration. In style it was like the feelings of the man-strong,
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impassioned, and fiery with indignation. His well-known political opinions caused his election to the lower branch of the Massachusetts Legislature in 1814, '15, '16, and as Sena- tor from his county in 1818 and '19. In the Legislature he was conspicuous, advocating the cause of the Federalists with all his powers and eloquence, and during the discussion of the proposition to send delegates to the Hartford Convention uttered his famous declaration, that he was ready to take the sword in one hand and the Constitution in the other, and march to Washington to demand the constitutional rights of the people. Although a young man, his career in the Legislature made him one of the leading men in Maine, and his party complimented him with an election by both Houses of the Legislature to the position of Major-General of the Militia, an office which he held for many years, and which gave him the title of General, by which he was known for the rest of his long and useful life. He took great interest in the office, preparing himself for it with the same conscientiousness with which he performed his other duties, studying military law and history, and the tactics of the "three arms." In 1820 Maine was erected into a separate State, and the party to which he belonged soon fell into a minority, in which he remained till the rise, in his old age, of the Republican Party in 1856. This, combined with his absorbing professional labors, threw him out of public life, for which he was pre-eminently fitted. To extraordinary mental powers, fervent piety, and absolute integrity, he united the highest type of moral and physical courage. The graceful pen of Willis has described him as "peculiarly qualified for a deliberative assembly. His full, round voice, his com- manding figure, and his impressive and graceful elocution could not but make a deep impression upon such an audience." But his early Federalism, and afterward his earnest support of the antislavery movement when it was most unpopular, banished him from public honors, and he never held office, with the exception of serving his city in the Legis- lature of Maine during the two sessions of 1825, '26.
It was in his public character as leader of the Abolitionists in Maine that General Fessenden became most widely known. The dignity of his character and the integrity of his motives, coupled with his great abilities, drew attention to his support of the anti- slavery movement. He was a consistent and profound philanthropist, keenly interested in all questions touching the moral, political, or religious welfare of his country ; and he was one of the first to throw himself into the van of the antislavery agitation, with all the energy and strength of conviction of his great soul. At the first meeting of the New England Antislavery Society, in 1833, a letter from him was read, approving the objects of the society. He was a vice-president of the first meeting of the American Antislavery Society, and in 1836 he was President of the New England Society, and presided at its annual convention in Boston. So difficult was it at that time to procure a public hall to hold an antislavery meeting, that the Massachusetts Society in 1837 held its meeting in the loft of the stable of the Marlborough Hotel. In his finished and eloquent address to
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the bar upon the announcement in court of the death of General Fessenden, Judge Goddard said that "to General Fessenden the crime of slavery was always fresh, and never to be mentioned without indignation and abhorrence, and that he well remembered when a stu- dent, nearly a quarter of a century before, hearing him in the lobby of the old court-house publicly predict the approach of the Rebellion with a vigor of language worthy of an inspired prophet." He supported the cause with all the strength of his nature. He attended the public meetings, presided at the conventions, protected fugitive slaves, delivered public addresses, and met the ablest orators of the opposition upon the stump. To his vision slavery had grown to be a political power which controlled the National Government, demoralized public men, and shaped the legislation of Congress. He shared the obloquy of the Abolitionists, but he cared little for the opinions of men when they con- flicted with his sense of right. To elevate the colored race, he received colored people into his house, took them with him to church, visited them in their families, and encouraged them in every way, to give them self-respect and a place in society. In 1844 he proposed a colored man for admission as an attorney in the U. S. District Court. His efforts in their behalf caused an enthusiastic colored man at one of their meetings to propose in his honor the well-known toast, "General Fessenden, the white man with a black heart." The famous colored orator Frederick Douglass, relates that at his first meeting in Portland General Fessenden presided, and some of the audience undertook to break up the meeting with noise and violence. "It was fortunate for me," said Mr. Douglass, "that I had on that occasion the countenance and sympathy of a man so loved and honored in the city of Portland as General Samuel Fessenden. When the turmoil was at its height General Fessenden arose, and with that impressive dignity which distinguished him on all occasions when it was my privilege to hear him, rebuked the turbulent, vindicated the right of speech, and secured order and decorum; and I had then and there one of the most successful meetings I ever attended in Portland-and I have attended many there. No crowd could well conceal him, for in personal appearance as well as in mental and moral endowments he was at least a head above ordinary men. When I saw his massive head, his manly form, his blue coat and white cravat, I felt we should have a peaceable meeting in Portland, even in the stormiest days of the antislavery conflict. His atmosphere was one of protection and safety." He lived long enough to see his principles triumph, and the despised race which had been refused a hearing listened to with enthusiasm.
In 1822 General Fessenden moved from New Gloucester to Portland, the chief city in the State, where he formed with Hon. Thomas A. Deblois one of the most successful law-partnerships ever established in Maine. His devotion to his clients' interests was unbounded. He never consulted his own ease or comfort or pecuniary interests at the expense of those who came to him for counsel. He espoused no cause which was not in his own conviction based on substantial justice. The poor and defrauded never ap-
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pealed to him in vain ; for he held it as a principle that it was his duty to maintain right and justice, in the true spirit of chivalry, for all who claimed his counsel. His intense earnestness, with his profound learning and powerful oratory, gave him great influence both with court and jury. At the time of his death it was said of him that probably no lawyer in Maine ever argued so many causes to the jury as he. His massive frame per- mitted fifty years of unintermitted labor, and for fifty years he stood at the head of the Cumberland bar, having been for a long period its president. When he opened his office in New Gloucester the learned Parsons was Chief Justice of Massachusetts, and some- times held the court in Portland. He practised before Story, who for thirty-five years was the U. S. Circuit Judge, as well as before his successors, Woodbury, Curtis, and Clifford. During his long career the State of Maine had five chief-justices-Mellen, Wes- ton, Whitman, Shepley, and Tenney. Judge Goddard, in his address before alluded to, remarked that General Fessenden was confessedly at the head of the bar at his earliest recollection, and probably achieved that distinction before he was born. In criminal trials his devotion was so absorbing that he became, as it were, himself on trial; and his profound belief in his clients' innocence, aided by his great experience and commanding talents, brought him success in cases which to others appeared desperate. The resolutions of the bar presented to the Supreme Court at his death, while "recognizing his intellectual powers and varied attainments, cherished his memory because he never prostituted his great abilities by a sacrifice of right to expediency, or varied in his advocacy of truth and humanity to win the meed of popular applause; that his sympathies were ever enlisted for the poor and oppressed ; that he was ever ready to defend the cause of the poor and the fatherless, and to see that they who were in need have right." Judge Howard, in present- ing these resolutions, declared that "great thoughts and noble doings clustered around the memory of General Fessenden," and that " he stood in the community like Saul among the people."
In 1854 he dissolved his connection with Mr. Deblois to form a partnership with his son Daniel W. Fessenden ; and in 1861, upon his son's election to the clerkship of the Supreme Court, the father, bearing the burdens and honors of fifty years of professional conflicts, retired to the repose of private life.
Besides his eminence as a lawyer, General Fessenden's literary attainments were exten- sive. He was a fine scholar, and had stored his mind with copious knowledge by general reading. In 1846 he received the degree of LL.D. from Bowdoin College, and in the same year was spoken of as the successor of President Tyler of Dartmouth College ; but his unwillingness to change his mode of life suspended effort in that direction. Early in life he became a member of the Congregationalist Church, and throughout his long career was a shining example of a Christian gentleman. But it was in the family circle that his kind and benignant spirit found its purest enjoyment and kindliest influences. No man
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ever made a better husband and father. In 1813 he married Deborah Chandler of New Gloucester, by whom he had a large family. His oldest child was William Pitt Fessen- den, the Senator from Maine, and Secretary of the Treasury in 1864-65. Samuel C., his second son, was a graduate of Bowdoin College, became a Congregationalist clergyman, and was a member of Congress in 1861-62. Philip, his third son, went to sea, and was lost on his first voyage. His fourth son, Oliver Griswold, was a graduate of Dartmouth College, studied law, and practised in Portland. He died at the early age of thirty-three. Hewitt C., the next son, was also a graduate of Dartmouth, became a physician, and is now living in Eastport, Maine. Daniel W. was graduated at Dartmouth, became a lawyer in Portland, and was for sixteen years the Clerk of the Supreme Court of the State. Thomas A. D. was a graduate of Bowdoin College, studied law, and rose to the front rank in his profession at the Androscoggin bar, both as lawyer and advocate. He was a member of Congress in 1862-63, and died at the age of forty-two. . Charles S. D. was also graduated at Bowdoin College, studied medicine, and is now the senior surgeon in the U. S. Marine Hospital Corps. Joseph P. was a graduate of Bowdoin College, and became a physician. He was Mayor of Lewiston, and is now practising his profession in Salem, Massachusetts. Ellen, the youngest child of General Fessenden, married Dr. John D. Lincoln, the well- known physician of Brunswick, Maine. The Hon. Samuel Fessenden of Stamford, Con- necticut, and a distinguished lawyer, is a grandson of General Fessenden.
B URGESS, D.D., THE RIGHT REV. GEORGE, first Protestant Episcopal Bishop of Maine. Born at Providence, Rhode Island, October 31, 1809. The Burgess family is of the old English stock. Thomas Burgess, its first American progenitor, arrived in Salem, Massachusetts, with a young family about the year 1630, and lodged for a time at Lynn. Thence he removed in the same year to Sandwich, where he was " a chief man" among the settlers, an original member of the church instituted in 1638, an incumbent of every local public office, and a large landholder. Dying on the 13th of February, 1685, he was honored with the first monument set up for any Pilgrim of the first generation. His third son, Jacob, had a son named Ebenezer, who removed to Wareham, and whose third son was also named Ebenezer. He in turn became the father of three sons, of whom the youngest was named Prince. Prince Burgess served as lieutenant in the patriot army during a short campaign in the Revolutionary War, and was a citizen of great industry and genuine piety. Thomas Burgess, the second son of Prince, graduated at Brown University in 1800, set- tled at Providence, Rhode Island, and in 1803 married Mary, daughter of Andrew Mackie,
George Burgess
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M.D., a gentleman of Scotch parentage, who resided in Wareham. His profession was that of the law, in which he was distinguished by rare ability and moral excellence. He was Judge of the Municipal Court of Providence, and presided over the distribution of large and wealthy estates with entire satisfaction to the heirs. He was also Chief Justice of the Court of Common Pleas for a number of years. That office was never in wiser or better hands: A member of the Protestant Episcopal Church, he served its interests, for the last twelve years or more of his life, as a member of the Standing Committee of the Diocese of Rhode Island. His eldest son, Thomas Mackie Burgess, a graduate of Brown University, was Mayor of Providence for ten consecutive years.
George Burgess was the second son of Judge Burgess, was carefully nurtured and reared amid religious and domestic influences eminently propitious to the development of true Christian character. As a child, he took great pleasure in the histories of the nursery. His naturally retentive memory was strengthened by the oral repetition of what he had diligently read. Imagination likewise was thus brought into play, and was exemplified in the flowing ease of versification which marked the poetical writings of his later life. At the age of seven, in connection with other studies, he read Plutarch's Lives and the Memoir of Baron Trenck. These were followed a year later by Goldsmith's Rome. Before he had completed his sixteenth year, "while proceeding in a thorough course of academic and collegiate studies, and a wide range of poetic reading, in which Scott's Poems, as fast as they appeared, formed a part, he had read the History of the Conquest of Mexico, by Bernal Diaz ; Hume and Smollett's History of England, Clarke's Travels, Gibbon's Rome, the Cyropædia, Chateaubriand's Palestine and Memoirs, Sully's Memoirs, Hollinshed's Chronicles, Fuller's Worthies of England, Gillies and Mitford's Greece. These were fol- lowed the next year by De Lolme on the British Constitution, and Hallam on the Middle Ages" (" Memoir of Bishop Burgess," p. 233). Generalizing the facts of history, and de- ducing moral principles therefrom, he acquired much of that steadfastness of purpose and action which form so prominent a feature of his clerical and episcopal life.
A lover of peace and good-will, and a frequent mediator between his schoolmates, he yet possessed a chivalric courage that incited him to attempt the chastisement of a big bullying boy, and to persist in the attempt until he succeeded. His conscientious forti- tude was equal to the daring of his chivalry. His whole constitution was essentially con- servative of the good, and essentially militant against the evil. Boyish sports he delighted in, and was always ready for excursions into fields, acting plays, and all other innocent amusements proper to his age. Nothing feeble or girlish pertained to his character as a model boy.
Young Burgess attended a day-school until the summer of 1821, when, though not twelve years of age, he was found to be prepared for college. His father, unwilling that he should enter so early, then took him from school, and allowed him to spend a year in the
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study of French, and in miscellaneous reading. In September, 1822, he entered Brown University, took a high stand, maintained it to the end, and graduated with the highest honors in 1826. Throughout his whole collegiate course he was never absent from prayers nor from a single recitation, nor was he ever marked deficient. The Hon. John Kings- bury, a college classmate, writes of him :
" His fluency in language, and great beauty of expression made his recitations very attractive. The style in which he rendered the Greek and Latin poets I shall never forget. It was like the sweet strains of distant music, where there is nothing that jars upon the ear." " Reading was his recreation. When he was weary with study, then he began to read. If he needed respite from Euclid or Homer, he resorted to history or biography. If this required too much effort of mind, he had recourse to poetry or light literature. Thus every hour was given to the acquisition of knowledge." " Before he left college he was awakened to the inquiry, What must a man do to be saved ? And he was led by the Holy Spirit to feel that the Gospel required an inner life, without which the brightest traits of moral char- acter, as a means of salvation, utterly fail. It was under the influence of such an experience that, soon after lie graduated, he left the parish church where he had attended from his infancy, because he wanted a Christianity in which an atoning Saviour was more prominent, and became a communicant of St. John's Episcopal Church in" Providence.
An omnivorous and yet judicious reader of books, quarterlies, magazines, and news- papers ; a student of statistics, and especially of religious history-he preserved whatever seemed valuable in scrap and commonplace books, and thus collected the data furnishing material for books, some of which have been written. Early habits of literary industry continued unchanged to the end of life, and made him master of every subject he chose to investigate.
Trained in Congregationalism, he followed, together with his parents, his early pastor into the Unitarian denomination. Affection had more to do with the change than convic- tion. Conviction of doctrinal truth was on the side of orthodoxy, and eventually led him -and after him his sister and parents-into the Protestant Episcopal Church, in which, No- vember, 1828, he became a communicant. In the following spring he received confirma- tion. The study of ecclesiastical history led him to conscientious, deliberate choice of churchly relation. " All that before was simply right in him seemed sanctified."
Subsequent to graduation from college Mr. Burgess entered his father's office and completed the full course of a student at law, but never applied for admission to the bar. The higher service of his Master claimed all his time and energies. From 1829 to 1831 he discharged the duties of a tutor in the college, and at the same time pursued his theo- logical studies under the direction of the Rev. Dr. Crocker, Rector of St. John's Church, in Providence. Yet his decision was not made without much self-sacrifice. His tastes and aptitudes for the law were very strong, and it cost him quite a struggle to relinquish it for the ministry : but in that struggle duty was victorious; and never for a moment did he
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regret the choice, or falter in the course he had begun. Different studies now engrossed his time. Mosheim, Milner, Jahn, Neander, and other authors of acknowledged merit ; Shuck- ford, Prideaux, and other writers, who exhibit the connection between secular and sacred history, especially interested him. All were laid under contribution "to the main purpose of his life-the better understanding and elucidation of that Book which presents the oldest history, and contains truth unto salvation." "He thus gained an entire satisfaction with the institutions of the Church, with her doctrines, with her Apostolic ministry and her Liturgy-all which are of history, and are to endure."
In April, 1831, Mr. Burgess went abroad, and spent two years in attending lectures in the Universities of Göttingen, Bonn, and Berlin, and one year in travelling over other portions of Europe. His regular journals exhibit his keenness of observation, his power of piercing through the surface to the spirit of things, his habits of life, and his devout spirit. Then, and all through life, his devotional habits were remarkable. "Prayer was with him eminently more than the fulfilment of a duty : it was a delight and a constant source of comfort and strength." The public fasts established by the Church were openly and thor- oughly observed by him. He was a faithful and devout reader and student of Holy Scrip- ture, and would neither listen to a story which connected a ludicrous association with a passage of Scripture, nor repeat it. Whatever propriety dictated in connection with Divine worship was invariably well and reverently done.
Returning home from Europe, where he had expended so much time and labor in preparation for the work of the ministry, in April, 1834, Mr. Burgess received Deacon's orders in Grace Church, Providence, on the 10th of June, at the hands of Bishop Griswold. On the following Sunday, June 15, he preached his first sermon, in the same church, from Romans vi. 23 : "The wages of sin is death." Its matter, spirit, and style were equally excellent and commendable. Soon after his ordination he received an invitation to take charge of St. James' Church, New London, Connecticut, but before giving an answer went to Hartford to consult Bishop Brownell. The latter did not advise acceptance, but proposed to him to become his assistant in Christ Church for two months. Friends were strongly in favor of New London, but the Bishop's proposal was accepted, and, as the sequel proved, most wisely. Before the two months had expired, the parish, with perfect unanimity, invited him to become their rector, and requested Bishop Brownell to admit him to Priest's Orders. This was done on the 2d of November, 1834; and, at the prelate's request, Mr. Burgess preached his own institution sermon from the text I Thess. ii. 19, 20: "For what is our hope, or joy, or crown of rejoicing ?" etc. His own subsequent labors constituted an expressive living sermon upon his text. During almost the whole period of his residence at Hartford he found a home, in every sense of the word, in the family of Mr. Nathan Morgan, for whom, and also for whose wife, he cherished an essentially filial affec- tion. On the 3d of September of this year he delivered a poem at the anniversary celebra-
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tion of the Rhode Island Alpha of the Phi Beta Kappa Society, on "The Martyrdom of St. Peter and St. Paul." In his parish work he was happy and contented. Sermons on special subjects were occasionally given to the public in print, but without any of the usual devices to catch the eye of the general reader. So successful were his labors, that it became necessary to organize a second parish in Hartford, and to build a second church. All this was done without the slightest disturbance to mutual harmony and affection.
The eminently serviceable abilities of the truly evangelical rector strongly recom- mended him to the unsought honors of official position. In 1836 he was elected Secretary of the Church Scholarship Society ; next, Secretary of the Convention, and constantly a member of the various committees appointed at the annual conventions. In 1836 he was elected a member of the Standing Committee, an office which he retained until he left Connecticut-except in 1846, when he declined a re-election. He was emphatically one of the working clergy. In 1841 and 1847 he was elected a deputy to General Convention, but not in 1844, in which year he received a large minority vote. In 1846 he received the degree of Doctor of Divinity from Union College, Schenectady ; and in the same year, Brown University-his Alma Mater-honored itself by conferring the same distinction upon him.
During all these years the pen of Mr. Burgess had been busily employed. He was a frequent contributor to the various periodicals of the Church, and in 1844 published anonymously a poem called "The Strife of Brothers," the result of long hours spent with the Rev. (now Bishop) Arthur Cleveland Coxe, then Rector of St. John's Church, Hart- ford, in "discussions and inquiries suggested by their common duties and pursuits." In 1847 appeared his " Pages of Ecclesiastical History of New England," and also a poem on "The Poets of Religion."
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