USA > Maine > Biographical encyclopedia of Maine of the nineteenth century > Part 25
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"His public benefactions, valuable as they were, and in the aggregate constituting a large amount, do not indicate his chief claim to the respect and reverence of the people. The silent, private, and unos- tentatious disposition of gifts and alms to the poor and suffering mark a character gifted in more than ordinary degree with generosity and kindness. A long line of widows who have found their fuel replen- ished, and their stores supplied by an unknown hand, rise up to bless his memory, and hosts of young men hail him as their generous assistant in time of need."
No great monuments did he leave behind him-then why write the simple history ? Is it to point the moral to the rising generation of boys, and to teach it what may be done by self-reliant effort, tireless industry, and, above all, unquestioned honesty without patron- age ?- for Mr. Lambard used to say " no man ever gave him a dollar."
He died as he said he would have wished to die had he ordered the time and circum- stance-with wife and children, brother and sisters, about him, in the communion of the Catholic Church, and as he hoped in perfect charity with the world, September 5, 1877, in
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the eighty-second year of his age. His widow survives him. Eight children were born to them-five sons and three daughters. Of the sons, Emerson Jarvis, John Hay, and Frank Richmond died in childhood. Charles A., after an eventful and successful career passed in the business circles of Boston and New York, conspicuous among the projectors of West- ern and Overland railroads, died in 1873, at the age of forty-six. Orville Dewey is the sur- viving son. The daughters are all living : Julia Elizabeth, married to Ralph C. Johnson of Belfast; Charlotte Louisa, widow of the Right Rev. Wm. E. Armitage, Bishop of Wis- consin ; Sibyl Augusta, married to the Hon. H. P. Baldwin of Detroit, Michigan.
ONGFELLOW, STEPHEN, Lawyer, of Portland, Maine. Born in Gor- ham, Maine, on the 23d of March, 1776. William Longfellow, first of the name who emigrated from England to America, settled in Byefield Parish, in the old town of Newbury. He there married Annie Sewall, daughter of Henry and Jane (Dummer) Sewall, in 1678. After the death of William Longfellow she married Henry Short. Savage, in his Genealogical Dictionary, with out- rageous addiction to punning, remarks that she " had both Longfellow and Short." Her son by her first husband was named Stephen, after Stephen Dummer, her father. His son Stephen Longfellow, second, the first immigrant to Maine, graduated at Harvard College in 1742, and settled in Portland, then called Falmouth, as Master of the Grammar School, in 1745. He was an influential citizen, active in town and county affairs, and the occupant of many offices of trust and honor. For fifteen years he was Master of the Grammar School, Parish Clerk for twenty-three years, Town Clerk for twenty-two years, and fifteen years Register of Probate and Clerk of the Judicial Courts. Several of these posts he held at one and the same time. Stephen Longfellow, third, held the office of Judge of the Court of Common Pleas, and died in 1824. He was born in Falmouth, and with his father removed to Gorham after the destruction of the former place by the British fleet in October, 1775. Thenceforward Gorham was their abiding earthly home.
The early days of Stephen Longfellow, fourth of that name, and son of Stephen Long- fellow, third, were spent on the farm of his father, in the town of Gorham. There he was initiated into the studies needful to his future vocation. There, too, he laid up a store of apt illustrations, which afterward proved to be of great service in his addresses to bucolic juries. Mr. Willis, the author of " A History of the Law, the Courts, and the Lawyers of Maine," confesses that he once had great fear of losing a cause, in which Longfellow was his antagonist, in consequence of the latter speaking of his having carried butter to market at Portland, Longfellow matriculated at Harvard College in 1794, took an honor-
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able position, and held it by means of his frank manners and correct deportment. His scholarship procured election into the Phi Beta Kappa Society. His well-balanced mind was not rapid in its movements, neither was it brilliant, but his reasonings were sound and correct. He thought, compared, and weighed closely, and kept on the sure ground of good common-sense. His habits were studious and exemplary. He shared in the honors of his class, and participated freely in the social pleasures of friendly meetings and literary associations. His manners were courteous, polished, and simple. A natural gentleman in all respects, he was the favorite of his classmates. Among them were a number who became distinguished scholars. Dr. Channing, Judge Story, Professor Sidney Willard, Dr. Tuckerman, and other famous men were among the number.
Leaving college, Mr. Longfellow began the study of law under the direction of Salmon Chase of Portland, who had the most extensive practice of any lawyer at the Cumberland bar. Admitted to practice in 1801, he established himself in Portland, in competition with seven other lawyers, who already sustained business relations to its thirty- eight hundred inhabitants. The prospect was not encouraging. Courtesy and decorum characterized the gentlemen of the long robe at that time, and to their society the young graduate was freely admitted. He soon obtained an honorable and remunerative practice. His urbanity, integrity, and legal ability raised him to a commanding position. "His first address to the jury was plausible and ingenious," said one of his contemporaries, "and almost as good as any one he afterward made." The death of Chase and Symmes, and the removal of Judge Parker to Boston, in 1806-7, made him one of the leaders in practice. As years advanced his engagements and responsibilities increased, and overtaxed his powers to such an extent that he suffered from a terrible attack of epilepsy. This obliged him, gradually but unwillingly, to withdraw from the cares and excitements of professional life. Happiness and fame had come to him in its pursuits, and he had reflected honor and dignity upon its name.
Those who knew Mr. Longfellow best, loved him most. None more certainly won the confidence of those who approached him or held it with tighter grasp. Zeal and direct- ness of purpose were manifest in the management of all his causes. He never travelled outside the record, nor wandered away from the line of his argument. His appeals to the jury were plain, straightforward, and effective. His frankness and candor conciliated their kindly regard. Fuller's "good advocate," described in the words, "He makes not a Trojan siege of a suit, but seeks to bring it to a set battle in a speedy trial. In pleading, he shoots fairly at the head of the cause, and having fastened, no frowns nor favors shall make him let go his hold," found in him an excellent exemplification. Unyielding when he believed himself to be in the right, he never forgot that he was a gentleman and a Christian, nor lost his suave manners in the heat and fierceness of the conflict.
The people rightfully claimed the services of such a man in official positions. In 1814,
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when a large British fleet was hovering upon the coast and a disciplined army menacing the northern frontier, he was returned to the Legislature of Massachusetts. When there he was chosen a member of the celebrated Hartford Convention. Judge Wilde of Maine, George Cabot, Harrison Gray Otis, and other prominent Federalists from Massachusetts and the other New England States, were also members of that historic body. In 1816 he was chosen a Presidential elector, and cast his vote, as did the other electors of Massachu- setts, for the eminent statesman Rufus King. James Monroe, the Democratic candidate, was elected by a majority of one hundred and nine votes; and for his second term, 1817 to 1821, received every electoral vote but one, which was cast for John Quincy Adams, by Governor Plumer of New Hampshire. That was the "era of indifference," as John Randolph phrased it. Politics had lost their old rancor. The Federal Party, which had furnished many of the wisest and noblest patriots of the land, had ceased to exist. All parties united to render a sincere and hearty support to the' National Constitution, opposi- tion to which had created the Anti-Federal Party in the early days of the Government.
In 1822 Mr. Longfellow was returned to the Eighteenth Congress. Henry Clay was Speaker of the House. Chandler and Holmes were the Senators from Maine. Some of the most distinguished men of the nation were then in Congress. Longfellow did his whole duty, resisted the profuse expenditure of public money for indiscriminate internal improvements, and then quitted political life-he hoped, perhaps, forever. He had accepted it as a duty, but by no means as a preference.
The residue of his years Mr. Longfellow consecrated to his profession. The first sixteen volumes of the Massachusetts Reports and the first twelve of the Maine Re- ports show what excellent service he rendered through a period of more than thirty years. "They exhibit his ability as a learned jurist, and his skill as an ingenious dialectician." Bowdoin College, in 1828, conferred upon him the richly merited distinction of a Doctor of Laws. From 1817 to 1836 he was one of the trustees of that venerable and excellent institution. In 1826 he represented Portland in the Maine Legislature. In 1834 he served as President of the Maine Historical Society, of which he had previously held the office of Recording Secretary. Mr. Longfellow's domestic life was as exemplary as his life in public and professional relations. He was a model man, " kind and affectionate in his family, prompt and efficient in business, courteous uniformly, ready with money or service whenever properly required, and filling large places in benevolent and religious institutions." In language applied to an eminent English lawyer, " he cast honor upon his honorable profession, and sought dignity, not from the ermine or the mace, but from a straight path and a spotless life."
He died August 3, 1849, in the seventy-fourth year of his age. The bar paid a most honorable tribute to his memory. All spoke of the excellence of his social character, of "his judgment in matters of municipal and civil concerns, of his talents and integrity in the
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business affairs of his chosen vocation, as a counsellor-at-law." " His own example sanc- tioned all his laws."
Stephen Longfellow married Zilpah, daughter of General Peleg Wadsworth, of Port- land, in January, 1804. Forty-five years of uninterrupted felicity in her companionship followed. She was a cultured, graceful woman, of great moral worth. Four sons and four daughters crowned their union. The sons achieved eminence in poetry, divinity, and science. One of them, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, the poet of America, has left behind him an immortal name, illustrated by the highest poetic genius, and redolent with the fragrance of purest Christianity.
ERRY, ELBRIDGE, Statesman and Lawyer, was born in Waterford, Oxford County, Maine, December 6, 1813. His father, Peter Gerry, was a native of Harvard, Massachusetts, and at an early age emigrated to Maine, being one of the pioneers of that section of the country. His many sterling qualities were soon appreciated in his new home, and his efforts in the development of the then province were just what were needed to place it in the ranks of the States.
The judicious management of his own affairs led others to place important trusts in his hands, and when Maine became a State he was for several years chosen as a Represent- ative in its Legislature. While keenly alive to the various temporal interests that sur- rounded him, he was also an earnest promoter of the cause of religion. An active member of the Methodist Church, his house was always open to its preachers, and he with three others were the donors of the funds that were used in erecting the first Methodist church in Waterford. He was married to Mary Cutler of Sudbury, Massachusetts.
The boyhood of Elbridge Gerry up to his sixteenth year was passed at home, and the educational advantages enjoyed by him during this period were such as the common-schools of the day afforded. Having by his own exertions accumulated several hundred dollars, he determined to fit himself for professional life, and with this end in view he entered the academy at Bridgeton, Maine. Here and at other similar seats of learning he passed several years of study, acquiring means to defray his expenses by teaching in the winter months. Having completed the curriculum of these institutions, and electing to follow the legal profession, he commenced the reading of law in the office of Hon. Stephen Emory, and in June, 1839, was admitted to the bar in Oxford County, and immediately entered upon the active duties of his profession at Waterford. His readiness in debate, combined with powers of quick discernment and keen logic, soon placed him in the front
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ranks of his profession, both in the county and State. He early took an active interest in public affairs, and in 1840 was elected Clerk of the House of Representatives of Maine. In 1841 he was appointed a U. S. Commissioner in Bankruptcy ; and the year following Gov- ernor Fairfield appointed him County Attorney, to which office he was in the ensuing year elected by the popular vote. The duties incumbent on this position were satisfactorily performed by him until 1845, when he resigned the office, having been elected to represent his district in the State Legislature. Among the prominent members of that body at that time were Hon. William Pitt Fessenden, Hon. Phineas Barnes, and Hon. W. Howe, now U. S. Senator from Wisconsin, all of whom were among the acknowledged leaders of the Whig Party. Mr. Gerry at once came to the front with the leaders of the other side, and his voice was heard in debate upon the many important questions that were discussed dur- ing this session. His speech on the admission of Texas, which measure he advocated, was remarked for its logical and exhaustive conclusions, and brought forth encomiums from the opponents as well as the supporters of the measure. His forensic powers were also dis- played in the advocacy of a series of resolutions which were reported by him as Chairman of the Committee on the Dorr Rebellion in Rhode Island. He served as a member of the Committee on the Oregon question; and the charter of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad, which was pending at this time, found an earnest and effectual supporter in Mr. Gerry.
At this session he was, during the absence of the Speaker, elected to that office pro tem.
In 1848 he was elected to the Thirty-first Congress, to represent the First Congres- sional District of Maine. Among the members of this notable body in the Senate were Clay, Webster, Calhoun, Benton, Douglas, Houston, Jefferson Davis, Cass, and Chase ; and in the House were Howell Cobb, Toombs, Alexander H. Stephens, R. C. Winthrop, and J. Giddings of Ohio. The session was a stormy one, and its debates were extremely personal and bitter. The extreme men of each party seemed bent upon creating a sec- tional strife ; the slavery question was more or less implicated with every issue, and it was only by the combined efforts of the true patriots of both sides that the compromise meas- ures of Mr. Clay were finally passed, and the sanguinary strife which eventually followed was for the time averted. Into the many able debates made on these questions Mr. Gerry entered with great zeal. Though an adherent of the Democratic Party, his views as to the evils of the system of slavery were presented with telling force ; and while he did not ques- tion the power of Congress to prevent slavery in the Territories, he did not deem any inter- diction necessary, believing that the climatic conditions of the Territorial sections of the country would in themselves be a sufficient barrier to the extension of this evil, and he consequently favored leaving the decision of this question with the people of the said Ter- ritories.
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Another important National question brought before this Congress was one relating to the reduction of the postal rates to the present basis. With a strong belief in the ex- pediency of the reduction, Mr. Gerry became an earnest advocate of the bill; and the soundness of his judgment has been thoroughly proven by experience.
At the close of this memorable Congress Mr. Gerry declined a re-election, and resumed his legal practice in Waterford. Shortly after he removed to Portland, where for several years he was engaged in a very extensive practice ; which, however, he was com- pelled to relinquish, owing to his failing health.
While in public life, Mr. Gerry was recognized as one of the leading minds in his party, and his counsels were deemed judicious and safe. As a public speaker, his earnest- ness, coupled with the logical force of his argument, gave him much weight, and he always commanded attention. The legal profession, to which he was ever devoted, found in him a thorough lawyer and an able advocate ; and had Mr. Gerry retained his health, and been able to continue his practice, he would without doubt have been a recognized leader at the bar, both of the State and nation.
In 1849 he was married to Anna St. Clair, daughter of Hon. Richard Jenness of Portsmouth, New Hampshire. The issue of this union has been three children : Alice, wife of the late Mr. A. M. Patterson of Baltimore ; Elbridge, a prominent lawyer in New York City ; and Elizabeth J.
B ROWN, JOHN BUNDY, Banker, of Portland, Maine, born in Lancaster, New Hampshire, May 31, 1805, was the son of Titus Olcott and Susannah Bundy Brown. His father, born in Tolland, Connecticut, August 25, 1764, was a descendant of onc of the founders of Stonington, and was himself one of the pioncers of the " Upper Coos," working his way from his birthplace up the valley of the Connecticut River to Walpole, where he married, and so on to Lancaster, where he settled, and where seven of his ten children were born. He was a farmer and trader, and is reported to have been the first man who carried produce from the Upper Coos through the White Mountain Notch to the sea. From Lancaster Mr. T. O. Brown moved to Bartlett, New Hampshire, and afterward to Gray, in Maine, where he purchased and for some years managed the celebrated Old Stage Tavern. From Gray he moved to Norway, in Oxford County, where he died, February 23, 1855, at the advanced age of ninety years and six months.
During the residence of his family at Gray, young Brown made the acquaintance of the late Alpheus Shaw, then one of the leading merchants of Portland, and not long after-
Metropolitan Publishing & Engraving Co. Boston
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ward he and St. John Smith became clerks in Mr. Shaw's wholesale grocery and West- India store at Portland. Both Smith and Brown were, however, of too ambitious nature to be long content in subordinate positions; and it was only a short time before they left Mr. Shaw, entered into partnership together, and began business on their own account. Their relations were long, harmonious, and prosperous; and, although their partnership was finally dissolved, they still had many business relations in common, which continued until they were broken by death. After the dissolution of his partnership with Mr. Smith, Mr. Brown carried on business for a while in his own name, and then, having associated with himself Jedediah Jewett and Mark P. Emery, under the name of J. B. Brown & Co., at first in a building erected by him on the site of the present " Lancaster Building," and afterward in the premises at the head of Merrill's Wharf on Gore Street.
In 1845 Mr. Brown's attention was drawn toward a scheme for making sugar from molasses, by the firm of Greely & Guild of Boston. These gentlemen were very large importers of molasses from the West Indies, and had close relations with Mr. Brown, who was Mr. Greely's brother-in-law. The plan was probably suggested by Mr. McLean, then American Consul at Trinidad de Cuba, who had had some small experience of the process, in an experimental way, and Portland was selected as the best place for such a manufac- tory ; as at that time it was rather the largest receiver of molasses among American cities. Mr. Brown, with the rapid insight and sagacity for which he was so remarkable, at once saw the probable advantages of the business, and leaving the care of his mercantile affairs to his associates, devoted his time and energies to the construction and establishment of the manufactory. The beginnings were unfortunate ; the trade was an entirely new one, and had to be learned and taught at the same time. In the midst of these technical embarrassments the youthful industry received almost a deathblow in the failure of Greely & Guild, its original projectors. This threw the whole burden of the enterprise upon Mr. Brown, whose courage, instead of failing him, seemed to rise with the occasion. Assisted in the practical part of the business by his brother-in-law, the late D. H. Farbish, he kept at work, however, and finally demonstrated that sugar could be made from molasses, and made profitably. In order to extend the business, in 1855 a charter was procured, establishing the Portland Sugar Company, the corporation being Mr. Brown, D. H. Farbish, Philip Henry Brown, and a few of Mr. Brown's personal friends. J. B. Brown and his son Philip were the managing agents of the company, under the firm-name of J. B. Brown & Son, which was changed to J. B. Brown & Sons in 1859, when James Olcott Brown was admitted a partner. Under its corporate existence the Sugar Company was very successful; largely increased its capital, its works and its business; and at the time of the conflagration of 1866 was employing, directly and indirectly, nearly a thousand people, and was turning out a product of five hundred barrels of sugar a day. The works were totally destroyed by fire July 4, 1866, but were rebuilt on a larger scale than before
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in less than four months. In 1869 there came about a change in the sugar business; the improvements in the so-called "centrifugal process" had opened the way for the establish- ment of numerous manufactories with small capital, and, consequent thereupon, the com- petition for the raw material increased the price so much, that the manufacture under the "old process" became unprofitable. After careful consideration of the matter, Mr. Brown and his associates came, very unwillingly, to the conclusion that it was best to close the manufactory.
Several years before this event Mr. Brown and his sons had been partners in the West-India firm of Churchill, Browns & Manson. At the dissolution of this firm the original firm of J. B. Brown & Sons continued the commission business, which gradually assumed a banking character, and finally led to the establishment of the present banking- house.
At an early period of his career Mr. Brown became convinced of the value of real- estate investments in Portland, and whenever he had the means-and sometimes when he did not have them-he purchased such desirable lands as he could obtain. His most considerable operation of this character was the purchase and subsequent management of the lands belonging to the old Vaughan estate, to Joseph Noble, and to many other proprietors. These lands lay on, around, and under that commanding eminence at the- West End of Portland, known as Bramhall's Hill, and embraced a large portion of the now populous Seventh Ward. It was an unpromising region : the soil was thin and sandy, or wet and swampy, and was covered with juniper-bushes and clumps of sweet-fern, and it was said that nothing else would grow upon it. Mr. Brown's best friends warmly warned him against the purchase, and some of them even predicted that the operation would ruin him. It is possible that there were times when he himself almost regretted the purchase, but he lived long enough to see that his instincts were right, and to reap a sub- stantial reward for his courage and sagacity. Those who see now for the first time the beautiful villa on the summit of Bramhall's Hill, with its conservatories, graperies, orchards, shrubberies, and thick groves, can hardly believe that only a few years ago all that was only a desolate waste, and that it has been redeemed from sterility and unsightliness by the taste and industry of one man.
Mr. Brown was eminently a public-spirited man, and there is hardly an enterprise which now benefits the city of Portland and the State of Maine which did not receive the advantage of the liberal contribution of his money and of his wise advice. When the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad (now the Atlantic Division of the Grand Trunk Rail- way) was projected, he was one of its original corporators, becoming afterward one of its most influential and energetic directors. It was in the counting-room of Smith & Hersey that the late John A. Poor first unfolded his great scheme of a railway from the Atlantic to the St. Lawrence ; and among the little company there assembled Mr. Brown was one
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